NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK THEME: Arts and Sciences 

SUBTHEME: Literature, Drama and Music

Form 10-300 

(Rev. 6-72)

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES 

- NOMINATION FORM

e all entries complete applicable sections)

Connecticut

COUNT Y:

Hartford

FOR NPS USE ONLY

ENTRY DATE

C'OMMON:

Mark Twain House

AND/OR HISTORI C:

Mark Twain House

STREET AND NUMBER:

351 Farmington Avenue

CITY OR TOWN:

Hartford

CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT:

First

STATE

Connecticut 09 Hartford 003

CA;EtGORY 

( Check One)

OWNERSHIP STATUS ACCESSIBLE 

TO THE PUBLIC

Q District jQ Building

n Site Q Structure

D Object

D Public 

KX Private 

D Both

Public Acquisition: 

[D In Process 

[ | Being Considered

Occupied

D Unoccupied

p rescrvatjon work

in progress

Yes:

ffl Rcstrictcd 

D Unrestricted

' — ' ^°

PRESENT USE (Check One or More as Appropriate)

I 1 Agricultural

[ | Commercial

[ I Educational

I 1 Entertainment

I I Government

CD Industrial

Q Military

00 Museum

D Park

CD Private Residence

I I Religious

| | Scientific

Q Transportation 

CD Other (Specify)

CD Comments

OWNER'S NAME:

Mark Twain Memorial

STREET AND NUMBER:

351 Farmington Avenue

CITY OR TOWN:

Hartford

STATE:

Connecticut

CODF

09

COURTHOUSE, REGISTRY OF DEEDS, ETC:

Hartford City Hall

STREET AND NUMBER:

550 Main Street

Cl TY OR TOWN:

Hartford Connecticut 09

Hartford

TITUE OF SURVEY:

Historic American Buildings Survey

DATE OF SURVEY: ,"1967 Federal [D State County [D Local

DEPOSITORY FOR SURVEY RECORDS:

Division of Prints and Photographs

STREET AND NUMBER:

Library of Congress

CITY OR TOWN:

Washington District of Columbia 11
CONDITION

(Check One)

XX Excellent CD Good Q Fair (~~1 Deteriorated [~~| Ruins (~~1 Unexposed

CC/jecIc One; 

Altered ^f Unaltered

(Check One) 

Moved X3 Original Site

DESCRIBE THE PRESENT AND ORIGINAL (if known) PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

"The house was permanent polychrome and gingerbread Gothic; it was part 

steamboat, part medieval stronghold, and part cuckoo clock... It was the 

conspicuous symbol of his success as a writer, lecturer, and dramatist..." 

(Justin Kaplan in Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain) Clemens wanted a radical 

departure from the typical box-like Hartford houses of the period, and 

Edward Tuckerman Potter, an architect active in the Hartford area, designed 

for him this asymmetrical polychromatic brick structure, with sweeping 

wood cornices and gables and flamboyant patterns of black and vermilion 

brick.

Potter designed the house, but Mark Twain oversaw the construction and 

added and changed many features. He added a patch of tin to the roof so 

that he could hear the rain drumming, and a window over the dining-room 

fireplace so that he could watch the flames meeting the snowflakes. Around 

his house he built rambling, deck-like porches, and in the front hallway 

a compact, river-boat style staircase.

In the midst of the construction, 38 year old Samuel Clemens wrote to 

Mrs. Langdon, his mother-in-law:

I have been bullyragged all day by the builder, by 

his foreman, by the architect, by the tapestry'devil 

who is to upholster the furniture, by the idiot who 

is putting down the carpets, by the scoundrel who is 

setting up the billiard-table (and has left the balls 

in New York), by the wildcat who is sodding the ground 

and finishing the driveway (after the sun went down), 

by a book agent, whose body is in the back yard and 

the coroner notified. Just think of this thing going 

on the whole day long, and I am a man who loathes 

details with all my heart." (Albert Bigelow Paine 

in Mark Twain, a Biography, Vol. I, p. 520).

A contemporary description of the Mark Twain house, during its construction, 

comes from an account in The Hartford Daily Times of March 23,.1874, which 

called it, "one of the oddest looking buildings in the State ever designed 

for a dwelling, if not in the whole country." They gave the following 

report of it: "It is located on a lot of ground some 612 feet by about 400, 

just west of Forest Street, being on the south side of Farmington Avenue. 

