HANNIBAL, Mo. – Mark Twain lived in this Mississippi River town for only 13 years but he never totally forgot it. And Hannibal certainly has not forgotten its literary hero.
The author, who last visited the town in 1902, credited Hannibal for “All that goes to make the me in me …” Twain lived in Hannibal from ages 4 to 17. It is where he began a lifelong love of the Mississippi River – his home was two blocks from the river – and where his dream of becoming a riverboat pilot first was etched.
Everywhere you turn, the name is there: Mark Twain Dinette, Hotel Clemens (Twain’s real name was Samuel Clemens), Hotel Mark Twain, Clemens Field, Mark Twain Cave, Mark Twain Museum and Twainland Train Express (sightseeing tours).
Other attractions, such as Huck’s Taxi, Becky Thatcher Restaurant and Injun Joe Campground, bear the names of Twain’s boyhood friends who were characters under different names in some of his novels.
Huckleberry Finn was modeled after Twain’s friend Tom Blankenship; Becky Thatcher’s real name was Laura Hawkins, and she lived with her family across the street from the Clemens family; and Injun Joe was Joe Douglas, who lived to age 102. He died of ptomaine poisoning from pickled pig’s feet, the story goes.
Of course, there’s Sawyer’s Creek, named for Tom Sawyer, the hero of early Twain novels who was modeled partly after Twain himself.
Twain’s boyhood characters step off the book pages at several Hannibal attractions.
Visitors can watch a video about Twain’s life at the Mark Twain Museum Annex, which is filled with the writer’s memorabilia, including one of his famous white suit jackets, and first editions of his books.
The museum exit leads to the Mark Twain Boyhood Home, a modest, two-story white frame house, where glass-enclosed rooms display items from the era when the Clemens family lived there. A local attorney purchased the home when it was slated for demolition and gave it to the city of Hannibal in 1912.
Outside, the white fence brings a chuckle. It’s a replica of the board fence Aunt Polly required Tom Sawyer to whitewash. However, he persuaded his friends to paint it and pay him for the privilege of doing so. He sat by and saw that it was done well. (A Fence Painting Contest is held in Hannibal during Tom Sawyer Days in July.)
Across the street, Becky Thatcher’s house has authentic furnishings. In an upstairs bedroom you can almost see shy Becky peering out the windows at the boy across the way. It is said that Hawkins visited Twain at his home in Connecticut in 1907 with her great-niece.
Down the street is Judge Clemens’ Law Office, where Twain’s father was a justice of the peace in the 1840s. The office was Twain’s model for the trial of Muff Potter in “Tom Sawyer.”
Two blocks away, on Main Street, a one-time department store houses the New Mark Twain Museum. Fifteen original Norman Rockwell paintings from special Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn editions are displayed, along with scenes from five of Mark Twain’s books. The museum also has an extensive gift shop with Twain items.
Let your imagination run wild at the not-to-be-missed Mark Twain Cave, about a mile south of town. This is the cave Tom and Becky explored in “Adventures of Tom Sawyer.” Believed to be more than 100 million years old, the cave has been open for tours since 1886.
The cave covers 90 acres and has 6 miles of passages that have been mapped. Visitors who take a guided tour will walk five-eighths of a mile. And, yes, they will see bats, just like Tom and Becky experienced. This wouldn’t be Mark Twain Cave without them.
