Thoreau dies. Early in the morning, he asks his sister Sophia to read aloud some of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. After she reads from the last chapter, he says, “Now comes good Sailing” (Concord Saunterer, vol. 11, no. 4 (Winter 1976):16-17). His last words were “moose” and “Indian” (Thoreau: The Poet-Naturalist, 336).
Ralph Waldo Emerson writes to H.G.O. Blake:
A. Bronson Alcott writes in his journal:
Sarah Alden Ripley, living in the Old Manse, writes to Sophia Thayer: