# Thoreau: His Home, Friends and Books/Chapter 2

CHAPTER II
THE THOREAU FAMILY
THE cumulative fame of Thoreau among critics has been due to his pioneer services as naturalist, his strange literary revelations, and his unique, pervasive philosophy of living; the chief interest of the public, however, has centred about his eccentric personality and the few dramatic events of his brief life. There is no passport more sure to arouse curiosity than non-conformity, or marked courage of thought and action. A man or woman who, defying conventionality, dares to make a law of conduct unto himself, however desirous he may be to avoid publicity and live simply, has already assured himself of passing, if not permanent, attention. This interest may be cheap notoriety, it is too often won by a charlatan rather than a sincere reformer, yet the public easily confuses these two types of men, during the primal stages of revealment. Thoreau, as boy and man, had absolute sincerity and persistence to live his principles, yet from his early manhood until now he has been the victim of misinterpretation, both unconscious and ​intentional. He has been called a Cagliostro, a Diogenes, a Simeon Stylites; he has been caricatured as another Yankee Barnum with a show of personal oddities for cheap effect. His occasional acts have been widely exploited, while his basal traits have been ignored. Few men of letters have had so many interpreters and critics; few have suffered so much distortion.
​Some modern psychologists declare that too great emphasis has been laid upon heredity and environment, that each person is architect of his own character to a far greater degree than is commonly granted, and that many evolutions of later traits are wholly distinct from influences of birth or early training. General readers, however, still prefer to retrace personality to the intermixture of racial qualities which have been expanded or suppressed by environment. In a study of Thoreau such method brings ample returns. Many contradictory traits are reflex expressions of complex inheritance. In subtle humor, not unmixed with earnest aspiration, he once suggested that his family name might be derived from "Thorer, the dog-footed," of Scandinavian myth, the strongest man of his age. In tracing the mythical genealogy, he says,—"So it seems that from one branch of the family were descended the kings of England, and from the other, myself." With characteristic accuracy, however, he traced his French and Scotch parental ancestry and the Anglo-Saxon Puritanism inherited from his mother's family.
The grandfather, John Thoreau, was born at St. Heliers on the Isle of Jersey and, when a boy just entering manhood, came to America on a privateer in 1773. In his journal, June 11, 1853, Henry ​Thoreau records a family tradition that this grandfather, when en route to America, saluted the French frigate, La Terrible, which carried John Adams to France. A tourist contributed to the Boston Transcript, five years ago, the story of his search in Jersey for further trace of the Thoreau family and especially "Uncle Peter," who corresponded, for many years, with the American branch. One grandchild of this Jersey wine-merchant still lives at St. Heliers, though her name has been changed by marriage. Her son is a fine scholar, well versed in English and American literature, and proud to claim kinship with Henry Thoreau. The house where John, grandsire, and his brother Peter were born is still standing opposite the churchyard.
On arrival in America the pioneer Thoreau settled in Boston as a merchant. His store was at first on Long wharf and later on King Street, before this monarchical name was changed to State Street. For many years he lived on Prince Street in a house recently destroyed. In 1781, John Thoreau married Jane Burns of mingled Scotch and Quaker blood. While still a young woman she died, leaving four children, John, the father of Henry, and three daughters. The Jersey custom regarding nomenclature was carefully followed by ​the Thoreaus; the elder children, John and Jane, bore the names of father and mother respectively. Another inheritance from the Jersey family was the rich, sonorous voice transmitted to Henry Thoreau and his sisters; the former always retained a slight French accent and a bearing of alert, tense energy, "as if he had not a moment to lose." The removal of the earlier Thoreau family from Boston may be traced to the father's second marriage, in 1797, to Rebecca Kettell of Concord. It is certain that at the beginning of the new century, John Thoreau was living in Concord where he died in 1801, at the age of forty-seven. Thus early had the family curse of consumption appeared, destined to shorten the lives of two generations of Thoreaus. There is a tradition that this first John contracted his fatal cold while patrolling Boston streets in a severe rain-storm, when a Catholic riot was imminent in 1801. The last of his children, Miss Maria Thoreau, died in Maine in 1881, and with her the family name vanished from this part of America. She was the family genealogist. In a letter, now first utilized in print, written from Bangor, March 10, 1873, she recounts an interesting item regarding her mother's ancestors and their Quaker traits: "My grandmother's name was Sarah Orreck, American by birth I presume, and ​living at Boston at the time of her marriage with a Scotch gentleman of the name of Burns, who came to this country dressed in too furbelow a style to please her Quaker notions, for he had to divest himself of them, (his ruffles over his hands), before gaining her consent to marry him." Henry Thoreau was a worthy descendant of this Quakeress with her rigid hatred of frills and fashions.
