Log Search Results | The Walden Woods Project

Thoreau attends church with Ralph Waldo Emerson (The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 2:404).

Charles Stearns Wheeler, Thoreau’s roommate at Harvard University, dies (Studies in the American Renaissance 1989, 198; Boston Courier, 11 July 1843).

13 June 1847. Concord, Mass.

Bronson Alcott writes to his mother in Oriskany Falls, N.Y.:

Emerson is busy in writing as ever; Thoreau lives a hermit by Walden Pond, and has a Book in press,* and the rest of Concord shall remain unspoken of (The Letters of A. Bronson Alcott, 130).

*Thoreau’s A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers was not in press at this time and would not be published until 1849.

13 June 1849. New York, N.Y.

The New-York Daily Tribune reviews A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.

13 June 1850. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau surveys the Courthouse and Town House lots for the Town of Concord (A Catalog of Thoreau’s Surveys in the Concord Free Public Library, 5; Henry David Thoreau papers. Special Collections, Concord (Mass.) Free Public Library).

13 June 1851. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

I heard partridges drumming to-night as late as 9 o’clock . . . As I approached the pond down Hubbard’s Path, after coming out of the woods into a warmer air, I saw the shimmering of the moon on its surface, and, in the near, now flooded cove, the water-bugs, darting, circling about, made streaks or curves of light . . . The pond is higher than ever, so as to hinder fishermen, and I could hardly get to the true shore here on account of the bushes. I pushed out in a boat a little and heard the chopping of the waves under its bow. And on the bottom I saw the moving reflections of the shining waves, faint streaks of light revealing the shadows of the waves or the opaqueness of the water. As I climbed the hill again toward my old bean-field, I listened to the ancient, familiar, immortal, dear cricket sound under all others, hearing at first some distinct chirps; but when these ceased I was aware of the general earth-song, which my hearing had not heard, amid which these were only taller flowers in a bed, and I wondered if behind or beneath this there was not some other chant yet more universal.

(Journal, 2:248-54)

Thoreau writes in his journal on 14 June:

Full moon last night. Set out on a walk to Conantum at 7 P.M. . . . Met a man driving home his cow from pasture and stopping to chat with his neighbor; then a boy, who had set down his pail in the road to stone a bird most perseveringly, whom I heard afterward behind me telling his pail to be quiet in a tone of assumed anger, because it squeaked under his arm. As I proceed along the back road I hear the lark still singing in the meadow, and the bobolink, and the gold robin on the elms, and the swallows twittering about the barns . . . Before Goodwin’s house, at the opening of the Sudbury road, the swallows are diving at a tortoise-shell cat, who curvets and frisks rather awkwardly, as if she did not know whether to be scared or not. And now, having proceeded a little way down this road, the sun having buried himself in the low cloud in the west and hung out his crimson curtains, I hear, while sitting by the wall, the sound of the stake-driver at a distance,—like that made by a man pumping in a neighboring farmyard, watering his cattle, or like chopping wood before his door on a frosty morning, and I can imagine like driving a stake in a meadow . . . Saw a blue flag blossom in the meadow while waiting for the stake-driver . . . When I reach the road, the farmer going home from town invites me to ride in his highset wagon, not thinking why I walk, nor can I shortly explain. He remarks on the coolness of the weather . . . As I rose the hill beyond the bridge, I found myself in a cool, fragrant, dewy, up-country, mountain morning air, a new region . . . The moon was now seen rising over Fair Haven and at the same time reflected in the river, pale and white like a silvery cloud, barred with a cloud, not promising how it will shine anon. Now I meet an acquaintance coming from a remote field in his hay-rigging, with a jag of wood; who reins up to show me how large a woodchuck he has killed, which he found eating his clover. But now he must drive on, for behind comes a boy taking up the whole road with a huge roller drawn by a horse, which goes lumbering and bouncing along, getting out of the way of night,—while the sun has gone the other way,—and making such a noise as if it had the contents of a tinker’s shop in its bowels, and rolls the whole road smooth like a newly sown grain-field. In Conant’s orchard I hear the faint cricket-like song of a sparrow saying its vespers, as if it were a link between the cricket and the bird.

(Journal, 2:254-257)

13 June 1852. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

Sunday. 3 P.M.—To Conantum.

A warm day. It has been cold, and we have had fires the past week sometimes. Clover begins to show red in the fields, and the wild cherry is not out of blossom. The river has a summer midday look, smooth to a cobweb, with green shores, and shade from the trees on its banks . . .

(Journal, 4:94-97)

13 June 1853. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

9 A.M.—To Orchis Swamp.

Find that there are two young hawks; one has left the nest and is perched on a small maple seven or eight rods distant. This one appears much smaller than the former one. I am struck by its large, naked head, so vulture-like, and large eyes, as if the vulture’s were an inferior stage through which the hawk passed. Its feet, too, are large, remarkably developed, by which it holds to its perch securely like an old bird, before its wings can perform their office. It has a buff breast, striped with dark brown. Pratt, when I told him of this nest, said he would like to carry one of his rifles down there. But I told him that I should be sorry to have them killed. I would rather save one of these hawks than have a, hundred hens and chickens. It was worth more to see them soar, especially now that they are so rare in the landscape. It is easy to buy eggs, but not to buy hen-hawks. My neighbors would not hesitate to shoot the last pair of hen-hawks in the town to save a few of their chickens! But such economy is narrow and grovelling. It is unnecessarily to sacrifice the greater value to the less. I would rather never taste chickens’ meat nor hens’ eggs than never to see a hawk sailing through the upper air again. This sight is worth incomparably more than a chicken soup or a boiled egg.

(Journal, 5:245-247)

13 June 1854. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

I hear a quail this morning.

2 P.M.—By boat to Bittern Cliff and so to Lee’s Cliff.

I hear muttering of thunder and see a dark cloud in the west-southwest horizon; am uncertain how far up-stream I shall get . . .

(Journal, 6:344-348)

13 June 1855. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

C. [William Ellery Channing] finds a pigeon woodpecker’s nest in an apple tree, five of those pearly eggs, about six feet from the ground; could squeeze your hand in. Also a peetweet’s, with four eggs, in Hubbard’s meadow beyond the old swamp oak site . . .

(Journal, 7:420-421)

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