As a young boy, Joseph Douglas was found scalped and left for dead in Oklahoma by a man named Douglas, who brought him to Hannibal. He lived on this site in the 1840's, when he worked as a roustabout on the river wharf where young Sam Clemens played. He always denied the local legend that claimed he was the model for the villain "Injun Joe" in Mark Twain's book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. In 1871, after the American Civil War, he became one of the first African American landowners in Hannibal. By saving his meager earnings, Douglas purchased this marshy valley and sold building lots to more than forty families of former slaves. In doing so, he created one of the oldest communities of African American property and business owners in the nation. The community, called Douglasville in his honor, included Douglasville School, one of the oldest African American schools, built in 1870. It was here that these families began their move up from slavery.