Kercheval family.
William F. Kercheval (1813?–97) was a trader, according to the 1850 Hannibal census. Clemens identifies him in “Villagers” (101) as a tailor. In 1849–50 Kercheval was co-owner of a dry goods firm, and in the fall of 1851 he became manager of the “People’s Store,” which also sold dry goods. Clemens claimed in his autobiography that of the nine times he almost drowned as a boy, he was saved once by Kercheval’s “good slave woman” and once by the tailor’s “good apprentice boy” (AD, 9 Mar 1906, CU-MARK, in MTA, 2:184; Marion Census 1850, 305; Hagood and Hagood 1985, 44; “Fall of 1849. Kercheval & Green . . . ,” Hannibal Missouri Courier, 18 Oct 49; “Dissolution of Copartnership,” Hannibal Western Union, 12 Dec 50; “W. F. Kercheval . . . ,” Hannibal Missouri Courier, 1 Jan 52).
Helen V. Kercheval (1838–1923), William’s daughter, married Clemens’s friend John H. Garth on 18 October 1860. In his autobiography Clemens called her “one of the prettiest of the schoolgirls” (AD, 9 Mar 1906, CU-MARK, in MTA, 2:184). She is mentioned twice in “Villagers” (101, 101). In working notes for “Schoolhouse Hill” (MSM, 431), Clemens cast her as Fanny Brewster, but the character does not appear in the story (Marion Census 1850, 305; Portrait, 776; Hagood and Hagood 1986, 246).
