Mark Twain at 15.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, later known as Mark Twain,
was born in Florida, Missouri, on November 30, 1835.
Clemens was apprenticed to a printer at age 13 and later
worked for his older brother, who established the Hannibal
Journal. In 1857, the Keokuk Daily Post commissioned him
to write a series of comic travel letters, but after writing five
he decided to become a steamboat captain instead.
He signed on as a pilot’s apprentice in 1857 and received
his pilot’s license in 1859, when he was 23.
