Autobiography of Mark Twain (162 page)

413.4 John, our old gardener] John O’Neil (b. 1848) took care of the grounds and greenhouse at the Clemenses’ Hartford house during the 1880s, and from 1891 to 1900, when the family was in Europe (
Hartford Census
1900, 1A).

413.6–9 at the Hartford Club I met, at a luncheon, eleven of my oldest friends . . . Welch] The Hartford Club, which Clemens joined in 1881, was organized in 1873 for “the promotion of social intercourse, art and literature” (Hartford Club 2009). Before he left New York for the funeral, Clemens asked Charles H. Clark to “assemble some Cheneys & Twichells & other friends at Hartford Club Thursday & lunch them & me at my expense” (26 Feb 1906 to Clark, TxU). In addition to Clark, the guests were Judge William Hamersley, Colonel Frank W. Cheney, Samuel G. Dunham, Rev. Joseph H. Twichell, Rev. Dr. Edwin Pond Parker, Charles E. Perkins, Archibald A. Welch, Rev. Dr. Francis Goodwin, Franklin G. Whitmore, and Dr. E. K. Root (“Mr. Clemens Lunches with Friends,” Hartford
Courant
, 14 March 1906, 4). Frank Woodbridge Cheney (1832–1909), a lieutenant colonel in the Civil War who had been wounded at Antietam, served as head of Cheney Brothers silk manufacturers, as a director of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company for more than thirty years, and as a director of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad for seven years (
Connecticut Biography
1917, 277–80; “Death of Colonel Cheney,” Hartford
Courant
, 5 June 1909, 5). Archibald Ashley Welch (1859–1935), prominent in many civic organizations, was in 1906 second vice-president of the Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Company (Burpee 1928, 3:1062–65). Dr. Edward K. Root (b. 1856), a Hartford physician and Charles Clark’s brother-in-law, served on the Hartford Board of Health, the State Board of Health, and as medical director of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company (“Dr. Edward K. Root,” Hartford
Courant
, 24 Oct 1899, 8;
Hartford Census
1900, 8B).

413.12 Rev. Dr. McKnight] Clemens probably refers to the Rev. Dr. George H. McKnight (b. 1830) of Elmira’s Episcopal Trinity Church, who earned his A.M. degree at Hobart College
in 1851 and his D.D. at Hamilton College in 1873. McKnight performed the marriage ceremony for Charles J. Langdon (Olivia’s brother) and Ida B. Clark in October 1870 (Towner 1892, 287–88;
Chemung Census
1900, 14B; 13 Oct 1870 to Fairbanks,
L4
, 208–9).

413.33–35 when Sir Thomas Lipton came . . . to race for the America cup, I . . . Mr. Rogers and half a dozen other worldlings] On 3 October 1901, Clemens and Twichell joined Henry H. Rogers and his other guests on the
Kanawha
, which left Sandy Hook, New Jersey, to follow the second race of the series between the American yacht
Columbia
and Sir Thomas Lipton’s
Shamrock II
. Lipton (1850–1931), knighted by Queen Victoria in 1898, was famous for his grocery chain, tea shops, and charitable works. This was his second challenge (out of five) for the America’s Cup between 1899 and 1930 (
HHR
, 474; “Sir Thomas Gives Up Hope,” New York
Times
, 4 Oct 1901, 1; Twichell 1874–1916, entry for 2–3 Oct 1901, 7:105–6).

414.8–9 name of Richard Croker, the celebrated Tammany leader] Croker (1843–1922), acknowledged as Tammany boss after 1884, had brought about the elections of the subsequent three New York Democratic mayors. In September 1901, when Croker had just returned from ten months abroad, the newspapers were filled with stories and speculation about his influence on the upcoming mayoral election, and two recently published books were reviewed in the New York
Times:
a complimentary biography of Croker by Alfred Henry Lewis, and a book by Gustavus Myers that included two chapters on Croker and was highly critical of Tammany Hall’s unbroken record of corruption and graft (“About Tammany Hall,” 7 Sept 1901, BR3; Alfred Henry Lewis 1901; Myers 1901; “Richard Croker Met by Tammany Leaders,” New York
Times
, 15 Sept 1901, 10).

414.11–26 I knew his father very well indeed . . . do you take me for a God damned papist?] The Croker forebears, originally English and Protestant, had gone to Ireland with Cromwell. Twichell evidently assumed that the Crokers were Catholic because of their Irish ancestry. Richard Croker’s father, Eyre Coote Croker, a Presbyterian, emigrated to the United States with his family in 1846. He found work as a blacksmith and veterinary horse surgeon, and joined the Union army at the outbreak of the Civil War (Alfred Henry Lewis 1901, 5, 13–14; Lothrop Stoddard 1931, 2, 260–61; see AD, 17 Jan 1906, for Clemens’s remarks about General Sickles and the regiment in which Twichell and Croker served).

