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Thoreau writes in his journal:

Measured Gowing’s Swamp two and a half rods northeast of the middle of the hole, i. e. in the andromeda and sphagnum near its edge, where I stand in the summer . . . (Journal, 10:271-272).

1 February 1859. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

P.M.—Up Assabet.

The river having suddenly gone down since the freshet, I see cakes of ice eight or ten feet across left two feet high or more above the banks, frozen to four or five maples or oaks. Indeed, each shore is lined with them, where wooded, a continuous row attached to alders, maples, swamp white oaks, etc. . . .

(Journal, 11:434)

1 February 1860.

Concord, Mass. Thoreau writes in his journal:

2 P.M.—5º . . . (Journal, 13:118).

Cleveland, Ohio.? R. Redington writes to Thoreau (MS, Henry David Thoreau papers (Series IV). Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, New York Public Library).

1 January 1841. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau pays his father $15 towards a debt (The Personality of Thoreau (1901), 28).

1 January 1842. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

Virtue is the deed of the bravest. It is that art which demands the greatest confidence and fearlessness. Only some hardy soul ventures upon it. Virtue is a bravery so hardy that it deals in what it has no experience in. The virtuous soul possesses a fortitude and hardihood which not the grenadier nor pioneer can match. It never shrunk. It goes singing to its work. Effort is its relaxation. The rude pioneer work of this world has been done by the most devoted worshippers of beauty. Their resolution has possessed a keener edge than the soldier’s. In winter is their campaign; they never go into quarters. They are elastic under the heaviest burden, under the extremest physical suffering.

(Journal, 1:308-309)

Thoreau’s brother John cuts off a small piece of his finger while stropping a razor. After replacing the piece and wrapping it, the wound becomes infected with tetanus (“Warrington” Pen-portraits, 12-13). See entry 11 January.

1 January 1843. Concord, Mass.

Ralph Waldo Emerson gives Thoreau $1 for expenses on the Dial (MS, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s account books. Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.).

1 January 1851. Clinton, Mass.

Thoreau lectures on “An Excursion to Cape Cod” at Clinton Hall for the Bigelow Mechanic Institute (Studies in the American Renaissance, 1995, 191-193).

Concord, Mass. Thoreau writes in his journal on 2 January:

Saw at Clinton last night a room at the gingham-mills which covers one and seven-eighths acres and contains 578 looms, not to speak of spindles, both throttle and mule. The rooms all together cover three acres (Journal, 2:134-136).

1 January 1852. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

Mr. Frost did not like Mrs. S—’s [Elizabeth Oakes Smith] lecture last night; did not like what she said about the clergy. Said it was too transcendental for him . . .

9.30 P. M.—To Fair Haven . . .

McKean has sawed another of the pines under Fair Haven. He says it made eighty-two feet in length of mill-logs, and was so straight that it would have made a first-rate mast eighty feet long. I told him that Nathan Hosmer had told me that he once helped saw down a pine three feet in diameter, that they sawed it clean through and it still stood on the stump, and it took two men to push it over. McKean could understand how this might be done by wedging. He says that he often runs his saw straight through a tree without wedges and without its pinching to within an eighth of an inch of the other side before it breaks . . .

(Journal, 3:171-174)

1 January 1853. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

About 9 o’clock A. M., I go to Lee’s via Hubbard’s Wood and Holden’s Swamp and the riverside, for the middle is open . . . C. [William Ellery Channing] thought that these fat, icy branches on the withered grass and herbs had no nucleus, but looking closer I showed him the fine black wiry threads on which they impinged, which made him laugh with surprise . . . I see now the beauty of the causeway, by the bridge alders below swelling into the road, overtopped by willows and maples . . . I listen to the booming of the pond as if it were a reasonable creature. I return at last in a rain, and am coated with a glaze, like the fields.

(Journal, 4:436-440)

Concord, Mass. William Ellery Channing writes in his journal:

Took a long walk to see the frost-work . . . White silvery effects on all masses of copses & trees towards the N. Possibly there never was a richer show of the kind. It lasted long as the sun did not appear, but about noon rain came on… Still remains half past 2 though raining fast. wind to N.N.E. Willows near Hubbards bridge very superb, a long avenue of glorious silvery mane.

(William Ellery Channing notebooks and journals. Houghton Library, Harvard University.)

1 January 1854. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

The drifts mark the standstill or equilibrium between the currents of air or particular winds. In our greatest snow-storms, the wind being northerly, the greatest drifts are on the south sides of the houses and fences and accordingly on the left-hand side of the street going down it. The north tract: of the railroad was not open till a day or more later than the south. I notice that in the angle made by our house and shed, a southwest exposure, the snow-drift does not lie close about the pump, but is a foot off, forming a circular bowl, showing that there was an eddy about it. It, shows where the wind has been, the form of the wind. The snow is like a mould . . .

(Journal, 6:42-46)

Concord, Mass. Ralph Waldo Emerson writes to Thoreau:

Dear Henry,

I meant to have seen you, but for delays that grew out of the snowbanks, to ask your aid in these following particulars. On the 8 February, Harvard Professor [Eben Norton] Horsford is to lecture at the Lyceum; on the 15th Feb.y, Theodore Parker. They are both to come to my house for the night. Now I wish to entreat your courtesy & counsel to receive these lonely pilgrims, when they arrive, to guide them to our house, & help the alarmed wife to entertain them, & see that they do not lose the way to the Lyceum, nor the hour. For, it seems pretty certain that I shall not be at home until perhaps the next week following these two. If you shall be in town, & can help these gentlemen so far, You will serve the whole community as well as

Yours faithfully,

R. W. Emerson

(The Correspondence of Henry David Thoreau, 317)

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