Remembering the day 150 years ago when Mark Twain spoke in Princeton

As Samuel L. Clemens, better known by his pen name, Mark Twain, prepared to address a Princeton audience 150 years ago on Dec. 22, 1871, he wasn’t quite sure what kind of reception he would receive.

By the early 1870s, the Missouri native, who was a former Mississippi River steamboat pilot, Nevada silver miner, newspaper reporter, traveler and author, had gained fame as a humorist.

He was in the midst of a lucrative but grueling four-month lecture tour, as detailed by author Ron Powers in his excellent 2005 biography, “Mark Twain: A Life.”

Behind Twain was his breakthrough short story, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” followed by “The Innocents Abroad,” “Roughing It,” his completed and soon-to-be-published second book, and several successful lecture tours.

Ahead of him were legendary works, such as “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” “Life on the Mississippi,” “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,” and many more books and short stories.

Back home in Hartford, Connecticut, Twain’s pregnant wife, Olivia, to whom he had been married for less than two years, worried about the health of their sickly son, 13-month-old Langdon, as she awaited the birth of the couple’s first daughter, Susan. (Langdon, sadly, would die of diphtheria six months later.)

In that context, three days before Christmas 1871, Twain found himself in Princeton, Illinois, en route to Patterson Hall on the third floor of the eight-year-old Converse building, a sturdy Italianate structure built of brick that still stands today. There, an eager audience assembled to hear the nation’s most famous humorist since the beloved Artemus Ward, who had died four years earlier.

Twain, coincidentally, chose Ward as his lecture topic for the evening — a topic that had not necessarily gone over well at several previous towns, but had been well received in others, according to Powers.

After lecturing in Chicago, Sandwich and Aurora on the three previous nights, Twain arrived in Princeton on Dec. 22 on a Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad train. He climbed into a horse-drawn buggy for the chilly ride from the city’s north end depot southward on Main Street more than a mile to the lecture hall, located at 646-648 S. Main St., just north of the Bureau County Courthouse.

The city, by then four decades old, had reached a population of 3,264, according to the 1870 census. Fifteen years earlier, Abraham Lincoln had spoken there. The late hometown pastor, abolitionist and congressman, Owen Lovejoy, also was well known to locals for his oratory.

However, while Princeton area residents turned out to hear Lincoln and Lovejoy speak on serious topics of national import, they wanted only entertainment from the famous Mark Twain. The author and humorist wanted nothing more than to oblige.

Twain’s personal appearance is generally known to posterity as a white-haired, white-suited older gentleman. In 1871, however, he was only 36 years old as he stepped in front of his Princeton audience. They beheld a man standing 5-foot 8 1/2-inches tall, weighing 145 pounds, with a full face, dark brown hair, a red mustache, and “light gray beautiful beaming eyes,” as he once jokingly described himself.

The hall Twain and his audience shared was large with a high ceiling and capable of holding several hundred people. History does not record how many local residents turned out for his lecture.

Twain typically began his Artemus Ward lectures, according to “Mark Twain Speaking,” edited by Paul Fatout, by introducing himself, setting forth an outline of his topic, and praising Ward (1834-1867) as “America’s greatest humorist.” Then came light-hearted anecdotes from Ward’s life, which included Ward’s early days in Maine, his writings for newspapers and comic journals and later his deliverance of well-received humorous presentations (one was titled “The Babes in the Woods”) in lecture halls in America and England.

“His inimitable way of pausing and hesitating, of gliding in a moment from seriousness to humor without appearing to be conscious of so doing, cannot be reproduced,” Twain typically would say in his Missouri drawl.

Twain also poked fun at himself during the Ward lecture by pledging to spare the audience from any of his own “philosophical deductions.”

“Strange as it may seem, I have always found that the effect produced by them upon an audience was that of intense and utter exasperation,” he said.

In advance of Twain’s lecture, the Bureau County Republican, published by J.W. Bailey, sang the humorist’s praises. “The mere announcement of this lecture will be sufficient to call out a crowded house, especially when it is known that Twain is to do up Artemus Ward, and other funny subjects,” an article stated on Dec. 14, 1871.

Again on Dec. 21, 1871, the newspaper touted the upcoming Twain lecture: “The American people have great respect and love for the first of American humorists, and no man can more appropriately renew his memory in the minds of our people, than his most worthy successor.”

However, in its Dec. 28 issue, the Republican offered what only could be described as faint praise in its review of Twain’s lecture.

“Well, we’ve heard Mark Twain and are satisfied: i.e., satisfied with his kind of lectures. One is enough to satisfy almost anybody; two lectures would be one too many, even for the strong stomachs of a country audience.

“His lecture consisted of a collection of A. Ward’s jokes, and a brief history of the great showman himself; passably told of course, but not anyway up to the standard of the original story teller.

“The best part of the lecture was a feeling reference to the death of Artemus Ward in England, among strangers, and this partially redeemed Mr. Twain in the estimation of his hearers.”

If traveling humorists like Twain weren’t always a country editor’s cup of tea, it can at least be said that Patterson Hall in 1871 and early 1872 offered other options.

Susan B. Anthony, the famed women’s rights advocate, preceded Twain earlier in 1871. The week before Twain’s appearance, on Dec. 16, the hall hosted Matilda Fletcher, who spoke about “Men and their Whims.” Soon after Twain’s lecture, the venue on Jan. 8 hosted the legendary abolitionist, orator and scholar, Frederick Douglass. His topic was Santo Domingo.

Apparently Twain got the message from his critics in Bureau County and beyond. Soon after his trip to Princeton, he wrote and began presenting a new lecture based on episodes from his upcoming book, “Roughing It.” The revamped talk, first delivered Dec. 28, 1871, in Danville, Illinois, was positively received by succeeding audiences as Twain’s 1871-72 lecture tour wound down.

For Mark Twain, lasting greatness is his literary legacy. For Princeton, the story of its brush with Twain’s greatness is worth remembering.

Author’s note: Other sources for this article are “Big Bureau and Bright Prairies” by Doris Parr Leonard; 1870 map of Princeton by Ruger and Stoner, Madison, Wis.; www.twainquotes.com; centerofthewest.org; “Roughing It” by Mark Twain; Bureau County Republican archives; www.princeton-il.com.

Note to readers: Jim Dunn, a retired editor of the Bureau County Republican, is a member of the Bureau County Historical Society Board.