The Joys of Childhood

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June 18th 2011

Published: March 11th 2012

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Tom and Huck Statue

Tom Sawyer and Hick Finn, "the most famous fictional children in the world"

As a child, I read a book called Tom Sawyer.

I found it a funny yarn about childhood hijinks that was hard to put down.

I had no idea at the time that it was a classic work of American Literature by a genius named Mark Twain.

It was just a really good read.

Contrast this with when I read Huckleberry Finn in junior high school.

At that point, the book was an Important Work of Literature full of deep themes that I had to find and analyze.

According to my teacher, the trip down the Mississippi was both an allegory for the passage to adulthood and an anti-slavery narrative.

Needless to say, I hated reading that book.

There is a message in this experience.

Hannibal

Today, I explore the real life behind those great stories.

Mark Twain’s real name is Samuel Clemens.

He grew up in Hannibal, Missouri.

Many of the stories in Tom Sawyer are based on things that really happened in his childhood.

Hannibal at this point has been turned into a Mark Twain theme park, with nearly everything in town claiming some sort of association to the author, no matter how tenuous.

Still, with deep

Hannibal Missouri

Hannibal, the boyhood home of Mark Twain. I took the photo from the bluff called "Lovers Leap" in the books.

research it’s a fun place to spend a day.

The first striking thing about Hannibal is the view on the drive in.

The town is located between two bluffs along the river, just as St. Petersburg is in the books.

Most of the buildings are old.

At the northern end of the main street sits a small park with a statue of Tom and Huck, “the most famous fictional children in the world”.

Of course, the park lies next to the first of many gift shops.

Mark Twain

The best museum in town is the Mark Twain Boyhood museum, near the statue.

As the name implies, it tells the story of Samuel Clemens’ life in Hannibal until he left at age 17.

Every section is illustrated with quotes from Twain’s writings.

I liked this quite a bit.

His parents moved often looking for work.

Eventually, they settled in Hannibal in 1839.

Samuel Clemens’ father made enough money to build a house in 1844.

Unfortunately, he then lost a large amount in a recession, and was forced to sell two years later.

The family

Mark Twain boyhood home

The house Mark Twain lived in as a boy. Note the drainpipe, which was added later to match the one in Tom Sawyer.

moved into an apartment above the town drug store.

Samuel Clemens needed to work early in life, so he became an apprentice in a print shop at age 12 in 1846.

He learned a great deal about the “word business” as he called it during four years of printing handbills, newspapers, and many other things.

When he was sixteen, his older brother Orion became publisher of a local paper, the Western Union (no relation to the telegraph company!) and hired Samuel as a reporter.

Samuel loved the job, until the paper went bankrupt two years later.

At that point, he left to get the job every ambitious boy in town really wanted, working on a river boat.

He quickly rose to the most difficult job, boat pilot.

“Mark Twain” is the name for depth soundings on the Mississippi.

The next section of the museum compares situations from Tom Sawyer to things documented to have happened in real life.

Mark Twain’s working method for the book was to take things he remembered from Hannibal and exaggerate them for humorous effect.

Some he completely made up.

Becky Thatcher was

Mark Twain bedroom

Mark Twain as an adult remembers his youth, at the Mark Twain boyhood home.

based on a blond haired girl who really did live across the street from Samuel Clemens, Anna Laura Hawkins.

Unlike in the book, she turned him down 😞

Injun Joe was based on an old Native American who lived in town at the time, although in real life he was pretty nice.

The incident with the cookie jar is real, as is the incident with the stomach medicine.

The cave really does exist, and kids from town really did play in it (more on that later).

The famous whitewash fence sequence is a fantasy Samuel Clemens had while working on the family fence growing up.

The museum is attached to the 1844 house the Clemens occupied.

The house part has a very curious interpretation.

It is set to the period of a visit Samuel Clemens made to Hannibal as an adult after he had become famous, in 1902.

The rooms are illustrated with quotes from various writings.

The theme appears to be Mark Twain remembering his own childhood, to tie in with the depiction of childhood in his most famous books.