John Thoreau, the father of Henry, was born in Boston in 1787. He continued his father's business as merchant in a store in Concord, just southeast of the old court-house. The first merchant had amassed a large property, according to the standards of that time, but his son could not maintain success; perhaps Concord lacked the opportunities of Boston as a trading mart. His business failure was a genuine surrender of property. A friend of the Thoreaus recently told me that, with the honesty which characterized the family, this man, after his reverses, even sold his wedding-ring of gold, that he might yield his slightest effects to his creditors. In 1812 he had married and, at the time of Henry's birth in 1817, the family were living with the maternal grandmother, where John Thoreau was "carrying on the farm." When Henry was eight months old they moved from this farm into the village and the following year his father tested again his ​ BIRTHPLACE OF THOREAU This farm-house, near Concord, has been reproduced from an early drawing ​fortunes at Chelmsford where, according to the family day-book, he "kept shop and painted signs." Another venture in trade was in Boston about 1820 for three years; the family lived on Pinkney Street and here Henry began his school-life. John Thoreau seemed unable to recover fortune and he returned to Concord to venture and succeed in another craft. A few years earlier, pencil-making had been introduced here by the Munroe family, to whose large-hearted success the Concord Free Public Library stands as monument. To this business John Thoreau now devoted himself and, with ingenuity and industry, succeeded so well that his sister said he won the first medal at the Salem Mechanics' Fair. A more immediate and practical result was his ability to gain an income. His business was later increased by preparing plumbago for publishing houses in New York and Boston. All the family assisted in both crafts and the exact process of mixing plumbago was carefully concealed from visitants or even chance inmates of the home. Among treasured mementoes of Concord I have a gift-pencil bearing the stamp,—"J. Thoreau & Son, Concord, Mass." The "lead" or plumbago was mined in Acton, a few miles distant, and the coarse grinding was in the mill now at Concord Junction, marked on present-day maps, "Loring's Lead ​Works." The fine grinding, by a small weighted machine of interlocked boxes, the rolling and packing, were completed in the upper room in the ell of the Thoreau-Alcott house.
As is often noted in genealogy, the French traits were less pronounced in the first generation of American Thoreaus than in the Concord family. "Aunt Maria," however, boasted "the vivacity of the French," which she seems to have exampled in tongue and pen. A frequent sentence in the letters from Henry's sisters, reads, "Aunt Maria, of course, has written you all the news." John Thoreau, on the other hand, exampled the reticent composure of the Quaker and the sturdy, industrious qualities of his Scotch inheritance, mingled with deft and inventive skill. Punctilious in every detail of life, reserved before strangers yet an interesting companion to friends, he was deeply respected by his townsmen, as was evidenced at his death in 1859. His was not "the plodding, unambitious nature" which has been attributed to him. Unfortunate in mercantile affairs, as was many another during the early years of the last century, he amply redeemed his failure by his ideal honesty and his later persistent and successful manufacture of pencils, plumbago, marbled paper and allied commodities. An unambitious man would not, from a limited income, have ​given his four children an education of marked liberality for those days. Among books in the Thoreau library a few bore the father's name on the fly-leaf. They represented the best classics in English. Especially valued by the present owner is a much worn copy of The Spectator. A trifling incident interwoven in Henry Thoreau's journal shows the father's deep respect for the studies of his son, long after college days were ended. He gently reproved Henry because "he took time from his studies" to make, rather than buy, maple sugar, though he was assured that the knowledge thus gained was commensurate with "university training."
