Joseph Twichell

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Joseph Hopkins Twichell
Born November 30, 1838(1838-11-30)
Southington, Connecticut, United States
Died December 20, 1918
Hartford, Connecticut, United States
Nationality American
Occupation Pastor
Title Reverend

Reverend Joseph Hopkins Twichell, writer and pastor, was Mark Twain's closest friend for over forty years. They met at a church social after the Civil War when Hopkins was pastor of Asylum Hill Congregational Church in Hartford, his only pastorate for almost 50 years. Reverend Twichell performed Twain's wedding and christened his children, and counseled him on literary as well as personal matters for the rest of Twain's life. A profound scholar and devout Christian, he was described as "a man with an exuberant sense of humor, and a profound understanding of the frailties of mankind."[1]

Contents

[edit] Biography

Twichell, born in Southington, Connecticut, was an athletic young man with deep-sunk eyes and a powerful jaw. He had rowed port waist on the Yale crew the first time the Blue boatmen beat Harvard.

[edit] Civil War

In 1861 Twichell was living on Waverly Place in New York City, attending Union Theological Seminary but not yet ordained, when war broke out. Strongly pro-Abolition, he enlisted in the U.S. Army (in the wrong state and with inadequate credentials) a few weeks after the Confederacy fired upon Fort Sumter in April.[2]

Twichell became chaplain of the 71st New York State Volunteers, one of five regiments of the Excelsior brigade commanded by General Daniel E. Sickles. The regiment was largely made up of working-class Irish Catholics from lower Manhattan, Democrats not much in sympathy with the war’s aims - an unusual flock for a Congregationalist from Connecticut. He wrote his father: “If you ask why I fixed upon this regiment, composed as it is of rough, wicked men, I answer, that was the very reason. I should not expect a revival, but I should expect to make some good impressions by treating with kindness a class of men who are little used to it.”[2]

In July 1861 the Excelsior brigade was ordered to Washington, D.C., a capital in shock after the unexpected Union disaster at Bull Run. That fall, the brigade marched east through Maryland, with Gen. Joseph Hooker’s division of the army’s Third Corps, to help defend the mouth of the Potomac from rebel harassment.

Clemens's friendship with Joseph Twichell deepened. Twichell's inspiration fired his imagination to write about his piloting career on the Mississippi. He and Twichell undertook a walking trip of over 100 miles to Boston. It was aborted on the second day when they decided to take the train. They followed the news reports of the Henry Ward Beecher adultery scandal. Clemens wrote Twichell, "Mr. Tilton never has been entitled to any sympathy since the day he heard the news & did not go straight & kill Beecher & then humbly seek forgiveness for displaying so much vivacity" (p. 202). He and Twichell attended the Henry Ward Beecher trial together.[3]

[edit] Trivia


[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Paine, Albert Bigelow. Mark Twain: A Biography. University of Adelaide Library Electronic Texts Collection. Retrieved on 2007-07-28.
  2. ^ a b Courtney, Steve. Joe Twichell and The Slave Hunters. Asylum Hill Congregational Church. Retrieved on 2007-07-28.
  3. ^ Frank, Michael B.; Harriet Elinor Smith (2002). Mark Twain's Letters, Volume 6: 1874-75. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-23772-2. 

[edit] References

  • Courtney, Steve Joseph Hopkins Twichell: The Life and Times of Mark Twain's Closest Friend (University of Georgia Press, 2008) ISBN 0820330566
  • Messent, Peter and Courtney, Steve (eds.) The Civil War Letters of Joseph Hopkins Twichell: A Chaplain's Story (University of Georgia Press, 2006) ISBN 978-0820326931
  • Mark Twain and Rev. Joseph Twichell at Asylum Hill Congregational Church website

[edit] External Links

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