Mark Twain's Lost Sweetheart

[...]was the woman who ultimately won his heart and married him, Olivia Langdon. [...]1837 sales of individual properties in the tract were not allowed, but once the legal obstacles were cleared for land sales that year, the town was laid out (History of Lee County, Iowa 616-17). Only a handful of lots were sold, and by 1840 it had not grown much, with a dense forest still engulfing most of the town and a marsh occupying much of the area between the river and 3rd or 4th Streets, with just a dozen cabins (City of Keokuk 3), but in 1841 a land title case reached the United States Supreme Court that declared free title to Keokuk, and growth then picked up in the sparsely populated area. Acknowledgments Once again, the author would like to express special thanks to Tanya Boltz and Angela Gates of the Keokuk Public Library for their patience and expertise, Shari S. Stelling of the State Historical Society of Iowa Library for her Interlibrary Loan assistance, and Margaret Tufts Tenney, Head of the Reading Room at the Harry Ransom Center at the University ofTexas for her help and good cheer.