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Circa 2 April 1847. Concord, Mass.

Ralph Waldo Emerson writes in his journal:

  H.D.T. finds my boundary of woodlot on Walden Pond to measure 130 rods (The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 10:19).
Circa 21 June 1853. Concord, Mass.

Ralph Waldo Emerson writes in his journal:

  H is military

  H seemed stubborn & implacable; always manly & wise, but rarely sweet. One would say that as Webster could never speak without an antagonist, so H. does not feel himself except in opposition. He wants a fallacy to expose, a blunder to pillory, requires a little sense of victory, a roll of the drus, to call his powers into full exercise.

(The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 13:183)
Circa 21 May 1856. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau receives a letter from Calvin Greene, asking him to send a copy of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers to James Newberry in Rochester, Michigan, which Thoreau does on this day (The Correspondence of Henry David Thoreau, 425).

Circa 8 August 1847. Concord, Mass.

Ralph Waldo Emerson writes in his journal:

  Henry T. says that 12 lb of Indian meal, which one can easily carry on his back, will be food for a fortnight. Of course, one need not be in want of a living wherever corn grows, & where it does not, rice is as good . . . H. D. T. when you talked of art, blotted a paper with ink, then doubled it over, & safely defied the artist to surpass his effect.
(The Journals and Miscellaneous and Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 10:151)
December 1828. Concord, Mass.

Henry D. Thoreau is enrolled in the Concord Academy and its preceptor, Phineas Allen, boards at the Thoreaus’ around this time (The Days of Henry Thoreau, 26; New England Quarterly 21 (March 1948):104; Emerson Society Quarterly 9 (4th quarter 1957):3).

Thoreau writes an essay, probably related to his schooling, in this year or 1829:

THE SEASONS
Why do the seasons change? and why
Does Winter’s stormy brow appear?
Is it the word of him on high
Who rules the changing, varied year.
There are four Seasons in a year, Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, I will begin with Spring. Now we see the ice beginning to thaw, and the trees to bud. Now the winter wears away, and the ground begins to look green with the new born grass. The birds which have lately been to more southern countries return again to cheer us with their morning song.  Next comes Summer. Now we see a beautiful sight. The trees and flowers are in bloom. Now is the pleasantest part of the year. Now the fruit begins to form on the trees, and all things look beautiful.

In Autumn we see the trees loaded with fruit. Now the farmers begin to lay in their Winter’s store, and the markets abound with fruit. The trees are partly stripped of their leaves. The birds which visited us in Spring are now retiring to warmer countries, as they know that Winter is coming.

Next comes Winter. Now we see the ground covered with snow, and the trees are bare. The cold is so intense that the rivers and brooks are frozen.

There is nothing to be seen. We have no birds to cheer us with their morning song. We hear only the sound of the sleigh bells.

(The Days of Henry Thoreau, 27; The Life of Henry David Thoreau, 51-52)
December 1849. Boston, Mass.

James Russell Lowell writes a review of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers for the Massachusetts Quarterly Review:

  We stick to the sea-serpent. Not that he is found in Concord or Merrimack, but like the old Scandinavian snake, he binds together for us the two hemispheres of Past and Present, of Belief and Science . . .
December 1851. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau surveys the Concord/Carlisle town line and is paid $42 (A Catalog of Thoreau’s Survey at the Concord Free Public Library, 6; Henry David Thoreau papers. Special Collections, Concord (Mass.) Free Public Library).

“H. D. Thoreau, for survey and plan of line between Concord and Carlisle, 42 00” (Concord Mass. Town Reports, 1851-1852:18).

December 1854. Cambridge, Mass.

Walden is reviewed in Harvard Magazine.

Early August 1855. Concord, Mass.

Ralph Waldo Emerson writes in his journal:

  Yet Washington, Adams, Quincy, Franklin, I would willingly adorn my hall with, & I will have daguerres of Alcott, [A. Bronson Alcott] Channing, [William Ellery Channing] Thoreau.
(The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 13:438)
early December 1838. Concord, Mass.

Ralph Waldo Emerson includes Thoreau in a list of people to whom he gives tickets to his “Human Life” lecture series, which was delivered at the Masonic Temple in Boston from 5 December 1838 to 20 February 1839 (The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 12:65-7).

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