During John Thoreau's later life his home was resort for noted abolitionists and occasional fugitive slaves. The family name has been closely linked with this politico-reform movement. One who knew the family declared that all were "preeminent and sincere reformers in an era and an atmosphere when reformers were radical by a sort of necessity of environment." Among tributes to the sterling worth and quiet influence of John Thoreau, none surpass Henry's expressions in a letter to his friend, Mr. Ricketson, written just after his father's death, and included by Mr. Sanborn in "Familiar Letters;"—"I am glad to read what you ​say about his social nature. I think I may say that he was wholly unpretending, and there was this peculiarity in his aim, that though he had pecuniary difficulties to contend with the greater part of his life, he always studied merely how to make a good article, pencil or other (for he practised various arts), and was never satisfied with what he had produced. Nor was he ever in the least disposed to put off a poor one for the sake of pecuniary gain, as if he labored for a higher end." How fully the ideality, lofty aim, and unflinching honesty of the famous son may be traced to his own revelation of his father's nature!
In the vivacity and adroitness of mind characteristic of French ancestry, one is tempted to believe that, by some mischance, the Celtic blood belonged to Thoreau's mother. Her active, fluent, and witty tongue, expressive of a brilliant mind, has been accounted as "malicious liveliness." The true character of Mrs. Thoreau, however, has recently received full quota of justice from family friends. Cynthia Dunbar, born at Keene, New Hampshire, in 1787, was the daughter of a clever lawyer. He died the year of her birth and later her mother married Jonas Minott of Concord, hence the "Minott house" where Henry Thoreau was born. Mr. Sanborn, in his biography of Thoreau, has given ​a romantic flavor to records of the Dunbar family by recalling the intimate friendship which once existed between Daniel Webster and Mrs. Thoreau's sister, Louisa Dunbar. The latter was a gay, attractive school-teacher at Boscawen when Webster prepared there for college. David Dunbar, for whom Thoreau was named, died soon after his nephew's birth. "Uncle Charles" was a roving, debonnair character, somewhat of a juggler and wrestler and the delight of the children because of his geniality and conjuring tricks. He was a source of amusement and education to Henry Thoreau, as chance allusions evidence; from him, in turn, the poet-naturalist learned some simple necromancy which delighted his many children friends. When lassitude at times threatened him he recalled with humor the proneness of this uncle to "cat-naps" and his ability to "go to sleep shaving himself."
Mrs. Thoreau tempered the gayety and keen wit of the Dunbars with the more delicate, kindly traits of her maternal family, the Joneses of Weston. Perhaps too much emphasis has been laid upon her lively, assertive temper and her agile tongue; a family guest recently admitted that "she was an incessant talker." Her conversation, however, was not limited to gossip or harangue, as has been covertly hinted. Mr. Irving Allen, ​writing from personal memories in The Independent, July 25, 1895, says;—"Mrs. Thoreau was in many respects a very remarkable woman, the most prolific and I think the most interesting talker I ever met. Her fund of anecdote and reminiscence was amazing and unfailing; her command of the formidable female weapon of sarcastic rejoinder entirely worthy of the object of her special and enthusiastic admiration, Wendell Phillips." Among the letters loaned for this volume is one from Mr. Ricketson to Miss Sophia Thoreau after her mother's death. Among words of honor and friendship are these;—"Your mother was a woman of unusual vivacity, as well as of rare intellectual power; and in her youth, I doubt not, was not only handsome but the life of her companions. I could recognize in her dramatic talent the origin of your brother Henry's fine gift for conversation; and in the quiet manner of your dear father his repose of mind:—combined, the strong contrasts of your parents produced Henry's character, one of the truest and noblest of our times."
