Mark Twain’s signature found in Missouri cave bearing his name after decades-long search

After decades of searching, officials at Mark Twain Cave in Missouri have found Samuel Clemens’ signature scrawled on the cave’s wall, according to a news release.

Samuel Clemens, who lived in Hannibal from 1839 to 1853 (ages 4 to 17), was author Mark Twain’s real name.

“It’s made us crazy looking for it all these years,” Linda Coleberd, the cave’s owner, told KMOV. “So, to finally find his signature in the cave that was named for him, its remarkable. He signed the cave, we’ve found his signature. We’re so excited.”

Coleberd says the signature was actually discovered back in July when she took attendees of Hannibal’s Clemens Conference down into the cave, the Herald-Whig in Quincy, Illinois, reported. The duo waited to announce the discovery until the signature had been authenticated.

It was Cindy Lovell, former director of Hannibal’s Mark Twain Museum, who spotted the signature in one of the cave’s unlit passageways, the release said. She said she’d been looking for the signature since her first visit to the cave in 1996.

“I had the flashlight. Cindy had the eyeballs,” Coleberd told the Herald-Whig. “There was that name (Clemens). Cindy’s eyes got bigger than saucers.”

“All of a sudden I just started yelling ‘Clemens! Clemens! I see Clemens!’” Lovell said, according to the news outlet.

The pair snapped photos of the signature and sent them to Mark Twain scholars and conference attendees Dr. Alan Gribben and Kevin Mac Donnell, who each studied the signature before ultimately vouching for its legitimacy, the release said. Officials say the signature reads “Clemens” in pencil, though high-resolution photos suggest “Sam” had been carved there despite not being visible to the naked eye.

“I am going to go on record as believing this to be Sam Clemens’ handwriting,” Gribben said in the release. “Clemens would repeatedly refer to this cave in his mature writings, so we know he was often there and that it was an important landmark to him.”

Mac Donnell says he carefully analyzed the signature against others belonging to both Samuel Clemens and his brother, Orion.

“In 1853 Sam is rounding the humps in his ‘m’ and sharpening them in his ‘n,’” he said in the release. “He puts a very short tail on his ‘s.’ You could almost lay a ruler at a downward slant over the tops of his ‘C,’ ‘l,’ and first ‘e.’ His ‘s’ is the same height as his ‘n.’ Orion’s signature displays none of these things, and the signature in the cave shares all of these traits with Sam’s Oct. 1853 signature. The cave signature is very likely of an earlier date, possibly by several years, since Sam left Hannibal earlier that same year.”

More than 250,000 visitors have signed their names on the cave’s walls, making the discovery especially unlikely, Coleberd said in the release.

“With three miles of passageways, that means there are six miles of walls to examine. And with 250,000 signatures on the walls, looking for ‘Clemens’ has been like the proverbial needle in the haystack.”

But for both women, the discovery seems to be both an accomplishment and a relief.

“Linda and I have been looking for so long, it still seems unbelievable,” Lovell said in the release. “My single hope has been that someone would find it during my lifetime.”

This story was originally published September 26, 2019 at 10:04 AM with the headline "Mark Twain’s signature found in Missouri cave bearing his name after decades-long search."