The Concord saunterer

172 Pages·1994·9.9 MB·English

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New Series Volume 2, Number 1 Fall 1994
Published by The Thoreau Society, Inc.
THE CONCORD SAUNTERER
(ISSN 1068-5359)
Published by The Thoreau Society, Inc.
Original Series, Volumes 1-20, 1966-1988
New Series Begun Fall 1993
Editor
Ronald Wesley Hoag
Advisory Editors
Bradley P. Dean Wesley T. Mott Joel Myerson
Editorial Assistant Business Assistant
Lois Redmond Dale Williamson
The front-cover drawing of Thoreau's Walden Pond cabin was executed by
Henry's sister Sophia; it accompanied the first printing of Walden in 1854. The
passage about sauntering is fromThoreau's "Walking" manuscript. The likeness
ofThoreau on the back coveris from an 1856 Benjamin D. Maxham daguerreo-
type,ownedbytheThoreauSocietyandhousedinitsarchivesattheConcordFree
Public Library.
THE CONCORD SAUNTERER, an annual publication ofTheThoreau Society,
Inc., seeks biographical, historical, textual, bibliographical, and interpretive ar-
ticlesrelatingtoHenryThoreau andhis associates, Concord, andTranscendental-
ism. Submissions of all lengths are invited; shorter pieces not used will also be
considered forthe quarterly THOREAU SOCIETY BULLETIN, editedby Brad-
ley P. Dean. Contributions should conform to The Chicago Manual ofStyle for
endnote documentation. Send two copies plus SASE to the Editor, THE CON-
CORD SAUNTERER, Department of English, East Carolina University,
Greenville, North Carolina 27858-4353. Decisions are reported within three
months. Subscription to THE CONCORD SAUNTERER is by membership in
the Society; see the back cover for additional information. THE CONCORD
SAUNTERER is indexed in theMLA InternationalBibliography.
THE CONCORD
SAUNTERER
N.S. Volume 2 Fall 1994 Number 1
Editor's Pages 1
Robert A. Gross
Young Men and Women ofFairest Promise: 5
Transcendentalism in Concord
Victor Carl Friesen
Thoreau's Sauntering: The "Adventure ofthe Day" 21
Donald W. Linebaugh
"The Road to Ruins andRestoration": 33
Roland W. Robbins, Henry D. Thoreau,
and the Discovery at Walden
Etsuko Taketani
Thoreau's Domestic Economy: Double Accounts in Walden 65
Roberta C. Martin
An Interview with Jane Langton at Baker Farm: 79
May 7th and 8th, 1994
Concord Saunterer
Barry Kritzberg
A Pre-Civil War StruggleAgainst Capital Punishment: 103
Charles Spear, Concord, and the Case ofWashington Goode
Philip Milner
"Some Private Business" 119
Francis B. Dedmond
Thoreau and the Glowworms 131
John Bird
Gauging the Value ofNature: Thoreau andHis Woodchucks 139
Kent P. Ljungquist
Martha Le Baron Goddard: 149
Forgotten Worcester Writer and Thoreau Critic
Notes on Contributors 157
Copyright 1994© by The Thoreau Society, Inc.
—
Editor's Pages
The Thoreau Society has a lot to celebrate. Next July 4th marks the
sesquicentennialanniversaryofHenryThoreau's 1845 movetoacabin atWalden
Pond, that propitious day on which he used his feet to carry his mind out of the
"worn and dusty highways of the world" with their "deep ruts of tradition and
conformity." He says it was "by accident" that his move took place on Indepen-
dence Day, but his notation ofthat coincidence in Walden is both conscious and
deliberate. Choosing extra-vagant sauntering over provincial yardedness, he
forsook the humdrum-and-bugle corps of village life to step to the music of the
spheres by aneternal "springofsprings" in Walden Woods. "I delighttocome to
my bearings," he said, "not walk in procession with pomp and parade, in a
conspicuous place, but to walkeven with the Builder ofthe universe, ifI may,
notto live in this restless, nervous, bustling, trivial Nineteenth Century, but stand
or sit thoughtfully while it goes by." Thoreau followers all, we admire his
independence and embrace ourcontradictions.
