Samuel Clemens

Samuel Clemens (b 1835) was a newspaper editor in San Francisco, California.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Florida, Missouri; when he was four, his family moved to Hannibal, a port town on the Mississippi River. Missouri had been admitted as a slave state in 1821 as part of the Missouri Compromise, and from an early age Clemens was exposed to the institution of slavery, a theme which Twain was to later explore in his work. As a teenager Clemens worked as an apprentice printer; when he was sixteen, he began writing humorous articles and newspaper sketches. When he was eighteen he left Hannibal, working as a printer in New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Cincinnati. At the age of 22, Clemens returned to Missouri and worked as a riverboat pilot until trade was interrupted by the War of Secession in 1861.

Missouri, although a slave state and considered by many to be part of the South, declined to join the Confederate States and remained loyal to the United States. When the war began, Clemens and his friends formed a Confederate militia, but he saw no military action and the militia disbanded after two weeks. (During the Second Mexican War, which Clemens scathingly criticized, this experience would cast doubt on Clemens' loyalty). His friends joined the Confederate Army; Clemens joined his brother, Orion, who had been appointed secretary to the territorial governor of Nevada, and headed west. They traveled for more than two weeks on a stagecoach across the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains to the silver-mining town of Virginia City, Nevada. On the way they visited the polygamous Mormon community in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Once in Nevada, Clemens became a miner, hoping to strike it rich discovering silver in the Comstock Lode. He stayed for long periods in camp with his fellow prospectors—another life experience that he later put to literary use. After failing as a miner, Clemens obtained work at a newspaper called the Daily Territorial Enterprise in Virginia City.

Clemens eventually migrated to San Francisco, where he became editor-in-chief of his own newspaper. He was critical of President James G. Blaine and San Francisco Mayor Sutro. Clemens opposed the Second Mexican War from start to finish.

He was the father of Ophelia Clemens.