Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe in Hartford, Connecticut

Mark Twain (1835-1910) and Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) used to live literally next door to each other in Hartford, Connecticut - Stowe at 77 Forest Street, and Twain at 351 Farmington Avenue.

'HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

DAUGHTER OF

THE REVEREND LYMAN AND ROXANNA FOOTE BEECHER

BORN LITCHFIELD CONNECTICUT 14 JUNE 1811

MARRIED AT CINCINNATI OHIO 6 JANUARY 1836

TO CALVIN ELLIS STOWE

WROTE "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN" AT BRUNSWICK MAINE IN 1851

RESIDED IN THIS HOUSE FROM 1873

UNTIL HER DEATH 1 JULY 1896'

'"AS COLUMBUS SOUGHT AN OLD CONTINENT AND DISCOVERED A NEW ONE SO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE MEANT TO WRITE AN ARGUMENT ON AN OLD THEME AND SUCCEEDED IN WRITING AN IMMORTAL CLASSIC!"

                                                                      WILLIAM LYON PHELPS'

'THIS TABLET PLACED BY

THE HARTFORD COLONY

NATIONAL SOCIETY

NEW ENGLAND WOMEN

13 JUNE 1935'

Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in Florida, Missouri, although he spent most of his childhood and youth in Hannibal in the same state, which would serve as the inspiration for 'St Petersburg' in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884).

Twain married Livy Langdon in 1870, and the following year the family moved to Hartford, where they initially rented a house, although in 1873 they commissioned Edward Tuckerman Potter, a New York architect, to design this house, where Twain wrote, among other books, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. They lived here until 1881

Harriet Beecher Stowe, of course, will no doubt always be associated with Uncle Tom's Cabin, the full text of which is here.