S1 – 9: I Was More Dead Than Alive

The Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, CT was a home intensely important to Samuel Clemens and his family. They spent what they considered to be the best of their days there, but tragedy struck and they never returned. For decades, the museum has been plagued by paranormal happenings.

Special Guest: Mallory Howard

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of I Heart Radio
and Grim and Mild from Aaron Minky listener. Discretion is advised.
The fire had burned low, a sense of loneliness crept

(00:22):
over me. I arose and undressed, moving on tiptoe about
the room, doing stealthily what I had to do, as
if I were environed by sleeping enemies, whose slumbers it
would be fatal to break. I covered up in bed
and lay listening to the rain and wind in the
faint breaking of distance shutters, till they lulled me to sleep.

(00:42):
I slept profoundly, but how long I do not know.
All at once I found myself awake and filled with
a shuddering expectancy. All was still all but my own heart.
I could hear it beat Presently. The bedclothes began to
slip away, slowly toward the foot of the bed, as
if someone were pulling them. I could not stir, I

(01:03):
could not speak. Still, the blanket slipped deliberately away till
my breast was uncovered. Then with a great effort I
seized them and drew them over my head. I waited, listened,
waited once more, that steady poll began, and once more
I lay torpid a century of dragging seconds till my
breast was naked again. At last, I roused my energies

(01:27):
and snatched the covers back to their place, and held
them with a strong grip. I waited by and by,
I felt a faint tug, and took a fresh grip.
The tug strengthened to a steady strain. It grew stronger
and stronger. My hold parted, and for the third time,
the blanket slid away. I groaned. An answering groan came

(01:47):
from the foot of the bed. Beaded drops of sweat
stood upon my forehead. I was more dead than alive.
Presently I heard a heavy footstep in my room, the
step of an elephant. It seemed to me it was
not like anything human, but it was moving from me.
There was relief in that I heard. It approached the door,

(02:08):
pass out without moving bolt or lock, and wander away
among the dismal corridors, straining the floors and joyce till
they creaked again as it passed, and then silence reigned
once more. This is an excerpt from a short story
written by one Mark Twain or Samuel Clemens. The story
is aptly named a ghost story, and I won't spoil

(02:30):
it for you, but as many Mark Twain stories go,
there is a very humorous whist to this one in
the end. Yet, while Mark Twain treated spiritualism with his
usual cynicism and wit, when his own personal losses became unbearable,
he like many others of the time, dabbled and spiritualism
out of grief and desperation. That grief and desperation is

(02:54):
said to still hang over a home he considered to
be the happiest of any he had, until tragedy prevented
him from ever returning in life anyway. I'm Amy Brunei,
and this is haunted road of all the beautiful towns.

(03:19):
It has been my fortune to see. This is the chief.
You do not know what beauty is if you have
not been here. This was a quote by Mark Twain
after he was introduced to Hartford, Connecticut by his publisher
in the eighteen sixties. Samuel and Olivia Clemens worked with
architect Edward Tuckerman Potter to design their dream home there,

(03:41):
with construction beginning in eighteen seventy three. The family moved
in on September nineteen seventy four, while much work still remained,
construction delays and the ever increasing costs of building their
dream home frustrated Sam. The house is eleven thousand, five
hundred square feet and boasts twenty five rooms over three floors.

(04:03):
It cost forty to forty five thousand dollars to build,
but after renovations in eighteen eighty one, the homes total
cost was seventy thousand dollars, almost one point nine million
dollars in today's market. The art of this home is incredible.
In addition to the team of artists Clemens brought into
the home, the Tiffany and Company interior design firm was

(04:24):
brought in. The styles reflect cultures from around the world.
Clemens biographer Justin Kaplan has called it part steamboat, part
medieval fortress, and part cuckoo clock. The focal point of
the master bedroom is the couple's elaborately carved bed, which
they purchased in eighteen seventy eight in Venice, which Sam
brought with him wherever he went. It's even rumored he

