At home with Mark Twain – An Irishwoman’s Diary on the delights of Hartford, Connecticut

“Mark Twain, Mark Twain”, the call from the river boats marking the water depth, enchanted Samuel Clemens so much he adopted it as his name. The peripatetic writer made his home in many places but the house in Hartford, Connecticut, where he lived for 17 years was his favourite. He and his beloved wife Livy built a beautiful redbrick Victorian mansion on a rise about Farmington Avenue. They engaged a renowned New York architect, Edward Tuckerman Potter, to design their dream family home. Mark Twain and his family enjoyed what the author would later call the happiest and most productive years of his life in their Hartford home. He wrote: “to us our house had a heart and a soul and eyes to see us with; and approvals, and solicitudes and deep sympathies; it was of us and we were in its confidence and lived in its grace and the peace of its benediction.”

Today the house is exactly as if they had just left. It is a confection of ornate red brickwork with many elaborate features. Inside it is a practical family home, with plenty of space for everyone and to entertain. It was ahead of its time, with electric light and indoor plumbing. Samuel and Livy Clemens were great entertainers and the dining room was used a lot. The butler’s pantry is a fine-sized room with a lovely collection of flatware and delph. Sam loved to welcome people to his house and there were two guest rooms for visitors.

One of those dinner guests would have been next-door neighbour Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle's Tom's Cabin. Two international literary celebrities living side by side; one would have loved to be a fly on that dining room wall. Both houses are now museums dedicated to their owners, with additional new buildings for educational use, lecture series, events and research facilities for scholars. That one city in Connecticut was the homes of two of America's literary giants is remarkable.

Cultural offerings in Connecticut include very interesting endowments at Yale University in nearby New Haven. The banker Paul Mellon endowed the Yale Center for British Art, and it has the largest collection of British art outside Britain. The stunning collection includes works by Joshua Reynolds, George Stubbs, Thomas Gainsborough, JMW Turner, and a whole wall of John Constable’s clouds. Contemporary art is also represented by Lucien Freud, Francis Bacon and Damien Hirst. The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, endowed by the Beinecke family, includes hundreds of thousands of rare books and manuscripts. The building is a striking glass tower of books encased in a translucent marble structure. One of the few remaining Guttenberg bibles in on display, and a new page is turned each day.

Connecticut is also a place where you can explore the culture of the tribal nation, the Mashantucket Pequot. This area is the home ground for the indigenous people. There is a great interactive museum at Mashantucket that traces their history. There is a life-size diorama of a tribal village with its inhabitants at work and play.

The Pequot tribe are the operators of the largest casino resort in North America, Foxwoods. The resort opened in 1996 and contributes hugely to the running costs of the state of Connecticut. The state receives 25 per cent of the slot-machine revenue. Foxwoods has more than 5,000 slot machines.

Also in this region are the Mohegan tribe, and they operate the Mohegan Sun casino resort. It has three casino and over a 1,000 bedrooms.

As an experiment for breakfast, I tried cornflake encrusted, deep-fried muffin loaf. It will not be on the menu at home.

The sea plays an important place in the history of Connecticut, from holidays at the lovely New England coast to the dominance of the waves. At Groton the US Navy Submarine Museum is a fascinating place. They remember John Holland, the Irish submarine inventor, with a replica of his first submarine. The museum traces the development from the early days to the nuclear submarines of today. You can explore the Nautilus, a decommissioned nuclear sub and get a feel of what it is like to be a submariner. In the nearby town of Mystic there is the Museum of America and the Sea. It is the largest maritime museum in the world. It has a historic collection of sailing ships and boats.

The city of Hartford became closer to Ireland with the launch of a four-times weekly service from Aer Lingus, which opened at the end of September. It will go to a daily service from March.

Hartford is known as the filing cabinet of America, due to the large number of insurance companies that are headquartered there. Seven of the top ten have their European HQs in Ireland.