Naturalist's Almanac

On July 4, 1845, just eight days shy of his twenty-eighth birthday, Henry David Thoreau moved to Walden Pond. The book he wrote about the experience became a classic, but I’ve often wondered just what Thoreau was thinking about when he moved there.

In Walden he makes bold statements as if he knew exactly what he was doing from day one, but his journal entries reveal a more tentative and exploratory human being, a person I can identify and sympathize with.

Thoreau didn’t write in his journal on July 4, so we have no record of his thoughts on the day he moved. But on July 5, he wrote, “Yesterday I came here to live. My house makes me think of some mountain houses I have seen, which seemed to have a fresher auroral atmosphere about them as I fancy the halls of Olympus.”

On July 6, he began to articulate why he had moved to Walden: “I wish to meet the facts of life — the vital facts, which were the phenomena or actuality the Gods meant to show us — face to face, and so I came down here. Life? who knows what it is, what it does? If I am not quite right here I am less wrong than before ....”

A month later, he remembered his first childhood look at Walden. He says, “Twenty-three years since, when I was five years old, I was brought from Boston to this pond, away in the country which was then but another name for the extended world for me — one of the most ancient scenes stamped on the tablets of my memory ....”

He then describes Walden as his spiritual home: “That woodland vision for a long time made the drapery of my dreams. That sweet solitude my spirit seemed so early to require that I might have room to entertain my thronging guests, and that speaking silence that my ears might distinguish the significant sounds.”

Looking back now that he was actually living at Walden, he could see that even as a child his spirit “at once gave the preference to this recess among the pines where almost sunshine & shadow were the only inhabitants that varied the scene, over that tumultuous and varied city — as if it had found its proper nursery.”

I’m glad Thoreau kept voluminous journals for those of us who want to know more about him than he chose to share in his published works. I find the particular journal entries that refer to his July 4, 1845 move to Walden among his most appealing.

MORE INFORMATION

Walden National Historic Landmark
http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=599&ResourceType=Site

On December 29, 1962 Walden Pond was designated a National Historic Landmark. In 1990, a non-profit organization called The Walden Woods Project, committed itself to preserving Walden Woods as an open space and as a tribute to Henry David Thoreau. It raised funds to buy 96 additional acres to protect the Walden Pond area from development.

Thoreau’s Cabin 1945
http://www.uky.edu/AS/Anthropology/PAR/thoreau.htm

Roland Robbins attended the Thoreau Centennial held at Walden Pond on July 4, 1945 and decided to find the exact site of the original cabin. He excavated, produced detailed drawings, took photographs, kept log books, and collected artifacts. He managed to identify and document the cabin's stone chimney foundation, stone corner piers, and root cellar. His book, Discovery at Walden, explains his project and what he learned.

Photos Past and Present
http://thoreau.eserver.org/pondpics.html

This page offers links to numerous photos of Walden Pond and Thoreau’s cabin site, including one of the stone posts marking the cabin’s exact location as determined by Roland Robbins.

Walden - The Place
http://thoreau.eserver.org/waldenplace.html

This essay explains the natural and cultural history of Walden Pond, its importance to Concord, and its current significance to admirers of Henry David Thoreau.

Thoreau’s Walden Years - Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau#Civil_Disobedience_and_the_Walden_Years:_1845.E2.80.931849

This long article on Thoreau includes a short overview of Thoreau’s time and achievements during his two years and two months at Walden.