In emphasis of Mrs. Thoreau's vivacity and loquacity, one must not fail to record as well her dainty, refined tastes, shown in her home and her gracious attentions to her guests and friends. A Concord lady, who has enjoyed her hospitality, has told me of the fine taste displayed in the ​arrangement of the plain furniture and the simple, dainty service of her table. With her heirlooms of fine china she maintained many touches of a refined past custom; as example, she always dipped the spoon into hot water before serving sugar, that the fine flavor might be secured. This delight of an artistic nature in food, which should appeal to the eye as well as the taste, was transmitted to her famous son. In a journal extract, published in "Winter," Thoreau refers to his pleasure in popping corn, "a perfect winter flower, uniting anemones and houstonias," and adds,—"It is pleasant to relieve the grossness of kitchen and table by simple beauty of repast to attract the eye of an artist even." Mrs. Thoreau was an ambitious, cheery woman, suffering for years with consumption, yet with undaunted courage. Finally, at the age of eighty-five, even at her death-hour, she is described as "bursting out with a song." A family friend recalls her last, patient days, in an article in The Outlook, December 2, 1899: "Ever ready to be interested in passing events, expressing keen opinions or offering valuable suggestions, her hold on life was firm, and it was almost a surprise when she at last yielded to the inevitable and submitted to lie several days in bed before the end came. To a friend who visited her at this period Mrs. Thoreau ​recited Cato's soliloquy with perfect composure and contentment. Well might a gifted woman exclaim, 'She looks like a queen,' when death at last had claimed the resolute spirit, and she lay silently receiving her friends for the last time."
Among many records of her kindliness are two extracts from letters in the Life of Father Hecker by Rev. Walter Elliott, published in recent years. Isaac Hecker, the eccentric baker at Brook Farm and later proselyte to Catholicism, as a young man, came to Concord to study the classics with Mr. George Bradford and boarded with the Thoreaus. In letters to his mother in 1844, he describes his pleasant room, its window shaded with sweet honeysuckle and visited by humming-birds. He adds,—"The lady of the house, Mrs. Thoreau, is a woman. The only fear I have about her is that she is too much like dear mother—she will take too much care of me." Both Mr. and Mrs. Thoreau were deeply interested in botany and physical geography. With their children and guests they visited the haunts about Concord, collected specimens of plants, rocks, and insects, little realizing that their son was to become America's greatest nature-poet.
Thus the complex inheritance of the four Thoreau children mingled reserve and gayety, dogged and ​practical industry with lofty ideals, love of nature and of books, interest in all reform agitations, and delight in refined, domestic life. All the children were keen in mind, strong and individual in character. All sought to attain that "higher end" with which Henry accredits his father. They had an independence and pride, born of conscious power, which never failed to serve the chance need of friend or stranger, but refused to accept flattery or condescension. Mr. Sanborn has said,—"To meet one of the Thoreaus was not the same as to encounter any other person who might happen to cross your path. Life to them was something more than a parade of pretensions, a conflict for ambitions, or an incessant scramble for the objects of desire. They were fond of climbing to the hilltop, and could look with a broader and kindlier vision than most of us on the commotions of the plain and the mists of the valley."
