26 December 1860 • St. Louis, Mo. (MS facsimile: Masonic Light, Feb 1926, UCCL 10665)
To the W. M. Wardens and Bretheren Ⓐemendationof Polar Star Lodge No 79 A. F. and A. M.1explanatory note
The subscriber residing in St Louis of lawful age and by occupation a Pilot begs leave to state that unbiased by friends and uninfluenced by mercenary motives he freely and voluntary Ⓐemendationoffers himself as a candidate for the mysteries of Masonry and that he is prompted to solicit this privilege by a favorable opinion conceived of the Institution a desire of knowledge and a sincere wish of being serviceable to his fellow creatures. Should his petition be granted he will cheerfully conform to all the Ancient established usages and customs of the Fraternity
| Recommended by | Signed |
| John M. Leavenworth | |
| Tom Moore 2explanatory note | Sam. L. Clemens |
| Comm.– | |
| H. T. Taylor | |
| Defriez | |
| WannallⒶemendation4explanatory note |
Polar Star Lodge No. 79, of St. Louis, had more members than any other Missouri lodge, among them many rivermen (Jones, 363–64).
Moore and Clemens had been friends at least since they served together on the John J. Roe (see 6 July 59 to Mooreclick to open link). John M. Leavenworth was a clerk with the St. Louis wholesale grocery firm of William L. Ewing and Company (Robert V. Kennedy 1860, 161). He was also the brother of Mark and Zebulon Leavenworth, captain and pilot, respectively, of the John J. Roe, which Clemens had steered in August and September 1857.
The members of the committee appointed to consider Clemens’s petition have not been further identified. (One of them, evidently, inscribed these final four lines.) They reported favorably, and Clemens was elected on 13 February 1861. He received his first degree (Entered Apprentice) on 22 May, his second degree (Fellow Craft) on 12 June, and his third degree (Master Mason) on 10 July 1861. Although Clemens let his membership in Polar Star Lodge lapse while he was in the Far West, he did attend meetings of the Carson City and Angels Camp lodges on 24 March 1862 and 8 February 1865, respectively (Mace, 162). After reinstatement in Polar Star Lodge on 24 April 1867, he remained a Mason only until 8 October 1869, when the lodge granted his request for a demit, thereby accepting his resignation. (For a discussion of the Masonic influence on Clemens’s thought and work, see Jones, 363–73.)
References
- Machlis, Paul, ed. Union Catalog of Clemens Letters. Edited by Paul Machlis. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. [In some cases, UCCL catalog numbers cited in this volume supersede those assigned in 1986 and reflect corrections or additions to the catalog since publication. An updated version of the catalog can be consulted via the Letters Search page at MTPO.] 1986
- Iowa Masonic Library, Cedar Rapids.
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Mark Twain’s Letters, Volume 1: 1853–1866. Edited by Edgar Marquess Branch, Michael B. Frank, and Kenneth M. Sanderson. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 1988
- Denslow, Ray V. “Mark Twain, a Missouri Mason.” Missouri Grand Lodge Bulletin 1 (May): 53–60. 1924
- Jones, Alexander E. “Mark Twain and Freemasonry.” American Literature 26 (November): 363–73. 1954
- Kennedy, Robert V. Kennedy’s Saint Louis City Directory for the Year 1857. St. Louis: R. V. Kennedy. 1857
- Mace, William R. “Mark Twain: One of Our Great Freemasons.” California Freemason 7 (Autumn): 160–64. 1960
MS facsimile in “Mark Twain the Mason,” Masonic Light (Kansas City, Mo.: Masonic Light Publishing Co., February 1926), 9, in Iowa Masonic Library, Grand Lodge of Iowa, Cedar Rapids (IaCrM).
L1 , 106–107; Almost two years before publication of the MS facsimile in 1926, a transcript was published in Denslow, 56.
The location of the MS is unknown.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.