Travelin' Sam

Most of us love to travel. We don't have to go to far-away exotic places like Sam to learn something new. There are new things and new places to visit right in our own town or just a few towns away. We also learn by reading about other people's adventures. Take a trip through this website to learn about Sam Clemens and the Mark Twain House. Learn about his family and how people lived during the Victorian era then read about Sam Clemens' travels below and find the answers to the crossword puzzle.

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Sam Clemens loved to travel. When he was just 4 years old, his parents moved his family from the town of Florida, Missouri, where he had been born, to Hannibal, a nearby town. Sam left Hannibal when he was 18 and moved to St. Louis, Missouri. He then became a steamboat pilot, steering hugh boats up and down the Mississippi River. That was where he first heard the words "Mark Twain" – which were code words that told pilots how deep the river was.

After Sam left the river, he went west and spent many years in Nevada and California, looking for gold and silver. He started writing for newspapers to earn money. Sam found that people liked to read about exotic places so he began to write about places he visited, like the Sandwich Islands (which we now know as the Hawaiian Islands.) His first book was an account of a trip he made to Europe and the Middle East.

Sam came back east to live, and married Olivia Langdon, a young lady from Elmira, New York. They lived in Hartford for many years, then left America and traveled all over the world, as far away as India and Australia.