Model Ship
Model Ship
Model
Wood
35 inches H
X
13 inches W
42 inches L
On September 18, 1908 – long after Samuel Clemens left his Hartford home – two burglars broke into his house in Redding, Connecticut. They were quickly arrested. One of the jailed burglars carved a model of a steamboat like the ones Clemens had piloted in his youth, and presented it to Clara Clemens after the author’s death. That model is now displayed at the Mark Twain Library in Redding.Enter a curatorial mystery: This model square-rigger also has a burglar story attached. A 1966 curator’s letter in the Mark Twain House files says that it was built by a burglar in jail for “committing thefts and lurking” in the Nook Farm area in 1878. The curator provides the name of this burglar – John W. Hart – and the name of the 1934 donors, members of the Bunce family of Hartford, whose forebears were friends of the Clemenses’. For years the ship was displayed in the house, and visitors were told this story. Interestingly, during a recent cleaning of the ship model a card was found wedged into it. It is one of Olivia Clemens’s visiting cards, with “Mrs. S. L. Clemens” printed on it, and a written note saying “Sir Master Jack Bunce with the sincere regards of of” before her name.Could Samuel Clemens have been involved with two model-building burglars? The Redding story is far better documented. Did someone along the way transpose that story to an earlier date in Hartford? Does Livy’s card really go with the ship?This is only one of many mysteries of the Mark Twain House & Museum collection.
The Mark Twain House & Museum, Gift of John & Meta Bunce, Mr. John L. Bunce, and Mrs. Paul de Macarte, 1934.
1934.4.1