It is of brick and three stories in height, fronting easterly. The 

extreme length of the building is 105 feet 4 inches; its extreme width 62 

feet 4 inches. On the west side there is an octagonal tower 48 or 50 feet 

in height; while at the extreme ends, north and south, of the house, there 

are towers of less height. The designs for the building were furnished by 

Edward T. Potter and Alfred H. Thorp, Architects, of New York. On the 

first floor there is to be a parlor, drawing-room or library, dining room 

and bedrooms. The drawing-room, on the rear of the south end of the 

building, is to open into a semicircular conservatory. On the second floor
SIGNIFICANCE

'ERIOD (Check One or More as Appropriate)

Q Pre-Columbian! CD 16th Century 

n 15th Century D 17th Century

18th Century 

19th Century

20th Century

SPECIFIC DATE(S) (It Applicable and Known) 1874-1903

AREAS OF SIGNIFICANCE (Check One or More as Appropriate)

Aboriginal | | Education [ | Politico!

Q Engineering Q Religion/PhiQ Industry losophy

[~~1 Invention Q Science

O Landscape Q Sculpture

Architecture Q Social/HumanKX Literature itarjan

n Military Q Theater

| | Music | | Transportation

I | Prehistoric

[H Historic

| | Agriculture

QQ Architecture

D Art

| | Commerce

| | Communications

| | Conservation

|~) Urban Planning 

n Other (Specify)

TATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE

From 1874 when it was completed, until financial disaster forced him 

to move his family to Europe in 1891, this was Mark Twain's home, and 

it remained his property until 1903. Because of the well-known characters 

Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Clemens is most readily identified 

with Hannibal and the Midwest. Ironically, however, he did not write in 

Missouri. It was during the 17 years he lived in this house he 

commissioned at 351 Farmington Avenue, Hartford, Connecticut, that 

numerous books, sketches and articles were written including The 

Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Prince 

and the Pauper, Life on the Mississippi, A Tramp Abroad and A 

Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. ~~

Samuel Clemens first came to Hartford in 1868 to discuss the publishing 

of Innocents Abroad with Elisha Bliss, persident of the American 

Publishing Company. Clemens liked Hartford from the time of that visit 

and shortly afterward wrote, "Of all the beautiful towns it has been my 

fortune to see this is the chief," (Alta California, September 6, 1868). 

In 1870 he married Olivia Langdon of Elmira, N.Y., and in 1871 he left 

his job on the Buffalo, N.Y. Express and moved to Hartford, attracted 

by its location, industry and list of literary and social personalities.

Because his publisher, Bliss, and many literary friends lived there, 

the Clemenses decided in 1873 to make Hartford their permanent residence. 

With the proceeds from the publication of Innocents Abroad they bought 

land and commissioned Edward Tuckerman Potter to design their house. 

The Clemens chose for their home the Nook Farm area, a small, closelyknit, influential community where the neighbors, among them Harriet 

Beecher Stowe and Charles Dudley Warner, and their many guests met for 

dinner parties and teas, charades and weekly stag billiard sessions. 

The elderly Mrs. Stowe often wandered into the Clemenses* home to play 

their piano. She designed their conservatory with its dripping fountain, 

similar to ones she designed for other Nook Farm houses.

The house was completed in September 1874 and Mr. and Mrs. Clemens and 

daughters Susy, born in 1872, and Clara, born in 1874, moved in. The 

third daughter, Jean was born in 1880. The house represents Samuel L. 

Clemens, successful author and family man. This house saw his rise to 

the peak of his creative powers and his tragic financial failure. In 

addition to the Clemens family, seven servants, numerous cats and as
$E #||OR ll&UO&RAPHtCAt REFERENCES , ...^ . .............

Clemens, Clara, My Father, Mark Twain (New York 1931).

Faude, Wilson H., "Mark Twain's Connec 

April-June 1974, Vol. 26 #2, j 

Kaplan, Jus tin, Mr. Clemens and Mark 1

Mark Twain in Hartford, booklet pub 1 is

Memorial Association (Hartforc 

Paine, Albert Bigelow, Mark Twain, a I

rticut Home" Historic Preservation

>p. 16-20. 

Vain (New York 1970) .

