The Life and Works of Samual Clemens Samual Langhorne Clemens was born in 1835, and died in 1910. Twain's father was John Marshall Clemens, a visionary lawyer and landowner from virginia and his mother was Jane Lampton Clemens. When Clemens was twelve his father passed away. After his fathers death Samual Clemens left school to find work, and boy did he find it. Before his father's death Clemens was apprenticed to his brother Orion, who ran the Missouri Courier, which was a country paper. In 1853 Clemens set out for the East as a journeyman printer. In 1857 he became an apprentice pilot on th