Joseph Hopkins Twichell

Reverend Joseph Hopkins Twichell "was born in 1838 in Plantsville, Connecticut, and entered Yale in 1855. There he made lifelong friends, was a mediocre student won honors on the college crew. ...

"From 1859-61 Twichell attended Union Theological Seminary in New York. When the Civil War broke out, Twichell joined a New York regiment with a large proportion of immigrant Irish Catholics. ...

"Hartford was one of the richest cities in America then, and Asylum Hill was the church of choice for many of its wealthiest citizens. When in 1868 Samuel L. Clemens — Mark Twain — came to town to see his publisher, one of Twichell's parishioners, he called Asylum Hill "The Church of the Holy Speculators." But he quickly befriended its minister. ..

"Twichell retired in 1912 and died just after the Armistice in 1918."

His son Burton Parker Twichell married Katherine Eugenia Pratt, daughter of Charles Millard Pratt.

Books

 * Steve Courtney, Joseph Hopkins Twichell: The Life and Times of Mark Twain's Closest Friend (University of Georgia Press, 2008).