Worthy of celebration, too, are the ten outstanding essays in this ex-
panded issue of The Concord Saunterer, several of which deal with the Walden
Pond experience of Thoreau and others. Etsuko Taketani analyzes the doubly
significant accounts of Walden s pondside domestic economy, while John Bird
appraisesthe value ofnature as establishedby Thoreau's comments onbean-field
and other Walden woodchucks. Archaeological historian Donald Linebaugh
compellinglyre-examinesthecareerofcabin-sitediscovererRolandRobbins,and
PhilipMilner,aYankeeprofessorlivingandteachinginNovaScotia,describesan
unsettling class field trip to the site that Robbins discovered. On other aspects of
Thoreau's life, times, and writings, noted historian Robert Gross provides an
illuminating class portrait of Thoreau's Concord Academy cohort; Victor Carl
Friesen examines the essentially adventurous nature of Thoreau's sauntering;
Barry Kritzberg reconstructs the case ofconvicted murderer Washington Goode,
in which Thoreau played a part; Francis Dedmond traces Thoreau's scientific
interestin glowworms; and KentLjungquistprofiles aforgotten Worcesterwriter
with an affection forThoreau's works. In acategory to itselfis RobertaMartin's
fascinating interview with popular mystery writer, children's book author, and
formerThoreau Society directorJane Langton, an interview all the more intrigu-
ing because ofits links with Thoreau and its location ata, ifnot the, BakerFarm.
Alsotobe celebrated this yearis our Society's evolutionary move into a
newlyconstitutedThoreauEducationalCenternearWaldenPondongroundsover
whichThoreauoftenwalkedandaboutwhichhehadagooddeal to say. Anessay
by Walter Brain in next year's Concord Saunterer will examine the ecology,
history, and Thoreauvian connections of this extremely significant landscape;
additional information will be reported in the quarterly Thoreau Society- Bulletin.
2 Concord Saunterer
The Society is grateful to the Walden Woods Project, which acquired this eigh-
teen-acre site as partofits ongoing preservation ofWaldenWoods, forproviding
this property and its large house for our perpetual use. (See the picture of the
Thoreau Educational Center's home on the inside back cover.) To date the
Walden Woods Project has procured and protected some eighty-six acres of
historically, ecologically, and symboli—cally critical l—and, helping to ensure that at
least in Walden Woods, "Heaven is" and remains "under our feet as well as
overourheads."
A few Concord Saunterer odds and ends. First, as anyone who has
examined a first edition of Walden can attest, there is a—mple precedent for
Thoreauvian publications containing ads. With this in mind and with an eye to
—
paying ourbills thisjournal now welcomes appropriate advertisements: ads for
publications, products, organizations, institutions,businesses,orservicesofinter-
estto ourreadership. Ads may be intended forournationally and internationally
dispersed members or specifically for those readers living in or visiting the
Concord area. For guidelines and a rate sheet, contact the editor. Second, to
answer the same question by several readers of our last issue, The Concord
Saunterer is currently published once a year. Issues are given both a volume
number and an issue number to accommodate special issues and to allow for a
presently unforeseen expansion to more than annual regular publication. Third,
thisjournal considers manuscript submissions from independent scholars as well
as from scholars with an academic affiliation. Who qualifies as an independent
scholar? Everyone with something of interest and merit to say in one of the
categories identified on ourinside frontcover. We do notpublishfiction, poetry,
or personal experience narratives; however, as Philip Milner's personal experi-
ence narrative in this.issue shows, we reserve the right to contradict ourselves.
Finally, while the last Concord Saunterer was reasonably free from errors, this
issue is flawless. Ourbeagle-eyed proofreaders have eliminated all mistakes.
RWH
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2013
http://archive.org/details/concordsaunterer19942unse
John Shepard Keyes in LaterLife
ReprintedfromMemoirsofMembersoftheSocialCirclein Concord, FifthSeries
young Men and'Women offairest Promise*
transcendentalism in Concord
Robert A. Gross
[Note: Thisessay waspresentedasthekeynote speechatthe 1994annual meeting
of the Thoreau Society in Concord. It is taken from a forthcoming book, The
Transcendentalists and Their World, which the author anticipates will be pub-
lished in late 1995 by Hill & Wang.]
