Samuel Clemens' ornate 1874 Hartford mansion where staff and visitors report the lingering presence of his daughter Susy, along with phantom cigar smoke and footsteps.
351 Farmington Avenue, Hartford, CT 06105
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Standard guided-tour admission charged by the museum. After-hours 'Graveyard Shift' ghost tours are priced separately.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved walkways; the historic house has stairs, with accessibility accommodations available through the visitor center.
Equipment
No Photos
Est. 1874 · National Historic Landmark · Home of Samuel Clemens / Mark Twain · Literary History · Gilded Age Architecture
Samuel Clemens, his wife Olivia (Livy) Langdon Clemens, and their daughters Susy, Clara, and Jean moved into the newly built Hartford house at 351 Farmington Avenue in 1874. Designed by New York architect Edward Tuckerman Potter, the 25-room Gothic Revival home featured polychromatic brickwork, ornamental chimneys, and an interior partially decorated by Louis Comfort Tiffany's Associated Artists firm during an 1881 redecoration.
The seventeen years the family spent in Hartford were the happiest and most productive of Clemens' life. He completed seven major works here, including 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' (1876), 'The Prince and the Pauper' (1881), 'Life on the Mississippi' (1883), 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' (1884), and 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court' (1889). The third-floor billiard room doubled as his writing studio.
By 1891, mounting business losses from Clemens' investment in the failed Paige Compositor typesetting machine forced the family to close the Hartford house and move to Europe to live more economically. While the family was abroad, their eldest daughter Susy Clemens returned to Hartford and died in the house in August 1896 at the age of 24 of spinal meningitis. The grief made the home unbearable; the family never lived there again and sold it in 1903.
The house passed through several uses — including as a school and an apartment building — before a preservation effort beginning in the 1920s rescued and restored it. It opened to the public as a museum in 1974 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962. A modern visitor center designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects opened in 2003. The museum is one of the most-visited literary historic sites in the United States.
Sources
The Mark Twain House has accumulated a layered body of paranormal lore over several decades. According to Damned Connecticut and reporting in The New England Ghoul, staff members as far back as the 1960s and 1970s described unexplained smells of cigar smoke in the billiard room where Clemens wrote, voices resembling children's laughter, footsteps in empty corridors, and occasional visions of a woman in a Victorian-era white nightgown. The most-cited interpretive frame attributes the woman in white to Susy Clemens, who died in the house in 1896.
In 2009, the SyFy series 'Ghost Hunters' (TAPS) investigated the property; the episode aired November 25, 2009 as Season 5, Episode 23. According to the Syfy episode recap, investigators Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson reported observing an orb-like light traveling from the master bedroom toward Susy's bedroom and interpreted the sequence as consistent with Susy's continued presence. The 'hot spots' identified during filming included the drawing room, the library, Susy's bedroom, the master bedroom, and the third-floor nursery.
Additional lore reported by ghost-tour operators and paranormal sites mentions knocks and bangs attributed to George Griffin, the Clemens family's longtime butler, and clothing tugs experienced by visitors on guided tours. The museum has embraced its paranormal reputation through its seasonal 'Graveyard Shift' after-hours ghost tour, which the institution offers in partnership with US Ghost Adventures and runs in autumn around Halloween.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Walk the 25-room Gothic Revival mansion where Samuel Clemens wrote 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' and 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.' Tour guides cover the Clemens family's Hartford years (1874-1891) and the home's restoration history.
After-hours guided experience exploring the paranormal lore of the house — including the reported presence of Susy Clemens, phantom cigar smoke in the billiards room, and the documented Ghost Hunters investigation. Offered seasonally around Halloween.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Hartford, CT
Built in 1871, the Gothic Revival cottage at 77 Forest Street became the home of abolitionist author Harriet Beecher Stowe and her husband Calvin in 1873 and remained her residence until her death in 1896. Stowe — author of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' (1852) — lived in the Nook Farm neighborhood alongside Mark Twain and other Hartford writers. The home opened to the public as a museum in 1968 and operates today as the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center for Literary Activism.
Franklin, KY
Andrew Jackson Caldwell laid the foundation of Octagon Hall in 1847, completing the distinctive eight-sided brick residence by approximately 1860. Built on 300 acres in Franklin, Kentucky, it served as a hospital for both Confederate and Union soldiers during the Civil War and as a hiding place for retreating Confederate troops. The Octagon Hall Foundation acquired the site in 2001 and operates it as a museum and investigation venue.
Frederick, MD
Schifferstadt is one of the oldest surviving houses in Frederick, completed in 1758 by Elias Brunner and his wife Albertina on the family's 303-acre farm tract. The Brunners named the property after their hometown in the German Palatinate. The Frederick County Landmarks Foundation purchased the house in 1974 and opened it as an architectural museum.