of
Muscatine County Iowa
1911
| History of Muscatine County Iowa 1911 | |
Source: History of Muscatine County Iowa, Volume I, 1911, pages 390-391
ORION CLEMENS BECOMES PARTNER. The Mahins conducted the paper jointly until September, 1853, when Orion Clemens, a brother of the late Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), purchased an interest in the plant and the publication of the paper was continued under the firm name of Mahin & Clemens. The Clemens family first came to Muscatine in the early '50s, the widowed mother and her two sons, Henry and Orion, coming first. Orion was in the Journal office, while Henry during his residence in Muscatine was a clerk in the Burnett book store. Later Henry received fatal injuries in the explosion of the steamboat Pennsylvania at Ship Island, in which one hundred and fifty persons lost their lives. He died at Memphis, Tennessee, six days after the explosion.
MARK TWAIN IN JOURNAL OFFICE. Some time after the Clemens family removed to Muscatine the family circle was joined by Samuel Clemens. Samuel was a printer and secured employment in the office of this paper, working here for a short time during the year of 1853, while his brother was one of the part owners of the plant. One beautiful fall day, office tradition recalls, he took a notion to trave. Taking his rule, he set out and the next heard from him was the receipt by the Journal of a splendidly written account of the Fairmont waterworks, then newly completed in Philadelphia, and at that time the finest waterworks system in the land. In this article which is said to have been the first he ever wrote for a newspaper, he showed his marvelous powers of description which were so often displayed in his later writings. The firm of Mahin & Clemens continued until January, 1855, when the Mahins sold out their interests to a young printer who had been employed in the Journal office,--Charles H. Wilson, now one of the most prominent residents of Washington, Iowa. The tri-weekly edition of the Journal was established by Mahin & Clemens in June, 1854. It was later discontinued.
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