We bought groupon tickets for the Mark Twain Museum, which includes his boyhood home. The picture above is the kitchen of the two-story white house where a little boy named Samuel Clemens spent most of his youth. The picture below is the outside of young Samuel's boyhood home.
That ornery little boy had a knack for getting in trouble, but then finding his way out of it. Samuel Clemens's pen name would become Mark Twain, and his childhood would become fodder for the antics of a character named Tom Sawyer. A display in the museum reminds us of the day that Tom Sawyer's punishment was white-washing the fence, but he manged to talk his young friends into doing the work for him.
A statue in town reminds us of the two mischievous boys with ties to Hannibal. That's Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn on that pedestal beside Mark.
Our museum ticket also took us to the homes of two of Samuel Clemens's friends when he grew up in Hannibal. They also would become characters in Mark Twain's books. We went to Huck Finn's house . . .
as well as Becky Thatcher's house. In celebration of the success of Tom Sawyer's adventures, this entire section of town has been restored to the way it looked when Samuel Clemens was a boy back in the mid-1800s.
Of course the author changed all of his characters' names. In fact, he changed his own name when he started writing. After a time on a Mississippi River Boat named "Alonzo Child," Samuel Clemens became Mark Twain.
We never knew where that new name came from, but we learned about it in one of the museums in Hannibal. Because the Mississippi River has tricky shallow areas, a leadsman is assigned to the front of the boat holding a long rope with a lead weight attached.
The rope had knots tied in it at regular intervals, so the leadsman could tell how deep the water was according to how many knots were under water. If two knots were under water, that was two fathoms or a "mark twain." So it was a good thing when the captain heard the leadsman sing out, "Mark Twain!" because that meant the river was deep enough to handle the bow of the river boat safely. We learned something new today!
After great success with Mark Twain's books, his publishing company sent Norman Rockwell to Hannibal, to get a feel for the town. His assignment was to paint pictures to illustrate the reprint of the book "Tom Sawyer." The picture below is Norman Rockwell's version of that white-washed fence chapter.
Before he died, Mr. Rockwell donated these priceless originals (in both pencil and oil) to the museum in Hannibal. He knew this city would take care of them since they love all things about Tom Sawyer and Mark Twain.
For example, this city built a lighthouse at the top of the hill overlooking Hannibal in honor of Mark Twain.
We walked up all 244 steps to get to the lighthouse. As proof of our accomplishment, we have the refrigerator magnets provided by the Hannibal visitor's center for hardy visitors like us.
Our walk to the lighthouse took us high above the Mississippi River, for this view of the Mark Twain Bridge. Did we mention that this town loves their favorite author?
For shoppers, this little town also offers a nicely restored historic downtown where every store front offers another shopping experience.
We ate at the Mark Twain Diner, home of the tenderloin sandwich that far exceeds the bun!
In the last blog we showed the flood gates that are protecting this downtown section of town. When we got to the fringes of town, we saw that the flooding waters of the Mississippi River are covering lots of real estate. For example, at the sports complex they are thinking of adding water polo, and taking basketball from the list of sports available here.
We found out that Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain) was actually born in a little two-room shack 15 miles from Hannibal.
The little shack was moved to the nearby state park, so it could be carefully preserved.
This building was actually built around the little shack, and the Mark Twain Memorial Shrine also includes a museum.
The museum includes bits of memorabilia from the Clemens family. One interesting piece was this button string from Mrs. Clemens. Young women of the 1800's collected pretty buttons and threaded them onto a string. Legend has it that after collecting 99 buttons, her love would appear.
Wait! Did we make a wrong turn? Aren't we in Missouri?!?
The only turn we made was to arrive at the tiny town of Florida. The marker below is actually in Forida, Missouri, the location of the little shack where Mark Twain was born before it was moved to its new site at the shrine.
After a long day of touring all things about Mark Twain, we headed back to our camp site at Mark Twain Landing Campground, just down the road from Mark Twain Lake and around the bend from Mark Twain Cave. Yes, this part of Missouri loves Mark Twain!
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