Hannibal, Missouri -- Life, Literature Blend In Twain's River Town

HANNIBAL, Mo. - Although he never mentioned it by name in his novels, Mark Twain made Hannibal, Mo., the most famous small town in America - a place where a whitewashed board fence and the Mississippi River symbolized the spirit of childhood and those halcyon days when it was always summer.

Born in Florida, Mo., in 1835, Samuel Langhorne Clemens moved with his family to Hannibal in 1839. The sleepy village had a few new brick buildings scattered among old log cabins and frame dwellings, with the Mississippi on one side and prairie and forest on all the rest.

Here young Sam roamed the hills, explored nearby caves, swam and fished in the river, and watched with awe the great, smoke-belching riverboats that called at the dusty town.

Years later, writing as Mark Twain, he made many of the people, places, and adventures from his Hannibal childhood famous in "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."

Today, more than a quarter of a million people visit Hannibal annually to tour Mark Twain's Boyhood Home and other sites long familiar from Twain's works.

The house on Hill Street where Twain grew up was built in 1843 by his father, John Marshall Clemens. Only two blocks from the soaring towers of the grain elevators along the river, the small clapboard home underwent a yearlong restoration in 1990-91.

Self-guided tours of the home begin at the adjacent Mark Twain Home Museum Annex, where a short film refreshes your memories of Mark Twain. Exhibits include photos of Twain at various stages in his life, a lock of his hair, magazine covers, and ads for his books.

There are also photos of the people on which he based the characters in "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn," including his mother, Jane Clemens (Aunt Polly); Laura Hawkins (Becky Thatcher); and Tom Blankenship (Huck Finn).

From the Annex you move through a rose garden to the home, where five rooms and their period furnishings can be seen from a viewing platform.

Here is Tom's room, where he climbed out the window to join Huck Finn for a night's adventure, and the dining room, immortalized as the setting for the pain killer medicine episode in "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer." In real life, Mrs. Clemens did try out many patent medicines on her children, although she usually relied on a mixture of molasses and castor oil to cure whatever ailed them. Sam tried to avoid these and sometimes managed to pour his spoonful through a crack in the floor.

Adjoining the home is the Mark Twain Museum, filled with Twain mementos including rare first editions and foreign editions of his books.

There are many personal items: one of his famous white suits, the robe he wore while receiving a degree from Oxford University, two of his favorite pipes, and the desk on which he wrote portions of "Tom Sawyer."

Across the street is John Clemens' law office, which also provided the setting for scenes in Twain's writings.

In real life, young Sam Clemens came across the body of a murdered man temporarily "stored" in a back room of the building and, in fright, jumped out the window, taking the window sash with him.

"I didn't need the sash," he recalled in later years, "but it was handier to take it than to leave it so I took it. I wasn't exactly scared, but I was - ah - considerably agitated."

Next door is Becky Thatcher's house, once the home of Laura Hawkins, Twain's childhood friend who provided the model for Becky. Now occupied by a bookstore, the home has two upper level rooms maintained as they were when the Hawkins family lived there.

Next to the law office, at the corner of Hill and Main Street, is the 1830 Pilaster House, one of the oldest structures in Hannibal. The Clemens family lived here in 1846 and 1847, when John Clemens' debts forced him out of the house on Hill Street. The first floor of the building depicts an 1840s drug store, while the second floor is decorated with period furnishings.

A block away is Cardiff Hill, the scene of many of Tom and Huck's adventures. There's a statue of Tom and Huck by the sculptor Frederick Hibbard at the foot of the hill, and a lighthouse at the top, built as a memorial to Mark Twain in 1935.

Just south of town is Mark Twain Cave, made famous in Twains writings as McDougal's Cave.

Here, where Becky, Tom, and Huck had their adventures and tribulations with In'jun Joe, you can tour millions-of-years-old underground rooms.

Thousands of signatures cover the cave walls, among those of Laura Hawkins and Jesse James which are, unfortunately, not seen on the tour. But it's an interesting place and guides embellish the tour with true and fictional stories about the cave.

Although it's now an industrial city of some 20,000, in some ways, Hannibal hasn't changed all that much from Mark Twain's day. The Mississippi still sets the tone for life here and, while the ornate steamboats of Twain's day are long gone, squat towboats pushing long strings of barges still churn along the river.

The famed paddlewheelers Delta Queen and Mississippi Queen stop each summer, and you can tour the river aboard the riverboat Mark Twain, which departs from docks near Twain's Home.

Don Davenport is a freelance writer who lives in Verona, Wis.

-------------------------------------- IF YOU GO: -------------------------------------- -- Hannibal is 100 miles north of St. Louis, 300 miles southwest of Chicago. The Mark Twain Home and Museum is open year-round, 8 a.m.-6 p.m. in summer and 8 a.m.-5 p.m. in the spring and fall, with slightly reduced hours November through March. Admission is $4 adults, $2 age 6 through 12.

-- The Pilaster House, Clemens Law Office, and Becky Thatcher Bookstore maintain approximately the same hours. Admission is free, although you'11 need some dimes and quarters to hear the recorded descriptions at each.

-- The Mark Twain Cave is open year-round; admission is $7 adults, $6 seniors, and $3.50 age 5 through 12.

-- For additional information: Hannibal Visitors and Convention Bureau, P.O. Box 524, Hannibal, MO 63401; phone 1-314-221-2477.