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'''Samuel L. Clemens, as a Young Man, Seeks His Fortune in New York'''

''Epoch: May 25, 1853 – February 16, 1857''<br />

''Author: B. Scott Holmes, November 2021''

[[File:Sam_Clemens_young_man.png|thumb|left|Samuel L. Clemens as a young man]]
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'''Go to Day by Day'''

* [[1853]]
* [[1854]]
* [[1855]]
* [[1856]]
* [[1857]]
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Sam Clemens departs his childhood home of Hannibal, Missouri and attempts to
support himself as a typesetter. His travels take him to New York City,
Philadelphia, Washington D.C., then back to Hannibal, Keokuk, and Muscatine. He
eventually finds his way to Cincinnati, Ohio, where a new phase in his life is to
begin on the Mississippi River.

This may not be Sam's first departure from home. David Fears reports that in the
summer of 1845 Sam stowed away on a steamboat headed south. He was found by a crew
member and put ashore thirty miles down river, at the town of Louisiana, Mo. There
he spent the night with Lampton relatives. The next day they returned him home.

Leonard writes that Sam Clemens apparently had no political party affiliations,
"though he presumably identified with the Whigs — like his father and Orion (in his
early years)"
[https://twainsgeography.com/references/mark-twain-context Mark Twain in Context].
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whig_Party_(United_States) Wikipedia] notes the party
was hostile towards the ideology of "manifest destiny," territorial expansion into
Texas and the Southwest, and the Mexican–American War. It disliked presidential
power, ... and preferred congressional dominance in lawmaking. ...The party was
active in both the Northern and Southern United States and did not take a firm stance
on slavery. Orion would soon become a "committed abolitionist" whereas Sam would ask
Orion in a letter from Philadelphia, "How do you like 'free-soil?' I would like
amazingly to see a good, old-fashioned negro."

== Timeline ==

'''[[May 26, 1853 (Thursday)]]''' — Sam was thinking about leaving Hannibal by this
time, and New York may have already been his desired destination, but he spoke only
of St. Louis to his mother.

'''First two weeks of June 1853''' — Sometime in the first two weeks of June 1853,
Samuel L. Clemens (aged seventeen) left his home and family in Hannibal, Missouri,
for the first time, stopping initially in St. Louis and then going on to New York
City, supporting himself as a journeyman printer in both places. Precisely when
Clemens boarded the regular evening packet for St. Louis is not known: in his
autobiography he said simply that he "disappeared one night and fled to St. Louis."
On 26 October 1853, however, he mentioned that he had first departed Hannibal "more
than four months ago." Since it would have been exactly four months on that day if he
had left Hannibal on 26 June, Clemens himself seems to place his departure in the
early weeks of that month.
[https://www.marktwainproject.org/letters/uccl02711/ Editorial narrative preceding 24 August 1853 to Jane Lampton Clemens].

'''August 19–24, 1853''' — At 8 AM, Friday, Sam boarded a boat and started a journey
by train and boat to New York. He did not tell his mother about the trip, which took
about five days. From St. Louis to Alton, Ill., Springfield, Bloomington, Ind.,
LaSalle, Chicago, Monroe, Michigan on the Northern Indiana and Michigan Southern
railroads. In his letter he wrote that he traveled from Chicago to Monroe, Michigan, across
Lake Erie to Buffalo, then to Albany and New York. Sam arrived in New York City at
5 AM with "two or three dollars in his pocket and a ten-dollar bill concealed in the
lining of his coat."

== A Perspective on American History, 1853–1857 ==

* March 4, 1853 – Pierce becomes the 14th president
* 1854 – Gadsden Purchase from Mexico
* 1854 – Kansas–Nebraska Act; nullified the Missouri Compromise
* 1854 – Ostend Manifesto
* 1854 – Whig Party collapses
* 1854 – Treaty of Kanagawa with Japan
* 1854–1855 – Know-Nothing Party: mushroom growth and sudden collapse
* 1856 – Sack of Lawrence, Kansas
* 1856 – Pottawatomie massacre
* 1856 – U.S. presidential election
* 1856 – James Buchanan elected president (March 4)
* 1857 – Buchanan becomes the 15th president
* 1857 – ''Dred Scott v. Sandford'', 60 U.S. 393 — declares that slaves and Blacks descended from slaves were not American citizens and cannot sue
* 1857 – Utah War
* 1857 – Lecompton Constitution rejected in Kansas Territory
* 1857 – Panic of 1857

===Go To===

* Table of Contents [https://marktwain.online/wiki/index.php?title=MT_DBD_WikiText]