Background
He was born in Campbell County, Virginia, the eldest of five children, to Samuel B. and Pamela Goggin Clemens. His father died in 1805, whereupon the family moved to Kentucky.
He was born in Campbell County, Virginia, the eldest of five children, to Samuel B. and Pamela Goggin Clemens. His father died in 1805, whereupon the family moved to Kentucky.
Clemens was the scion of a Virginia family that owned both land and slaves in that state. The Clemenses were a Cornish American family originally from Looe in Cornwall, England. He was named after United States. Chief Justice John Marshall.
Pamela Clemens remarried in 1809, and John Clemens started working at age 11, as a clerk at an iron mine.
Later in his youth he undertook the study of law in a local law office and became a licensed attorney at the age of 21. The burden of this debt left him without financial resources.
From 1832 to 1835 he was postmaster in Pall Mall. He speculated unsuccessfully in land and opened four stores which were unsuccessful.
John Clemens practiced law and operated a general store in Florida for several years before moving to Hannibal in 1839.
His retail business ventures were not successful, but he was active in civic affairs He served as a steamboat and railroad commissioner and became a county judge. He served in the Missouri militia but did not serve in the debacle of the Honey War.
He died in March 1847 from pleurisy and pneumonia.
The cabin in which the Clemens family is believed to have lived in Fentress County, Tennessee, is displayed as part of the collection of the Museum of Appalachia in Norris, Tennessee.