{{Short description|Mother of author Mark Twain}} {{Infobox person | name = Jane Lampton Clemens | image = Portrait of Jane Lampton Clemens, Mother of Mark Twain.jpg | image_upright = .75 | birth_name = Jane Lampton | birth_date = {{birth date|1803|6|18}} | birth_place = [[Adair County, Kentucky]], U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|1890|10|27|1803|6|18}} | death_place = [[Keokuk, Iowa]], U.S. | spouse = [[John Marshall Clemens]] (m. 1823) | children = 7, including [[Orion Clemens|Orion]] and [[Mark Twain|Samuel]] }}
'''Jane Lampton Clemens''' (June 18, 1803 – October 27, 1890) was the mother of author [[Mark Twain]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Varble |first=Rachel (McBrayer) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lV9BAAAAIAAJ&q=Jane+Lampton+Clemens |title=Jane Clemens: The Story of Mark Twain's Mother |date=1964 |publisher=Doubleday |language=en}}</ref> She was the inspiration of the character "[[Aunt Polly]]" in Twain's 1876 novel ''[[The Adventures of Tom Sawyer]]''.<ref name=":4">{{Cite web |title=Mark Twain Project – Biographies – Clemens, Jane Lampton |url=https://www.marktwainproject.org/biographies/bio_clemens_jane.html |access-date=2022-12-28 |website=www.marktwainproject.org}}</ref><ref name=":5">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AYxcAAAAIBAJ&dq=%22Jane+Lampton+Clemens%22&pg=PA45&article_id=3601,3228380 |title=Youngstown Vindicator |publisher=Youngstown Vindicator |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":6">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oSdMAAAAIBAJ&dq=%22Jane+Lampton+Clemens%22&pg=PA4&article_id=3542,3283374 |title=Kentucky New Era |publisher=Kentucky New Era |language=en}}</ref> She was regarded as a "cheerful, affectionate, and strong woman" with a "gift for storytelling" and as the person from whom Mark Twain inherited his sense of humor.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Jane Lampton Chapter |url=http://www.kentuckydar.org/jane-lampton.html |access-date=2022-12-28 |website=www.kentuckydar.org |archive-date=2022-12-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221228043219/http://www.kentuckydar.org/jane-lampton.html |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite web |title=Jane Lampton Clemens |url=https://twain.lib.virginia.edu/projects/applebaum/jane.html |access-date=2022-12-28 |website=twain.lib.virginia.edu}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite news |last=Watts |first=Aretta |date=5 February 1928 |title=Mark Twain's Gay Mother: 'Becky Thatcher' Describes the Woman From Whom He Inherited His Sense of Humor |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=http://www.twainquotes.com/19280205.html |access-date=27 December 2022}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FH8rAAAAIBAJ&dq=%22Jane+Lampton+Clemens%22&pg=PA3&article_id=1690,1869254 |title=Lyon County Reporter |publisher=Lyon County Reporter |language=en}}</ref>
== Early life and family == Jane Lampton was born on June 18, 1803, in [[Adair County, Kentucky]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kleber |first=John E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CcceBgAAQBAJ&dq=Jane+Lampton+Clemens+education&pg=PA2 |title=The Kentucky Encyclopedia |date=2014-10-17 |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |isbn=978-0-8131-5901-0 |pages=2 |language=en}}</ref> the daughter of Benjamin Lampton and Margaret Casey Lampton. She grew up in [[Columbia, Kentucky]],<ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=2017-11-10 |title=The myth regarding Mark Twain's mother |url=https://www.winchestersun.com/2017/11/10/the-myth-regarding-mark-twains-mother/ |access-date=2022-12-28 |website=Winchester Sun |language=en}}</ref> and was known to be a good horsewoman and dancer.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Trombley |first=Laura E. Skandera |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iDg6dQVcLjoC&dq=%22Jane+Lampton+Clemens%22&pg=PA10 |title=Mark Twain in the Company of Women |date=1997 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0-8122-1619-6 |language=en}}</ref>{{Rp|page=10}} Her maternal grandfather was Colonel [[William Casey (Kentucky politician)|William Casey]], an early Kentucky pioneer and the namesake of [[Casey County, Kentucky]].<ref>{{cite book |author=Lewis Collins |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F5FQAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA124 |title=History of Kentucky |year=1877 |isbn=9780722249208 |page=124| publisher=Library Reprints, Incorporated }}</ref> When Colonel Casey became ill, Lampton learned medical skills from her grandfather, but he died when she was sixteen years old.<ref name="McMillen">{{Cite journal |last=McMillen |first=Margot |date=Fall 2020 |title=Jane Clemens, Slavery, and Abolitionists in Missouri |url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hft&AN=146695734&site=eds-live&scope=site |journal=Mark Twain Journal |volume=58 |issue=2 |pages=98–121}}</ref> One year later, Lampton's mother, Margaret, died.<ref name="McMillen"/>