Henry Thoreau may once have boasted that he was born "in the most
estimable place in all the world,"buthe wasclearly oftwo minds abouthis native
town. As a student in Cambridge, he drewjibes fromhis classmates forhis "local
prideandConcord self-conceit," andheconcededthat "thoughbodily Ihavebeen
a member ofHarvard University, heart and soul I have been far away among the
scenesofmyboyhood."TenaciouslyrootedinConcord soil,Thoreaudidnottake
to transplanting. His inspiration was drawn from the ponds and the woods, where
he sauntered and surveyed, and from the local lore he gathered as assiduously as
the plants he collected. He found heroes in Concord's past, among Puritans and
Revolutionaries whohadriskedtheirlives forprinciple, andoccasionally saw the
same fortitude in his farmer- neighbors, "who were out not only in '75 and 1812,
buthavebeenouteverydayoftheirlives; greatermenthanHomer, orChaucer, or
Shakespeare, only they nevergot time to say so...."i
Ontheotherhand,theConcordhe admiredsoferventlywasaplaceapart
from the expansive, commercial village of the 1820s and 1830s, where he had
spentmostofhisboyhood, andfromtheemergent suburbofthe 1840s and 1850s,
whose descent into dependency on the metropolis he would chronicle in Walden.
—
Thoreau—'s ideal town existed mainly in the past a few moments, to be more
precise and on the margins of the present. He could envy the natural vigor of
AlexTherien,theFrench-Canadianwoodchopper,thenativegoodsenseofEdmund
Hosmer, "one ofthe few ofhis vocation who are'men on their farms,'" and the
THE CONCORD SAUNTERER, N.S. Volume 2, Number 1, Fall 1994
6 Concord Saunterer
stubbornintegrityofGeorgeMinott, whorefusedtocarrycropstomarket. Forthe
majority of his neighbors, however, Thoreau had little patience and only slight
hope of waking them up. "The greatest part of what my neighbors call good I
believeinmysoultobebad,"hedeclaredin Walden,asheproceededtocharttheir
follies and their desperation in the deceits oftrade, the drudgery offarming, the
"parlaver" ofthe parlor, the vainglory ofthe militia, the empty formalities ofthe
church. Thoreau did, to be sure, acknowledge the "advantages" ofmodern civili-
zation, "though sodearlybought."Thetroublewas, inhisview, thatthepricewas
paid in real life, and in the exchange, virtue and independence were lost. Against
the purity of—Walden, Concord's institutions appeared, at once, oppressive and
insubstantial constant distractions from "the sublime and noble" reality in na-
ture. AndcomparedtotheMinutemenof 1775, Thoreau's neighborslookedtimid
and self-serving. Inthe face ofthe Fugitive SlaveLaw, whichimperiled libertyin
Massachusetts, the townspeople worried gratuitously aboutremoteWesternterri-
tories. "The inhabitants ofConcord," Thoreau complained in "Slavery in Massa-
chusetts," "are notpreparedto stand by one oftheirown bridges, buttalkonly of
taking a position on the highlands beyond the Yellowstone river. Our Buttricks,
and Davises, and Hosmers are retreating thither, and I fearthat they will have no
Lexington Commonbetween them andthe enemy.2
Insuchdividedsentimentsabouthisnativetown,Thoreauwascharacter-
istically "extravagant,"buthewashardly alone. ElevatedaspirationsforConcord
were common among the townspeople; so were disappointments with its actual
achievements. ButThoreau'sperspectivereflectedmorethanageneraldiscontent
among New Englanders in an era of cultural ferment and social change. It
articulatedtheoutlookofadistinctive group: thegenerationofyoungpeople who
were born roughly iria single decade, from 1815 to 1825, whocame ofage in the
1820s and 1830s, and who were profoundly branded by that experience. The
eldest entered the world as the War of 1812 was winding down and Americans
were celebrating the successful defense ofindependence with aresurgent nation-
alism. The youngestmade theirappearance ontothe stage atthe very momentthe
last veterans ofthe Revolution were stepping off. Raised in a time oftransition,
Thoreau (born 1817) andhis contemporaries witnessed aremarkable transforma-
tion ofNew England life. They grew up in the midst ofan unprecedented boom,
duringwhichtheUnitedStatesmadethe"take-offintoself-sustaining,economic
growth. Theygainedawareness ofthepublic worldinthe "ageofJackson,"when
new rivalries were replacing the Federalist-Republican contests of the past and
modern, mass politics were taking form. They attended schools and academies in
a climate of enthusiasm for educational reform, joined in lyceums, libraries,
debating clubs, musical groups, and other innovations in cultural life, and gained
access to the latest ideas in the Western world, thanks to an abundance ofbooks,
magazines, and newspapers in an expanding literary marketplace. When this
generation came ofage, itencountered an unparalleled setofchoices. Should one