James Ross Clemens, a Cousin of Mine Was Seriously Ill Two Or Three Weeks Ago, in London, but Is Well Now
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James Ross Clemens, a cousin of mine was seriously ill two or three weeks ago, in London, but is well now. The reports of my illness grew out of his illness, the report of my death was an exaggeration. Mark Twain, May 1897 You can assure my Virginia friends that I will make an exhaustive investigation of this report that I have been lost at sea. If there is any foundation for the report, I will at once apprise the anxious public. I sincerely hope that there is no foundation for the report, and I also hope that judgment will be suspended until I ascertain the true state of affairs. Mark Twain, May 5, 1907 MARK TWAIN is dead! In those four words America announces to a weeping world the loss of her foremost literary man. Assuredly of all our authors he was “first in the hearts of his countrymen.” San Francisco Examiner, 22 April 1910 1 From Samuel Clemens to for any place—even and a clear John M. Clemens will Mark Twain: A biography London, I suppose.1 discriminating mind. hold a place in the These added to a high from 1835-1869 Hannibal, MO, 1840-The recollection of all who sense of justice and family of John Marshall knew him. But he has moral rectitude, made Steven H Silver Clemens has moved to been cut down in an him a man of uncommon Hannibal. Most recently, untimely hour—with Florida, MO-A son was born influence and usefulness. Clemens ran a dry good store death the harvest is to John and Jane Clemens on His public spirit was in Florida, Missouri. Clemens always ready, and he November 30, 1835. The exercised zealously and intends to run a general store reaches forth his sickle, boy, the couple’s sixth child, with effect upon every in Hannibal and hopes to regardless of him who has been named Samuel proper occasion. His 2 practice law as well. may feel its edges. Langhorne Clemens. He has efforts to establish a Following his father’s death, increased the population of Library and Institution of young Samuel, became a the town from 100 to 101 Hannibal, MO, 1847- learning in our City were printer’s apprentice at the residents. Died in this City, on such as entitled him to Hannibal Courier, under yesterday, the 24 inst., all commendation, and The home was made in Joseph A. Anent. According after a protracted and his untimely death is felt the wee village of to Twain, “Surreptitiously painful illness, John M. on this account as well as Florida, in Monroe and uninvited, I helped to edit Clemens, Esq., in the many others as a loss to County, and I was born the paper when no one was 49th year of his age. the whole community. there in 1835. The watching; therefore I was a He who devotes his 3 village contained a Judge Clemens has been journalist.” energies to the diffusion hundred people and I for many years a citizen of learning and increased the population of North Eastern Clemens’s oldest sibling was intellectual enjoyments by 1 per cent. It is more Missouri, and of Orion Clemens, who was is not without his reward, than many of the best Hannibal. He has been born ten years before Sam. even in death. There are men in history could honored by several By the time John Clemens many amongst us who, have done for a town. It public stations which he had died, Orion was making during life, will linger may not be modest in me filled with credit to it on his own in St. Louis, but with no common delight to refer to this, but it is himself and advantage to following his father’s death on the memory of him, true. There is no record the community. He was he moved to Hannibal and who contributed so much of a person doing as noted for his good sense to their purest pleasures. 2 much—not even “Obituary,” Hannibal Courier, As a good and useful Shakespeare. But I did it March 26, 1847 1 Twain, Mark and Charles Neider, citizen, a lover of his 3 Twain, Mark “To The Editor of for Florida, and it shows editor. The Autobiography of Mark king, and an honest man, the Courier-Post,” December 3, that I could have done it Twain. Harper & Row, 1959, p.1. 1907. 