Thoreau borrows $10 from Ralph Waldo Emerson to travel to Maine in search of a teaching position (Ralph Waldo Emerson journals and notebooks (MS Am 1280H, Series I, 112). Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.).
Emerson also writes a letter of recommendation for Thoreau to take on his Maine job search:
I cordially recommend Mr. Henry D. Thoreau, a graduate of Harvard University in August, 1837, to the confidence of such parents or guardians as may propose to employ him as an instructor. I have the highest confidence in Mr. Thoreau’s moral character, and in his intellectual ability. He is an excellent scholar, a man of energy and kindness, and I shall esteem the town fortunate that secures his services.
Prudence Ward writes to her sister, Caroline Ward Sewall:
Mr. Thoreau has begun to prepare his garden, and I have been digging the flower-beds. Henry has left this morning, to try and obtain a school at the eastward (in Maine). John has taken one in West Roxbury. Helen is in another part of Roxbury, establishing herself in a boarding and day-school. Sophia will probably be wanted there as an assistant; so the family are disposed of. I shall miss the juvenile members very much; for they are the most important part of the establishment.
