florida

"I was born the 30th of November, 1835, in the almost invisible village of Florida, Monroe County, Missouri. I suppose Florida had less than three hundred inhabitants. It had two streets, each a couple of hundred yards long; the rest of the avenues mere lanes, with rail fences and cornfields on either side. Both the streets and the lanes were paved with the same material - tough black mud in wet times, deep dust in dry."
( from CD-ROM Twain's World, 'Mark Twain's Autobiography')

Florida,Missouri (Click here if you don't know where Florida is located.):
Surveyed and platted in the spring of 1831, Florida, Missouri, was built on high ground between the north and south forks of the Slat River in Monroe County. The John Marshall Clemens family moved to Florida in May or June 1835. Jane, pregnant at the time and miserable in St. Louis, wanted to be near her sister, Patsy Lampton Quarles, who lived with her husband John on a farm on the outskirts of Florida. The Clemens family initially lived in a small rented cottage, though in September John Marshall purchased two and three fourths acres of ground just outside the town's northern boundary and began to build a house. Their son, Samuel Longhorn Clemens, was born in Florida on 30 November 1835.
(from The Mark Twain Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and James D. Wilson, Garland,1993)

Birthplace:

IN THIS VILLAGE WAS BORN
NOVEMBER THIRTIETH
1835
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS

MARK TWAIN
HE CHEERED AND COMFORTED
A TIRED WORLD

ERECTED BY THE
STATE OF MISSOURI
1913

This pedestal is only left as a mark at Mark Twain's real birthplace. The cottage(house), which stood formerly here, and Mark Twain's bronze statue, which used to be on the pedestal, are moved to the Mark Twain Birthplace Memorial Shrine adjacent to the village of Florida. It surrounds the two-room 1830s cottage where Mark Twain was born. Also part of the shrine are "a library, a theater, and a museum area that features furniture from the Hartford, Connecticut, home, the manuscript of the Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), and numerous family portraits."

This cottage is furnished with period pieces.

Florida Cemetery(Margaret is buried here):

Clemens, Margaret Lampton (May 31, 1830, Jamestown, Tennessee - August 17, 1839, Florida, Missouri) Mark Twain's sister.
The fourth child of Twain's parents died when Twain was just under four years old. Her death, attributed to "bilious fever," was the last several misfortunes the family endured in Florida before moving o Hannibal three months later.

Access:
Mark Twain Birthplace State Historic Site

37352 Shrine Road, Stoutsville, MO 65283
(573) 565-3449
[Adjacent to the village of Florida, in Mark Twain State Park, off Hwy. 107 east on County Road U in Monroe County.]

Reference books:
The Mark Twain Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and James D. Wilson, Garland,1993

Mark Twain A-Z---The Essential Reference to his Life and Writings, R. Kent Rasmussen, OUP,1995

Mark Twain's First America: Florida, Missouri, 1835 - 1840, Ralph Gregory, 1965.[This is a very small book(or pamphlet). We got a copy at Becky Theacher Bookshop in Hannibal, 1987]

Twain's world(MULTIMEDIA CD-ROM), Bureau Development. Inc.,1993

The following books are available at

*The Mark Twain Encyclopedia

*Mark Twain A-Z---The Essential Reference to his Life and Writings

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* Twain's world(MULTIMEDIA CD-ROM)
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