The Mark Twain family tree, from John Marshall Clemens to Nina Gabrilowitsch

John Marshall Clemens was born in Campbell County, Virginia, on 11 August 1798. Jane Lampton was born in Adair County, Kentucky, on 18 June 1803. They married at Columbia, Kentucky, on 6 May 1823.¹

Their first five children were born in Tennessee, at Gainesboro, Jamestown and Pall Mall. The family then moved to Florida, Missouri, where Samuel was born on 30 November 1835 and Henry in 1838, and later to Hannibal on the Mississippi.¹ John Marshall Clemens died suddenly of pneumonia in Hannibal on 24 March 1847, when Samuel was eleven.^2,1

Jane outlived her husband by 43 years. She died at Keokuk, Iowa, on 27 October 1890 and was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Hannibal.^1,2

Three of the seven children died young. Pleasant Hannibal lived three months, and the museum gives his birth as 1828 or 1829. Margaret died at Florida, Missouri, in August 1839, aged nine, and Benjamin died at Hannibal in May 1842, also aged nine.¹

Orion, the eldest, was born at Gainesboro in 1825. He married Mary Eleanor Stotts, called Mollie, in December 1854. Their only child, Jennie, was born in 1855 and died of spotted fever in 1864. Orion died at Keokuk in 1897.^1,2

Pamela married William Anderson Moffett, a commission merchant, in September 1851 and moved to St. Louis. Their children were Annie and Samuel Moffett.² Pamela died at Greenwich, Connecticut, in 1904.¹

Henry, the youngest, was born at Florida, Missouri, on 13 July 1838. He died at Memphis on 21 June 1858, from injuries in the explosion of the steamboat Pennsylvania.^1,2

Olivia Langdon, called Livy, was born in Elmira, New York, in 1845, the daughter of Jervis Langdon, a wealthy coal merchant, and Olivia Lewis Langdon.² She married Samuel Clemens in Elmira on 2 February 1870.^4,1

The family moved into their house in Hartford, Connecticut, on 19 September 1874. Money troubles took them to Europe in 1891, and they never lived in Hartford again. The house was sold in 1903.³

Summers were spent at Quarry Farm outside Elmira, the home of Livy’s sister Susan Crane and her husband Theodore. In 1874 the Cranes surprised their brother-in-law with a study, where he wrote major parts of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Life on the Mississippi.⁴ Livy died of heart failure in Florence, Italy, on 5 June 1904.²

Langdon, the only son, was born prematurely in Buffalo on 7 November 1870 and died on 2 June 1872.² Olivia Susan, called Susy, was born in Elmira on 19 March 1872. She died of spinal meningitis in Hartford on 18 August 1896.^2,1 The Mark Twain House records that her death made it too hard for Livy to return to the Hartford house.³

Clara was born on 8 June 1874. The museum in Hannibal gives Elmira as her birthplace, while the Mark Twain Project gives Hartford.^1,2 Jane Lampton Clemens, called Jean, was born in Elmira on 26 July 1880. She died at Stormfield, the house at Redding, Connecticut, on 24 December 1909, apparently of a heart attack during a seizure.² The museum page gives 24 September instead.¹

Of the four children, only Clara outlived her father. Samuel Clemens died at Redding on 21 April 1910.¹ He and most of his family lie in the Langdon and Clemens plot at Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira.⁴

Clara married Ossip Gabrilowitsch, a Russian pianist and conductor, in October 1909, two months before Jean died.² The museum gives the wedding day as 6 October.¹ Their only child, Nina, was born at Redding on 18 August 1910, four months after her grandfather died.¹

Ossip Gabrilowitsch died in 1936.² On 11 May 1944 Clara married Jacques Samossoud, and she died in San Diego on 19 November 1962.¹

Nina Gabrilowitsch died in Los Angeles on 16 January 1966. She had no children, so the Mark Twain family tree ends with her, and the museum states that there are no living direct descendants of Mark Twain.¹ For earlier generations, the same page lists ten generations of Clemens ancestors back to Richard Clements, born in Leicestershire, England, in 1506.¹