(04:47):
died in that bed in nineteen They had some very
notable neighbors like Harriet Beecher Stowe Hartford had become a
destination for successful figures of this ilk. Sam was known
for his hosting and some of his guests included George Washington,
Cable and Edwin Booth, the older brother of John Wilkes.
The billiard room was Sam's office and favorite space, and

(05:09):
it was reserved for men's cigars, alcohol, cursing, and the housekeepers.
The pool table that is currently in the room was
a gift from a friend in nineteen o four. In
that room, he also worked on many of his most
notable books, including the Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Life
on the Mississippi. In the Clemens family moved to Europe

(05:31):
due to financial issues. They would never live in the
Hartford home again, where the family enjoyed what was described
as the happiest and most productive years. They moved to Europe,
where the cost of living was more accessible. Meanwhile, Clemens
tried to make up these losses by embarking on a
lecture tour through the continent, but it wasn't enough to
get them back home. The Hartford house was rented out.

(05:54):
He returned to the much loved family home once in
As soon as I entered the door, I was seized
with a furious desire to have us all in this
house again and right away. In the midst of the
family's financial struggles and the lecture tour in Europe, Sam
held out hope that the family would soon reunite in England.
Daughters Jean and Susie were staying with friends in Hartford

(06:16):
and sent a message across the pond to their parents
and sister Clara. Susie had fallen ill with a fever.
The trip was postponed, but there was much hope that
Susie would recover, albeit after a lengthy period. With this news,
Olivia and Clara returned to the US, while Sam stayed
to work on a book and find better housing for
the family's return to England. Three days later, on August eighteen,

(06:40):
alone in their rented house in Guildford, Sam received another
telegram from the States. Susie was dead. Susie had been
staying with friends in Hartford, but spent time in the
family home where she could sing and play piano. A
fever came on, but Susie held out hope that a
spiritual healer, not a doctor, which your her ailment. She

(07:01):
was eventually overruled and a doctor was called in She
was suffering from spinal meningitis, and the next two weeks
were full of escalating delirium. Like a ghost, she wandered
through the house of her childhood. She found a gown
of livies hanging in a closet, and, believing it was
her mother and that she had died, kissed it and cried.

(07:24):
As the infection made its way through her body, it
took her sight and then her wakefulness. Susie was in
a coma before she died at twenty four years old.
Sam was across the ocean and devastated. Her mother and
sister Clara were on a boat making the crossing, and
they didn't know that Susie had passed when they landed.
Letters from Sam awaited. He bore much guilt for her death.

(07:47):
He wrote to his wife the day after Susie's death
August nineteen eight. She died in our own house, not
in another's. Died where every little thing was familiar and beloved.
Died where she had spent all her life until Mike
Primes made her a popper and an exile. How good
it is that she got home again. After her death,

(08:10):
the Clemons family was too heartbroken to continue living in
the home, it marked the end of an era. In
nineteen o three, the Clemons sold the home to Richard
Bissell and his family, who occupied the home until nineteen seventeen.
Between nineteen seventeen and nineteen twenty two, the Kingswood School
for Boys rented the home. After the school was done,

(08:31):
the home was purchased by a developer with an apartment
complex in mind. Originally, they wanted to tear down the
home and replace it with set apartment complex, but thanks
to significant public outcry, they kept the structure and refitted
the inside for their purposes. There were eleven apartments, and
all with the basement serving as a large dining hall.

(08:52):
Each apartment had a fireplace and kitchenett. In nineteen twenty nine,
the home was threatened with demolition, but was saved by
Arriet Beecher Stowe's grand niece, Katherine Seymour Day. That year,
the Friends of Hartford, with Katherine Seymour Day at the Helm,
purchased the Clemens home with the purpose of saving and
restoring Mark Quayne's house. From nineteen thirty until nineteen fifty six,

(09:15):
the organization rented out the first floor to the Mark
Twayne Branch of the Hartford Public Library. The residential spaces
of the home are rented out as apartments throughout the
nineteen sixties. Finally, formal restoration of the house began in
nineteen sixty three, the same year the Mark Twain House
was designated a National Historic Landmark. Everything was completed in

