<P> The character of Huck Finn is based on Tom Blankenship , the real - life son of a sawmill laborer and sometime drunkard named Woodson Blankenship , who lived in a `` ramshackle '' house near the Mississippi River behind the house where the author grew up in Hannibal , Missouri . The father of Huck , called `` Pap '' Finn , may be based on Jimmy Finn , a full - blown alcoholic who lived on the streets , and it is only through Twain 's remembrances that Woodson is characterized as a drunkard . Twain left Hannibal and his boyhood at an early age and his memories of these people are colored by what he could have known and understood at the time , as a boy of less than 14 years old . Twain 's friend Tom Blankenship did n't attend school because there were no public schools at the time , and his family was too poor to send him to a private school . Left at loose ends in a busy household with six sisters and lacking a mother who seems to have died when he was young , this Tom was indeed `` at liberty '' most of the time . </P>
<P> The character of Huck Finn is based on Tom Blankenship , the real - life son of a sawmill laborer and sometime drunkard named Woodson Blankenship , who lived in a `` ramshackle '' house near the Mississippi River behind the house where the author grew up in Hannibal , Missouri . The father of Huck , called `` Pap '' Finn , may be based on Jimmy Finn , a full - blown alcoholic who lived on the streets , and it is only through Twain 's remembrances that Woodson is characterized as a drunkard . Twain left Hannibal and his boyhood at an early age and his memories of these people are colored by what he could have known and understood at the time , as a boy of less than 14 years old . Twain 's friend Tom Blankenship did n't attend school because there were no public schools at the time , and his family was too poor to send him to a private school . Left at loose ends in a busy household with six sisters and lacking a mother who seems to have died when he was young , this Tom was indeed `` at liberty '' most of the time . </P>
who is the character huck finn based on
who is the character huck finn based on
based on Tom Blankenship , the real - life son of a sawmill laborer and sometime drunkard named Woodson Blankenship , who lived in a `` ramshackle '' house near the Mississippi River behind the house where the author grew up in Hannibal , Missouri .
based on Tom Blankenship , the real - life son of a sawmill laborer and sometime drunkard named Woodson Blankenship , who lived in a `` ramshackle '' house near the Mississippi River behind the house where the author grew up in Hannibal , Missouri .