>hed by the Mark Twain Library and 

1 1958). 

biography, 3 vols. (New York 1912)

llllilf CXJRAPHtCAL DATA - : :"?J^-'^l.w*¥^

LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE COORDINATES 

DEFINING A RECTANGLE LOCATING THE PROPERTY 

————————— ————————————————————————— —————————————————————————

CORNER LATITUDE LONGITUDE

Degrees Minutes Seconds Degrees Minutes Seconds 

NW o , „ o , »

NE ° °

SE o , n o , »

SW ° o , .

LATITUDE AND LONGIT'JDE COORDINATES 

3 DEFINING THii (_tiMTS.R POIN 1 OF A PrtOPERTY 

_ OF LESS THAN TFN ACRES

XMrXM&X XXXXO&XiM

Degrees Minutes Seconds Degrees Minutes Seconds

O i » o i »

UTM 

18. 691020. 462626C

APPROXIMATE AC RE AGE O F NOMIN AT ED PROPERTY: 1-1/2 aCrCS

(LIST ALL STATES AND COUNTIES FOR PROPERTIES OVERLAPPING STATE OR COUNTY BOUNDARIES

STATE: CODE

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|lll;ii;RM:f Rf '!» Ai'll;i'Ii. ;: '•'• '; -P- := VIK: •=;•• "- '1 ^€!S¥S^^

NAME AND Tl TLE:

Blanche Higgins Schroer, Landmark Review Proiect: J. Walter Coleman, 1962

ORGANIZATION office of Archeology and Historic Preservation, DATE 

Historic Sites Survey, NPS Nov. 6, 1974

STREET AND NUMBER:

1100 L Street NW.

CITY OR TOWN:

Washington

f^lM&lllP^

As the designated State Liaison Officer for the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (Public Law 

89-665), I hereby nominate this property for inclusion 

in the National Register and certify that it has been 

evaluated according to the c-iteria and procedures set 

forth by the National Park Service. The recommended 

level of significance of this nomination is: 

National Q State Q Local Q

KUATIONAL HISTORIC

LANDMARKS ,• Name

Title

[(NATIONAL HISTORIC

Date

STATE

D.C.

CODE

m, >=;-<% :^lfidN;Al 'REOl;5t^^-V'e^J^:tiiPli^:::^:::;- :;:: :: : :::-::: ::i

I hereby certify that this property is included in the

National Register.

Director^ 'J^&jtf^'^Kfytff f°r' C Preserv

D,te Chicl««JK4KS) date

Arch. Sizrveys

ATTEST:

Date

I

tion

W

>

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1973-729-147/1442 3-I
Form No. 10-300a 

(Rev. 10-74)

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES 

INVENTORY - NOMINATION FORM

Mark Twain House

[(NATIONAL HI STOP.!/* 

CONTINUATION SHEET gi "TM NUMBER 7 PAGE

there will be a study, nursery, sewing-room and boudoir, house-keeper's room, 

servants' bedroom and numerous bath-rooms. On the third floor there will be 

a billiard-room, artists' friends' room, toilet and two servants' rooms. The 

dining-room, at the rear, on the north end of the house, has one feature we 

do not recollect to have seen in any other building, and that is a window 

directly above the fire-place. From it a pleasant view of the avenue is to 

be obtained. There are no less than five balconies about this building, beside 

that of the west tower. A verandah will run around the south end and the 

east front of the ground floor of the building, with an extensive covered 

projection of porte cochere (drive-way for carriages) on the east. The rooms 

will all be finished in black walnut and oak, except the nursery and bathrooms, 

in which butternut will be used. The main hall-way of the building, open from 

the first floor to the third, is 15 by 25 feet;...

"The novelty displayed in the architecture of the building, the oddity of its 

internal arrangement, and the fame of its owner, will all conspire to make 

it a house of note for a long time to come."

In 1881 the Clemenses remodeled and enlarged the house, adding a servants' 

wing on the northwest side. At this time they enlisted Louis Comfort Tiffany 

and Associated Artists (Samuel Coleman, Lockwood deForest and Candace Wheeler) 

to redecorate the principal rooms on the first floor. Tiffany and his partners 

had developed a daring style using pale tints and borrowing freely from 

American, Oriental, Turkish and Indian styles. Many of the Associated Artists' 

designs were adapted from native American flowers and plants and they introduced 

American glass, woods, textiles and metals in their work. Of all the important 

commissions this firm received, including the partial redecoration of the 

White House in 1882, its only surviving house open to the public is Mark Twain's 

Hartford home.