2 purchased the Hannibal Journal, which he renamed the fire hadn’t bin put out, thar’d a’bin the greatest Hannibal Western Union. confirmation of the age!”4 Throughout the year, Clemens’s writing not only appeared in With Orion in competition with the Courier, Sam moved to his Orion’s newspaper, but in other papers, including the Saturday brother’s paper in 1850, where he worked as a reporter and 5 Evening Post. He continued to work for Orion and his writing printer and, during Orion’s numerous business trips, ran the began to appear in additional newspapers, mostly around the newspaper. Midwest, frequently under various pseudonyms. As a 15 year old boy running a newspaper with little oversight, He left Hannibal in 1848 and traveled to Cincinnati, St. Louis, Sam was able to indulge in his own jokes and began inserting and New York. In each town, he gained more experience as a his own work into the paper using a variety of pseudonyms. printer and spent his off-time in local libraries, finishing off the His first published sketch appeared on January 16, 1851. The education which he had abandoned when his father died. His piece described the activities of Jim Wolfe, an apprentice who travels ended when he was summoned to Iowa, where Orion worked at the Western Union and the events of a fire in the had set up shop in Keokuk at the Ben Franklin Book and Job grocery next door on the night of January 9. According to Office. Clemens, the piece was lost to the mists of time, however since his death, copies of that issue of the Western Union have been Both Keokuk and Hannibal are on the western bank of the found. Mississippi River, and the river played a major role in At the fire, on Thursday morning, we were Clemens’s life, whether as a limiting factor, a mode of apprehensive of our own safety, (being only one door transportation, or as a symbol of possibilities. He often wrote from the building on fire) and commenced arranging of seeing the riverboats plying the river and in 1857 he left the our material in order to remove them in case of life of a printer behind to become a cub pilot on a Mississippi necessity. Our gallant devil, seeing us somewhat Riverboat. excited, concluded he would perform a noble deed, and Therefore it followed that I must contrive a new career. immediately gathered the broom, an old mallet, the The ‘Paul Jones’ was now bound for St. Louis. I wash-pan and a dirty towel, and in a fit of patriotic planned a siege against my pilot, and at the end of three excitement, rushed out of the office and deposited his hard days he surrendered. He agreed to teach me the precious burden some ten squares off, out of danger. Mississippi River from New Orleans to St. Louis for Being of a snailish disposition, even in his quickest five hundred dollars, payable out of the first wages I moments, the fire had been extinguished during his should receive after graduating. I entered upon the absence. He returned in the course of an hour, nearly small enterprise of ‘learning’ twelve or thirteen hundred out of breath, and thinking he had immortalized miles of the great Mississippi River with the easy himself, threw his giant frame in a tragic attitude, and exclaimed, with an eloquent expression: “If that that 4 Twain, Mark. “A Gallant Fireman,” Hannibal Western Union, January 16, 1851. 5 This was a newspaper published in Philadelphia, the forerunner of the famous magazine. 3 confidence of my time of life. If I had really known brother had been pilot on the Pennsylvania, but what I was about to require of my faculties, I should not fortunately for him, had remained in New Orleans when have had the courage to begin. I supposed that all a the boat started up.7 pilot had to do was to keep his boat in the river, and I Clemens remained on the Mississippi and eventually earned his did not consider that that could be much of a trick, since steamboat pilot license in 1859, a year after Henry’s death. He it was so wide.6 worked on several ships, making the run from St. Louis down Clemens worked his way up to pilot, and the life seemed to suit to New Orleans and back and quite possibly would have him. Just as Orion had helped him, Sam helped his younger continued indefinitely if the US Civil War hadn’t broken out. brother, Henry and arranged a job for him. The two brothers Eventually, he would write about his experiences in Life on the worked on the Pennsylvania until Sam had an altercation with Mississippi. another pilot, named Brown. Sam was put ashore at New Orleans and transferred to the A.T. Lacey, but Henry opted to In 1861, the Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter, sparking remain on the Pennsylvania. the Civil War. The war resulted in the cessation of commercial traffic on the Mississippi, putting Clemens out of a job. In The Lacey left New Orleans two days after the Pennsylvania, response to the Federal troops “invading” Missouri, Clemens and when it reached Greenville, Mississippi, they got word that joined a cadre of his fellow Missourians to form the “Marion the Pennsylvania had blown up, killing 150 people.