(09:36):
time for the one hundred year anniversary of the home's
construction in nineteen seventy four. The museum opened in two
thousand three, and big renovations took place in the following year.
Now as far back as the nineteen sixties. In nineteen seventies,
there have been reports of ghostly happenings at the Mark
Quayin House. But who could possibly still be roaming those

(09:57):
old halls and why? There is rumor of at least
one death in the home when it was divided into apartments.
Supposedly someone died in a bathtub in one of the units,
but we were unable to verify this. Also, Mark Twain's
bed that he supposedly died in is very much in
the home and on display. In my experience, there are

(10:19):
certain claims of apparitions that seem to happen over and
over again. Probably one of the most commonly reported specters
is a woman in white. However, this could actually be
a location for the spirit of a woman in white
is actually justified. Over the years, there have been reports
of employees and visitors seeing the apparition of a young

(10:39):
woman in a long white dress roaming the halls, much
like Susie actually did in her final days. Of course,
Mark Twain himself is believed to linger in spirit form
in the much beloved office from where he worked and played.
The billiard room on the top floor is considered one
of the most haunted where Twain smoked cigars, and to
this day some aim they can smell the smoke and

(11:01):
the fire alarm will randomly go off. Apparently, Clemmons had
a twenty to forty cigar a day habit. The third
spirit is attributed to the family's long term butler, George Griffin.
Griffin was born into slavery in Maryland, probably around the
middle of the nineteenth century. After the Emancipation Proclamation, he

(11:21):
acted as a body servant for a Union general during
the Civil War. According to an unpublished manuscript of Clemens,
his wife, Mary, was a dressmaker. They had one daughter together.
According to sources, Griffin was a deacon in the Methodist
Episcopal Church, active political leader and family man. Clemens wrote
quite highly of his butler of seventeen years, and it

(11:43):
seems like he was more family than employee. George was
an accident, he said, he came to wash some windows
and remained for half a generation. He was a Maryland
slave by birth. The proclamation set him free, and as
a young fellow he saw his fair share of the
Civil War as body servant to General Devon's. He was handsome,
well built, shrewd, wise, polite, always good natured, cheerful to gaiety, honest, religious,

(12:09):
a cautious truth speaker, devoted friend to the family, champion
of its interests, a sort of idol to the children,
and a trial to Mrs Clements. Not in always button several.
There was nothing commonplace about George. He had a remarkable
good head. His promise was good, his note was good.
He could be trusted to any extent with money or

(12:31):
other valuables. He had the respect and I may say
the warm, friendly regard of every visiting intimate of our house.
To me, that sounds like someone anyone would be lucky
to have around. Although George died elsewhere he was closely
linked to the family. Even after buying a home in
the city, he maintained a room in the family home.

(12:52):
So obviously, so much emotion in history tied in the
Market Queen House in Hartford, Connecticut. I have investigated and
visited a few times and had some pretty crazy experiences
in the process. Up next, we'll talk to Mallory Howard,
one of the curators of the museum. She's got some
amazing history to fill us in on and some pretty

(13:12):
great ghost stories as well. So right now I am
joined by Mallory Howard, who is the assistant curator at
the Mark Twain House and Museum. I appreciate you taking

(13:35):
a time to chat with me today, Mallory, Oh, no problem,
I'm excited to be here. One thing that has always
stood out to me about the Mark Twain House, having
been there quite a few times, is just how much
you all seem to kind of embrace it's haunted history
or its potential ghosts. How do you feel about that?
Were you ready for that when you joined the team.