From 1903 to 1922 a family owned the house, leasing it to a boys' school from 

1917 to 1922. After that it became a warehouse and finally was divided into 

apartments. Slated for demolition, the building was saved in 1929 by the 

Friends of Hartford, who raised the $150,000 to purchase it. The apartments 

were left, the Hartford Public Library maintained a branch on the ground floor 

and the guest suite became a museum-memorial room. Not until 1955 did the 

Mark Twain Memorial have the funds to begin restoration of the house and open 

it to the public as a museum.

(Continued)
Form No. 10-300a 

(Rev. 10-74)

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES 

INVENTORY » NOMINATION FORM

Mark Twain House

DATE ENTE8ED

HISTORIC? 

CONTINUATION SHEET LAUDMAftKS ITEM NUMBER 7 PAGE

The board set high standards for the restoration, requiring documented 

evidence of the way things were before any restoration work began. All 

manuscipts, letters, contemporary articles, documents, all the stereopticon 

views in the Library of Congress, all historical references to the house, 

a room or an object in the house were carefully checked. Interviews with 

contemporaries of the Clemenses were arranged and recorded. Painstaking 

removal of paint, layer by layer, revealed the original wall colors and 

designs, sometimes beneath six or seven layers of paint. The uncovered 

areas were sealed and the walls then were covered with a fine canvas on which 

the original decoration was reproduced. Careful removal and checking of wood 

moldings and trim revealed original finished, wallpapers and even the placement 

and type of hardware used. Floors were scraped to locate original tackholes, 

which by their placement indicate the type and width of the original carpeting. 

Much of the hand stencilling and painting during the restoration was done by 

two brothers, Bernard and Leopold Sans local craftsmen trained in Germany.

The carriage house to the rear of the mansion has been somewhat altered and 

presently houses the Junior League offices and two rented apartments. The 

Memorial plans eventually to restore this building and use it as an orientation 

center, restoration laboratory and a gallery for the photographs, documents, 

Clemens memorabilia and Tiffany and deForest works that the Memorial has 

collected, some of which they display in the basement of the main house.

Boundary Description

The Mark Twain Memorial property contains the brick mansion and carriage house. 

The Clemens 1 greenhouse was torn down years ago. These are one of a group of 

three houses and one of two carriages houses remaining of the Nook Farm 

neighborhood. The other two extant houses are the home of Harriet Beecher 

Stowe at 77 Forest Street and a large Victorian mansion at the southwesterly 

corner of Farmington Avenue and Forest Street now housing the Nook Farm 

Research Library. Both the Library and the Stowe House are the property of 

the Stowe-Day Memorial Library and Historical Foundation. A carriage house 

at the rear of the Stowe House has become the Nook Farm Visitor's Center, 

serving both the Mark Twain House and the Stowe House. Presently no boundary 

divisions are easily perceptible between the properties of the Mark Twain 

Memorial and the Stowe-Day Foundation. South of these properties, covering 

the rest of the area that used to be the Nook Farm community is a large 

complex of modern school buildings, the new Hartford Public High School.

(Continued)
Form No. 10-300a 

(Rev. 10-74)

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

RECEIVED

NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES

DATE ENTERED INVENTORY -- NOMINATION FORM

Mark Twain House ___ ^NATIONAL HISTORIC

FOR NFS USE ONLY

COIMTIIMUATION SHEET_________________ITEM NUMBER 7_____PAGE 4__________________

The national historic landmark is the Mark Twain Memorial which includes 

the three-story mansion, the two-story carriage house and the well-screened 

parking lot to the west of the house, on one and one-half acres. Beginning 

at the northwestern corner, the property is bounded on the north by the 

southern curb of Farmington Avenue for 250 feet, on the east by the land 

and buildings of the Stowe-Day Memorial Library and Historical Foundation, 

along a line due south 227.85 feet, on the south by the Hartford Public High 

School for 183 feet, then 116 1/2 feet in a northwesterly curve, then 82.40 feet 

on the west to the point of beginning on Farmington Avenue.
Form No. 10-300a 

(Rev. 10-74)

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

RECEIVED

NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES

INVENTORY -- NOMINATION FORM

FOR NFS USE ONiY

DATE ENTERED

Mark Twain

HISTORIC

LANDMARKS ) 

CONTI NUATION SHEET ____________ ' ITEM NUMBER 8 PAGE 2

many as three collies roamed the house. Guests were frequent, dinner parties 

continual. Edwin Booth, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Thomas Nast, William Dean 

Howells, Sir Henry Morton Stanley, Gen. William T. Sherman, Gen. Philip H. 

