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Henry David Thoreau Birth
David Henry Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts in July 12, 1817. Henry David Thoreau was born into the modest New England family of John Thoreau who was a pencil maker. The first student protest in the colonies was led by his maternal grandfather Asa Dunbar and the protest was called the “Butter Rebellion.” David Henry Thoreau was named after a paternal uncle and he had two older siblings and a younger sister. -
Henry David Thoreau Education
David Henry Thoreau went to college at Harvard between the years 1833 and 1837. He was educated in many different subjects like rhetoric, classics, philosophy, math, and science while he attended Harvard College. After Henry David Thoreau graduated Harvard in 1837 he went to work for Concord public school. Only a few weeks after he got the job he resigned because of a dispute he had with the superintendent about how the children should be disciplined. -
Henry David Thoreau and Transcendentalism
Henry David Thoreau began to follow Transcendentalism which was an eclectic and loose idealist philosophy that he got from his from his friend Emerson, Alcott, and Fuller. They believed that the best spiritual state goes beyond the physical and logical. They also thought that to reach this insight it must be by personal intuition rather than religious ways. In Harvard Thoreau read a little book by Emerson called “Nature” that helped Thoreau get into Transcendentalism and that way of thinking. -
Henry David Thoreau meets Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry David Thoreau meets Ralph Waldo Emerson who introduced him to a group of writers and thinkers. Emerson told Thoreau to contribute some poems and essays to a newspaper called "The Dial", "Aulus Persius Flaccus" was Thoreau’s first essay to be published. The essay was published in July 1840 which had revised passages from his journal that he had because Emerson suggested it. -
Henry David Thoreau opens a school
Henry and his brother John in 1838 opened up a grammar school in Concord. The school was called Concord Academy, John and Henry introduced several concepts like nature walks and visits to local shops and businesses in Concord. When John became very ill with tetanus and cut himself while shaving in 1842, Henry had to end the school. -
Henry David Thoreau moves in with Emerson
Henry David Thoreau moved into the Emerson house on April 18 1841 and served as his children’s tutor, editorial assistant, repair man, and gardener. Then in 1843 Thoreau moves to William Emerson’s home on Staten Island for a few months. While staying there he tutors the family sons and begins to search for people like literary men and journalists in hope that someone can help him publish his writings. Thoreau will also find his future literary representative Horace Greely during his search. -
Henry David Thoreau works in pencil factory and burns down a forest
Henry David Thoreau returns to Concord to work in his family’s pencil factory for most of his adult life. While working at the pencil factory he rediscovers the way to make a quality pencil with graphite and clay. Afterwards, Thoreau then turns the pencil factory into a graphite factory that was used in the electrotyping process. While back in Concord on April 30, 1844 Thoreau and his friend Edward Hoar accidently set a fire that consumed 300 acres in the Concord Woods. -
Henry David Thoreau lives the simple life and goes to jail
On July 4, 1845 Thoreau began a two year experiment in simple living by moving into a small house on some land owned by his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson that was near the shores of Walden. On July 25, 1846 Thoreau ran into a tax collector that asked him to pay six years of taxes, he refused and had to spend a night in jail. This made a big impact on him so Thoreau made lectures on “The Rights and Duties of the Individual in relation to the Government” that explained his tax resistance. -
Henry David Thoreau becomes a land surveyor
In 1851 Henry David Thoreau became very fascinated with natural history and observed Concord’s nature lore closely. Thoreau became a land surveyor and kept a series of writings that were the source for some of his late natural history writings like, The Succession of Trees, Autumnal Tints, and Wild Apples. These writings also showed Henry David Thoreau to be an analyst of ecological patterns in fields and woodlots. -
Henry David Thoreau's death
Thoreau spent three years editing some unpublished work like The Maine Woods and Excursions, he also was looking for publishers to print revisited editions of A Week and Walden. Thoreau died on May 6, 1862 at the age of 44, Bronson Alcott the funeral and read selections for some of Thoreau’s work. Thoreau’s friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote the eulogy that was spoken at Thoreau’s funeral. After his death Ellery Channing published a biography about Thoreau called, Thoreau the Poet-Naturalist.