(13:57):
I actually joined at a really pivotal time, I think
for embracing that aspect of our history. Prior to that,
I think over the years, it was kind of kept quiet,
and you know, people would have experiences and they would
maybe talk to each other a little bit about it,
but other than that, they really weren't supposed to chat
with visitors or make it known. But when I came

(14:19):
on board, that started to change where we really wanted
to be more vocal about what people are experiencing and
the history of the house and the history of Twain.
And I think it really evolved at the perfect time.
You know, it's funny years ago. Actually, I think Adam
and I did. I think it was either a conference
call or a video call before COVID even it was

(14:40):
with the Mark Twain House, and you all had kind
of assembled a few other historic locations, and I feel
like you all were just kind of trying to share
the wealth and kind of say, you know, hey, this
has been really good for us. Obviously not exploiting or
making up ghosts, but if you happen to be a
historic location that is haunted, kind of being able to

(15:03):
respectfully use that to your advantage. And I know that
at the time you were kind of relaying that you
had a really successful I think it's either like a
ghost tour, ghost walk at night. That brought in a
lot of extra revenue, which I think is huge for
these historic spots, especially right now. Oh yes, absolutely. You know,
we weren't the first. Other places had done it before,

(15:25):
and we started to look at them to get an
idea of how we wanted to go about it, and
then our ghost cours really took off. And even at
a lot of museum conferences there are a lot of
panels discussing whether ghost tours are a good idea, should
you be doing it, what benefit do you have from
doing it? And there's still mixed opinions. Some places really

(15:47):
don't believe that they should be doing that sort of thing.
In other places that like us, have embraced it, and
I for one especially, I'm so glad we're doing that
because it brings us an entirely new audience. You know,
people come to the Mark Twain how for our ghost
stories that have never visited before and had no interest
in visiting, and so when they come and take a
tour with us, you know, not only are we talking

(16:09):
about the experiences that staff and visitors have had over
the years, we're talking about, you know, the episodes of
ghost hunters and what evidence was captured, but also the
history of Mark Twain and the house and how he
felt about spiritualism and how he used ghost stories in
his literature. So it's more than just oh, come and

(16:31):
learn about hauntings. We've really connected it to being historical
as well. I think that's huge, and I think it's
really a big deal too for like a lot of
young people. You know. I know that my father when
I was a child definitely used my interest in the
supernatural to take me to historic places under the guise
of them being haunted. But then at the same time

(16:52):
I was learning so much about history, and so I
could definitely see teenagers not maybe being as interested in
casual daytime tour as you know, turning out the lights
at night and walking around the Mark Twain House and
learning about everything you just said, which I think that's
really cool. I think it's a great opportunity. Yes, we've
had people before that their first visit has been on

(17:13):
a ghost tour and they're coming just to hear spooky
stories and see if they can experience anything. And we've
had many people over the years come up to us
after those tours and say that was fascinating. I'm definitely
coming back for a daytime tour. I want to learn
more about Mark Twain and his family and the house,
and so ghost tours has been a way to get

(17:34):
people hooked and then they become, you know, lifelong contributors
or members or fans of the house. And so we've
really expanded our base that way. I love that, and
that's really the premise for this podcast. You know, we
always start the first half taking a really deep dive
into the history of a place, and then we talk
about the ghosts. So who do you think is haunting

(17:55):
the Mark Twain House. I'm sure there's probably a few prospects. Yes.
So the to that I think are doing the majority
of it would be Susie Clemmens, who is Twain's oldest
daughter who died at twenty four of spinal meningitis in
the house, as well as George Griffin, who was their
African American butler. He was a former enslaved person that

(18:18):
made his way up north after the Civil War. He
was eventually hired as the family's butler and he worked
here all the years the family lived in the house.
I would say those two are probably the biggest people
that we think are still around but there are also
some things that could be attributed to Sam Clemens or
Mark Twain himself. Right, And I mean, obviously he didn't

(18:41):
die in the home, but the house seemed like it
was incredibly special to him and the family. Yes, the
house in Hartford was the longest he lived anywhere. It
was definitely the happiest and most productive years of his life.
And he even went on to say he could never
enter the house unmoved, that's how much it meant him.
So I think truly if he was going to come

(19:03):
back and have the ability to the Hartford houses where
he would go. Right, that makes sense. No, what kind
of activity are people experiencing in the home? What would
you say is the most common paranormal activity reported? I
would say probably the most common activity would be cigar
smoke is one of them, for sure. Um. I actually

