Quarry Farm is located on East Hill overlooking Elmira, New York and the Chemung River Valley. In 1869, Jervis Langdon purchased the property as a vacation home for his family. When he died the following year, it was inherited by his eldest daughter, Susan Langdon Crane. It remained in the Langdon family until 1982, when it was donated to

Elmira College Elmira College is a private college in Elmira, New York. Founded as a college for women in 1855, it is the oldest existing college granting degrees to women that were the equivalent of those given to men. Elmira College became coeducational in a ...

as part of the founding of the

Center For Mark Twain Studies The Center For Mark Twain Studies is a cultural humanities site associated with Elmira College. The Center manages two historic sites, the Octagonal Study and Quarry Farm, where the American author, Mark Twain, composed many of his works, inclu ...

. Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) was married to Susan Crane's younger sister,

Olivia Langdon Clemens Olivia Langdon Clemens (November 27, 1845 – June 5, 1904) was the wife of the American author Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain. Early life Olivia Langdon was born in 1845 in Elmira, New York, to Jervis Langdon and Olivia ...

. During their courtship, Sam promised Livy that he would never allow her to feel the homesickness he felt, and from this promise emanated their annual Summer pilgrimage to Quarry Farm. All three of the Clemens' daughters would be born at Quarry Farm, and during the three decades the family regularly summered there, Twain composed many of his books and other literature, including ''

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' or as it is known in more recent editions, ''The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'', is a novel by American author Mark Twain, which was first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United S ...

''. He wrote most of this work in an octagonal study built expressly for him by the Cranes about from the main house in 1874. That study was relocated to the campus of Elmira College in 1952. As part of the stipulation of the gift, Quarry Farm is not open to the public, but is reserved exclusively for the use of scholars researching and writing about Twain and his circle. At least 10-15 of these Quarry Farm Fellows spend anywhere from a week to a month living in the house, surrounded by an extensive library of Twain-related materials, with access to the Mark Twain Archive at Elmira College, and assisted by the Center For Mark Twain Studies, which employs a full-time archivist and resident scholar.

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Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state) Buildings and structures in Elmira, New York Houses completed in 1870 Houses in Chemung County, New York Mark Twain National Register of Historic Places in Chemung County, New York {{ChemungCountyNY-NRHP-stub