Mark Twain and the Mississippi

1. Mark Twain and the Mississippi By Matt Gutermann

2. The Beginning • February 16th 1857 Sam Clemens boarded a steamboat called the “Paul Jones” piloted by Horace Bixby • This ship was headed south and westward in the Ohio to Cairo, Illinois, and after that to New Orleans. • The ships’ journey would be over February 28th and on March 4th the same year, the “Colonel Crossman” a steamer also piloted by Bixby, would return to St. Louis with new crew member Sam Clemens. • Clemens expected to book passage for Brazil on some vessel leaving the Crescent City.

3. The Beginning Cont. • Realizing his Amazon dreams might not come true, he put them aside and signed as an apprentice to Bixby. • Albert Bigelow Biographer gives a “creation story” as to how Clemens started on the ship. • “A rather slender, loose limbed young fellow with a far, girlish complexion and a great tangle of auburn hair,” who over comes the veteran’s wary aloofness and charms his way into a “cub pilot” arrangement: “Do you drink?” “No.” “Do you gamble?” “No Sir.” “Do you swear?” “Not for amusement; only under pressure.” “Do you chew?” “No, Sir, never; but I must smoke.” “Did you ever do any steering?” “I have steered everything on the river but a steamboat, I guess.” “Very well; take the wheel and see what you can do with a steamboat. Keep her as she is—toward that lover cottonwood snag” (Quoted in Powers pg. 75)

4. Why ask to be a Pilot? • Mark Twain said “at the end of 3 days had he surrendered.” –that his mind was still fixed on getting to the Amazon until reality set in at New Orleans—“I couldn’t get to the Amazon . . went to Horace Bixby and asked him to make a pilot out of me” (Quoted in Powers pg. 75) • Twain didn’t go to Bixby in the Crescent City until he was broke and a policeman threatened to run him in for vagrancy. • Twain took the job for $500 payable over time with a down payment of $100.

5. Attraction to the River • Twain never said why exactly he liked the river so much. • It is believed that he liked it because as a poor boy the river offered him adventure, pay, and prestige he could get in no other place. • The river also offered the independence that he craved.

6. Sam’s Career • Clemens and Bixby sent out for a second time, the first being the trip to New Orleans, on the Crescent City, which departed St. Louis on April 29th 1857. • Clemens had 120 professional trips on a steamboat and served as “cub pilot” for the first two years and received his pilot’s license on April 9th,1859. • Clemens quit the river after a Union cannonball barely missed the Smokestack of the Nebraska on which he was a passenger.

7. Influences on Writing • “The river seemed, in life and in memory, to be a sanctuary for him, as it was for his great characters Huck and Jim, where the sorrows of the world seldom intruded.” Powers, 82 • “His narratives were built upon joys and sorrows, and the sorrows of the world did not fail to intrude upon the river.” Powers, 82

8. Sam and Henry • In February of 1858, Sam had found his younger brother Henry a job as “mud-clerk” on the Pennsylvania. • A mud-clerk got down and dirty by hopping off the boat at random points where the riverbank was unimproved by brick or stone. • Henry’s pay consisted of meals and a place to sleep. • Sam did this to try and help Henry escape an aimless life in St. Louis. • “To Sam, Henry was ‘the flower of the family”. (Powers, 83) • The two were together for a total of six trips on the Pennsylvania.

9. Sam, Henry and a Vision • Before departing with his brother Henry on their sixth journey together, Sam had a vision while sleeping. • His brother Henry was laying in a metallic burial case, with a bouquet of white roses and one red rose in the center. • Sam recorded the bizarre skein of events in Chapter 29 of Life on the Mississippi. • One day Sam heard that the Pennsylvania the ship his brother was working on had blown up. • The first publishing of the even said he wasn’t hurt, the second said he was “hurt beyond help”. • Twain references this tragedy in The Gilded Age. • “Clemens gave Henry and afterlife in three of his books: as “Sid” in Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and as himself in Life on the Mississippi and in his autobiography.” Powers 90. • “In A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Hank Morgan is ordered burned at the stake on June 21, the date of Henry’s death.” Powers 90.

10. Sam, Henry and a Vision Cont. • One day Sam heard that the Pennsylvania the ship his brother was working on had blown up. • The first publishing of the even said he wasn’t hurt, the second said he was “hurt beyond help”. • Twain references this tragedy in The Gilded Age. • “Clemens gave Henry and afterlife in three of his books: as “Sid” in Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and as himself in Life on the Mississippi and in his autobiography.” Powers 90. • “In A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Hank Morgan is ordered burned at the stake on June 21, the date of Henry’s death.” Powers 90.

12. Laura Wright • Laura Wright was the daughter of a Warsaw, Missouri Judge who let her go down to New Orleans accompanied by her uncle, who was a pilot of a freight steamer called the “John J. Roe”. • Sam knew the ship and its officers very well and when he saw it in port at New Orleans he jumped on and saw a young girl. • This girl was Laura Wright. It was said that they instantly became sweethearts. • Sam tried to keep the romance going and tried to visit her in 1860, but it didn’t work out. • Sam said in a letter to Laura in 1861 that a New Orleans fortune teller had seen her in his head years before and had described her perfectly.

13. After • Twain said that he loved being a steamboat pilot and would have done it again if his wife had given him the chance. • Twain had a career total of 120 professional pilot trips up and down the Mississippi. • Twain worked the river for 3 years, 1857-1859 • Twain worked on different ships including the Pennsylvania, and the Paul Jones.

14. Bibliography • Hirst, Bob. “River Pilot as King.” Illinois Historical Digitization Projects: Northern Illinois University Libraries. Web. 07 Apr. 2011. <http://dig.lib.niu.edu/twain/video.html>. • Powers, Ron. Mark Twain: A Life. New York: Free Press, 2005.