Traveling with Twain

Jane Lampton Clemens (1803-1890), the mother of Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), was born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky. She bore seven children and outlived all but three—Samuel, his older sister, Pamela Ann Clemens Moffett, and his oldest brother, Orion. Twain captured the spirit of his mother in his portrayal of Tom Sawyer’s Aunt Polly—kind-hearted but also outspokenly stern. When Samuel was pulled limp and half-drowned from a river she only gave him tea and castor oil, quipping, “I guess there wasn’t much danger. People born to be hanged are safe in water.” Jane Clemens’ landlocked Lexington became a symbol, in comparison to river city Louisville, of a Kentucky commercial center that lost out in the era of the steamboat: In 1820, Lexington’s population was more than five times that of Louisville, but by 1860 Louisville was three times larger than Lexington.

November 5