(19:24):
don't get in the house as much as I used to,
but I had to take a few tours recently and unprompted,
a woman said to me, did anyone else smells cigar
smoke in the billiard room? And I said that you've
hit the nail on the head. I was like, we
get that all the time, that people will smell this
phantom cigar smoke only in the billiard room, and not

(19:46):
everyone smells it. And we've even had the fire alarm
go off in there and the fire department show up
and run upstairs and nothing's going on. But we've had
firefighter smelling cigar smoke and room in the middle of
the night. So that is definitely one of the biggest claim.
The other I would say it's kind of funny because

(20:08):
it seems like they're almost pranks. It's a lot of
people saying that they feel like a child is tugging
on their shirt or their jacket, their clothing. We've had
jewelry fall off on their own only in the library specifically,
you know, watches, bracelets that just come off and fall
to the floor. And we've also had a sighting of

(20:30):
what we call the woman in White several times throughout
the house, which we believe to be Susie. So there's
a lot of different things. Footsteps, muttering or murmuring when
no one else is in the house, So a very
wide variety of things happening. Have you ever had any
guests become so frightened that they've left, Yes, we've had

(20:51):
that happen a few times, one of which was a
woman who actually was heading up to the third floor
landing of the house and felt a presence push her
up against the wall, and she even started speaking differently,
her voice tone changed. Her daughter was so freaked out
by it they ended up leaving the tour. We've also

(21:12):
had several people who have said that they get extreme
neck pain or stiffness and that they've had to leave
the house during tours because of that, and as soon
as they walk out the door, the pain dissipates. Would
that have been like a symptom that his daughter would
have experienced maybe yes, because of her spinal meningitis, that stiffness,

(21:34):
that neck pain would have been a symptom. Okay, that
experience he's saying with like the pushing, that seems really
kind of out of character. I'm assuming things like that
don't happen very often. Yeah, that's one of the more
unusual ones. There was also an incident where a security
guard was closing up for the night and had a tray,
a metal tray thrown at him and it hit a

(21:57):
pipe over his head. So those three things things, you know,
the woman being pushed against the wall, the neck pain,
and the trade being thrown are unusual for us. Most
of the things that happen are sort of playful, like
I said, pranks things like that, but very rarely are
they dangerous or mean or anything like that. Yeah, so

(22:20):
what would you say, are things that you do around
the house that might make activity kind of spike? LETNA say,
there hasn't seemed to be too much of a pattern
for that. It's really seemed sporadic and random as far
as when things happen. They'll be periods where there'll be
several tours in one week where people have experiences with
cigar smoke or jewelry falling off or tugging, and then

(22:43):
we'll go sometimes weeks months at a time with nothing,
no reports. So there doesn't seem to be a real
pattern of when the activity happens to spike and when
it doesn't. How have things been during like the shutdowns
and everything? I am assuming that you are posed for
a period of time. Did anything seem to respond to that,

(23:05):
Not that I know of, especially because there weren't people
going through the house. I don't know if that makes
a difference or not. But there's been a couple of
my colleagues who have gone through the house who have
had a couple of things happened to them, you know, noises, muttering,
known for lights to go on and off. Not sure
exactly what causes that. We had one security guard who

(23:27):
went into vacuum and he turned for a second to
turn the light off, and when he turned back, the
vacuum cord was completely tangled and crazy not and he's like,
there's no way that could have happened with my back
turned for a second. So things still happened, but it
seems that it slowed down once the house is really
shut down and no one was in there. Right. It's

(23:49):
funny because some of the places that you know, we've investigated,
when people came back, the activity almost started ramping up,
almost like these spirits were lonely or they weren't confused. Yes,
that's what's so weird, is you know, like I said,
just a couple of weeks ago, I had to pitch
in with tours and that woman, unprompted, said, oh, I

(24:10):
did anyone else smell that. I smelled cigar smoke in
the billiard room, and I thought, wow, I haven't been
in the house in a while. But it's just all
of a sudden, it's the claim started coming back again.
That's a really common report, the cigar smoke thing, and
I've tried to debunk it so many times in other locations,
and like sometimes people speculated it's like completely just seeped

