Samuel Clemens

Samuel Clemens a.k.a. Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens  was born In a two-room house in Missouri, on November 30, 1835. He was the sixth living child of his  Father and Mother, John and Jane Clemens. John was a Farmer, a lawyer a merchant, and a speculator. Sam apprenticed at a printer’s shop and learned the printing trade. At the age of fifteen, Sam and his friends saw a steamboat coming down the river, thus giving him the wish to pilot one. But the dreaming came to a halt when his Father died on March 24, 1847.

In 1859, Sam became a riverboat pilot. One day, he heard a man yell the depths: Mark twain was one of them. Sam heard it, and in his later years, used it as his pen-name.  He carried on the job for 2 years until The outbreak of the Civil war. Sam left for Nevada and discovered the mining business, which he entered. But, alas, he eventually ran out of money.

Several years later, Twain started writing for a newspaper, and after a few years, wrote his first book: “Jim Smiley and his Jumping Frog.” He fell in love with a woman named Olivia “Livy” Langdon, and married her after proposing twice. They moved to hartford and in 1870, he had his first child, who died at the age of two. He had three more children years later, Clara, Susie and Jean. Twain lectured throughout his life, which earned much of his money.  Twain Wrote the Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn in the house in Hartford, where he said those years spent in that house where the happiest years of his life.

Mark Twain’s house in Hartford, CT.

The Clemens family moved to England, because finances were better there. Several years later, they moved back to Hartford. He continued lecturing and writing, yet his writing showed more anger and emotion. Livy died in 1903 because she had heart problems. Mark Twain died seven years later.

By Ian Hall

Mark Twain House/Museum