Being interested in Concord’s history, I always look forward to reading James Spain’s “Vintage Views.” His column titled “Mystery crop for the future” (Sunday Monitor Your Life, March 10) began with the news of 1835. One event in particular caught my eye – that of the birth of Samuel Langhorne Clemens. Reading that Edgar Allen Poe was his father was surprising, so of course I googled it. Poe married his first cousin, Virginia Clemm, when she was 13 years of age and he was 26. It is believed that the marriage was never consummated. In any case, they never had children.
What I did find was that Samuel Clemens was born in 1835, but his parents were Jane Lampton and John Marshall Clemens. Thank you for the fast facts, Wikipedia.
FRANCINE PHILIPPE
Concord