Our UU History: Henry David Thoreau
The Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts on July 12, 1817. The son of a pencil maker, he earned his living at that trade, supplemented by occasional school teaching.
Thoreau attended Harvard College despite his family’s low income, with Ralph Waldo Emerson as his primary mentor.
Only two of his books were published during his lifetime: A Week on the Concord and Mrrimack Rivers (1849) and Walden (1859).
Thoreau wrote the influential essay “On Civil Disobedience” to protest the Mexican-American War and publicly supported the abolition of slavery, coming to the defense of John Brown.
He was reared Unitarian and resigned his membership, not because he changed his theology but because he did not want to belong to any organization. He said he would resign from the United States if he knew how.
Thorequ died of tuberculosis at the age of 44 and was buried at First Parish in Concord after a eulogy by Emerson.