She married [[John Marshall Clemens]] on May 26, 1823,<ref name="McMillen" /> in [[Columbia, Kentucky|Columbia]], [[Adair County, Kentucky]].<ref>"Kentucky, County Marriages, 1797–1954," database with images, FamilySearch.org</ref> She was a religiously conservative [[Presbyterianism|Presbyterian]], while her husband was an agnostic freethinker who admired [[Thomas Paine]].<ref name="Bush">Harold K. Bush, ''Mark Twain and the Spiritual Crisis of His Age'' (2007) pp. 30–36.</ref> Together, they had seven children, however four of them died before reaching the age of 20. Three of their children lived into adulthood, including [[Orion Clemens|Orion]] (1825–1897), Pamela (1827–1904), and Samuel (1835–1910).
== Later life == The Clemens family moved to [[Fentress County, Tennessee]], where her husband practiced law, operated a general store, and served as a [[county commissioner]], [[county clerk]], and acting [[attorney general]] as a [[Whig Party (United States)|conservative Whig]].<ref name="TwainEnc">{{citation |author=Oliver and Goldena Howard |title=The Mark Twain encyclopedia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zW1k-XS6XLEC&pg=PA153 |pages=153–4 |year=1993 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=9780824072124}}</ref>
The Clemens family owned several [[Slavery|enslaved persons]], and Twain later reflected on his mother's attitudes towards slavery,<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Tharp |first1=Angela |last2=Sloane |first2=David E. E. |date=2014-11-01 |title=An Analysis of Mark Twain's Use of Racial Terms When Describing African Americans |url=https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/mark-twain/article/12/1/83/248317/An-Analysis-of-Mark-Twain-s-Use-of-Racial-Terms |journal=The Mark Twain Annual |language=en |volume=12 |issue=1 |pages=83–93 |doi=10.5325/marktwaij.12.1.0083 |s2cid=144351913 |issn=1553-0981|url-access=subscription }}</ref> writing, "Kind-hearted and compassionate as she was, I think she was not conscious that slavery was a bald, grotesque, and unwarranted usurpation. She had never heard it assailed in any pulpit, but had heard it defended and sanctified in a thousand. As far as her experience went, the wise, the good, and the holy were unanimous in the belief that slavery was right, righteous, sacred, the peculiar pet of the Deity, and a condition which the slave himself ought to be daily and nightly thankful for."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Paine |first=Albert Bigelow |title=Mark Twain, a Biography |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2988/2988-h/2988-h.htm |access-date=2022-12-29 |website=www.gutenberg.org}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Twain |first=Mark |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k5e3TSKRsWUC&dq=Jane+Lampton+Clemens+slavery&pg=PA93 |title=Annotated Huckleberry Finn |date=2001 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |isbn=978-0-393-02039-7 |pages=353 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=McFarland |first=Philip |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SlCiB2hceVAC&dq=Jane+Lampton+Clemens+slavery&pg=PA168 |title=Mark Twain and the Colonel: Samuel L. Clemens, Theodore Roosevelt, and the Arrival of a New Century |date=2014-01-16 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-4422-1227-5 |pages=168 |language=en}}</ref> [[File:Jane Lampton Clemens.jpg|thumb|188x188px|Photograph of Clemens later in life, circa 1870s]] The cabin in which the Clemens family is believed to have lived in Fentress County is displayed as part of the collection of the [[Museum of Appalachia]] in Norris, Tennessee. In 1835, the Clemens family moved to [[Florida, Missouri]], where their son [[Samuel Clemen|Samuel]],<ref>{{cite news |author=Andrew Hoffmann |date=April 27, 1997 |title=Inventing Mark Twain |newspaper=New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/hoffman-twain.html}}
</ref> who was to become famous as the author Mark Twain, was born on November 30, 1835 (now preserved as the [[Mark Twain Birthplace State Historic Site]])<ref name="TwainEnc" />
In 1839, the Clemens family moved to [[Hannibal, Missouri]],<ref>{{cite web |title=Mark Twain, American Author and Humorist |url=http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/95nov/twain.html |access-date=2009-03-12}}</ref> a port town on the [[Mississippi River]] which was to eventually inspire some of Mark Twain's stories. The home in Hannibal is now known as the [[Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum]].
