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Hannibal, MO —
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is Part I of a two-part series.
There are many things to comprehend during a tour of Mark Twain Cave.
Aladdin’s Palace is beautiful and Jesse James’ former hideout is eye-popping, but the real excitement is all around you. No matter where you look, they tell a story — staring at you in the face.
It’s not the crystallized quartz peaking through the stones, it’s not the rock formations that force tight squeezes in the walkways. It’s the writing on the wall, the names of explorers, adverturers and the curiosity of those who left their mark in the naivety of youth.
“I think the script is what always catches your eye,” Mark Twain Cave Owner Linda Colebeard said along the humid paths. “It’s that old time handwriting, fancy stuff.”
Names like Mr. C. Sappington and T.S. Nash are forever etched into the walls of the cave with a light carving. Other names are painted on with thick, old soot from kitchen stoves of long ago. Every corner you turn, every section you examine, nearly every space of every wall is covered with names of those who have gone before us, those who ventured the trails of the cave not know what to expect around the next corner.
“You had no idea back then how extensive this cave was,” Colebeard said.
There’s the mark of the Brewingtons from 1858 and Cornell in 1859. For some the date of their signature didn’t matter, just the shear enjoyment of putting their name on the wall to prove they were in the cave was just enough for people like H.B. Helling, John Bryan, Harold Treaster and Lislie Bowling. A large number of names have cities next to them. There’s a handful of guests from across the state who more than likely visited family and went through the cave with cousins from as far as Maryville, Mo., and as close as St. Louis. Others came several miles across the oceans from Cairo, Egypt and London, England to leave their name in the cave.
Smileys put their name in several areas of the cave, and if that name sounds familiar to you that’s because Jim Smiley was the main character in The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, one of Mark Twain’s most celebrated stories. Hannibal and its landmarks were used in many of Twain’s tales, and the cave that bears his name today is no exception. It’s where Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher tried to elude Injun Joe and it’s where a young Samuel Clemens played and searched before becoming Twain in print.
“We can just suppose that these were people in his era,” Colebeard said as she viewed a few names dated from the mid-1800s. “And we’ve got some people that we think are his boyhood friends. Of all the places here in the cave, if one his friends wrote his name through here, surely he did.”
A few areas are stained with the name Hawkins, perhaps a family member of Laura Hawkins Frazer whom Twain used as Thatcher’s character. But if the Hawkins are on cave walls along with the Smileys, who have significant roles in Twain’s writing, surely Sam Clemens’ autograph from his childhood days is somewhere?
Numerous Sams and Samuels can leave a person slightly startled while they carefully look over each area.
Is that him? Is that the signature of Sam Clemens, the local boy who left Hannibal at 17?
Unfortunately the excitement is a mere jolt of the heart as further examination reveals a last name or an associated date when Twain wasn’t living in town. It could take years and close study just to find Samuel Clemens in the walls of the cave, even a longtime Hannibal name like Blankenship was hard to find. Huckleberry Finn was modeled after Twain’s childhood chum Tom Blankenship who also explored the caves with him.
Yet not everyone gets to see a portion of these names, many of the names are off on trails that have been surveyed inside Mark Twain Cave but are not part of the actual tour.
“You don’t want people to touch and try to do anything,” Colebeard said. “I would take a person or a couple of people if they were researchers or if they were doing something special, but I wouldn’t take tourists down through here. You got to have something a little sacred.
Off the beaten path are more names that link to Hannibal’s past, including one who also became a famous son of Hannibal. Not as famous as Mark Twain, but he too impacted American culture.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is Part I of a two-part series.
There are many things to comprehend during a tour of Mark Twain Cave.
Aladdin’s Palace is beautiful and Jesse James’ former hideout is eye-popping, but the real excitement is all around you. No matter where you look, they tell a story — staring at you in the face.
It’s not the crystallized quartz peaking through the stones, it’s not the rock formations that force tight squeezes in the walkways. It’s the writing on the wall, the names of explorers, adverturers and the curiosity of those who left their mark in the naivety of youth.
“I think the script is what always catches your eye,” Mark Twain Cave Owner Linda Colebeard said along the humid paths. “It’s that old time handwriting, fancy stuff.”
Names like Mr. C. Sappington and T.S. Nash are forever etched into the walls of the cave with a light carving. Other names are painted on with thick, old soot from kitchen stoves of long ago. Every corner you turn, every section you examine, nearly every space of every wall is covered with names of those who have gone before us, those who ventured the trails of the cave not know what to expect around the next corner.
“You had no idea back then how extensive this cave was,” Colebeard said.
There’s the mark of the Brewingtons from 1858 and Cornell in 1859. For some the date of their signature didn’t matter, just the shear enjoyment of putting their name on the wall to prove they were in the cave was just enough for people like H.B. Helling, John Bryan, Harold Treaster and Lislie Bowling. A large number of names have cities next to them. There’s a handful of guests from across the state who more than likely visited family and went through the cave with cousins from as far as Maryville, Mo., and as close as St. Louis. Others came several miles across the oceans from Cairo, Egypt and London, England to leave their name in the cave.
Smileys put their name in several areas of the cave, and if that name sounds familiar to you that’s because Jim Smiley was the main character in The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, one of Mark Twain’s most celebrated stories. Hannibal and its landmarks were used in many of Twain’s tales, and the cave that bears his name today is no exception. It’s where Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher tried to elude Injun Joe and it’s where a young Samuel Clemens played and searched before becoming Twain in print.
“We can just suppose that these were people in his era,” Colebeard said as she viewed a few names dated from the mid-1800s. “And we’ve got some people that we think are his boyhood friends. Of all the places here in the cave, if one his friends wrote his name through here, surely he did.”
A few areas are stained with the name Hawkins, perhaps a family member of Laura Hawkins Frazer whom Twain used as Thatcher’s character. But if the Hawkins are on cave walls along with the Smileys, who have significant roles in Twain’s writing, surely Sam Clemens’ autograph from his childhood days is somewhere?
Numerous Sams and Samuels can leave a person slightly startled while they carefully look over each area.
Is that him? Is that the signature of Sam Clemens, the local boy who left Hannibal at 17?
Unfortunately the excitement is a mere jolt of the heart as further examination reveals a last name or an associated date when Twain wasn’t living in town. It could take years and close study just to find Samuel Clemens in the walls of the cave, even a longtime Hannibal name like Blankenship was hard to find. Huckleberry Finn was modeled after Twain’s childhood chum Tom Blankenship who also explored the caves with him.
Yet not everyone gets to see a portion of these names, many of the names are off on trails that have been surveyed inside Mark Twain Cave but are not part of the actual tour.
“You don’t want people to touch and try to do anything,” Colebeard said. “I would take a person or a couple of people if they were researchers or if they were doing something special, but I wouldn’t take tourists down through here. You got to have something a little sacred.
Off the beaten path are more names that link to Hannibal’s past, including one who also became a famous son of Hannibal. Not as famous as Mark Twain, but he too impacted American culture.
