Draper, Zachariah G. (1798–1856), born in South Carolina, was one of the leading citizens of Hannibal, where he settled in 1827 and held several political offices, [begin page 318] including those of postmaster, city councilman, county court judge, and state representative. He was one of John Marshall Clemens’s few intimate friends. In 1841 both were jurymen in the trial of three Illinois abolitionists sentenced to twelve years in the penitentiary for trying to induce slaves to escape to Canada. Both helped found the Hannibal Library Institute in 1844, and in 1846 they initiated plans to construct a railroad from Hannibal to St. Joseph. Draper heads the list of “Villagers” (93), and he probably was one of the “three ‘rich’ men” Mark Twain alludes to later in that work (see the note at 100.18). He did not die “without issue,” as Clemens states, but fathered five children, three of whom died at an early age. Working notes for “Schoolhouse Hill” (MSM, 432) reveal that Judge Taylor (237–38) was based on Judge Draper (Marion Census 1850, 315; Holcombe, 253, 256–58, 894, 895, 900, 901, 942, 959; Greene, 92; Hagood and Hagood 1986, 9 n. 1, 161; Wecter 1952, 72–73, 110, 111; Brashear 1934, 200, n. 11; eulogy, Hannibal Journal, 27 May 52, excerpted in Wecter 1950, 1).