In the years following her husband's death in 1847, Clemens moved around living with her surviving children. During the [[American Civil War]] in the 1860s, Clemens was supportive of the cause of the [[Confederacy (American Civil War)|Confederacy]] and was described as a "fierce [[Secessionism in the American Civil War|secessionist]]."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hutchison |first=Coleman |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ovYTCwAAQBAJ&dq=Jane+Lampton+Clemens+slavery&pg=PT446 |title=A History of American Civil War Literature |date=2015-12-01 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-316-43241-9 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Pettit |first=Arthur G. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=E0wgEAAAQBAJ&dq=Jane+Lampton+Clemens+slavery&pg=PT20 |title=Mark Twain And The South |date=2021-05-11 |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |isbn=978-0-8131-8276-6 |language=en}}</ref> After Samuel married in 1870, Clemens went to live with her daughter Pamela, who like Samuel lived in upstate New York.<ref name=":7" />
When she lived in [[Keokuk, Iowa]], in the 1880s, Clemens was a neighbor and friend of feminist and suffragette [[Ida Hinman]].<ref>{{cite journal |date=1904 |title=January 3, 1904 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/118581424/ |journal=Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan |page=23 |accessdate=14 August 2017}}</ref> In 1880, Twain named his newborn daughter [[Jean Clemens|Jane Lampton "Jean" Clemens]] after his mother.<ref>{{Cite book |last= |first= |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zEyTEPNlz84C&dq=%22Jane+Lampton+Clemens%22+-wikipedia&pg=PA153 |title=Potsdam, New York |date=2004 |publisher=Arcadia Publishing |isbn=978-0-7385-3650-7 |pages=153 |language=en}}</ref>
== Death == Clemens died on October 27, 1890, in Keokuk at the age of 87. She was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Hannibal, Missouri.<ref name=":0" /> After her death, her son Mark Twain wrote, "The greatest difference which I find between her and the rest of the people whom I have known, is this, and it is a remarkable one: those others felt a strong interest in a few things, whereas to the very day of her death she felt a strong interest in the whole world and everything and everybody in it."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Mark Twain quotations – mother – Jane Lampton Clemens |url=http://www.twainquotes.com/ClemensJane.html |access-date=2022-12-28 |website=www.twainquotes.com}}</ref>
== Legacy == [[File:Tom Sawyer - 19-160.jpg|thumb|240x240px|Illustration of "Aunt Polly" by [[True Williams]] in ''[[The Adventures of Tom Sawyer]]'', 1876.]] The influence of Clemens on her son Mark Twain's writings has been the subject of scholarly debate and analysis.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Parsons |first=Coleman O. |date=1947 |title=The Devil and Samuel Clemens |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26439648 |journal=The Virginia Quarterly Review |volume=23 |issue=4 |pages=582–606 |jstor=26439648 |issn=0042-675X}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kisis |first=Michael J. |date=2012 |title=Because He Had Daughters |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41693896 |journal=The Mark Twain Annual |issue=10 |pages=24–34 |jstor=41693896 |issn=1553-0981}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Scharnhorst |first=Gary |date=2010 |editor-last=Smith |editor-first=Harriet Elinor |title=Mark Twain and His Discontents |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26367284 |journal=Resources for American Literary Study |volume=35 |pages=345–351 |doi=10.2307/26367284 |jstor=26367284 |issn=0048-7384|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Rasmussen |first=R. Kent |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VYsavOLN8HQC&dq=Jane+Lampton+Clemens+film&pg=PA1097 |title=Critical Companion to Mark Twain: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work |date=2014-05-14 |publisher=Infobase Publishing |isbn=978-1-4381-0852-0 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Clemens |first=Cyril |date=1953 |title=Mark Twain and Dwight D. Eisenhower |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/42657950 |journal=Mark Twain Quarterly |volume=9 |issue=3 |pages=1–4 |jstor=42657950 |issn=1080-7330}}</ref> She has been described as the person from whom Twain inherited his sense of humor and gift of storytelling.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Maranzani |first=Barbara |title=How Mark Twain's Childhood Influenced His Literary Works |url=https://www.biography.com/news/mark-twain-early-life-facts |access-date=2022-12-28 |website=Biography |date=8 September 2020 |language=en-us}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Malin |first=Irving |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bPFQAQAAIAAJ&q=%22Jane+Lampton+Clemens%22+-wikipedia |title=Psychoanalysis and American Fiction |date=1965 |publisher=Dutton |language=en}}</ref>
