Samuel Clemens, later known as Mark Twain, was born in a cabin in the tiny village of Florida, Missouri, on November 30, 1835, the third of John Marshall and Jane Lampton Clemens’ four children who survived into adulthood. The family lived in Florida until 1939 when they moved thirty miles east to Hannibal, Missouri, on the banks of the Mississippi River. Twain is remembered in Florida at the Mark Twain Birthplace State Historic Site. A red granite monument marks the cabin’s original location. Visitors can see the preserved two-room cabin in the historic site’s museum, along with exhibits and audio-visual programs interpreting Twain’s extraordinary life. On view are first editions of Twain’s work; a handwritten copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; furnishings from his Hartford, Connecticut home; and a public reading room. The 2,775-acre Mark Twain State Park surrounds the historic site inviting access to oak, hickory and maple woodlands and Mark Twain Lake.
The Mark Twain Birthplace State Historic Site is open Wednesday through Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. November through March and from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. daily April through October. It’s closed Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s days. For additional information, visit the Mark Twain Birthplace State Historic Site website.
My parents removed to Missouri in the early 'thirties; I do not remember just when, for I was not born then and cared nothing for such things. It was a long journey in those days, and must have been a rough and tiresome one. The home was made in the wee village of Florida, in Monroe County, and I was born there in 1835. The village contained a hundred people and I increased the population by 1 per cent. It is more than many of the best men in history could have done for a town. It may not be modest in me to refer to this, but it is true. There is no record of a person doing as much--not even Shakespeare. But I did it for Florida, and it shows that I could have done it for any place--even London, I suppose. – from Mark Twain’s AutobiographyThe photograph is from the Mark Twain Birthplace State Historic Site website.
