Samuel Clemens first visited Hartford in 1868 and was immediately attracted to the city’s sophisticated population, dynamic commerce, splendid homes, broad avenues, and natural beauty.

The neighborhood in which he settled, Nook Farm, perhaps most typified these qualities. Set at the western edge of Connecticut’s capital city, Nook Farm had previously been primarily farm land, but by the mid-1800s, new homes began to rise. The parcel Samuel and his wife Olivia purchased in 1871 was long and narrow, extending south from Farmington Avenue, already an important though relatively quiet artery. Over time the couple would come to own nearly eight acres by expanding his holdings to the west and further south.

The house and the neighborhood reinforced the fact that the Clemenses had “arrived”: he was now settled in a wealthy city, in its most exclusive enclave with Connecticut’s governor, United States Senator, newspaper publishers, a noted Civil War general, as well as another of the nation’s literary titans, Harriet Beecher Stowe as his neighbors.

Click on the photos below to learn more about each family.