When I hear the name Mark Twain, I think of riverboats steaming their way down the Mississippi River or classic white rocking chairs on a porch in Hartford. Before today, I didn’t think of Buffalo, but now I know better. The Buffalo Central Library’s Mark Twain Room has a special collection of Twain’s work and remembrances of the time he lived and worked in Buffalo from 1869-1871. Thanks to Albert Bigelow, Paine’s biography I discovered why Twain had been in Buffalo so briefly (was it the weather? or a bad chicken wing?). Twain first came to Western New York in 1868 to visit his friend, Charles Langdon, actually he was looking for an excuse to see Charles’s sister, the beautiful and fair Olivia. The Langdons lived on a farm in Elmira, about 150 miles southeast of Buffalo, and, after several blissful weeks it was clear that Twain could not go on without Olivia. At the time Twain was a semi-vagabond, he was big on the lecture circuit, travelled around the country and the world, and still considered himself more of a journalist than a novelist.
But he happily said goodbye to those carefree days and settled down with his new wife, and soon to be editor, in a house on Delaware Avenue in the heart of Buffalo (his father-in-law purchased the house as a wedding gift for the happy couple). Mr. Langdon also gave Twain a helping hand with the purchase of part of “The
Buffalo Express” (“The Express” merged with “The Buffalo Courier” in 1926 and continued to be published until 1982).
Just when everything was settled bad news reared its ugly head. Olivia’s father got sick and she went back to Elmira to be with him, after three months of suffering he died and Olivia was devastated. Things went from bad to worse when Olivia’s friend arrived to boost her spirits and proceeded to die of typhoid fever in their previously cheerful home. Olivia did give birth to their first son that year, but he was premature and his health hung in the balance. Twain, who was contracted to write humor columns for the paper, and was also working on a new book, couldn’t shake off the gloom and doom of his household. He quit the paper, even though it meant a financial loss, and the family headed first to Elmira to recover and then to Hartford, CT, where they lived for the next 20 years. The Clemens never returned to their home in Buffalo - it was packed up without them and sold. This is probably the reason that fans can visit Twain’s home in Hartford and not Buffalo. I was actually going to take my own tour to check out the house until I read that it had been torn down after a fire and was now a parking lot. A fitting conclusion to Twain’s Buffalo chapter.
While Samuel and Olivia Clemens probably wouldn’t remember Buffalo so fondly, Western New Yorkers certainly treasure the memory of their brief time in The Queen City and celebrate Twain’s legacy with an engaging exhibition at our library, recognizing another quirky story that make Buffalo an exceptional city.
But he happily said goodbye to those carefree days and settled down with his new wife, and soon to be editor, in a house on Delaware Avenue in the heart of Buffalo (his father-in-law purchased the house as a wedding gift for the happy couple). Mr. Langdon also gave Twain a helping hand with the purchase of part of “The
Buffalo Express” (“The Express” merged with “The Buffalo Courier” in 1926 and continued to be published until 1982).
Just when everything was settled bad news reared its ugly head. Olivia’s father got sick and she went back to Elmira to be with him, after three months of suffering he died and Olivia was devastated. Things went from bad to worse when Olivia’s friend arrived to boost her spirits and proceeded to die of typhoid fever in their previously cheerful home. Olivia did give birth to their first son that year, but he was premature and his health hung in the balance. Twain, who was contracted to write humor columns for the paper, and was also working on a new book, couldn’t shake off the gloom and doom of his household. He quit the paper, even though it meant a financial loss, and the family headed first to Elmira to recover and then to Hartford, CT, where they lived for the next 20 years. The Clemens never returned to their home in Buffalo - it was packed up without them and sold. This is probably the reason that fans can visit Twain’s home in Hartford and not Buffalo. I was actually going to take my own tour to check out the house until I read that it had been torn down after a fire and was now a parking lot. A fitting conclusion to Twain’s Buffalo chapter.
While Samuel and Olivia Clemens probably wouldn’t remember Buffalo so fondly, Western New Yorkers certainly treasure the memory of their brief time in The Queen City and celebrate Twain’s legacy with an engaging exhibition at our library, recognizing another quirky story that make Buffalo an exceptional city.
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