Birthplace of S.L.C., Florida, Missouri. Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in this house on 30 November, 1835, in the frontier village of Florida, Marion County, Missouri. The 6th child of John Marshall Clemens and Jane (Jean) Lampton Clemens, he was born two months premature and sickly, into a family comprising: brother Orion … Read more
Pilot At The Wheel Quote:~ My chief was presently hired to go on a big New Orleans boat, and I packed my satchel and went with him. She was a grand affair. When I stood in her pilot-house I was so far above the water that I seemed perched on a mountain; … Read more
Way’s Packet Directory, 1848-1994 Frederick Way, Jr., was a noted steamboat pilot and river historian who collected steamboat data throughout some 80 years of his life. Whether you are a steamboat historian or a genealogist whose ancestors traveled on the rivers, Way’s Packet Directory is bound to help in your research. Steamboats … Read more
GRAND REPUBLIC Salon ~ 1876 A view looking down the salon of Grand Republic’s Salon in 1876. GRAND REPUBLIC Cabin ~ 1876 Passengers photographed in the Cabin of the Grand Republic, 1876. Photographs of steamboat interiors were usuually taken without people in view, since it was the ornate architecture that the photographer sought to … Read more
‘St. Louis, Laclede’s Landing’ ~ 1885 Pierre Laclede and his 13-year old stepson Auguste Chouteau, arrived at the future site of St. Louis in 1763. They had set out from New Orleans with a small band of men, landing in November, eighteen miles downstream of the confluence with the Missouri River where … Read more
Printmakers Currier & Ives, headed by Nathaniel Currier (1813-1888) and James Merritt Ives (1824-1895), produced some of the most popular American art of the 19th century. The company specialized in publishing inexpensive hand-colored lithographic prints for the growing American middle class. It is estimated that over 8500 lithograph titles were published by … Read more
‘Lewis & Clark: The Departure’ ~ May 14, 1804 Having left their winter camp at Wood River on the banks of the Mississippi adjacent the Missouri River confluence, the expedition at last broaches the swift, snag-studded waters of the Missouri. The 55-foot keelboat, fully loaded with supplies and trade goods, is rowed … Read more
Sam’s First Speech, Keokuk ~ 1856 As a young printer, Sam Clemens gave his first public speech in Keokuk, Iowa, on 17 January, 1856, at a meeting of the Typothetae, an association of master printers who celebrated annually on the birthday of Benjamin Franklin, the patron of all printers. He was boarding … Read more
Printer Anecdotes ~ 1851-56 After the tragic death of his father in 1847, Sam Clemens, aged 12, began doing odds jobs to assist the family finances, and in 1848 he began working as a printer’s devil for the Hannibal Gazette, apprenticed to Joseph Ament. The job entailed “setting” type by hand using … Read more
‘Steamboat Warping Through a Suck’ circa 1872 Navigating the Tennessee River was especially challenging for steamboats. Some ten miles below Chattanooga there was a narrow gorge called The Suck, also known as the Valley of the Whirlpool Rapids. This is a hand-colored woodcut of a steamer being tediously ‘warped through a suck’ on … Read more