also known as Samuel Clemens. He was born in Florida, Missouri on Nov 30,1835, the sixth child of John and Jane Clemens. Several years later, in 1839, the family moved to nearby Hannibal, where Clemens spent his boyhood years. Clemens boyhood dream was to become a steamboatman on the river. Clemens' newspaper career began while still a boy in Hannibal. In 1848, a year after his father death, he was apprentice to printer Joseph Ament, who published the Missouri Courier. Did tragedy make Samuel Clemens (Cox Clinton). Missouri Courier only last ....