(24:33):
into the wood over so many years of smoking in there.
But like at some point it's so overwhelming it can't
just be coming from the wood, because I have smelled
it a few times in locations and I'm like, there's
no way this is just coming from old wood, right,
And especially the time we had the smoke alarm go
off in the middle of the night enough to trigger

(24:55):
it where the fire department had to come and respond
to it, and then they all smelled that snat, So
it just seems like it couldn't have just been from
sitting around. Yeah, exactly. Are all the artifacts in the
building Are those original to the family or those things
brought in from elsewhere? So it's a mixture. We have
some objects and artifacts in the house that are original

(25:17):
to the Clemens and the Langdon family, which is Olivia's family,
and then the rest would be pieces from the Victorian
period that they didn't necessarily own. What type of things
that they would have purchased to decorate the house with.
And then do you think that any of those pieces
might have something to do with activity happening in the house. Well,
I think two of the pieces we're really important to him,

(25:41):
one of which was the billiard table. It's the last
one he owned before he died, so it wasn't the
one originally that was in the Hartford house when he
was living here, but is one that he owned. He
loved to play billiards. We have photographs of him sticking
kittens into the pockets of the billiard table when he's older, uh,
and he it's just something he really enjoyed doing. And

(26:02):
the other piece would be the Angel bed. We call
it in the bedroom for Sam and Livy, and it's
the one they used when they were living at Hartford.
He brought it with him when he moved to his
last home and running Connecticut, and that piece is very
special to them. The girls, their daughters would sleep in
it when they weren't feeling well or they had bad dreams.

(26:23):
We have photographs of him in that bed, so I
think that's a really meaningful piece as well. Is that
the bed that they purchased in Venice, because I think
I've read that he may have even passed away in
that bed. Yes, that is the bed that they purchased
in Venice. There's debate about whether that was the bed
he slept in another one when he was in Running, Connecticut,

(26:43):
so we were never able to confirm which bed is
the one he died in. But it's definitely a possibility. Okay,
that's good to know now. It sounds like the death
of Susie seemed very impactful for them, like it seemed
very traumatic. I know they couldn't be there, and I
know you said that you see this woman in white
that people assume as Susie, and I feel like every

(27:05):
good haunted location needs a woman in white. Is there
any other activity that you've had surrounding her that's identifiable
or that you think is specifically being caused by her ghost.
I think it's hard to tell because of the sort
of childlike pranks I mentioned, with the tugging on the

(27:26):
outfits and the jewelry falling off. So I'm not sure
if Susie is a part of that, or maybe it's
just her sisters, but I think definitely the woman in
white is the one that is associated with her, especially
because when she had spinal meningitis, she was known to
wander around the house sort of deliriously. She would even

(27:48):
sing songs like the trolley Cars go up the Street
from Mark Twain's daughter, and it just seemed like it
fits so well that she would be coming back and
sort of wandering around the house still espec actually, since
both her parents and one of her sisters were not
able to be with her during this illness and her death. Now,
how involved was the Clemens family was spiritualism? Is that

(28:11):
a belief system that they subscribed to. It's interesting because
Mark Twain kind of went back and forth about that.
Earlier in his career. He actually worked for a newspaper
in San Francisco and his job was to attend seances
and try to debunk the spiritualists and prove that they
were frauds and showcase how they did it. And most

(28:31):
of them he was able to figure out. There are
a couple that he just couldn't seem to prove how
they did it. But for the most part during that
time period, he really was not a believer. But once
tragedy really started to hit close to home, his tunes
started to change a little bit. He had his youngest
brother died in a accident on the Mississippi River and

(28:54):
that really started to haunt him in a way and
change his thought on it. And then, of course, and
Susie died, Sam and his wife Olivia decided that they
wanted to try to reach out and contact her. So
when they were in London a few years after she died,
they actually went to a medium and hoped that the
medium could reach out to Susie. They brought one of

(29:16):
her brooches, hoping that that would help the connection, and
they sort of got a mixed bag. Sam wasn't really
happy with the results of it, but it just shows
that throughout his life he really went back and forth
as to whether to believe or not, and I think
he really wanted to, especially when he faced tragedy in

(29:37):
his own life, right. I mean, I think that a
lot of people struggled with that during that time period
because it was so you know it spiritualism was completely
fraught with fraud. But then there were you know, some
people who kind of um still left people stumped. So
it's hard to tell, you know, who was legit and

(29:57):
who was just taking advantage. Well, That's interesting because it
makes me wonder. You know, when people go in and
they're investigating, then the spirits there could be very familiar
with what it is that they are trying to do.
Have you guys ever done any seances in the house. No,
not trying to reach out to anyone in the Clemens family.