All of the Thoreau children were teachers. Helen, the older sister, five years the senior of Henry, taught for some time at Taunton, and her brother John was a teacher at the same place for a time; later they were both at Roxbury, as Henry's letters indicate. Helen's letters, only a few of which have ever been published but which have been loaned for use in this volume, show an earnest, practical ​mind, well versed in all the studies of that day, with an unusual ambition to learn more of the elementary sciences. At her school in Roxbury, her sister, Sophia, assisted for a while. One letter definitely settles this mooted question regarding Helen's private school: “Helen and Sophia have advertised their intention of opening a boarding-school in Roxbury. H. when there, found a suitable room, and a lady willing to board them with some of the scholars. This is a great undertaking with H.'s feeble health; indeed, I don't see how it is possible for her to do it. The terms are very high, and a great deal of course will be expected. Ask E. if Mr. Kent's fifteen dollars a quarter didn't include all branches, excepting music? H.'s is twenty. It was the advice of those whom she consulted on the spot. She herself was disposed to be more moderate.” That Helen and Sophia had excellent educations is attested by the few letters written in Latin to them by Henry and included in the volume of Thoreau's “Familiar Letters.” The gay humor and loving sympathy gleam through the vernacular. One paragraph is especially affectionate and poetic;—“When Robin Redbreast brings back the springtime, I trust that you will lay your school duties aside, cast off care, and venture to be gay now and then; roaming with me in the woods, or ​climbing the Fairhaven Cliffs,—or else, in my boat at Walden, let the water kiss your hand, or gaze at your image in the wave."
Helen Thoreau, who died in 1849, before her brother's genius had met any wide appreciation, was always proud of him and confident of his success. It was Helen who said to Mrs. Brown, the sister of Mrs. Emerson, after a lecture by the "Concord sage,"—"Henry has a thought very like that in his journal." Moreover, she loaned the journal to Mrs. Brown who thus brought it and Thoreau to the attentive interest of Emerson. She was always fearful lest people might misinterpret her brother's frank aims and speech. In a letter to her in October, 1837, just after Henry had finished college, he refers to her defense of his attitude; with characteristic freedom, he urges honest, open expression of opinion, received by society with a justice which will require neither apology nor explanation. Again, Helen is associated with the incident that examples the gay, teasing humor of Mrs. Thoreau, the proud, supersensitive heart of Henry, and the tender, protecting love of the elder sister. Just before college was ended, Thoreau asked his mother what profession he should choose and merrily she replied,—"You may buckle on your knapsack, dear, and seek your fortune in the ​world." As the unconscious raillery grieved the home-loving boy, Helen lovingly encircled his shoulder and said,—"No, Henry, you shall not go; you shall stay at home and live with us,"—and so he did, "loving and being loved, serving and being served."
The same tender earnestness which characterized Helen was a marked trait of John, two years the senior of Henry. As one stands before the plain, spotless Thoreau monument at Sleepy Hollow, and notes simply the date—1815, sans month or day, on John's birth-record, the strange fact recurs to memory that, in this methodical family, by some droll oversight, no one had preserved with surety this son's birthday. John's thoughtful services to others have been recorded in part. For Emerson he procured a daguerreotype of little Waldo, "the hyacinthine boy," a few months before his death shattered the father's hopes and wrung from his sore heart that pathetic "Threnody." Again, Emerson refers to a little box-house for bluebirds on his barn, placed there by John Thoreau, where for fifteen years the annual visitants gladdened the Emerson household. John and Henry Thoreau were constant companions and the loss of John's broad and warm humanity left marked impress upon the younger brother. With less ​combativeness and reserve, with more cheeriness, John was generally the favorite among boyish comrades. With a good education, though not college-bred, he was a most successful teacher. In a letter from Henry, sent to Roxbury, where he was teaching in 1838, is the proposition, that, after John's school was ended, they should go west to seek a school together, or, find individual positions. The plan for this Western pilgrimage failed, however, and the same year John assisted Henry in a little private school at the old Parkman House, where the Thoreaus then resided. During the next two years, both taught at the Concord Academy, then on Academy Lane, now moved to Middle Street and somewhat changed. This was a private school, for the town had abandoned the Academy for a High School four years before. Research among old Concord newspapers disclosed the following announcements in The Yeoman's Gazette, September 7, 1839:
"Concord Academy.
The Fall Term will commence on Monday Sept. 23d, and continue twelve weeks.
Terms. :
| English branches, Languages included, | $4.00 $6.00 |
| No pupils will be received for less than one quarter. John Thoreau, Jr., Preceptor." ||
​The following year, September 18, 1840, the above advertisement is repeated with the addendum: "Henry D. Thoreau will continue to assist in the Classical Department."
