1853: At 18, Clemens travels east, finding work as a printer in Philadelphia and New York. He publishes a chronicle of his journey in the Hannibal Journal.

1854: He returns to the Midwest, living in several cities on the Mississippi, including Keokuk, Iowa.

1857: Twenty-one-year-old Clemens heads to New Orleans, waiting for a berth on a ship bound for South America. He becomes apprentice to steamboat pilot Horace Bixby and begins working as a cub pilot on Mississippi River steamboats.

1859: Clemens earns a steamboat pilot's license.

Photos courtesy of Mark Twain Collection (#6314), Clifton Waller Barrett Library, The Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia Library.