Daniel was an acquaintance of Samuel Clemens in Hannibal, Missouri. He was the owner and captain of the John H. Dickey, a steamboat for which Samuel worked as steersman several months after the death of his brother Henry. After Henry's death, Samuel wanted to continue working on the river and still in close touch with his family in St. Louis; working on the packet Dickey on the Memphis-St. Louis run would permit him to do so. Captain Able was someone that Clemens respected and when he started writing again, he wrote articles about the captain, the boat the the city of Memphis. In 1851 Captain Able made the historic trip of taking the Anthony Wayne up the Mississippi River to the falls of St. Anthony in Minneapolis. It was the first time that a steamboat had ascended that far north on the Mississippi.
Daniel was an acquaintance of Samuel Clemens in Hannibal, Missouri. He was the owner and captain of the John H. Dickey, a steamboat for which Samuel worked as steersman several months after the death of his brother Henry. After Henry's death, Samuel wanted to continue working on the river and still in close touch with his family in St. Louis; working on the packet Dickey on the Memphis-St. Louis run would permit him to do so. Captain Able was someone that Clemens respected and when he started writing again, he wrote articles about the captain, the boat the the city of Memphis. In 1851 Captain Able made the historic trip of taking the Anthony Wayne up the Mississippi River to the falls of St. Anthony in Minneapolis. It was the first time that a steamboat had ascended that far north on the Mississippi.
