Visit to the Mark Twain House

Bust of Mark Twain in the entry way of the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut. This section of the house is very dark so I had to open the lens real wide to capture the image. The Twain House used gas lights back when Twain owned it and in the present day they do their best to emulate the look....Dark! The other interesting item in this photo is the Louis C. Tiffany & Co. wall stenciling.


This was something that I never noticed before- the gas "extension cord" from the ceiling gas light to the bedside gas lamp, next to... the smoking paraphernalia. How he lived to 74 is amazing!


The butler's area. This where the cook would bring the food to the butler. From here, the butler would plate it and bring it into the family.


Mahogany Room. This room is currently under renovation.


Mark Twain's Billiard Room. The most important room in the house! His writing area is in the far right corner.


Mark Twain as a Lego figure.


The Mark Twain Lego House from the Billiard Room side.


Mark Twain Lego House from the Front Entry side. This is a very cool exhibit in the cafe area of the Visitor Center. This was done in 1985 without the help of computers. How long did it take?? 700 hours!


How the Mark Twain House looks when you arrive.



The Mark Twain Carriage House from the Parking Lot. If you follow the Twain House on Twitter, the Tweets come from the far right corner of this building.


Entrance to the Mark Twain Exhibit inside the Visitor Center. The "Man in White" welcomes you.


Map of Mark Twain's Travels. The more you learn of these travels, the louder you'll hear Johnny Cash singing "I've been everywhere, man, I've been everywhere!" in your head.


Rare view of the Carriage House from the "off-limits" Billiard Room porch area.


The living room area. It is here where the family gathered around the fire to hear Twain's latest stories and I'm sure share their opinions of them.

The Redding/Hartford connection in this room is the mantle piece you can see a section of on the left hand side of the photo. This hand-carved piece from Scotland was made for the Hartford house but traveled with the family from there on after. It eventually ended up in Stormfield and was thought to have been lost in the fire of 1923...it wasn't, it was in a locals barn and eventually made it back home to Hartford again when that Redding gentleman learned of it's history & importance.


Full View of the fireplace and mantle.


Twain visited New Haven in 1885 and befriended Warner McGuinn, an African-American student who was struggling to remain in school. Twain paid the young man's expenses at Yale and McGuinn went on to become a respected lawyer who would later mentor Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.


The 1887 model of the Paige Typesetter. This is the only one left. The 1894 model was donated to Cornell University and was later donated to a scrap metal drive during World War II. Read the history of the Paige Typesetter.