Mark Twain Museums in Hannibal, Missouri

Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, was born near Hannibal, Missouri, and lived there for most of his childhood.  His family moved to Hannibal when he was about four years old, so Hannibal became the hometown of this great American storyteller.  In our previous post, we shared some pictures from around town, but this post focuses on the Mark Twain Museum and the Boyhood Home and Museum of Samuel Clemens.

We went to the Mark Twain Museum first because it opened at 9 AM, the trolley tour didn't start until 11 AM, and the Boyhood Home and Museum had school buses parked in front of it.  At this point in our trip, we had encountered school groups at several places, so we decided to start with the museum so we could be done before they got done at the Boyhood home.

The Mark Twain Museum is set up to take you through some of Mark Twain's work, starting with Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.  If you've ever been on the Winnie the Pooh ride at Walt Disney World, the style of this area would remind you of it.  There were storybook pages and scenes from the books that helped immerse you into Mark Twain's tales.

    

Other parts of the museum were dedicated to explanations, memorabilia, and items related to Mark Twain.  Here are some that we found interesting.  

If you've ever been to Walt Disney World and taken a ride on the Liberty Square Riverboat, then you will know what the term "mark twain" means.  And when you learn about Samuel Clemens' obsession with all things riverboat, you'll understand why his pen name fits him.

Norman Rockwell was a big fan of Mark Twain.  The museum had several drawings that Rockwell created that were inspired by Twain's stories.  One of his drawings was turned into a postage stamp in the early 1970s.

The museum had both black and white drawings and colorized versions of the same, like this one.

There is a Mark Twain house in Hartford, Connecticut that has a lot of his family's possessions.  Unfortunately, many of his things were sold by his daughter to pay off her second husband's gambling debts.  One of his prized possessions that wasn't sold, but was given away, has been donated and is on loan to the Mark Twain Museum in Hannibal.  It's an orchestrelle.

This YouTube video from the museum provides additional information about Mark Twain's orchestrelle.

We learned that for books to be published in Britain, they had to be published there first - so if you're looking for a true first edition of a Mark Twain book, you'll be looking for one printed in Great Britain.  But the more sought-after books by book collectors are the American first editions - those that were from the first printing in America.  Who knew that publishing was so complex?

There are many busts and sculptures of Samuel Clemens / Mark Twain.  Here's one of the castings of his hand.

There was a cute (if you like them) Cabbage Patch set of Tom Sawyer, Becky Thatcher, and Huckleberry Finn on display.  I never did have a Cabbage Patch kid, did you?  Did you have any of these ones?

This is one of the displays in the museum that I thought was pretty cool.

After a lunch break, we went to the Boyhood Home and Museum. It is on the same street as the Mark Twain Museum and is included in the ticketing structure they have for visitors to see both.  In addition to Twain's boyhood home, there is the Huckleberry Finn house (purportedly belonging to Tom Blankenship's family), and Becky Thatcher's (Laura Hawkins, in real life) house.

We learned a lot about Samuel Clemens from both museums.  His father passed away when he was just 11 years old, so he had to go to work to help his mother.  He worked in the printing business for a while.  He recorded some of his observations in his own writing. This explanation in the museum was interesting.

Mark Twain was a popular fellow in many circles.  They wanted to create a monument to him with a lot of people sitting at his knee, but they never did raise enough money to do it.

This is the Huckleberry Finn house on the same property.

This is how it looked when Tom Blankenship would have lived there.

Inside the Tom Sawyer house, they have place several Mark Twain "ghost" figures.  Like this one.

Across the museum lot courtyard is the home of Laura Hawkins, the inspiration for Becky Thatcher.  The museum contains information about Laura Hawkins as well as Becky Thatcher.  They have several interactive areas for the kids to do hands-on activities or just learn more about the "kids" they've read about in school.

The museum also is set up to contrast the different stations in life that the characters in Tom Sawyer were from, providing an interactive experience for visitors.

This is the side view of Tom Sawyer's house, across the street from Becky Thatcher's.

In addition to the Clemens' home and Hawkins' home, the museum has the Justice of the Peace office and Grant's drugstore.  Clemens' father was a justice of the peace in Hannibal, and this was his office.  Grant's drugstore, on the corner, is important because when the Clemens' were in financial distress, Dr. Grant made room for them to live above the drugstore.  The drugstore is just across the street from where Samuel Clemens first went to work as a boy (above what is now the Hickory Sticks quilt shop).

You can read more about Samuel Clemens here.

~ Cindy D.