As History.com notes, on this
day in 1859, a 23-year-old Missouri youth named Samuel Langhorne Clemens, later
known as Mark Twain, received his steamboat pilot’s license.
Clemens had signed on as a
pilot’s apprentice in 1857 while on his way to Mississippi. He had been
commissioned to write a series of comic travel letters for the Keokuk Daily
Post, but after writing five, decided he’d rather be a pilot than a writer. He piloted
his own boats for two years, until the Civil War halted steamboat traffic.
During his time as a pilot, he picked up the term “Mark Twain,” a boatman’s
call noting that the river was only two fathoms deep, the minimum depth for
safe navigation. When Clemens returned to writing in 1861, working for the
Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, he wrote a humorous travel letter signed
by “Mark Twain” and continued to use the pseudonym for nearly 50 years.
You can read the rest of the
piece via the below link:
You can also read my Philadelphia
Inquirer review of Chasing the Last Laugh: Mark Twain's Raucous and Redemptive Round-The-World Comedy Tour via the below link:
I also noted the event but with a provocation.
ReplyDeletehttps://informalinquiries2.blogspot.com/2018/04/mark-twain-gets-his-pilots-license.html
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