![]() |
![]() |
I've followed Mark Twain all around the world - it seems like anywhere I've been, he got there first. So far my favorite spots with Twain connections are Maui (He loved the place so much that he couldn't even write while he was there), Lake Tahoe, Virginia City, and Paris (which he hated).
Virginia City managed to give a flavor | ![]()
|
I went to his boyhood home in Hannibal Missouri when I was on my way across America to take a new job in New York in 1990. At that time, the boyhood home was undergoing a complete refurbishing, so I wasn't able to get a picture. There must have been 100 businesses that had the names Tom Sawyer or Mark Twain on their signs, but, curiously, there was little mention of Huck Finn. The picture below may look the cerebellum of a blue whale, but it is actually a picture taken inside Tom Sawyer's cave - one of the essential visits in Hannibal.
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
After he grew up, made a name for himself and made lots of money, he built this mansion in Hartford.:
![]() |
![]() | ![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
| Here is the house at Tedworth Square in London where he was living when he spoke the famous lines "reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." That visit was strange. |
In November, 2001, I signed up for the birthday walking tour of New York provided by Peter Salwen. There were just about a dozen of us, but we could not have hoped for better weather. We started off on Broadway, about a half mile south of Houston and worked our way up from the hotel where Sam and Livy first met to a pub where the intellectuals of 1866 hung out, to a site of the offices of the Webster Publishing Company, Cooper Union, where Twain gave his first New York speech, and finally the house on 10th Street where the family lived shortly before Livy's death. | |
Further upstate, Twain's grave in Elmira, New York is the last place you'd want to go when making a Twain pilgrimage. While there, you can also see the octogonal house where he did his writing - it's now on the campus of Elmira College.
![]() |
![]() |
Terry Ballard's
Professional Web Page