When Sam reached the age of four, the family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, a small town of about a thousand people. Situated on the West bank of the Mississippi River, roughly eighty miles north of St. Louis, Hannibal was dusty, quiet, and in walking distance of large forests. The surrounding land and waterways provided young Sam countless images for his future writings. The Mississippi River shoreline was constantly occupied with rafts, skiffs, and large steamboats moving up and down the main artery between the North and the South. The tanyard, where Pap Finn would later sleep among the hogs, was found nearby, and downstream was a small cave where Indian Joe would later trap Tom and Becky in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Hannibal would eventually become “St. Petersburg” in Tom Sawyer and the same town was used for the initial setting in Huck Finn.
With its rustic landscape, bustling river traffic, and scores of eager pioneers passing through on their way to fortune in the West, Hannibal introduced Sam to an America that was quickly moving out of the frontier age. More important, the town introduced the young boy to two substantial aspects of American life: the concept of slavery and the reality of death. Although Missouri was a slave state, Hannibal’s northern position resulted in a part slave/part free community. At that time, Sam did not trouble himself with the distinction. His recollections of childhood included his attitude toward slavery, and he later acknowledged that he was unaware of its inhumanity: “I had no aversion to slavery. I was not aware that there was anything wrong about it.”
