Although “Twain’s Geography” has been removed from the Web, I continue to work on it on my home computer. I have been incorporating David Fears’ “Mark Twain Day By Day” entries, courtesy of the Center from Mark Twain Studies. I had reached the summer of 1880, when the Clemens family summered at Quarry Farm. August 3rd saw the arrival and speech of Fredrick Douglass at the Emancipation Day celebrations in Elmira, just a short distance from the farm.

Fredrick Douglass was a life-long friend of the Langdon family, long before Sam Clemens (Mark Twain) entered the scene. Jervis Langdon had assisted the escaped slave reach freedom. Sam’s marriage to Jervis’ daughter, Olivia, and close association with the Langdon family convinced Sam to mend the errors of his ways as a Hannibal, Missouri youth.

The question for me, at this point, was if Sam had attended Fredrick Douglass’ speech. Neither he nor Douglass ever mentioned it in public nor private writings. Matt Seybold, in his essay “Even If He Weren’t My Friend: Frederick Douglass & Mark Twain,” provides a strong argument for Twain’s attendance as well as reasons for the lack of mention.

Seybold’s essay has prompted me to jump forward in time to 1882, when Twain revisited the Mississippi River, along with a stenographer. His notes on the journey would result in the second half of his book, “Life on the Mississippi”. The first half was devoted to Sam’s learning the river and becoming a River Boat pilot.

Mark Twain would also become familiar with two other “Southern” writers, Joel Chandler Harris and George Washington Cable. Harris’ Uncle Remus’ stories may even have influenced Twain’s use of dialect. The return to the Mississippi River certainly influenced his return to a book nearly abandoned, “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”.

For my own project, I’ve begun to look more closely into the post civil war histories of those towns along the Mississippi visited by Mark Twain on his return to the river. These histories and Twain’s commentary in “Life on the Mississippi” serve to validate the comments made by Douglass in his Emancipation Day speech.