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 ye usual length of time, on the usual conditions until the Corporation can be consulted on his application.”