John marshall clemens siblings fighting

Slavery was a given part of life in the world of young Samuel Clemens. He grew up in a family that owned slaves and relied upon their labor for daily comforts. Sam's father, John Marshall Clemens, had descended from a line of wealthy, slave-owning Virginia planters, a lineage of which he was very proud. Though the writer Mark Twain would later come to mock this pride in heritage with his caricatured depiction of the First Families of Virginia, or FFVs as he called them, in his novel Pudd'nhead Wilson, the child Sam accepted that racial heritage determined slavery or freedom, deprivation or privilege.

John Marshall Clemens

American lawyer

John Marshall Clemens (August 11, &#;– March 24, ) was the father of author Mark Twain and of journalist and politician Orion Clemens, who was the first and only Secretary of the Nevada Territory.

Biography

Clemens was the scion of a Virginia family that owned both land and slaves in that state. The Clemens were said to be a Cornish American family originally from Looe in Cornwall, England.[1] However, the Looe museum provides evidence showing that they instead emigrated from Corby.[2] He was born in Campbell County, Virginia, the eldest of five children, to Samuel B.

and Pamela Goggin Clemens.[3] He was named after U.S. Chief Justice John Marshall.

His father died in , whereupon the family moved to Kentucky. Pamela Clemens remarried in , and John Clemens started functional at age 11, as a clerk at an iron mine.[3] He undertook the study of law in a local rule office and became a licensed lawyer at the age of [3] At that same age, he became legally responsible for financial obligations deemed to be owed to his Kentucky stepfather for the costs of supporting the Clemens children and keeping family slaves.

The burden of this debt left him without financial resources.[3]

He married Jane Lampton on May 6, , in Columbia, Adair County, Kentucky.[4] She was a religiously conservative Presbyterian, while he was an agnostic freethinker who admired Thomas Paine.

They moved to Fentress County, Tennessee, where he practiced commandment, operated a general store, and served as a county commissioner, county clerk, and acting attorney general as a conservative Whig.

John worked as the municipality clerk in Jamestown, Tennessee after marriage to Jane Lampton in Byhe and the family moved to Florida, Missouri. Land Sale, Marion, Missouri. Physically, John was a tall man, he had become thin and unusually pale; he looked older than his years.

From to he was postmaster in Pall Mall.[3] He speculated unsuccessfully in land and opened four stores which were unsuccessful.[5]

In the Clemens family, which by then included five children, moved to Missouri, initially to the town of Florida, where his son Samuel,[6] who was to become famous as the author Mark Twain, was born on November 30, John Clemens practiced law and operated a general store in Florida for several years before moving to Hannibal in His retail business ventures were not successful, but he was active in civic affairs.[3] He served as a steamboat and railroad commissioner and became a county judge.

He served in the Missouri militia but did not serve in the debacle of the Honey War.

John Clemens was the father of five sons (including Orion) and two daughters. He died in March from pleurisy and pneumonia. His widow suspected syphilis was involved and ordered an autopsy which the fresh Samuel Clemens may have witnessed.[3][5]

Cabin

The cabin in which the Clemens family is believed to contain lived in Fentress County, Tennessee, is displayed as part of the collection of the Museum of Appalachia in Norris, Tennessee.[7]

References

  1. ^Payton, Philip.

    Hannibal Clemens (1803–1836) • FamilySearch: Compare DNA and scout genealogy for John Clemens born Campbell County, Virginia, United States died Hannibal, Marion County, Missouri, United States including ancestors + descendants + 11 genealogist comments + questions + Y-chromosome DNA + more in the free family tree community.

    The Cornish Overseas,

  2. ^"Was Mark Twain Cornish?". Looe Old Guildhall Museum and Gaol. Retrieved
  3. ^ abcdefgOliver and Goldena Howard (), The Notice Twain encyclopedia, pp.&#;–4, ISBN&#;
  4. ^"Kentucky, County Marriages, ," database with images,
  5. ^ abHarold K.

    Bush, Mark Twain and the Spiritual Crisis of His Age () pp. 30–

  6. ^Andrew Hoffmann (April 27, ). "Inventing Mark Twain". New York Times.
  7. ^Information obtained from museum interpretive sign inside the cabin, 1 May