In October 2019, I designed a literary pilgrimage that would take me to the Thoreau Farm in Concord, Massachusetts. I would be a writer in retreat in the second-story bedroom where Thoreau was born, and a few days later I would be a student participating in a writing workshop held by The Write Connection and taught by Heidi Jon Schmidt. 

It was a trip meant to happen: Concord’s dazzling fall foliage made Thoreau Farm more beautiful, more reflective of the possibilities of living an authentic life. I returned from Thoreau Farm challenged with eliminating all that was unnecessary and paying attention to what is most significant.

Thoreau Farm is about four miles east of Concord center. The house and its adjoining farmland had long been established before Henry David Thoreau was born on July 12, 1817. Native Americans cultivated the land for centuries before Concord was chartered in 1635. The first known private owner of the land was Sgt. Thomas Wheeler, an early settler. Sgt. Wheeler acquired large amounts of acreage in the area. Wheeler’s son, John, made the farm more prosperous and in 1730 built the farmhouse that would become Thoreau’s birthplace.

Henry David Thoreau’s birth room also serves as a Writer’s Retreat. 

In 1756, the farm was sold to John Wheeler’s cousin, the Deacon Samuel Minot. When Deacon Minot passed, his son, Jonas Minot, acquired the farm and expanded it to almost 104 acres, making Minot Farm one of Concord’s largest. Jonas was widowed in 1792 and married Mary Jones Dunbar six years later in 1798. Mary, Thoreau’s grandmother, brought her children from her previous marriage, including her daughter Cynthia (Thoreau’s mother), to the farm with her.

Cynthia lived on the farm for fourteen years and would later tell young Henry cherished memories of growing up there.     In 1812, Cynthia married John Thoreau and the young couple returned to the farm in 1813 to assist Mary in making the farm prosperous once again. Unfortunately, as a result of historic New England bad weather, John and Cynthia returned to the town center of Concord in 1818 when Henry was just eight months old.

After the Thoreaus left, the land was operated as a tenant farm and was worked predominantly by African Americans and Irish, Nova Scotian, and Scandinavian immigrants. 

James Breen Sr. took acquisition of the farm in the early 20th century. Breen was an Irish immigrant and successfully ran the farm, which was now twenty-two acres, for most of the twentieth century. His son, James Been Jr., was 81 years old in 1995 and died while working the fields.

Visitors to Thoreau Farm are asked to share their ideas on how to live a deliberate life. 

It was on December 14, 1995, that Lucille Stott, editor of the Concord Journal, received a phone call from a Virginia Road neighbor, Doris Smith. Stott was startled to learn that Thoreau’s birthplace was being sold to developers who had plans to demolish the birthplace house and build a small housing development. 

Shortly after that phone call, Stott went to the Virginia Road farm and visited the much-deteriorated farmhouse. Thoreau’s birthplace was empty of furnishing and people, and had a “weary and forlorn” feeling. 

As Stott ascended the rickety stairs to the empty bedroom where Thoreau was born, “The original wide pine floorboards creaked in welcome, and without warning, I was overcome with emotion,” Stott wrote of that first visit. “I realized a little sheepishly, for I’d always thought of myself as a practical, feet-on-the-ground kind of person, that what I was feeling was awe.”

In 2018, Lucille Stott published an extraordinary non-fiction book, Saving Thoreau’s Birthplace: How Citizens Rallied to Bring Henry Out of the Woods, that chronicles fifteen years of tense negotiations and constant fundraising to establish Thoreau Farm.

Stott’s book exemplifies the best of the Thoreauvian spirit: citizens working together to restore Thoreau Farm and fulfill its mission to become a place of education, a source of inspiration for living deliberately, practicing simplicity, and exploring positive change.

Stott writes of Thoreau Farm, “it remains simple and unassuming, a reflection of Henry’s full life. True to the original vision, it has become a sight of lively programs for all ages, designed to highlight Thoreau’s forward-thinking ideas and explore the many ways his life and work continue to urge us to action.”

Following Thoreau’s principles of education and observation, Thoreau Farm partnered with the Thoreau Society last year and began a series of lectures and immersive writing workshops called The Write Connection. The workshops follow Thoreau’s ideals, placing an emphasis on developing one’s own “different drummer”; the writer’s unique and singular voice in which to convey their stories.    

Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Write Connection programming for the spring of 2020 had to be cancelled. It will be offered online this fall, however, and more information can be found at https://thoreaufarm.org/the-write-connection-at-thoreau-farm. Featured writers include George Howe Colt, Heidi Jon Schmidt, Lucille Stott and Sandy Stott, Ken Lizotte, and Nancy Shohet West.

What would Henry do? How is it possible to participate in a writing workshop when everyone is at their isolated computer settings and far too distant to build community? Thoreau would have thought about the immediate urgency of the community’s public health and considered how he and other Concord citizens could help squash the pandemic. Thoreau would adapt to a computer community to teach the art of living deliberately, practicing simplicity, and learning how to build lasting positive change.

Visit www.thoreaufarm.org for more information on this historic site.

All photos ©www.thoreaufarm.org