Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835 - 1910)

Born 30 Nov 1835 in Florida, Monroe, Missouri, United States

Ancestors

Husband of Olivia Louise (Langdon) Clemens — married 2 Feb 1870 in Elmira, New York, USA

Descendants

Died 21 Apr 1910 at age 74 in Redding, Fairfield, Connecticut, United States

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Biography

Samuel Clemens is Notable.

Samuel L. Clemens aka Mark Twain — Author, Lecturer and Humorist

Samuel was born Nov 30 1835 in Missouri. ^[1] He was the son of John Clemens. Samuel was named for his grandfather Samuel Clemens and a Clemens' family friend from Virginia named Langhorne. He was born in Florida, Missouri, but grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, along the Mississippi River.

Samuel was a sickly child for the first seven years of his life.

John M. Clemens, Samuel's father, died of pneumonia on March 24, 1847. John was 49-years-old. Samuel was just 11-years-old.

His father’s early death may have caused great emotional trauma to the young Samuel.

In 1848, after his father's sudden death, the family was somewhat destitute. Samuel became a printer's apprentice for the Missouri Courier. The newspaper was owned by his older brother, Orion Clemens.

By 1851, he had been promoted to typesetter and started writing articles, including "A Gallant Fireman" for the Hannibal Journal/Hannibal Western Union.

In June 1853 Samuel moved to St. Louis, Missouri, to live with his sister, Pamela (married to William Moffett). Just two months later he moved to New York City to work as a typesetter.

He also worked later in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Cincinnati, Ohio. Clemens was a self-educated young man, reading material at the public libraries in the large cities.

In the spring of 1854, he traveled back to the Mississippi region, and continued reading all types of books.

In 1857 while traveling on a riverboat to New Orleans (and possibly a trip to South America) he talked with its captain. The captain agreed to train Samuel to be a riverboat pilot for the fee of $500. Samuel knew he could make good money as a boat pilot on the Mississippi River. He canceled any plans for a trip to South America and started his lessons.

Samuel traveled the 1,275 miles of the Mississippi for 18 months, learning the skills to be a pilot.

On June 13, 1858, the steamer Pennsylvania was destroyed by an explosion. Employed on the steam boat was his brother, Henry. Henry died of inhaled steam and severe burns a few days later.

Samuel had secured the job for Henry on the doomed steamer. This fact greatly distressed Samuel.

Samuel earned his license as a pilot in April 1859. It paid well ($250 a month) and he ran boats (including the City of Memphis up and down the Mississippi until the Civil War broke out in April 1861.

Missouri was a slave state before the Civil War. For just two weeks Samuel served with a Confederate unit, the Marion Rangers, before they disbanded.^[2]

In July 1861 Samuel went with his older brother, Orion, to Carson City, Nevada, where Orion became the territorial secretary. Samuel helped him for a short time as a clerk — paid $8 a day — but decided soon after, in August 1861, that he would pan for silver.

Samuel's search for silver didn't "pan out". In 1862 he went on to become a reporter for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. During his time on the river he had done little writing, mostly just descriptive letters to his family.

In 1863 he first started using the pen name ‘Mark Twain'. In the lingo of Mississippi river boat pilots, "mark twain" means "two fathoms deep."

As Mark Twain, Clemens wrote humorous articles along with local news items. Some of his stories were reprinted in other newspapers around the country.

In Carson City, Samuel met his mentor, the popular humorist Charles Farrar Browne, who used the pen name Artemus Ward. Ward recognized Clemens' talent and encouraged him to write as much as possible.

Samuel met Olivia Langdon in 1867. They were introduced by her brother, who was a friend of Samuel's. The couple's first date was to hear a reading by Charles Dickens in New York City. They married in February 1870.

Olivia contracted typhoid fever around 1872, but did recover. She always had health problems even in her youth.

Samuel and Olivia had four children, three girls and a boy, between 1870 and 1880. Their son, Langdon, died in 1872.

Mark Twain's writings became very popular during his lifetime. He earned a good deal of money through it.

His writings reflected his time along the Mississippi:

• The Gilded Age (1871)
• Old Times on the Mississippi (1874)
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)
• Life on the Mississippi (1883)
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)
• Pudd'nhead Wilson (1893)
• Those Extraordinary Twins (1893)

Samuel always gave credit to his mother, Jane. He said that his sense of humor and his prompt, quaintly-spoken philosophy were her contributions to his fame.

Samuel and his family lived in Europe for four years starting in 1891 where Samuel lectured professionally. There was also a Mark Twain European lecture tour from 1895-1896.

In 1903, Olivia's doctors advised her to take up residence in the warm climate of Italy, prompting the Clemens family to move to a villa outside Florence. She died in June 1904.

There would be more challenges and tragedies in his life.

Twain's secretary, Isabel Lyon, was fired along with her new husband in 1909, on charges of embezzlement.

Twain's daughter, Jean, came to assist her father in his home in Redding, Connecticut. She died at his home on Dec. 24, 1909 of a seizure.

When Mark Twain died on April 21, 1910, he only had his one daughter, Clara and her husband, remaining of his immediate family. Clara had a daughter a few months later, named Nina. Twain was born in 1835, the year Halley's Comet was visible, and his death was in the year it returned to be visible on Earth.

