Gretchen, I certainly welcome the response. I also certainly welcome the
small steps that the Hannibal museum has made toward presenting some slave
history. I am the local person who has been poking and prodding to get what
little there is there -- though the real credit goes to Shelley Fisher
Fishkin for calling the omissions to people's attention.While I don't want
anyone being anything less than cordial to anyone, there are problems of
great magnitude in Hannibal beyond the issue of slavery. In response to your
posting, I will go into them in a bit of detail.
In 1989, the city council entered into a contract with a not-for-profit
corporation called, "The Mark Twain Home Foundation" to manage the boyhood
home. The foundation is composed of a small group of business people. The
business has been conducted has been done by a steering committee. The
problems that exist here are myriad.
Attendance at the museum was in the 200,000 people per annum range in
the mid-1980s. The Foundation initiated an admissions fee. This
precipitated an sharp drop in attendance -- which might be expected.
However, the decline has continued at an alarming rate. It was down to
100,000 in 1992. In 2000 approximately 80,000 came. In 2001 only 72,000
people attended. I believe that in large part this is attributable to the
policies of the foundation.
Of most concern to Twainiacs and historians of any stripe should be the
many significant fact errors.
Regarding the house, in 1842-43, the Clemens's property was sold for the
benefit of creditors. They were quite poor. John Marshall Clemens went to
work as a clerk for Holliday and McCune in 1845 as a clerk to supplement his
very modest income as Justice of the Peace which was a part-time job. Only
family intervention from St. Louis got the Clemens family back into the
little house following JMC's death in 1847. They could not have owned
anywhere near all the upper-middle-class accoutrements on display. They are
lovely period antiques, (and I love antiques) but not accurate. The Clemens
family struggled along. Jane took in boarders. If memory serves correctly,
Pamela gave piano lessons. After the office fire of the Journal, Sam and
Orion actually ran the newspaper out of the parlor. It was never, as
represented, the home of a prosperous Hannibal attorney. The Clemens family
lived a very hardscrabble existence here.
Which brings us to another substantial fact error: John Marshall Clemens
never practiced law in Missouri. Vicki and I have done extensive searches in
the courthouses. He was never licensed, nor practiced here. He was an
attorney in Tenn. and Ky. The office of justice of the peace did not require
him to be an attorney. When he died he was a candidate for clerk of the
circuit court -- a non-attorney position. He served as a court reporter for
some cases. But Hannibal has his "law office" on display and a tape
recording tells visitors how JMC met with clients in the parlor. (The
information about the professional status of JMC was presented to a meeting
of Jane Clemens's Neighbors nearly 10 years ago. The director of the museum
was present at the meeting.)
In January, the president of the Foundation, stated to a meeting that it
was his intention to continue to tell the story of "Tom Sawyer" in Hannibal.
He stated that there would be no "social history" included in the Hannibal
museum -- a buzz word for no black or slave history.
Perhaps my use of the term Mickey Mouse was too easy -- but the question
of culture vs. business came up in the context of Hartford and Disney --
excuse my taking the easy route. I didn't get up on the wrong side of the
bed, but I was a bit tired.
But also allow me to state clearly that there are serious problems here
whether I am cranky or not. I suspect that if enrollment at Elmira College
dropped by 2/3rds, there would be a lot of introspective analysis followed
by corrective adjustments.
You are most certainly correct that the museum has some fine
artifacts -- most unrelated to Clemens's life in Hannibal. I was shocked to
find that there is no inventory -- although one was supposed to have been
prepared twenty years ago.
I finally have unearthed the manner in which the Tom Sawyer story became
the story told by Hannibal. It is a story of George Mahan. George was born
in 1851 to slave owners. I have uncovered a case where George Mahan's
father captured a runaway slave and returned him to his owner. His father
was also active in the racist colonization movement. George Mahan was an
extremely conservative lawyer. He chose Tom Sawyer (which in fairness was
Twain's top selling book in his lifetime) as the story to tell. When
president of the Missouri State Historical Society, he had official historic
markers erected around town denoting where events from the novel "took
place." He gave the house to the city in 1912, nearly 15 years before Rev.
Armstrong discovered the stash of Hannibal newspapers in the attic of a
descendant of William League, editor of the Messenger. These papers were the
source for Minnie Mae Brashear's book and much of Dixon Wecter's book.
Unfortunately, Hannibal pretty much ignored this scholarship. Instead of
opting to tell the story of the historic Sam Clemens, it continued with the
Mahan presentation. This is as dated as many of the other ideas of 1912 when
children labored, women couldn't vote, and blacks suffered under the Jim
Crow Laws.
I am sending the mss of my book to my readers next friday -- I am
thankful to Vic Doyno, Robert Sattelmeyer and Kent Rasmussen for their help.
I will address some of the misconceptions about Sam Clemens's time in
Hannibal. Others will have to be addressed in a more detailed biography down
the road.
Gretchen, I sincerely appreciate your collegiality. I have no personal
objections to any individual here in Hannibal. The restored facilities for
the museum annex are very nice. Buildings are well-maintained. We certainly
do possess some nice goodies. But we have many, many problems that should
not be swept under the rug.
All the best to you in lovely Elmira,
Terrell
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