417.5 dog let out a howl of anguish that could be heard beyond the frontier] The occasion on which Twichell’s Decoration Day (Memorial Day) speech was interrupted by the howling dog probably took place in the mid-1870s. In his notebooks, Clemens reminded himself several times in 1878 and after to make use of the incident (jotting down both “Joe Twichell’s Decoration-day prayer—‘G-d d—n that dog’ ” and an explanation for its howls, “He had a rat!”), and he did use it in chapter 27 of
Huckleberry Finn
, which one Hartford newspaper recognized when the book was published: “The ‘He had a rat’ story put into a funeral scene, where it actually occurred in this city, will be recognized by a number of Hartford people, who have had many hearty laughs at it in its chrysalis period” (“New Publications,” Hartford
Evening Post
, 17 Feb 1885, 3;
HF 2003
, 232–33, 443;
N&J2
, 58, 343;
N&J3
, 16, 92).

417.19–23 I recall Mary Miller . . . this sorrow did not remain with me long] Clemens’s classmate Mary Miller (b. 1835?), who regularly competed with him for the spelling medal, was the eldest daughter of lumber merchant Thomas S. Miller (1807?–60) and Mary E. Miller (1812?–49). She was about the same age as Clemens, according to census records. She married Clemens’s friend and classmate John B. Briggs (Hannibal
Courier:
“Obituary,” 30 Aug 1849, unknown page; “Look Out for the Old Lumber Yard,” 4 Mar 1852, unknown page;
Marion Census
1850, 307;
Marion Census
1870, 447; “Good-Bye to Mark Twain,” Hannibal
Courier-Post
, 3 June 1902, 1).

417.24–27 I soon transferred my worship to Artimisia Briggs . . . pestered by children] Artemissa (also spelled Artimissa, Artimisia, Artemesia, and Artemissia) Briggs (1832–1910), the elder sister of Clemens’s friend and classmate John B. Briggs, was the second of eight children of Rhoda Briggs (b. 1811?) and William Briggs (b. 1799?) (
Marion Census
1850, 315–16;
Marion Census
1860, 145; death certificate for Artemissia Briggs, Missouri Digital Heritage 2009a;
Inds
, 306–7).

417.28–32 Mary Lacy . . . was a schoolmate . . . Four years ago she was still living, and had been married fifty years] Most likely, Clemens was confusing Mary Lacy with another schoolmate, Mary Nash. Mary Elizabeth Lacy (b. 1838?) was the daughter of John L. Lacy (1808?–83), who in 1850 worked as a pork packer to support his large family. She married Leonard Mefford in Hannibal on 31 May 1854 and by 1860 had two children (
Marion Census
1850, 319;
Marion Census
1860, 149; “Missouri Marriage Records, 1805–2002” 2009). In 1898 Clemens sketched a plan in his notebook to use her as a character in “Schoolhouse Hill,” the version of “The Mysterious Stranger” set in the fictional Hannibal, St. Petersburg. When Satan arrives on earth he finds that his son, little Satan, “has been rejected by Mary Lacy, who took him for crazy & who is now horribly sorry she didn’t jump at the chance, since she finds that the Holy Family of Hell are not disturbed by the fire, but only their guests. Satan is glad his boy didn’t marry beneath him—he is arranging with the shade of Pope Alexander VI to marry him to a descendant” (Notebook 40, TS pp. 51–52, CU-MARK). Mary Nash (b. 1832?) was the half-sister of Clemens’s friend Tom Nash. She married John Hubbard of Frytown in January 1851. In 1901, a year before Clemens’s Hannibal trip, he responded to an announcement of her fiftieth anniversary, “I remember the wedding very well, although it was 50 years ago; & I wish you & your husband joy of this anniversary of it” (13 Jan 1901 to Hubbard, MoHM). He planned to (but ultimately did not) use her as the model for two literary characters: in his working notes for “Tom Sawyer’s Conspiracy” he named her Mary Benton and characterized her as “wild”; and in his working notes for “Schoolhouse Hill” he called her Louisa Robbins and characterized her as “Mary Nash,
bad.”
He may have based the independent Rachel Hotchkiss, the title character in “Hellfire Hotchkiss,” on her as well (
Inds
, 214–59, 287–88, 134–213, 337;
HH&T
, 383;
MSM
, 431).

417.33–34 Jimmy McDaniel was another schoolmate . . . His father kept the candy shop] James W. (Jimmy) McDaniel (1833–1911) was the son of William McDaniel (b. 1811?), who ran the confectionary and variety store in Hannibal, which advertised that the
“Confectionary
Department
consists in all the finest varieties of Candy, Nuts, Raisins, Prunes, Dates, Figs, Currants, Citrons, fig Paste, Jellies, Preserves and many other articles too tedious to mention” (“Confectionary and Fancy Goods,” Hannibal
Courier, 7
Oct 1852, unknown page). Jimmy worked as a bookseller at fifteen, a tobacconist before he was twenty, a salesman at his father’s store at thirty, and later a packer and manager of the Holmes-Dakin cigar company (Fother-ingham 1859, 40; Honeyman 1866, 37; Hallock 1877, 100; Stone, Davidson, and McIntosh 1885, 118, 150;
Marion Census
1850, 310; death certificate for James W. McDaniel, Missouri Digital Heritage 2009a).