He was buried next to his wife and children, who preceded him in death, in historic Woodlawn Cemetery, Elmira, Chemung County, New York, Section G. Elmira was the hometown of his wife and the family maintained a summer home there. ^[3]

Post-Humous and Historical Sites

The Mark Twain House: The home of Samuel Clemens, his wife, and children, on 351 Farmington Avenue, in Hartford, Connecticut, was approved as a National Historic Landmark to be included in the National Register on Dec 29, 1962.

^[4] The lengthy application included a survey by the Historical American Buildings Survey, resulting in many photos capturing this home, documentation of the architecture, and overall ambiance of this place. ^[5] Today, the Mark Twain Museum offers educational topics on a multitude of issues, including race, stemming from his belief that for America needed to discuss race in order to be the county we aspired to be. ^[6]

• Groydon Trotter, 10-cent Clemens (1940), Smithsonian National Postal Museum

Sources

1. ↑ "United States Passport Applications, 1795-1925," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q24F-8WZN : 16 March 2018), Samuel L Clemens, 1891; citing Passport Application, Connecticut, United States, source certificate #, Passport Applications, 1795-1905., 369, NARA microfilm publications M1490 and M1372 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).
2. ↑ "United States Confederate Officers Card Index, 1861-1865", database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:73DY-N56Z : 6 September 2019), Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1861-1865.
3. ↑ Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/1048/mark-twain : accessed 16 August 2021), memorial page for Mark Twain (30 Nov 1835–21 Apr 1910), Find A Grave: Memorial #1048, citing Woodlawn Cemetery, Elmira, Chemung County, New York, USA ; Maintained by Find A Grave . Gravestone pictures
4. ↑ "National Historic Landmark application for inclusion in the National Register, approved 29 Dec 1962." National Parks Service. Mark Twain House application, #66000884
5. ↑ "Mark Twain House, 351 Farmington Avenue (corrected from original address of 531 Farmington Avenue), Hartford, Hartford County, CT," Historic American Buildings Survey, Engineering Record, Landscapes Survey, HABS CT-359 Photographs, Professional drawings of architecture
6. ↑ "MARK TWAIN: Problem of Race." Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). 2012. Episode one, clip

• The Mark Twain Boyhood Home Museum located in Hannibal, Mo. They have a rundown of the Ancestral family of Mark Twain. Samuel L Clemens - Mark Twain's Genealogy, as well as the list of his books, listed by release date, many after his death. Mark Twain's Publishing Career

• The Works of Mark Twain on Project Gutenberg
• Wikidata: Item Q7245
• Wikipedia: Mark_Twain
• Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford, Connecticut has restored the author’s home, where the author and his family lived from 1874 to 1891. Twain wrote his most important works during the years he lived there, including Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Virtual 3D tour of the house is available.

• 1850 Census with his mother and siblings in Hannibal, Marion, MIssouri - "United States Census, 1850," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MDZX-ZZ2 : 22 December 2020), Samuel L Clemens in household of Jane Clemens, Hannibal, Marion, Missouri, United States; citing family , NARA microfilm publication (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).
• 1880 Census in Hartford, Hartford, Connecticut - "United States Census, 1880," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MFCF-M4R : 19 February 2021), Samuell Clemens, Hartford, Hartford, Connecticut, United States; citing enumeration district ED 6, sheet 117C, NARA microfilm publication T9 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), FHL microfilm 1,254,097.
• 1900 Census in Hartford, Hartford, Connecticut - "United States Census, 1900," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M9QP-2H9 : accessed 16 August 2021), Saul L Clemens, Hartford city Ward 10, Hartford, Connecticut, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 192, sheet 22A, family 487, NARA microfilm publication T623 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1972.); FHL microfilm 1,240,138.
• 1910 Census in Redding, Fairfield, Connecticut - "United States Census, 1910," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MKKV-Z5V : accessed 16 August 2021), Samuel L Clemens, Redding, Fairfield, Connecticut, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 103, sheet 7A, family 165, NARA microfilm publication T624 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1982), roll 127; FHL microfilm 1,374,140.
• Paullin, Charles O. “Mark Twain's Virginia Kin.” The William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 15, no. 3, 1935, pp. 294–298. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1923184. Accessed 19 Aug. 2021.
• "A GUIDE TO THE PAPERS OF MARK TWAIN, 1862-1946, a collection in the Clifton Waller Barrett Library. Holding: Special collections, The University of Virginia Library, accession number 6314, ETC. https://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=uva-sc/viu00005.xml

FTDNA YDNA Test Results for the Clemens family of Samuel L. Clemens

It would seem that the YDNA Clemens / Clement Family that Samuel Longhorn Clemens belong to is YDNA Group #1. Nothing is yet conclusive but there is a leaning to YDNA Group #1. There is also a call to all Male Clement cousins with Proven Paper trail to Samual Longhorn Clemens to come and do the YDNA test at FTDNA. With every proven paper trail and continued YDNA results, it should become more and more conclusive to what family group Samuel Longhorn Clemens belonged. For right now it seems YDNA Group # 1 is it. Check out these Websites for Test results and for talking with those on the team for Clements YDNA at FTDNA: Website: Clements / Clemmons Family Tree DNA Project And Colorized Chart: Clement Clements Clemmons Y DNA Project - Y-DNA Colorized Chart