Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Florida, Missouri on November 30, 1835.  He was the sixth of seven children and one of only four to survive childhood.

When he was four, his family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, a town that would serve as the inspiration for several of his later writings.  Clemens began his education there, but was forced to drop out just a few years later following his father's death.  By age 12, Clemens was already working as a printer's apprentice in order to help his family.

Clemens had an obvious knack for writing, and by 16, he was already contributing articles and sketches to the Hannibal Journal.  Two years later he joined the printer's trade union, leaving Hannibal for such other cities as New York, Philadelphia and St. Louis, all the while furthering his education on his own via public libraries.

Clemens would return to Hannibal, where he spent a few years as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River.  That career came to an end as the Civil War began, shutting down all traffic on the river.  He headed west to Nevada, where he joined his brother Orion.

Clemens settled in Virginia City.  He went to work as a miner, but it wouldn't last long.  When he left the mines he returned to journalism, working as a writer at the Territorial Enterprise.  It was during this time that he adopted his more famous pen name, Mark Twain.

A few years later, Twain moved to San Francisco.  It was here that he published his first humorous story, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, in 1865.  Published in the New York magazine The Weekly Press, the story made Twain a national name.

In 1870, Twain married Olivia Langdon of Elmira, New York.  As they started having children, Twain moved his family to Hartford, Connecticut.  It was here that he wrote several of his classics, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889).  The marriage lasted for 34 years.

Following Olivia's death in 1904, Twain spent his final years in Manhattan, mainly in a state of depression.  In addition to losing his wife, Twain lost two daughters during this time, Susy in 1896 and Jean in 1909.  He kept mostly to himself, but did occasionally perform charitable work, helping to raise funds for friends devastated by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

By 1909, Twain's time was coming to an end, something he was well aware of.  A true man of science, he felt his death fitting, as it would coincide with the impending arrival of Halley's Comet.  Said Twain, "I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835.  It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it.  It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet."

Twain reached that milestone, passing on April 21, 1910.  He was interred in the family plot at Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira, New York.

Woodlawn Cemetery makes it easy to find their
most famous resident.

The Clemens Family marker.

One of Twain's many quotes serves as the inscription.

His final resting place.

Rest in peace, Sam.

Trivia

• Virginia City, Nevada, just outside of Reno, is home to the Mark Twain Museum.  The building itself is the former home of the Territorial Enterprise, Nevada's first newspaper, which Twain wrote for as a reporter.  Among the items on display is the actual toilet Twain used while serving the state.  Interested?  Visit Roadside America for more information.
  

Photo by Lombard.

 

• Clemens had a great interest in parapsychology, and was a member of the Society for Psychical Research.  He believed he had foreseen the death of a close friend in a dream one month before the man in fact died.
  
  
• Olivia Langdon came from a very liberal family, who initially rejected the southern author.  Through the marriage, Twain would come to know several prominent figures of the day, including Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Dean Howells and Frederick Douglass.
  
  
• Twain developed relationships with other historical figures as well, including Nikola Tesla, with whom he shared an interest in science, and Thomas Edison, who shot the only known footage of Twain in 1909.  You can watch that footage here.
   
• Twain was an early proponent of fingerprinting as a crime-solving technique.
  
  
• On his deathbed, Twain claimed to have once visited the 24th Century, but most historians discount this claim.