John taught English and mathematics and seems to have won the enthusiasm and love of his pupils in larger measure than his more gifted, yet more reserved, brother. Extracts from a journal of one of the resident pupils, to be mentioned in the next chapter, record many instances of the cordial, considerate attentions of John to the boys, his cooperation in their tasks and games, and his opportune fig or orange shyly bestowed upon some pupil who was under ban of mild punishment, which meant abstinence from delicacies of food. Like all the family, John was a good musician and the brothers delighted to sing together. One who knew Henry recalls that, after the death of John, he often refused to sing, though love for music remained a master-passion of his life. In "A Week" Thoreau makes definite reference to the gentle influence of John;—"and his cheerful spirit soothed and reassured his brother, for wherever they meet, the Good Genius is sure to prevail." Companions in lofty thoughts and practical home-life, they were, as well, comrades in nature-study and search for Indian relics. In his journals, Henry ​recounts their early morning strolls to Fairhaven and elsewhere, while his letters testify to common interest in Indian tradition and archeology. After John's death in 1842, in the poem first written in his journal and later transcribed in a letter to Helen, are pathetic memories of this nature-companionship:
"Dost thou still haunt the brink Of yonder river’s tide? And may I ever think That thou art by my side?"
"What bird wilt thou employ To bring me word of thee? For it would give them joy,— ’Twould give them liberty, To serve their former lord With wing and minstrelsy."
There was a fearful tragedy connected with the death of John, the first rift in the Thoreau house hold. He died of lockjaw, due to tetanus poison in a cut upon the finger. A friend of Miss Sophia Thoreau, in a recent interview, said that the wound received instant and expert treatment from Boston, but no efforts could avail to avert the terrible sequel. She also verifies the tradition that Henry suffered sympathetically for a time during the hours of agony. His memory of that suffering never lightened; twelve years afterwards, when occasion ​necessitated reference to it, he became pale and faint. In the journal poem, already cited, he queried,—
"Is thy brow clear again, As in thy youthful years? And was that ugly pain The summit of thy fears?
"Yet thou wast cheery still; They could not quench thy fire; Thou didst abide their will, And then retire.
Verily the Thoreaus, as a family, knew how to die as bravely as they lived!
Sophia, the youngest of the four children, destined to survive all her family, inherited the practical, mechanical ability and the cheerful spirit, combined with a strong talent for art. To her pen we owe the only authentic sketch of the Walden hut. She was especially fond of flowers and had a fine conservatory near the dining-room. Henry's letters to her testify to their common interest in botany and woodcraft; he recorded, in his journal, their joint pleasure in watching the evolution of a brilliant moth. During his later life they walked and rowed together and when strength for exercise failed Sophia became his companion on long drives and was his faithful scribe. Among some letters, now first published, ​is the following from Sophia, revealing her practical industry and her intense love for botany. It was written while she was teaching in Roxbury: "I must give vent to my ecstasies by writing you about the flowers I have found. . . . Since my return to Roxbury I have been very busy, having made myself a gown, worked half a collar like yours, made two visits, been in to Boston six times, besides attending school every day. To proceed to business; on the 19th of April I found the saxifraga; April 22d, I walked with the young ladies and gathered the viola and cinquefoil; April 26th, accompanied by nearly all my scholars I walked over to Dorchester, and much to my surprise found the caltha in blossom, which we did not find in Concord until the third week in May. The last week in April I found the blueberry, buttercup, dandelion and columbine in blossom,—as to the poor little houstonias I haven't glimpsed one this spring." In a postscript she adds that the Pyrus and viola blanda are also in blossom. Surely a woman who uses a postscript for a botanical fact may be pardoned! Like the rest of the family Sophia was fond of music and skilled both in voice and upon the piano, which was a late addition to the pleasures of the Thoreau home. As already hinted, she was the nurse and literary assistant of he ​brother during his last years. She lived, moreover, to redeem his character from the unjust representations of ultra-stoicism and an egotistic autocracy. To her true and loving memory are due the later testimonies to her brother's home-tenderness and his friendships. After his death, she continued the family business of preparing plumbago and showed keen, sage ability. Forty years ago it was unusual for a woman to conduct business; with her friends she used to laugh at her inability to establish her name as a business agent. Though she signed her letters with her full name, the replies were invariably addressed, "Dear Sir." Among the interesting reminiscences in the Outlook already mentioned, are the tributes to the practical judgment and the artistic and musical gifts of Sophia.
