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18 January 1851. Boston, Mass.

A. Bronson Alcott writes in his journal:

  Concord woods were more to me than my library, or [Ralph Waldo] Emerson even. They were to him than they were to me, and still more to Thoreau than to either of us. Take the forest and skies from their pages, and they, E. and T., have faded and fallen clean out of their pictures.
(The Journals of Bronson Alcott, 237)
18 January 1852. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  E. Hosmer tells me that his daughter, walking with Miss Mary Emerson to some meeting or lecture,—perhaps it was Mrs. Smith’s, [Elizabeth Oakes Smith]—the latter was saying that she did not want to go, she did not think it was worth while to be running after such amusements, etc., etc. Where up Miss Hosmer asked, “What do you go for, then?” “None of your business,” was the characteristic reply . . .
(Journal, 3:204-205)
18 January 1853. Stow, Mass.

Thoreau surveys a woodlot for Turner Bryant (A Catalog of Thoreau’s Surveys in the Concord Free Public Library, 6; Henry David Thoreau papers. Special Collections, Concord (Mass.) Free Public Library).

18 January 1854. Cambridge, Mass.

Thoreau receives a summons:

Middlesex. S[ummon]s to Henry D. Thoreau of Concord in said County of Middlesex.

Greeting.

  You are hereby required, in the name of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, to make your appearance before Justices of the court of Common Pleas now holden at Cambridge within and for the County of Middlesex on Thursday the Twentieth day of January instant at 9 o’clock A.M. and from day to day until the Action herein named is heard by the court, to give evidence of what you know relating to an Action of Plea of Tort then and there to be heard and tried betwixt Leonard Spaulding Lots [?] Plaintiff and William O. Benjamin Defendant

  Hereof fail not, as you will answer your default under the pain and penalty in the law in that behalf made and provided. Dated at Cambridge the Eighteenth day of january in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty four

L. Marett Justice of the Peace

(The Correspondence of Henry David Thoreau, 318)

18 January 1856. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  J. B. Moore says that he has caught twenty pounds of pickerel in Walden in one winter . . .

  P.M.—To Walden to learn the temperature of the water . . . (Journal, 8:112-116).

Thoreau also writes to Calvin Greene:

Dear Sir,

  I am glad to hear that my “Walden” has interested you—that perchance it holds some truth still as far off as Michigan. I thank you for your note. “The “Week” has so poor a publisher that it is quite uncertain whether you will find it in any shop. I am not sure but the author must turn book-sellers themselves. The price is $1.25 If you care rough for it to send me that sum by mail, (stamps will do for charge) I will forward you the copy by the same conveyance.

  As for the “more” that is to come, I cannot speak definitely at present, but I trust that the mind—be it silver or lead—is not yet exhausted. At any rate, I shall be encouraged by the fact that you are interested in its yield.

  Yrs respectfully
  Henry D. Thoreau

(The Correspondence of Henry David Thoreau, 406-407).
18 January 1857. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  A very cold day. Thermometer at 7:30 A.M., -14° (Smith’s hanging on same nail -20°); at 1.15 P.M., -3°; 2.15 P. M., -4°; 3.45 P.M., 0°. It is cloudy and no sun all day, and considerable wind also. There was no Sabbath-school on account of the cold; could not warm the room.

  We sometimes think that the inferior animals act foolishly, but are there any greater fools than mankind? Consider how so many, perhaps most, races . . . treat the traveller; what fears and prejudices has he to contend with. So many millions believing that he has to come [to] do them some harm. Let a traveller set out to go round the world, visiting every race, and he shall meet with such treatment at their hands that he will be obliged to pronounce them incorrigible fools. Even in Virginia a naturalist who was seen crawling through a meadow catching frogs, etc. was seized and carried before the authorities . . .

(Journal, 9:225-226)
18 January 1858. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  At the Dugan Desert, I notice, under the overhanging or nearly horizontal small white oaks and shrub oaks about the edge, singular little hollows in the sand, evidently made by drops of rain or melting snow falling from the same part of the twig, a foot or two, on the same spot a long time . . .
(Journal, 10:249)
18 January 1859. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  That wonderful frostwork of the 13th and 14th was too rare to be neglected,—succeeded as it was, also, by two days of glaze,—but, having company, I lost half the advantage of it. It was remarkable to have a fog for four days in midwinter without wind. We had just had sudden severe cold weather, and I suspect that the fog was occasioned by a warmer air, probably from the sea, coming into contact with our cold ice-and-snow-clad earth. The hoar frost formed of the fog was such a one as I do not remember on such a scale . . .

  P.M.—Up Assabet to bridge . . .

(Journal, 11:402-409)
18 January 1860. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  2 P.M.—To Fair Haven Pond, on river.  Thermometer 46; sky mostly overcast.

The temperature of the air and the clearness or serenity of the sky are indispensable to a knowledge of a day, so entirely do we sympathize with the moods of nature. It is important to know of a day that is past whether it was warm or cold, clear or cloudy, calm or windy, etc. . . .

(Journal, 13:94-95)
18 July 1837. Cambridge, Mass.

Harvard’s Class of 1837 holds its (apparently raucous) Valedictory Exercises, or Class Day. It’s not certain whether Thoreau attended (The Days of Henry Thoreau, 49; Emerson Society Quarterly 7 (2nd quarter 1957):2).

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