The Little-Known Henry David Thoreau Revealed
Seven Things Many People Don’t Know About This Famous Author
Aug 15, 2008
1. He pronounced his last name “THA-row”, not “tha-ROW.”
Those recently living in Concord, Massachusets now who were born around the very beginning of the 20th century had parents who would have personally known the Thoreau family during or just after Henry’s lifetime. These living sources are but one generation removed from living memory. Their parents taught them that the name is correctly pronounced “THO-row,” like the word “thorough”. Henry also once wrote a poem in which he rhymed the phrase “he plowed his furrow” with the name “Thoreau.”
2. His given name was actually David Henry Thoreau.
When he was an undergraduate at Harvard University, he changed his name to Henry David. Perhaps this doesn’t seem so odd considering how common renaming oneself is among college students even today.
3. In 1844 he burned down the woods near Walden Pond.
He and a friend had caught some fish and were making chowder in the woods between Walden Pond and the Sudbury River. Dry grass sparked into flame, and 300 acres burned. Concord townspeople struggled mightily to put it out, this being before the days of modern firefighting methods. He became "the fool who burned the woods down."
For a long time, he felt ashamed about this accident and struggled with his sense of guilt. However, in his journal in 1950 he came to peace with this, though finding “…the trivial fishing was all that disturbed me and disturbs me still.”
4. Thoreau was the first to discover the secret of European-quality pencils.
No one in American could make pencils of anywhere near the quality of those made in Europe. However, the embargos of goods during the War of 1812 cut off all imports. He was the person who discovered that mixing the graphite with clay not made a superior pencil, but that by varying the amount of clay one could produce a hard, medium, or soft pencil lead. Given that his family operated a pencil factory, this was vital to their enterprise. As a result, Thoreau pencils became renown for their exceptional quality.
5. Henry was not a hermit at Walden Pond.
This is a myth that dies hard. Thoreau regularly had company at Walden – both welcomed and unwelcomed. He also walked frequently into Concord, the town’s center being only a couple of miles away. In fact, he frequently ate at his mother’s or Ralph Waldo Emerson’s table for Sunday dinner. He also took his dirty laundry home to mom!
6. Two odd things exist in the Walden Woods today: a former Concord Town dump and a trailer park!
Trailer park residents were awarded lifetime residency when the land was made into a state reservation. There is at this writing only one trailer left. Concord’s last “sanitary landfill” was in Walden Woods. It is now capped, and is used for composting leaves and brush.
7. Walden Pond was the site of “Lake Walden Amusement Park” in the late 1800s.
Walden became the most popular summer resort in the area in the late 19th century. The train from Boston stopped right at the pond. There were picnic tables, a race track, swings, and public speaking and dance pavilions. The beach was covered with sand by the Boston & Maine Railroad for the pleasure of bathers. This is the same beach where Nathaniel Hawthorne declared that "none but angels should bathe." Happily, the train stop and amusement park are now gone.
Other Resources:
Brief biography of Thoreau
Author Snapshot of Thoreau
An Early Naturalist Burns Down a Concord Forest
About New England Cemeteries (including Sleepy Hollow where Thoreau is buried)
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