Mark Twain first visited Hartford in 1868 and was immediately attracted to its sophisticated population, dynamic commerce, splendid homes, broad avenues, and natural beauty.

The neighborhood in which he settled, Nook Farm, perhaps most typified these engaging qualities. Set at the western edge of the capitol city, Nook Farm had previously been developed only for its agricultural possibilities, but by mid-century, new homes began to rise in its bucolic setting. The parcel Twain purchased in 1871 was long and narrow, extending south from Farmington Avenue, already an important though relatively quiet artery. Over time Twain would come to own up to nearly eight acres by expanding his holdings to the west and even further south, defined by vistas and sunsets undisturbed by any development.

The element of his new land was the steep hillside that dropped almost 30 feet as it pulled to the west where it finally embraced a long sweeping bend of the north branch of the Park River. During the years that Twain lived in Hartford he would write the works that changed the course of American letters, among these The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and even Life on the Mississippi. It is no small matter that Twain developed these tales inspired by his youth, he could hear the sounds of his own children and their friends playing on the banks of a river coursing through his Nook Farm property.

The house and the neighborhood also reinforced the fact that Twain had "arrived": he was now settled in what would soon become the wealthiest city per capita in the nation and he lived in its most exclusive enclave with his governor, United States Senator, newspaper publishers, a noted Civil War general, as well as another of the nation's literary titans, Harriet Beecher Stowe.