Fellow Forum members!  This conference at Elmira will be my first.  I am
looking forward to delivering my paper on slavery in Hannibal.  I hope
that each of you will please introduce yourselves.  I also hope that
anybody with a special interest in Hannibal from 1839 through 1861, John
Marshall Clemens or slavery will look me up and visit with me.
    I would like to thank each of you personally who wrote during the
campaign to keep the fellows who run the sites here in Hannibal from
building the ersatz schoolhouse and church.  You don't know how much you
helped.  We are still struggling to get the Foundation that administers
the Sam Clemens house for the city to adhere to historical principles.
Of course we have the perennial problem of historical markers denoting
events from the book Tom Sawyer.  The Sam Clemens house is relatively
historically accurate -- hooray! after I submitted proposals last year
they added a mention of a slave in the house and a pallet in the floor
where she would have slept!  We have pure fiction in the Becky Thatcher
house.  We have a curious blend of fiction and fact next door in John
Marshall Clemens' "law office" (paid for by the Missouri Bar Association
nonetheless).  Of course, John Marshall was real -- problem is that he
never practiced law in Hannibal.
    The newest work of blurring history announced at the last Foundation
meeting is to be a log cabin for "Huck Finn's" house on the site of the
old Blankenship property. I would love to hear from everyone who has
ideas on how to instill the importance of historical accuracy and
inclusiveness into Hannibal's presentation of Sam Clemens.  It seems
particularly ironic that while Hannibal has all of this lightweight
material about fictitious characters, we virtually ignore the important
issue of slavery and the crucial period of Sam's life working with
Joseph Ament and later his brother Orion at the newspapers.
    I would love to discuss these issues with folks over a cup of coffee
or glass of beer.  I'll be staying at the dormitory -- reliving my
college days and missing the air-conditioning.  Please say hello.  I'm
really looking forward to meeting you.  I enjoy following the
discussions on the e-mail.
    Terrell Dempsey