About mark twain biography videos

Mark Twain's Biography

by Gregg Camfield, PhD, University of California-Merced

On November 30, 1835, nearly thirty years before he took the pen name Mark Twain, Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Florida, Missouri, a hamlet some 130 miles north-northwest of St.

Louis, and 30 miles inland from the Mississippi River. His father, John Marshall Clemens, had earlier that year moved the family there from Tennessee. In Tennessee, he had accumulated much land, a pair of slaves, a wife, and five children, but his efforts as a lawyer, storekeeper, and local politician did not yield the wealth he desired.

Like many of his contemporaries, he decided that the way to a fortunate future was to move west. His brother-in-law, John Quarles, had established a farm in the new hamlet of Florida and invited John Marshall Clemens, his wife, Jane Lampton Clemens, and their brood of children to the new country.

Trained to be a country lawyer, John Marshall was no farmer, and even though Americans wer