Twain wrote a memoir to his mother that was published in ''Mark Twain's Hannibal, Huck, and Tom''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Twain |first=Mark |title=Mark Twain's Hannibal, Huck & Tom |date=1969 |publisher=University of Calif. Press |others=Walter Blair |isbn=0-520-01501-0 |location=Berkeley |oclc=3841}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=SARGENT |first=MARK L. |date=1986 |title=A Connecticut Yankee in Jane Lampton's South: Mark Twain and the Regicide |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26475051 |journal=The Mississippi Quarterly |volume=40 |issue=1 |pages=21–31 |jstor=26475051 |issn=0026-637X}}</ref> In 1868, he delivered a speech in [[Washington, D.C.]], which served as a tribute to his mother and to mothers around the world.<ref>{{Cite web |title=1868 Toast to Woman |url=https://twain.lib.virginia.edu/onstage/woman68a.html |access-date=2022-12-29 |website=twain.lib.virginia.edu}}</ref>
Clemens was the inspiration behind the character of "Aunt Polly" in her son's novels ''[[The Adventures of Tom Sawyer]]'' and ''[[Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]].''<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":5" /><ref name=":6" />
State Historical Marker #128 in [[Columbia, Kentucky]], notes the location of the childhood home of Clemens.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Jane Lampton Home Historical Marker |url=https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=83397 |access-date=2022-12-28 |website=www.hmdb.org |language=en}}</ref> Clemens is also the namesake of the Columbia chapter of the [[Daughters of the American Revolution]].<ref name=":7">{{Cite web |last=Talbott |first=Tim |title=Jane Lampton House |url=https://explorekyhistory.ky.gov/items/show/217 |access-date=2022-12-28 |website=ExploreKYHistory |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":1" />
There is a display about the life of Clemens at the Mark Twain Birthplace State Historic Site Museum.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lowe |first=Hilary Iris |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xln12XvTo-YC&dq=%22Jane+Lampton+Clemens%22+-wikipedia&pg=PA25 |title=Mark Twain's Homes and Literary Tourism |date=2012-07-20 |publisher=University of Missouri Press |isbn=978-0-8262-7278-2 |language=en}}</ref>
Clemens is portrayed by [[Kay Johnson]] in the 1944 film, ''[[The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944 film)|The Adventures of Mark Twain]].''<ref>{{Citation |title=The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944) - IMDb |url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036582/characters/nm0425512 |access-date=2022-12-31}}</ref>
Clemens' story is shared in the 2001 Ken Burns documentary ''[[Mark Twain (film)|Mark Twain]],'' and she is portrayed by a female voice actor in the series.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Episode One |url=https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/mark-twain/video |access-date=2022-12-28 |website=Mark Twain {{!}} Ken Burns {{!}} PBS |language=en}}</ref>
== References == {{reflist}}
== Further reading == *{{Cite journal |last=McMillen |first=Margot |date=Fall 2020 |title=Jane Clemens, Slavery, and Abolitionists in Missouri |url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hft&AN=146695734&site=eds-live&scope=site |journal=Mark Twain Journal |volume=58 |issue=2 |pages=98–121}} *{{Cite book |last=Varble |first=Rachel M. |title=Jane Clemens: The story of Mark Twain's mother |date=1964-01-01 |publisher=Doubleday & Company |edition=1st |language=English}}
{{Mark Twain|state=collapsed}} {{Authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Clemens, Jane Lampton}} [[Category:1803 births]] [[Category:1890 deaths]] [[Category:Clemens family|Jane Lampton]] [[Category:People from Fentress County, Tennessee]] [[Category:People from Adair County, Kentucky]] [[Category:People from Hannibal, Missouri]] [[Category:19th-century American women]] [[Category:Women slave owners]]