USH - Henry David Thoreau - Church

Henry David Thoreau (birth name: David Henry Thoreau) was born on July 12, 1817 in Concord, Massachusetts. He died on May 6, 1862. Thoreau studied at Harvard University, but he never technically graduated, allegedly having refused to pay the five-dollar fee for a Harvard diploma. During a leave of absence from Harvard in 1835, Thoreau taught school in Canton, Massachusetts, joining the faculty of Concord Academy following his graduation in 1837. He was soon dismissed, however, for refusing to administer corporal punishment.

He then opened a grammar school with his brother John in Concord in 1838 (age 21). They introduced several progressive concepts, such as nature walks and visits to local shops and businesses. The school ended, however, when John became fatally ill from tetanus in 1842.

Thoreau was “a philosopher of nature and its relation to the human condition.” In his early years, he followed transcendentalism [see Ralph Waldo Emerson, page 6]. Only July 4, 1845 (age 28), he set out on a two-year experiment in simple living. He moved to a small self-built house on land owned by Emerson (Walden Pond). In 1854, he published Walden (also called Life in the Woods), which was the story of the two years, two months, and two days he spend there. Although it was not popular at the time, it is now regarded as “a classic American book that explores natural simplicity, harmony, and beauty as models for just social and cultural conditions.”
Thoreau also played a large part in persuading the abolitionist movement to accept John Brown as a martyr after his raid at Harpers Ferry. Many prominent voices had distanced themselves from Brown (or even damned him). This disgusted Thoreau, and he thus composed a speech (A Plea for Captain John Brown), “uncompromising in its defense of Brown and his actions.”

An early advocate of recreational hiking and canoeing, of conserving natural resources, and of preserving wilderness, Thoreau was also one of the first American supporters of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. However, he neither rejected civilization nor fully embraced wilderness, instead seeking a middle ground between the two.