Sheridan, Rudyard Kipling, Bret Harte and anyone on the way from Boston to 

New York City and elsewhere visited and dined there. The cost of this 

expensive house ($70,000 for the house, with $21,000 worth of furniture, 

on a $31,000 tract of land) plus the Clemenses' flamboyant style of living 

and entertaining, soon nearly equaled his income.

The Hartford period was not without disappointment and tragedy. The Clemenses 1 

only son, Langdon, died of diphtheria in 1872 at age two. Mark Twain's 

heavy investment in various inventions, principally the Paige typesetter, and 

the mismanagement of his own publishing firm placed severe strains on the budget, 

In 1891 he was forced to close the Hartford house and embark on a lecture 

tour to pay his debts. Clemens 1 inability to cope with finances coupled with 

the panic of 1893 wiped out his investments and the lectures had to be extended 

on a world-tour basis.

By 1896 the bills were paid and Susy and Jean prepared to join their parents 

and Clara in England. In the fall they planned to return to Hartford. On 

the day that Susy and Jean were to sail for England, Susy became ill, and 

within a few days she died of spinal meningitis. Of her death Clemens wrote, 

"She died at home. She had that privilege," Mrs. Clemens would not reenter 

the house and the family never returned to Hartford to live. In 1903 they sold 

the house and auctioned off the furnishings. Subsequently they lived in 

Elmira, Riverdale and New York, N.Y., and Florence, Italy. In 1908 Clemens 

built his house, Stormfield, in Redding, Connecticut, where he died two 

years later.

September 1974 marked the 100th anniversary of the Hartford house, which has 

been restored most authentically. The house, its decorations and its history 

represent a truly unique blend of owner, architect and interior decorator. 

As Samuel Clemens wrote in a letter, "To us, our house was not unsentient 

matter it had a heart, and a soul.... It was of us, and we were in its 

confidence, and lived in its grace and in the peace of its benediction. We 

never came home from an absence that its face did not light up and speak out 

its eloquent welcome and we could not enter it unmoved."

(Continued)
Form No. 10-300a 

(Rev. 10-74)

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES 

INVENTORY -- NOMINATION FORM DATE ENTERED

[(NATIONAL HISTORIC

LANDMARKS) 

CONTINUATION SHEET ITEM NUMBER 8 PAGE 3

This is the House that Mark built.

These are the bricks of various hue 

And shape and position, straight and askew, 

With the nooks and angles and gables too, 

Which make up the house presented to view, 

The curious house that Mark built.

This is the sunny and snug retreat,

At once both city and country seat,

Where he grinds out many a comical grist,

The author, architect, humorist,

The auctioneer and dramatist,

Who lives in the house that Mark built...

Samuel L. Clemens his maiden name; 

As a humorist not unknown to fame, 

As author or architect all the same, 

At auction or drama always game, 

An extravagant wag whom none can tame: 

He lives in the house that Mark built.

Here is the Innocent Abroad,

The patron too of the lightning rod;

And here disports the Jumping Frog,

Roughing it on his native log;

Tom Sawyer, with his graceless tricks,

Amuses the horse-car lunatics;

And here is the grim historic sage,

Who hurled in the facts of the Gilded Age,

In this curious house that Mark built.

And below is the alias autograph

Over which he has given you many a laugh,

This author, architect, humorist,

This auctioneer and dramatist,

Who still keeps grinding his comical grist

In his cozy, sunny and snug retreat,

At once both city and country seat,

Made up of bricks of various hue

And shape and position, straight and askew,

With its nooks and angles and gables too,

The curious house that Mark built.

Mark Twain 

Travelers Record 

January 1877
K TW^IJ^g M 0

BUILT 1874 EDWARD TUCKERMAN POTTER, ARCHITECT

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