MARK TWAIN AND THE MISSISSIPPI

By Matt Gutermann

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.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.