Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain was the sixth child of .
Jane Lampton and John Marshall Clemens. Mark was born in Florida, Missouri on .
November 30, 1835. Four years later, his father moved the family to Hannibal where .
Mark grew up. While he was growing up, writing wasn't what he dreamed of doing, he of .
being a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River. .
When Mark was 16 years old, he worked for his older brother, Orion. When he .
left Hannibal, he worked as a printer for New York and Philadelphia. When he was 21, .
he met a steamboat pilot named, Horace Bixby. Mark asked Bixby to teach him .
everything about being a steamboat pilot. Bixby refused to do it, then after Twain kept on .
harassing him, Bixby took the offer from Twain and made him pay $500. Twain lived on .
the Mississippi River for two years and at the age of 23, in 1857, he received his pilots .
license. .
Twain's pilot career ended because of the start of the Civil War. In 1861, Mark .
went with his brother, Orion to the Nevada Territory because Orion was appointed by .
President Lincoln as secretary of the new territory and Mark was Orion's secretary. .
When Twain returned to New York in 1867, he met Olivia Langdon, also known .
as Livy. She was the sister of his friend Jervis. After seeing Livy, Mark fell instantly in .
love with her. He asked her to marry him, and she saidno.? Twain's friends told him to .
go after her and he did. The next time he returned to visit her, he proposed to her again .
and this time she saidyes.? .
When the couple was married, Livy's father gave them a house in Buffalo, New .
York. In 1870, a tragic year for the couple, Livy's father and her closed friend died. Also .
their first child was born premature and only lived two years. Twain supported his family .
by going on a lecture tour, and in March, Mark and Livy had a daughter named, Susy. .
While returning to England with his family, he published The Gilded Age, his first .