Chance visitors and Concord friends have concurred regarding the tender, deferential, even winsome, relations of the Thoreau family. Their conversation was sentient and witty but always reverential of nobler ideals of life and broad religion. They read the best books and discussed them with fresh, potent insight; they enjoyed games and music; they exchanged visits and tea-gatherings and took part in town-events of social and literary moment. The erroneous theory that the Thoreaus were admitted to Concord society by ​suffrance, and not by right, has been fully corrected during recent years. One who well knew the home-circle said,—"No one could more heartily enjoy his family life than Henry." If there has seemed unusual delay in introducing the subject of this biography, it has been with the purpose of carefully revealing the environment, physical and mental, and the family traits of the Thoreaus, in order that, with the background completed, his entrance might seem in general harmony with his surroundings, as indeed it was. If thus regarded, he will not stand forth as the exotic and eccentric that he has so often been called. He was the product of "Concord woods and Concord culture" and he revealed, as well, the ancestral traits of two distinct and remarkable families. French love for nature, wit, and energy, Scotch doggedness and courageous emphasis of freedom, Puritan rigidity of principle and conscience, latent tenderness with external reserve, united with Quaker love of simplicity and dislike of general society,—such family qualities were resident in the boy, born in 1817, at the isolated farmhouse beside the poplars, the peat-bogs, and the ambling brook, on the old Virginia road. The place of Thoreau's birth has been rendered doubly interesting by the recent resurrection of a tradition which is grounded on fact, that here, a ​negro, freed and sent northward from Virginia, built his cabin on what was then known as "The Plains." Gradually, a footpath thence was trodden to the town. As the negro was known as "Old Virginia," his narrow, twisted path took the name of "Old Virginia Lane." In memory of Thoreau's active efforts against slavery and his last potent words in behalf of John Brown, the tradition assumes a romantic and prophetic significance.
Biographers always repeat Thoreau's entry in his journal,—"I was baptized in the old meeting-house by Dr. Ripley, when I was three months old and did not cry." Perchance this foretold later stoicism and indifference to the spectacular! He was christened David Henry, and his names were not reversed until college days, although his home-name was always Henry. After the removal of his father's business to Chelmsford and Boston, as already noted, the family returned to Concord when he was six years old. He recalled a dim, childish memory of an adventure with a cow, which, enraged by his flannel gown of red, gave him a violent toss before he was rescued. Mr. Joseph Hosmer, the friend of his boyhood, says that Thoreau disliked street parades and noisy "shows," though interested in the sham-fights on musters and "Cornwallis Days." He preferred to ​be a spectator rather than a participant in many of the games; his chief delight was to wander away to the river-banks to search for arrow-heads and pestles, or to watch the occasional Indians who paddled down the Musketaquid. Doubtless, this cautious, minute study of Indian habits gave him that great skill with the paddles which caused Hawthorne's admiration and personal despair. There existed a family memory that, as a little boy, Thoreau was greatly alarmed in thunder-storms and would creep to his father's lap for comfort, that he was to find later beneath Nature's own protection.
