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Abbreviated Biography . . .
Below is a brief, just the facts, ma'am biography of Thoreau. There are excellent books and detailed biographies available everywhere, but for the lazy researcher, here are the basics:
Born: David Henry Thoreau to John Thoreau and Asa Dunbar in Concord, Massachusetts. His elder siblings include Helen and John and his only younger sibling was Sophia. John was a companion and compatriot until his death in 1842, which proved a tragic milestone in Thoreau's life. Suffering psychosympathetic pain and ultimately reversing the order of his name (David Henry became Henry David), Thoreau took on a new identity without his brother. Thoreau also had an uncle with whom he was close, Charles Dunbar, who is mentioned from time to time in his journals as a friend.
After high school, Thoreau was educated at Harvard University. At least, he paid the tuition to be educated at Harvard but later declared that Harvard taught "all the branches of learning, and none of the roots." In the late 1830s he taught school and tutored in Concord and on Staten Island, New York. From these experiences come his declared love for children, for their informality (and thus simplicity) and open-mindedness. Also in this era was the famous incident in which Thoreau was relieved from his teaching career because he refused to strike pupils in punishment. From 1841 to 1843 Thoreau lived in the home of essayist, philosopher, and friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Periodically for the remainder of his life, Thoreau worked in the family pencil factory with his father, developing new systems and even peddling the product on the streets of New York. He also pursued contract work in land surveying. Though he gained little profit from lecturing, it should be mentioned that he also embarked on a series of lecture tours around New England, the most famous of these vocalizing his support for John Brown's actions. (Look it up. Harper's Ferry.)
One of Thoreau's most remembered points is one that rests in what he failed to do. In 1846 Thoreau refused to pay his poll tax (revenue used to support the Mexican war) and chose to go to jail for it. His motives and conclusions are set forth in the essay, "Civil Disobedience" (1849).
What followed is an act of retreat, not away from reality, but into it. Thoreau moved into his hand-built cabin by Walden pond in 1845. It was there he wrote A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers and lived the life described in Walden. Though not entirely reclusive, Thoreau spent much of his time there in meditation and analysis of observations, walking and becoming one with nature, and carrying out agricultural endeavors. In his later published work, he focuses on the essence of life as observed in simplified natural surroundings.
A perpetual bachelor, Thoreau had but one recorded love entanglement, and this short-lived. He courted Ellen Sewall in the summer of 1839 but gave up when she turned down his marriage proposal.
Thoreau lived in New England all his life, and except for excursions to Canada, Maine, Minnesota, and New York, his most distant endeavors took him on less tactile paths through metaphysics and back. Of these travels, his works are records: The Maine Woods, published in 1863, Excursions (1863), Cape Cod, (1865), A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (reprinted in 1862), all concern finite voyages. Walden; or, Life in the Woods is an account of a more enduring journey.
Though often thought of as a high priest of Transcendentalism, Thoreau never officially signed on with that group and was uncommitted to its activities. Notwithstanding, his life and work show agreement on most fundamental issues.
Without regret or loss of composure, the mortal Thoreau passed away on May 6, 1862. His grave was originally located in Concord but has since been moved to the Author's Ridge at Sleepy Hollow.His immortal self, as you may guess, will live forever, for, as Emerson said: "His soul was made for the noblest society; he had in a short life exhausted the capabilities of this world; wherever there is knowledge, wherever there is virtue, wherever there is beauty, he will find a home." -Emerson
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". . . I wished to live deliberatel, to front only the essential factsof life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practic resigntion, unless it was quite necessary . . " -Thoreau, Walden
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On the shores of Walden pond.
The remnants of Thoreau's hand-built cabin remain here, outside of Concord, Massachusetts. |
Thoreau's gravestone
at the Author's Ridge at Sleepy Hollow |
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