The house itself is simple but

The Tom Sawyer Fence

Hannibal's most famous tourist attraction, a real fence replicating a fictional one. It has become a historic site!

comfortable.

It does not have much decoration.

It reminded me quite a bit of the frontier houses I had seen elsewhere (see History, for a City that Doesn’t Like Any).

It has statues of Mark Twain (as an adult) deep in thought at many points.

Next to the house lies something that shows just how much of a theme park Hannibal has become.

The item is a whitewashed fence.

Of course, there is a whitewash bucket in front of it so people can recreate the famous scene.

The surprise, which signals the tourist trap, is a historic marker listing this as “The Tom Sawyer Fence”.

A real fence built in 1937 that replicates a fictional one is now so famous it has become historic!

At the corner of the street sits the drugstore that the Clemens lived above, the Pilaster House.

It features in several books.

The store is being restored, so it’s not open currently.

Still, people can look in the windows and see arrays of old medicine bottles and other things.

The other notable museum in town is the Twain Story

Grant's Drug Store

Mark Twain lived in an apartment on the second floor of this building after his family lost their house.

Museum.

This museum focuses on the stories Twain wrote.

It has two main features.

The first is a series of dioramas illustrating famous scenes from various books.

Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn take up much of the space, but Roughing It, Life on the Mississippi, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, and others make an appearance.

Go with the obvious corniness and it will be fun.

The other feature is the history of the books Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn after they were published.

The books have appeared in dozens of languages, and the museum has copies of many of them.

The museum has a precious set of Mark Twain first editions.

It has letters and props from the movie versions of both books.

In 1934, Norman Rockwell painted a series of paintings for an edition of Tom Sawyer.

The paintings are notable because he was the only artist to actually visit Hannibal before making illustrations.

The museum has the paintings on display (one can also buy a deluxe reprint of the edition, for $75!)

Mark Twain's Cave

The last Twain site I saw in Hannibal was

Mark Twain Cave

A typical passage in Mark Twain Cave. Note the lack of formations, the wavy walls, and the black and tan bands in the rock.

a cave.

Soon after Tom Sawyer came out, local promoters realized that the cave in the book was based on a real one in Hannibal.

They promptly opened it as “Mark Twain’s Cave”, and it has been a tourist site ever since.

The cave is very different to others I have seen.

The limestone formed in horizontal bands alternating with harder rocks.

It mostly dissolved along fractures.

The result is a cave where all walls have wavy shapes, they are colored black and white like zebra stripes, and the passages form a criss-crossing maze.

The cave has relatively few features.

The guide mentions how important it is to stay together and not get lost.

Tom Sawyer contains many accurate descriptions of the cave.

The guide points out many spots which are reflected in the books, and compares the book actions to what exists in real life.

The spot where Becky ran into bats really is a bat hive part of the year.

The hidden spring exists, and was named by Samuel Clemens.

The ledge drop where Tom and Becky overhead Injun

Cave Spring

The real version of the spring where Tom and Becky spent their night in the cave.

Joe is real, although a ramp has been carved out for visitors at this point.

The “treasure under the second cross” is partly real.

The location under two crossing veins in the ceiling exists, but the treasure was made up.

It was a fun visit, although too crowded to fantasize about running around in the dark the way Tom and Becky did.

After Hannibal, I had to drive to St. Louis.

I decided to take the river road, which is one of the prettiest drives in Missouri.

I’m not sure this was a good idea in the long run.

The scenery was special, with bluffs overlooking the wide river at every turn.

The problem is that the river was high, and flooded the road in many places.

Multiple times, I had to pull away from the river, drive through the hills to open farming land, and then drive back to the river.

In other places, I crossed bridges where the water was up to the support beams, and passed fields covered in water.

All in all, a very slow haul.

I got to St. Louis

Jonah's view

The pathway into a whale at the City Museum

after dark.

City Museum

My final sight of the night was a highlight of the trip so far.

The City Museum in St. Louis is likely the strangest museum a traveler will ever see.

The museum is a combination of folk art installation, fun house, and place to rediscover one’s inner child.

Anyone interested in underground art needs to be here at least once.

The museum is located in a former warehouse.

The first two floors are a jungle gym gone insane.