(30:18):
You know, We've had a one or two of private ones,
but nothing directly for the family. Although we did have
Lorraine Warren visit a couple of times, and she believed
that she was feeling sort of Susie spirit. She said
that she felt ill, felt that there was sadness, that
sort of thing, right, that would make sense Like I

(30:40):
was saying before, that just sounded like it was just
such a tragedy to the family and the fact that
she was you know, I think she was on her
own right. They weren't even with her. Yeah, it was
very interesting how it went about her family. Twain and
his wife Livy, as well as their middle daughter Clara.
We're on a worldwide lecture tour for him to pay

(31:01):
off some of his debt that he incurred, and Susie
and the youngest daughter, Jean, were staying with family and
Elmira and we're getting ready to meet the rest of
the family in England, where they decided to stop in
Hartford to visit some old neighbors and friends, and that's
when Susie started to get sick and they decided to
bring her into the house, which was being rented at

(31:22):
the time, thinking the surroundings would comfort her. And the
family got the news in England that she was sick,
and Olivia and Clara immediately headed back here to meet
with her, and unfortunately they were about halfway across the
ocean when Sam got a telegram saying that Susie was

(31:42):
peacefully released today and his heart absolutely broke knowing that
his wife and daughter were going to be greeted with
the news, and he was never able to say goodbye.
He didn't attend her funeral, and this really was just
a huge blow to him. Yeah, yeah, it seems that way. Well,
the history of the home is fascinating and the ghosts

(32:03):
are as well. And how can people find out more?
What do you all have coming up, especially for fall?
So if you are interested in any of our ghost tours,
the best way would be to go to our website
which is www dot Mark Twain House dot Org and
that would have all the information about when we're having

(32:23):
our ghost tours. They're called Braveyard Shift tours, and obviously
they ramp up a lot in September and October. Who
knows what will happen with COVID unfortunately, but right now
we're planning on moving forward with them. Okay, perfect, Well,
I'm sure that people will be reaching out and I
really do appreciate you taking the time to chat with

(32:43):
me today. I love hearing the ghost stories. I love
visiting the Mark Twain House. I can't wait to get back.
Last time I was there, I think I lived in California,
and now I'm a new Englander, so there's no reason
why I can't just pop over. Yeah, you have to
come and see what's been happening since the last time
you were a year. Yeah for are well, Thank you
so much, Marie. I appreciate it. The Mark Twain House

(33:06):
isn't some terrifying dark place, but it stands as not
only an imperative piece of history, but also a perfect
example of how some haunts are born not by tragedy
and darkness, but by love, nostalgia, and grief. I believe
that the museum's work and bringing the home back to
its original glory and keeping it aligned with the vision

(33:26):
Clemens and his family had for it so long ago.
Has very much acted as a beacon for him and
anyone who was closely associated with the home. I also
think there are many years of history left to research,
and that some of those ghosts may be more modern
or left from some of the homes other incarnations. In
the meantime, please go visit and take a moment to

(33:47):
sit and softly ponder how dear the home was to
the Clemmons family, and take a deep breath. Maybe you'll
catch a hint of cigar smoke. I'm Amy Bruney, and
this was Haunted Road. M Haunted Road is a production
of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey.

(34:10):
The podcast is written and hosted by Amy Bruney. Executive
producers include Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. The
show is produced by rema Ill Kali and Trevor Young.
Taylor Haggerdorn is the show's researcher. For more podcasts from
I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

(34:31):
or wherever you get your podcasts.