Samuel L. Clemens.”
There being such a vast field from which to select the titles to these sketches, I have, perhaps, unintentionally omitted or neglected a certain few of the great and growing circle of funny men. I have also omitted, intentionally, such humorists as Irving, Bret Harte, and others of a like stamp, who do not, in any sense, belong to the class of newspaper humorists.
W. M. C.
Cleveland, Ohio, 1882
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS.
Routledge, in his Men of the Time, says that Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by the nom de plume of Mark Twain, was born in Florida, Monroe county, Missouri, November 30, 1835. During the last ten years newspaper reports have made Mark Twain the native of a dozen different localities. According to these reports Mark has been born in Adair county, Kentucky; in Fentress county, Tennessee; in Hannibal, Missouri; and in various other places. However, it is proper for me to state that Mark was born in but one place, and all at one time. Routledge is evidently correct as to both time and place.
The parents of Mark Twain were married in Kentucky and lived for some years in that State. His mother states that he was always an incorrigible boy, filled with roving imaginations from his very earliest age, and could never be persuaded or forced to attend to his books and study, as other boys did. He lost his father at the age of twelve, and soon after left school for good. When about fifteen years of age, Mark came into the house one day and asked his mother for five dollars. On being questioned as to what he wanted with it, he said he wanted it to start out traveling with. He failed to obtain the five dollars, but he assured his mother that he would go all the same, and he really went, nor did the old lady ever set eyes on him again until he had become a man. Starting out on his travels he learned the printing business, and supported himself by working at the case.
Clemens was but seventeen when he resolved to become a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi river. He learned the river in due time from St. Louis to New Orleans, a distance of 1,375 miles, and followed the occupation of pilot until he was twenty-four years old. In 1861 an elder brother was appointed Lieutenant-governor of Nevada Territory. He offered Mark the position of private secretary, and the young man deserted the river and went West. After a few months he abandoned the life of a private secretary, and started out to seek a fortune in the mines. In this he was unsuccessful, although at one time, for the space of a few minutes, Mark owned the famous Comstock lode, and was worth millions. He found all this out after he sold the claim.