ok the name Mark Twain as a reminder of life on the Mississippi. He would use this name as his pen name. In 1847 Clemens father died and he was apprenticed to two Hannibal printers and in 1851 he began setting type for and contributing sketches to his brother Orion’s Hannibal Journal. Later he worked as a printer in Keokuk, Iowa, New York City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and other cities. Later Clemens was a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River until the American Civil War brought an end to travel on the river. In 1861 Clemens served briefly as a volunteer soldier in the Confederated cavalry. Later that year he went with his brother to the newly created Nevada Territory, where he tried his hand at silver mining. In 1862 he became a reporter on the Territorial Enterprise in Virginia City, Nevada, and in 1863 he began signing his articles with the name Mark Twain, a Mississippi River phrase meaning “two fathoms deep.” After moving to San Francisco, California, in 1864, Twain met American writers Artemus Ward and Bret Harte, who encouraged him in his work. In 1865 Twain wrote a tale he had heard in the California gold fields called “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” Originally entitled “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog,” the piece was published in New York Saturday Press on November 18, 1865. A funny, western story, it gave relief to readers who were weary of Civil War news. An article in the Alta Californian on January 10, 1866, reported how New Yorkers reacted to the story. “Mark Twains story in the Saturday Press on November 18, called “Jim Smiley”s Jumping Frog,” has set all New York in a roar, and he may be said to have made his mark. I have been asked fifty times about it and its author, and the papers are copying it far and near. It is voted the best thing of its day.”# In 1867 Twain lectured i...
