IN A RENTED TWO-ROOM clapboard cabin, Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born on November 30, 1835. He was the sixth child of John and Jane Clemens. That cabin still stands, protected by a museum.
Merritt Alexander “Dad” Violette, whose mother had known the Clemens family in Florida, Missouri, bought the deteriorated cabin in 1915 and moved it across the street to property he owned. Later, with his backing, the Mark Twain Memorial Park Association was organized and bought land adjacent to Florida for a park to memorialize Twain. Violette presented the cabin to the association, and then it transferred the cabin and land to the state. This was the first state park north of the Missouri River.
Upon seeing a picture of the simple cabin he was born in years after having moved, Mark Twain wrote, “Heretofore, I have always stated that it was a palace, but I shall be more guarded now.”
The cabin was moved in 1930 from Florida to the new park, where it was placed on the highest point of old Hilltop Camp, a girls camp Violette had run. A primitive frame shelter protected it somewhat from the weather. In 1960, an ultra-modern museum building, complete with a hyperbolic paraboloid roof, was dedicated, and the simple two-room cabin now sits inside. The contrast between the soaring roof and the little cabin on the red tile floor is striking.
The museum contains a wealth of artifacts, exhibits, books, and a public reading room An original handwritten manuscript of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and a galley proof with his handwritten notes and corrections are on view.
13 acres
Monroe County
This article is printed in the Missouri State Parks second edition book. You can purchase the book here.
