Ralph Waldo Emerson writes in his journal on 18 August:
Yesterday a ride & walk with Thoreau to Acton. We climbed to the top of Nagog hill, & afterwards of Nashobah, the old domain of Tahatawan & his praying Indians. The wide landscape is one vast forest skirted by villages in the horizon. We saw Littleton, Acton, Concord, Westford, Carlisle, Bedford, Billerica, Chelmsford, Tyngsboro, Dracut. On the western side, the old mountains ending with Uncanoonuc in the North. The geology is unlike ours & the granite ledges are perpendicular. Fort Pond is a picturesque sheet with a fine peninsula scattered park-like with noble pines on the western side—Grass Pond a pretty lake: Nagog seen from Nagog-hill is best, & Long Pond we came to the shore of. These four ponds dictated, of course, Tahatawan’s location of his 600 acres. Also we visited the top of Strawberry hill; & a big chestnut tree.
(The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 11:145-146)
