Hannibal, Missouri is all about Mark Twain. Every motel, shop and restaurant is named after Twain, Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn. We drove at the Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum which is just a block or so from the Mississippi River. You wouldn't know the river was there, though, as a high earthen levee blocks the view. The museum consists of seven buildings all for the same admission. We started at the Interpretive Center which had a great display tracking the life of Samuel Clemens or Mark Twain as the world now knows him. There were many quotes from his autobiography as well as excerpts from his books. We didn't realize what a humorist he was. Most of his books were based on his own life and people he knew. Huckleberry Finn (Tom Blankenship) was a neighbor and son of the town drunk. Because his father couldn't afford to send him to school and he spent a lot of time getting into trouble, he was the "bad" boy all the other boys wanted to emulate. A reproduction of his poor home was what we visited next before moving on to Mark Twain's boyhood home. The two story house that Twain lived in from ages four to seventeen is one room deep and three rooms wide. Covered in clapboards, it was a typical home for the era.
 |
| Huckleberry Finn House |
 |
| Boyhood Home |
Across the street is the Becky Thatcher House. Becky, the girlfriend of Tom Sawyer was really Laura Hawkins, Samuel's first love at an early age and this is where she lived. Laura and Twain remained friends until his death in 1910. Her house was much larger and fancier. Next to that was the office building of J. M. Clemens - Justice of the Peace. Twain's father worked at many jobs in his life, most unsuccessfully. As a justice of the peace, he presided over trials and was called judge the rest of his life.
 |
| Becky Thatcher House |
 |
| J. M. Clemons - Justice of the Peace |
 |
| Tom Sawyer and Beck;y Thatcher |
We took a walk to the waterfront, crossing several sets of railroad tracks, where there was another memorial to Mark Twain. A paddlewheel boat called the Mark Twain was docked at the river's edge. We decided to do the trip on that some other time. We walked back to Main Street and had lunch at Ole Planters Restaurant before visiting the Museum Gallery. The first floor of the gallery had interactive exhibits featuring five of Twain's books. On the river raft, we sat and watched excerpts from the movie, "Huckleberry Finn". On the top floor is an exhibit of unique artifacts from the Clemens family as well as fifteen original Norman Rockwell paintings of Tom and Huck, illustrations for a special edition. Rockwell was the only illustrator to ever visit Hannibal so his images were better depictions of the area. All other illustrators had stalactites in the cave...there are none.
 |
| The Mark Twain |
 |
| Norman Rockwell Sketch and Painting |
We drove a way on the Great River Road which stretches for about two thousand miles along the Mississippi river. We have been on other stretches before and each stretch is scenic with views of the river. On to Walmart for groceries and home to make white enchiladas. Yum!! While cooking, we had a thunderstorm that shut the TV off. We were afraid that it had blown our entertainment center but once the storm let up Ted found a ground fault protector in one of the lower compartments and luckily was able to reset it to get the system back up and running.
 |
| Great River Road |
By the way, Molly Brown, who Debbie Reynolds played in "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" was also born in a two room house in Hannibal.
No comments:
Post a Comment