Thoreau lives with Charles Stearns Wheeler temporarily in order to qualify as a “Resident Graduate” at Harvard University, which would allow him to check out books from their library (Concord Saunterer, OS vol. 6, no. 2 (June 1971):4-6).

Probably sometime before Thoreau arrives in Cambridge, Josiah Quincy writes a note to Thaddeus William Harris: “Mr Thoreau being engag[ed] in a work, as he states, for which the aid of our Library is requisite, is hereby authorized, to receive from the library the usual number of volumes—and for y^e usual length of time, on the usual conditions until the Corporation can be consulted on his application.”