Close, Ron, but no cigar.  Blankenship's birth is dated around 1831.--Jon

P.S.  As for the "sobriety" of Twain's stag dinners, I would say, no doubt
they were physically intoxicated after 8-10 toasts, no matter how light
the wine.  I think Fatout's point--in the piece I quoted--was that these
were "dignified" and not "wild" affairs.  No paradise of bachelors; more
like stodgy old Babbitts.  I think he means "sober" in the non-alcoholic
sense (if there is such a thing): i.e., more grave, earnest, and subdued
than silly, cynical, and uproarious.  As the center of entertainment,
however, Twain was probably one of the least "sober" in the room.



----------------------
Jon Stephen Miller
Assistant Editor
Walt Whitman Quarterly Review
Department of English
The University of Iowa
Iowa City, Iowa  52242-1492
[log in to unmask]
1.319.335.0592

On Mon, 11 Oct 1999, Ron Roizen wrote:

> Jon -- Hold Everything!  Tom B. was a "respected justice of the peace in
> Montana," did you say?  Murray, the town May Hutton placed Uncle Tonk in,
> isn't all that far from the Montana border.  Hutton says Tonk was born on
> February 10, 1842 at Fort Madison, Iowa but moved to Hannibal where he
> "grew to manhood" (p. 190).  Got a birthdate and birth place for Tom
> Blankeship by any chance?
>
> Breathless in north Idaho...
>
> Ron
>
> ----------
> > From: Jon Stephen Miller <[log in to unmask]>
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Tom Blankenship
> > Date: Monday, October 11, 1999 3:55 PM
> >
> > Ron's right--Tom Blankenship was a childhood friend of Twain's.  In 1906
> > he recalled TB as the model for Huck.  From _Mark Twain A to Z_ (1995):
> >
> > [TB's] father, Woodson Blankenship, resembled Pap Finn in being a town
> > drunk [in Hannibal], but was quite different in having a wife, Mahala,
> and
> > eight children, all of whom were born in Missouri.  The Blankenships were
> > desperately poor, undisciplined and disreputable.  Tom Blankenship
> > consequently grew up badly fed, unschooled, unwashed and unsupervised.
> > (37)
> >
> > Different stories describe Tom's adult life: in 1889 and 1899 he was
> > reported dead, but in 1902 Tom's sister Elizabeth told Twain he was a
> > "respected justice of the peace in Montana." (37)
> >
> > Jon
> >
> >
> > ----------------------
> > Jon Stephen Miller
> > Assistant Editor
> > Walt Whitman Quarterly Review
> > Department of English
> > The University of Iowa
> > Iowa City, Iowa  52242-1492
> > [log in to unmask]
> > 1.319.335.0592
>