Mark Four! Mark Three! Mark Twain!

Today I was reading the book Only a Few Bones by John Philip Colletta when something caught my eye. He was describing the experience of a family riding on a riverboat in 1873. As the boat neared a landing, the watchman on the boat yelled "Mark Four, Mark Three, Mark Twain...." (p. 211), meaning that he was measuring the depth of the water based on a rope with knots in it. The rope was at knot two, which told them that there were two fathoms of water beneath the boat. The phrase "Mark twain" definitely caught my eye and I wanted to know why Samuel Clements chose that pen name. I knew that riverboats and rivers played large parts in his writings. Still, I was curious to learn a little more about the reasoning behind his choice.

According to Wikianswers, "Samuel Clemens took the name Mark Twain from his experience on the Mississippi River boats. The old word twain means two. Mark twain means there are two fathoms of water under the boat." Well, turns out that Samuel Clemens was a steamboat pilot for a time before moving west. No wonder he chose that name for himself! Anyways, it was an interesting mystery to look into that literally fell off the pages of a book that had nothing to do with Mark Twain and landed right in my research friendly lap. I love it when stuff like that happens!