As early as ten years his seriousness of mien had given him the common boyish title of "Judge." His wonderful control over a most sensitive emotional nature was early tested. When, as a lad, he took his petted chickens to the innkeeper for sale, he was compelled to see their necks wrung, as he stood by, pale with compressed lips. Channing relates another childish anecdote which is important in later character-analysis. A schoolmate had lost a knife and Henry, accused, maintained quietly, "I did not take it." When the theft was finally located, he explained that he had been away all that day with his father, but his reserve and dogged sense of justice refused to make this ​explanation earlier. Already his skill with tools had won him a reputation among his mates. He was asked to whittle a bow and arrow for a friend but firmly declined, incurring unjust censure for obstinacy and selfishness. Later the real cause was revealed,—he lacked a knife. This proud reticence, remaining as a trait of manhood, caused those misunderstandings and yearnings for that ideal friendship which could comprehend without explanations, which seemed to him to detract from pure love. As a boy, he found delight in his home and a few companions with whom he was occasionally gay with the abandon of a Dunbar. He bore his part in home-duties, driving the cow to pasture, drawing the water from the well, and supplying the logs for the fireplace. His great pleasure was to wade through mud and stream for some cherished flower or brink-side bush, or to join his brother with fishing-line or gun, in those days before the poet had superseded the angler and hunter.
While at school at the local academy, he had part in a program of the Concord Academic Society, urging the negative on the subject, "Is a good memory preferable to a good understanding in order to be a distinguished scholar at school?" In the old Concord newspaper this note is appended to the ​report, "the affirmative disputant, through negligence, had prepared nothing for debate, and the negative not much more. Accordingly, no other member speaking, the president decided in the negative. His decision was confirmed by a majority of four." On this boyish occasion, duly reported in mock-heroic style, Thoreau doubtless represented his real opinion regarding education. At the academy, as later at college, he was largely indifferent to the prescribed studies but was always noted for "a good understanding." The Greek and Latin, conned in those earlier days, gave him foundation knowledge of the best classics and supplied many of the quotations, from both familiar and recondite sources so abundant in his writings. Of his college preparation, in typical semi-humor and semi-aggressiveness, he wrote in his class memorials;—"I was fitted, or rather, made unfit for college at Concord Academy and elsewhere, mainly by myself, with the countenance of Phineas Allen, preceptor." In the class-book, found in the library at Harvard University, he again refers jocosely to his poor preparation;—"'One branch more,' to use Mr. Quincy's words, 'and you had been turned by entirely! You have barely got in.' However, 'a man's a man for a' that!' I was in and did not stop to ask how I got there." He did not cast ​blame upon his teachers for his lapses but referred to his own roaming babits,—"Those hours that should have been devoted to study have been spent in scouring the woods and exploring the lakes and streams of my native village."
Despite these assertions of negligence, always to be considered as extravagant in self-depreciation, be showed sufficient brain-power so that his family decided to send him through Harvard, though this would involve careful planning of the financial resources. There are hints that this ambition was stronger on the part of his family than as his own desire. As youth and man, he was always best content at home and disliked contact with many strangers. Later, during absence, be wrote his mother, "Methinks, I should be content to sit at the back-door in Concord, under the poplar-tree, henceforth forever." When away from home he pictured in imagination the distinctive occupation and pleasure of each member of the circle, and his affectionate memories gave him many a pang of nostalgia. In turn, amid home-scenes, he was full of practical sympathy. Channing, with authentic force, wrote,—"He was one of those characters who may be called household treasures; always on the spot with skilful eye and hand to raise the best melons in the market, plant the orchard with the ​choicest trees, act as extempore mechanic, fond of the pets, the sister's flowers, or sacred Tabby,—kittens being his favorites,—he would play with them by the half-hour."
Such were the qualities of heart and mind, during the formative years of boyhood as well as after the tentative experiences of college, teaching, and Walden life. His life record bespoke a deep, sensitive home-love, a practical helpfulness, a pride and reserve which admitted the few rather than the many to his friendship, a tenacity of purpose governed by his own interpretation of moral law, an indifference to the more common social excitements but a plain, unswerving delight in nature-study, music, and classic literature, especially poetry. Such were the basal traits which characterized Henry Thoreau when he entered college in 1833, there to meet certain influences which would further evolve his character and enable him to frame a strange, yet consistent, philosophy of life that would bear the final test of personal application.