418.2 Jim Wolf and the cats] See “Scraps from My Autobiography. From Chapter IX.”

418.5 I saw him four years ago when I was out there] In 1902, the Hannibal newspaper reported that as Clemens

was driving up Main street he espied James W. McDaniel, the old confectioner and greeted him with “Hello Jim, I’m truly glad to see you. Let me see that scalp of yours; what’s become of your hair?” Mr. Clemens and Mr. McDaniel used to be old chums and . . . although they had not met before in nearly forty years they recognized each other on sight. (“See
_[
s
_]
Points of Interest,” Hannibal
Morning Journal
, 30 May 1902, reprinted in the Hannibal
Evening Courier-Post
, 6 Mar 1935, 4B, transcript in CU-MARK)

418.11–12 Artimisia Briggs . . . married Richmond . . . my Methodist Sunday-school teacher] In March 1853, at the age of twenty-one, Artemissa Briggs married the local bricklayer, William J. Marsh (b. 1815?), not Joshua Richmond (b. 1816?), the stone mason. Richmond married Angelina Matilda Cook (b. 1829?) in January 1849; he taught Clemens’s earliest Sunday school class at Hannibal’s Methodist Old Ship of Zion Church, on the public square (
Marion Census
1860, 145; Fotheringham 1859, 39; Ellsberry 1965b, 1:10; Wecter 1952, 183, 305 n. 15;
Inds
, 95, 344; “Married,” Hannibal
Missouri Courier
, 18 Jan 1849, unknown page).

418.24 five foolish virgins] Matthew 25:1–13.

418.29–30 Twenty years ago Mr. Richmond had become possessed of Tom Sawyer’s cave . . . made a tourist-resort of it] The limestone cave that Clemens called “McDougal’s cave” in
Tom Sawyer
was during his childhood at first called Simms Cave for the brothers who discovered it, then Saltpetre Cave for the mineral found there (potassium nitrate, thought to be derived from bat guano), and finally McDowell’s Cave (see “My Autobiography [Random Extracts from It],” note at 214.3–4; Sweets 1986b, 1–2). After the publication of
Tom Sawyer
in 1876, it began to be called Mark Twain Cave or Tom Sawyer’s Cave. Joshua Richmond was evidently one of several owners in or after 1886, when the cave formally opened to the public. Evan T. Cameron, guide to the cave since 1886 and later manager, established a “permanent tour route through the cave’s maze of passageways, built a small ticket building near the entrance, purchased lanterns that people could carry for lighting, hired cave guides, and advertised the attraction as Mark Twain Cave” (Weaver 2008, 15–16, 97). The current public entrance to the Mark Twain Cave “was blasted out of the hillside to make an easy, comfortable entrance” for the tourist, as the original “was a steep climb up the hill” (George Walley to John Lockwood, 21 Sept 2005, photocopy in CU-MARK).

418.42–419.4 they make the finest kind of Portland cement there now . . . being ground into cement] In August 1901 the Atlas Portland Cement Company began construction of the “largest Portland cement plant in the United States and the first cement plant west of the Mississippi,” in Cave Hollow, where many of the entrances to the cave were situated (Sweets 1986a, 3). The telegram Mark Twain received has not been found.

419.9–11 Reuel Gridley attended that school of ours . . . Then came the Mexican war and he volunteered] Reuel Colt Gridley (1829–70), who must have been about seventeen or eighteen years old when he attended Dawson’s school, enrolled in the Third Regiment Missouri Mounted Volunteers at the age of eighteen on 5 May 1847 in New London, Missouri, was mustered into service the following month, and was honorably discharged on 28 October 1848 (Missouri Digital Heritage 2009b, reel s912).

419.11–21 A company of infantry was raised . . . and Mr. Hickman . . . was made captain of it . . . Hickman is dead—it is the old story] Philander A. Hickman (b. 1824) was born in Virginia. Unlike Gridley, he did not join the Missouri Volunteers. He enrolled in the infantry as a first lieutenant on 5 March 1847, was mustered into the Fourteenth Regiment on 9 April, and became a captain on 22 October. He married Sarah M. Brittingham (1828–89) on 11 May 1848, and was honorably discharged from the infantry on 25 July (
Marion Census
1850, 309; Heitman 1903, 1:528; Robarts 1887, 30). After the discovery of gold in California, Hickman and two of his in-laws emigrated, but he returned to Hannibal in the 1850s and established a store which sold stoves and hardware. In the 1870s, he became a representative in the state legislature. Clemens had last seen him in Hannibal in 1882: “Lieutenant Hickman, the spruce young han[d]somely-uniformed volunteer of 1846, called on me—a grisly elephantine patriarch of 65, now, his graces all vanished” (17 May 1882 to OLC, CU-MARK, in
MTL
, 1:429). He was dead within three years (“The Emigration,” unidentified clipping in Meltzer 1960, 15; Fotheringham 1859, 30; Honeyman 1866, 26; Hallock 1877, 79, 178; Stone, Davidson, and McIntosh 1885, 115).