Lies, damn lies, and statistics ….. So... Who said this first? It may have been British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli, and it might also have been literary critic Charles Wentworth Dilke.

The phrase is attributed most often to the man who made it famous: Mark Twain.

Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, on the banks of the Mississippi River. The images of life on the river came through in his stories of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

Mark Twain (then Samuel Clemens) grew up in the sleepy river town Hannibal, Missouri.

Hannibal is today a great attraction for the fans of Mark Twain.

Mississippi River commerce was critical to Hannibal. … and the river is still hard to control.

Mark Twain and his family lived many years in Hartford, at this house.

Twain was witty, a great speaker, and of course a marvelous writer. He was a terrible business person, inept at managing his own affairs. He invested in this typesetting machine – as large as an automobile – and it was obsolete before it was completed.