Lakenan, Robert F. (1820–83), born in Winchester, Virginia, was admitted to the bar in 1845 and shortly afterward moved to Hannibal. As Mark Twain recalled in his autobiography, he “took an important position in the little town at once, and maintained it. He brought with him a distinguished reputation as a lawyer. He was educated, cultured . . . grave even to austerity” and “was contemplated with considerable awe by the community” (AD, 9 Mar 1906, CU-MARK, in MTA, 2:181–82). [begin page 329] In the late 1840s he helped to found the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad and became its director, then its general attorney. Except for the years 1861 to 1866, when he retired to his farm in Shelby County, he lived in Hannibal. In 1876 he was elected state senator and in 1882 state representative. He was married twice: in January 1850 to Lizzie Ayres, who died the following December, and in 1854 to a reluctant Mary Jane Moss. In “Villagers” (93, 94, 94) Lakenan is mentioned three times (Marion Census 1850, 314; Holcombe, 608–10; Ellsberry 1965 [bib20416], 37; “Married,” Hannibal Missouri Courier, 10 Jan 50; “Died,” Hannibal Western Union, 19 Dec 50).
