Moffett, William Anderson (Will) (1816–65), was Clemens’s brother-in-law. In 1835 or 1836 William and his brother Erasmus moved from their native Virginia to Florida, Missouri, where they found jobs in a grocery. In the early 1840s the brothers moved to Hannibal and with partner George Schroter opened a general store. William moved to St. Louis in the spring of 1851 and established Moffett, [begin page 336] Stillwell and Company, a firm of commission merchants; after that partnership dissolved in 1855, he formed a commission business with his old partner, Schroter. On 20 September 1851 he married Pamela Ann Clemens, with whom he had two children: Annie E. (1852–1950) and Samuel Erasmus (1860–1908). In the spring of 1857, Moffett loaned Clemens the $100 initial payment for his apprenticeship as a river pilot, and Clemens often stayed with the Moffetts in St. Louis during his piloting years. Moffett died in St. Louis, leaving Pamela a widow at age thirty-seven. In his autobiography, Clemens recalled Moffett as “a merchant, a Virginian—a fine man in every way” (AD, 29 Mar 1906, CU-MARK, in MTA, 2:289). “Villagers” (105) includes a less flattering description (Bible 1862; Marion Census 1850, 306; Webster 1918, 1–2; “We direct attention . . . ,” Hannibal Missouri Courier, 3 Apr 51; MTBus, 19, 26, 33, 36, 38; Portrait, 579).
