BOOK REVIEW

    Bell, James E.  _Mark Twain and 8100 Goggin Kin_.  Bell Books,
    Randy & Ellen Bell, P.O. Box 49, Rich Hill, MO 64779.  (417) 395-2275.
    Map.  Photos.  Pp. 472.  $30.00 + $5.00 shipping (which includes
    insurance). Missouri residents add $1.57 sales tax or a MO tax
    exempt number.  To order, contact the author at (573) 358-1640.

        Reviewed for the Mark Twain Forum by
        Mary Leah Christmas

    Copyright (c) 2001 Mark Twain Forum.  This review may not be
    published or redistributed in any medium without permission.


To the general public, _Mark Twain and 8100 Goggin Kin_ is a handsomely
produced reference book.  To scholarly types, it is a charming volume
containing much helpful historical, genealogical and biographical material.
To seekers of the profound, however, _Mark Twain and 8100 Goggin Kin_ is a
four-dimensional phone book.  Those of a sensitive, imaginative nature will
readily perceive this book possesses that elusive quality of time
transcendence.

Many people interested in genealogy routinely check motel phone books for
their own surnames.  In this inter-dimensional family directory, like any
ordinary phone book, the surnames vary; but all are unified by blood or
banns.  Each person is assigned a number according to his or her
generational rank (prefix) and individual indentifier (suffix).  Want to
talk to Sarah Jane Goggin Shy, who confronted Union pickets outside of
Ironton, Missouri?  Dial 5-53.  Care to reach William Leftwich Goggin, who
served as a U.S. Congressman and was a Whig candidate for Virginia governor
in 1859?  Dial 5-106.  To confer with Samuel Langhorne Clemens himself, dial
6-295.

The phone book allusion may be more apt than it seems.  The standard
American phone book gives few hints about those listed in its residential
pages.  However, in Iceland, because of patronymic naming practices,
individuals are listed alphabetically by their given names.  If more than
one person has the same given name and patronymic, as often happens, those
entries also list occupations.  This is the merest scintilla of biography,
but satisfying to those who care about such things.

_Mark Twain and 8100 Goggin Kin_ does not have biographical information for
every entry, but there is enough of it to make for fascinating reading.  One
learns of the family sagas--the ups and downs, the triumphs and heartbreaks.
Of Baptists and Presbyterians and Nazarenes, of Revolutionary and Civil War
veterans (several of whom died in service), cowboys, physicians,
postmasters, and a gymnast.  Of orange slices, marshmallow peanuts, and an
inside-out sofa.  Of cholera and measles, of at least two family members
injured or killed in falls from horses, of more than one death by tree
branch, and even a death by "house raising."  The latter was Mark Twain's
grandfather, Samuel Clemens, husband of Pamela Goggin Clemens (4-28).

Mr. Bell's book also contains some noteworthy vintage photographs.  One is
moved by the caption of the first photo in the book.  The posed portrait
shows a serious-faced group of Bell family members from the sixth and
seventh generations.  The text underneath reads, "...I dedicate this book to
these seven people who toiled from early morning to late at night.... They
endured many untold hardships...searching for a better life for themselves
and for those 'Goggin Kin' who would come later."  Another photo of an
enviable scene shows a crowd standing around Goggin's Landing on the
Cumberland River in Kentucky.  One wishes to project oneself into the
picture, perhaps to sit on a barrel and watch for Mark Twain's ancestors as
they pass by.

Flipping to the back of the book, on a map one can follow the routes of the
_Ark_ and the _Dove_ which carried the pioneer Nevilles, who married into
the Goggin family, from London to America in 1634.  The voyage took them, in
one prescient sweep, past the Canary Islands and Bermuda and landed them on
the Chesapeake and Potomac shores, the future geographical doorsteps of Mary
Ann Cord and John T. Lewis.

Returning to the front of the book, the chart of the Clemens family tree is
very detailed, but the lettering did not reproduce as well as one would
like.  There are also some pesky typos here, as elsewhere in the book, but
one must look at the big picture:  Better a flawed jewel than no jewel at
all.  The flaws, however, are part of this book's flavor.  Anyone involved
in genealogy knows that a family research project of this scope is never
truly "finished," so typos are simply a part of the changing scenery.

One shortcoming of the book, though, is the discovery that the surname index
is not comprehensive.  Such surnames as Branch, Huffman, Kissinger, and
Reitz appear in the text but not in the index.  What this representative
sampling has in common is that all are the family or maiden names of the
spouses of Goggin descendants (who do not have genealogical "phone
numbers").  These omissions may have been made for space reasons.  Mr.
Bell's book is the culmination of half a life's worth of research, and he
states that not all information was included in order to keep the book at or
under 500 pages.  But one winces a little at the unintended implication that
the spouses were not contributors to the Goggin line.  For the sake of
lineal purity, perhaps these surnames could have been compiled into a
separate list; but enumerating twelve generations of spouses would likely
have pushed the book beyond the desired page count.

Bell has written six books during his life, but he said in an interview with
the _Hannibal Courier-Post_ that this will be his last.  "I'm going to
continue to straighten up my own genealogy for my grandchildren," he said to
the newspaper interviewer, "but this is definitely my last book.  It's a lot
different doing something like this when you're 69 than it is when you're
74."

It should be noted that Mr. Bell's impetus to publish his Goggin research in
book form was provided by--ready for this?--a _phone call_!  The caller,
from the Mark Twain Birthplace Shrine, inquired whether there was a
connection between Mark Twain's Goggin ancestors and Goggin Mountain in
Reynolds County, Missouri.  Bell knew from his research that "Mark Twain's
grandmother, Pamela Goggin Clemens, was born in Bedford County, Virginia, as
were the Goggins who settled near the base of Goggin Mountain in 1829." (He
has yet to find the common ancestor.)

State funding for publication of this book was not available, so Mr. Bell
subsidized the project himself.  Sales have not been as brisk as he would
hope, and that is a shame.  This book is what is commonly called a "steal."
In fact, its title, alone, is well worth the purchase price.

Like _The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins_, in which a boy wore a hat
concealing numerous other hats, in a nesting fashion, James E. Bell has
given us Sam Clemens and his 8100 Goggin kin.  Do they ornament him, or does
he ornament them?  Let us call "Hello Central" and ask.

* * * *

A link to a list of surnames appearing in _Mark Twain and 8100 Goggin Kin_
will accompany the online version of this review on TwainWeb.

* * * *

ABOUT THE REVIEWER:  Mary Leah Christmas is an award-winning freelance
writer/editor with a background in book publishing.  She still owns her
childhood copy of _The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins_.  This is her
seventh review for the Mark Twain Forum.