They are filled with rooms to explore, passages to crawl through, and whimsical decorations at every turn.

Be warned that some passages are kid sized, so adults will need to assess their dexterity, and their tolerance for tight spaces, before proceeding.

A set of stairs goes into the mouth of a giant whale.

At the top is a corridor over a pond filled with fish.

From here, one can climb (carefully!) onto the whale’s back, which leads to a tight tunnel of the type seen on playgrounds.

The tunnel is long and twisty, and has viewports over the museum floor.

Roller slide

A slide made of old rollers at the City Museum

It ends at a room whose walls are covered in old CDs.

From here a slide made of rollers drops back to the main floor.

In another passage, a narrow crawl space leads to a spider web made of thick wires.

Work across this to enter a half pipe suspended from the ceiling.

This leads to a tight hole into a hollow log.

I barely fit through this one.

Once in the log, I slid back to the corridor over the pond.

These are only two examples out of dozens.

What fun!

The third floor has four separate areas.

The first part is a curiosity museum.

Much of the items on display are old carnival equipment and metal folk art.

The second part is a room where the floor is covered in foam blocks.

People wade and swim through them, like overgrown kids at an indoor playground.

The third part looks like a skate park.

It was at one time, before it went defunct and the museum’s owner bought it.

Now, people run around on the ramps.

Skateless Skate Park

Former skate park at the City Museum, where people get to run around to their heart's content.

In the middle of the skate park is a huge sculpture of a pencil on its side.

This sculpture has come to symbolize the museum.

The last part is called the Art City.

It is filled with art supplies for people to make things.

I spent my time in a pit filled with colored building blocks.

Being an engineer, I created a delicate sculpture of precisely balanced cantilevered blocks.

Also being an engineer, I couldn’t resist then placing the smallest block possible on top and watching it all crash to the ground.

As fun as the jungle gym is on the inside, it can’t compare to the one in the yard.

This section has corridors and ramps and tunnels going everywhere, with things to explore at every turn.

Many of them are made of wires, iron bars, or mesh, so ability to scramble on all fours is a great asset.

The climb will probably work muscles visitors didn’t know they had.

Also, many of the passages are both tight and high up, so one can experience both claustrophobia and vertigo at the same time!

With

MonstroCity!

A portion of the MostroCity climbing area at City Museum.

those warnings in place, this place is a rush.

One set of stairs is designed to look like a huge metal vine.

Climbing it leads to a mesh corridor directly over the main courtyard.

If this causes problems, turn back now.

The corridor leads to the ball pit, where people of all ages get to throw rubber balls at each other.

This part is popular 😊

Branching from the same corridor is a tight narrow stairwell made of tilted steps.

The only way though it is to twist like a snake.

Push through it and one is rewarded with an even higher mesh corridor.

Another tight stairwell in a metal tube leads to one of the museum’s prizes, an old airplane fuselage on top of a pillar.

By the time someone reaches it, they are five stories off the ground.

Now the thrills really kick in.

It’s possible to climb on top of the airplane wings, protected by steel rails.

Crawl out on the fiberglass, and the reward is a stairwell down in a tube of wires.

Imagine

Climbing tube

One of the climbing tubes at MonstroCity at the City Museum. Its a mere five stories above the ground,

climbing down wire mesh four stories up to get the effect.

At the bottom lies another airplane.

Crawl through this one to the tail, and another tube leads to the top of a (reproduction) medieval tower.

One can now look at all the insane people climbing above.

This is just one path out of dozens.

One leads to a large metal tube painted to look like a tuba.

Slide in the tube and drop into the back of an old service truck.

Squeeze though a tight metal slot to reach the front of the truck.

My most compelling challenge was a tube of wires that ran UP to the corridor below the first airplane.

It has to be crawled on the belly, with the same fingertip crab crawl used to climb rocks.

Naturally, it has barely any space to move and the wires rubbed against my clothes.

Also naturally, it has wonderful views three stories straight down the whole way.

I took pictures during breaks from climbing 😊.

I cannot describe the combination of euphoria and exhaustion I felt upon reaching the top.

Additional photos below

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