Mark Twain was born on November 30‚ 1835 in Florida‚ Missouri‚ he was the sixth of seven kids. At the age of 4‚ Mark and his family moved to the small frontier town of Hannibal‚ Missouri‚ on the banks of the Mississippi River. Missouri‚ at the time‚ was a fairly new state and comprised part of the country’s western border. It was also a slave state. Sam’s father owned one slave and his uncle owned several. In fact‚ it was on his uncle’s farm that Sam spent many boyhood summers playing in the slave quarters‚ listening to tall tales and the slave spirituals that he would enjoy throughout his life.
At 18‚ Mark headed east to New York City and Philadelphia‚ where he worked on several different newspapers and found some success at writing articles. By 1857‚ he had returned home to start on a new career as a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River. With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861‚ however‚ all traffic along the river came to a halt‚ as did Mark’s pilot career. Inspired by the times‚ Mark joined a volunteer Confederate unit called the Marion Rangers‚ but he quit after just two weeks.
In 1871‚ Mark moved his family to Hartford‚ Connecticut‚ a city he had come to love while visiting his publisher there‚ and where he had made friends. Livy also had family connections to the city. For the first few years the Mark rented a house in the heart of Nook Farm‚ a residential area that was home to numerous writers‚ publishers and other prominent figures. In 1872‚ Sam’s recollections and tall tales from his frontier adventures were published in his book‚ “roughing it” That same year Marks first daughter Susy was born‚ but their son‚ Langdon‚ died at the age of two from diphtheria. Marks life ended in 1910, he left an abundance of money for his