Concord Writers

Although Concord’s Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), naturalist and transcendentalist, is now a widely read American author, he did not support himself through his writing. In the 1840s, Thoreau became proficient as a land and property surveyor, an occupation that had no licensing requirements at the time and allowed him to spend much time “sauntering” outdoors.

The Thoreau Society was founded in 1941 to stimulate interest in and foster education about Thoreau’s life, works, and legacy and his place in his world and ours; to encourage research on Thoreau’s life and writings; to act as a repository for Thoreauviana and material relevant to Thoreau; and to advocate for the preservation of Thoreau Country.

Henry David Thoreau’s cabin at Walden Pond is his most famous residence, yet historians and scholars also credit several other sites in Massachusetts that served as “home” to this American literary figure. Looking into Thoreau’s past offers a glimpse into how his early years played a role in shaping the artist he would eventually become.

On July 9, 1842, a small wedding took place at the bookstore of Elizabeth Peabody at 13 West Street in Boston. After a highly secretive three-year engagement, 38-year-old struggling novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne married 33-year-old Sophia Amelia Peabody, the younger sister of the bookstore owner.

The Emerson family has been welcoming tourists since the mid-nineteenth century, when writer and lecturer Ralph Waldo Emerson personally greeted visitors in his study. Emerson’s house, at the Lexington Road and Cambridge Turnpike intersection, was convenient to the Boston stagecoach and remains today only a short walk away from the railroad depot. 

Henry David Thoreau loved springtime. While it’s true that he had something to say about every season, he seemed to wax more poetic not only in the spring but about the spring. When the earth came alive after a long cold winter, Thoreau’s observations came to life as well. 

“Little Women saved my life…twice.” The woman who uttered these amazing words as I was leaving Orchard House late one summer evening had just landed at Logan Airport from Korea and drove directly here. 

“There is snow in yonder cold gray sky of the morning! And, through the partially frosted window-panes, I love to watch the gradual beginning of the storm.” So writes Nathaniel Hawthorne in his sketch “Snowflakes,” one of many where the author takes his readers into the winter season. First published in 1838 and collected in the second volume of his Twice-Told Tales in 1842, the sketch describes everything from a winter storm (“reverently welcomed by me, her true-born son, be New England’s winter”) to a children’s snowball fight (“What pitched battles worthy to be chanted in Homeric strains!”) to the gloom of a winter burial (“Oh how dreary is a burial in winter, when the bosom of Mother Earth has no warmth for her poor child!”). No matter the season, it seems, Hawthorne’s thoughts were never too far from the grave.

Concord’s great tradition of writing lives on today. Here we highlight just two of the books published recently by Concordians: Alan Lightman’s Ada and the Galaxies, and Samantha Power’s The Education of an Idealist.

The Thoreau Society (thoreausociety.org) is a Concord-based organization with members all over the world. One of the most dedicated is Donna Marie Przybojewski, who teaches at St. Benedict Catholic School in Garfield Heights, Ohio. Five years ago, she set out to share her passion for the author of Walden—“not just [to] introduce Henry to children, but to help them develop a relationship with him.”

The result was “Saunter the Year with Henry David Thoreau,” a year-long, interdisciplinary curriculum for kindergarten through eighth grade students. (In the classroom she often appears in character as Henry, beard and all.) Resources for such an ambitious curriculum were scarce, so Donna Marie began writing and illustrating books for elementary and middle school readers, presenting vignettes of Thoreau’s life and describing his ideas in age-appropriate ways.