1 Polar Star Lodge No. 79, of St. Louis, had more members than any other Missouri lodge, among them many rivermen (Jones, 363–64).

2 Moore and Clemens had been friends at least since they served together on the John J. Roe (see 6 July 59 to Moore). John M. Leavenworth was a clerk with the St. Louis wholesale grocery firm of William L. Ewing and Company (Robert V. Kennedy 1860, 161). He was also the brother of Mark and Zebulon Leavenworth, captain and pilot, respectively, of the John J. Roe, which Clemens had steered in August and September 1857.

3 The signature is in Clemens’s hand. Leavenworth and Moore also signed their own names.

4 The members of the committee appointed to consider Clemens’s petition have not been further identified. (One of them, evidently, inscribed these final four lines.) They reported favorably, and Clemens was elected on 13 February 1861. He received his first degree (Entered Apprentice) on 22 May, his second degree (Fellow Craft) on 12 June, and his third degree (Master Mason) on 10 July 1861. Although Clemens let his membership in Polar Star Lodge lapse while he was in the Far West, he did attend meetings of the Carson City and Angels Camp lodges on 24 March 1862 and 8 February 1865, respectively (Mace, 162). After reinstatement in Polar Star Lodge on 24 April 1867, he remained a Mason only until 8 October 1869, when the lodge granted his request for a demit, thereby accepting his resignation. (For a discussion of the Masonic influence on Clemens’s thought and work, see Jones, 363–73.)