Mark Twain's $15 Million Dollar Martin Guitar

 

Mark Twain

Hands down, my favorite author is Mark Twain. 

In the early days of our marriage my wife joined a book club. She wanted to stock our bookcase with the classics. For years they just sat on the shelf looking respectable. I eventually made a goal of reading each book. 

A Few Mark Twain Books

About a dozen of the books were by Twain. They included Puddi'n head Wilson, Those Extraordinary Twins, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Roughing It, Innocents Abroad, The Guided Age, The Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, Life on The Mississippi, and of course Tom Sawyer, and Huckleberry Finn, as well as others.

Mark Twain's 
Other Woman

I also read Twain's autobiography, and a book by Laura Skandera Trombly called Mark Twain’s Other Woman. This was a book about Samuel Clements’ secretary, Isabel Van Kleek Lyon. The title sounds salacious, but it was a scholarly work, and was an interesting look into Twain’s everyday life. 

All of this to say that I have learned a lot about Samuel Clements, his family, and his life. 

But the one thing that I did not know was that Sam Clements enjoyed playing guitar and owned one of the very first C.F Martin guitars ever built. 

C.F. Martin

Christian Frederick Martin began building guitars In 1833. Martin apprenticed under the legendary Viennese master luthier Johann Stauffer. Martin then returned to Germany taking with him all that he had learned. In those days European trades operated under a strict guild system. Upon returning home he became embroiled in a dispute between the cabinet makers and violin makers guilds over who had the rights to make the then relatively new invention the ‘guitar’. 

Marker 196 Hudson St. NYC

This dispute inspired Martin to relocate to America. In 1833 he opened a shop on the lower West Side of New York City. Five years later, at the insistence of his wife, Martin moved to Nazareth Pennsylvania. 

In 1861, shortly after the Civil War started, Samuel Clements purchased a used Martin Size 2 ½ 17 parlor guitar reportedly costing him $10. He used this 1835 Martin extensively as a singer-guitarist, bringing it along to his many travels. 

Twain's 
Martin

In fact Mark Twain began his career by traveling and writing stories for a newspaper. Those serialized publications became his first popular book, Innocents Abroad. Twain continued to travel far and wide, often with only his 1835 Martin guitar, paper and ink to accompany him. 

Twain played his 1835 Martin guitar frequently for friends and fellow travelers. He entertained the miners of the infamous California’s Gold Rush and the newspaper men of the Nevada Territories. 

Illustration of Sam and his guitar
from St. Nicholas, January 1916

He also rocked the joint with the passengers aboard the steamship Quaker City, bound for Europe and The Holy Lands, and the clipper ship Ajax, bound for the Hawaiian Islands. Many guitarists of his day would approve saying, "Twain prefers to play his Martin guitar for the 'willing women of the West.' ” 

John Hancock III

Just before his death in 1910, the 1835 Martin guitar was entrusted to Colonel John Hancock III, who was the great grandson of American founding father John Hancock. Aside from being a U.S. Cavalryman and a horse breeder, he was a guitar collector. 

The guitar remained in the Hancock family for four generations until it was purchased by renowned guitar collector Hank Risan in the mid-nineteen nineties. 

Hank Risan

Risan then worked with UC Berkeley to authenticate the guitar and helped to create the Mark Twain Project. The guitar came with it’s original coffin case and had a genuine shipping label dated 1866, with “Mr. M. Twain, New York.” 

Twain's 1835 Martin

In today’s dollars and due to its provenance, it is valued at over $15 million dollars. In doing research on the instrument Risan also uncovered an unpublished poem by Twain called Genuis. The guitar’s original coffin case bears a shipping label dated 1866, with Mr. M. Twain, New York written on it in script that was penned in Mark Twain’s own hand. 

Twain's Martin

As of 2015 Risan went on to establish The Private Life of Mark Twain exhibit at the Museum of Musical Instruments, MoMI. This is where the guitar and poem currently reside.

©UniqueGuitar Publications (text only) 2025

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