Where is thoreau walden pond located

Walden Pond also held some commercial significance for the nearby people. In winter, the thick layer of ice covering the pond was broken up and carted away for sale in town. The woods surrounding the pond were also a source of timber for Concord residents. How did Thoreau choose Walden? The friends lived in a small cabin and slept on bunks of straw for six weeks. They were not isolated, however, for they stayed close to the rest of the Wheelers and ate all of their meals with the family.

Henry and Charles passed the time reading, sleeping and relaxing. Thoreau cherished this vacation and would later return to it as inspiration for moving to Walden Pond and building a small house in the woods. Initially, Thoreau imagined a variety of sites for his cabin, such as Fairhaven Hill by the Sudbury River, but eventually settled on Walden Pond.

Unlike some of the nearby, muddier ponds, Walden Pond was so clear that one could see all the way to its bottom through 30 feet of water.

The pond was so unusually deep that local legend held that at the center it had no bottom at all. Emerson agreed to let Thoreau live on his land in exchange for building the house, which Emerson could later use as his study. In order to fully realize this connection, Thoreau decided to engage in an experiment. He would attempt to live closer to nature by moving into the woods owned by his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson—a natural setting that he loved and home of Walden Pond.

There, Thoreau built a cabin near Walden Pond and moved in on July 4, He described his reflections and observations of his time at the pond in vivid detail in Walden excerpted above , a work now considered an American classic for its profound insights into living more simply and in deeper communication with nature.

He also manifested the same curiosity about former human inhabitants of the area, including American Indians, freed slaves, and Irish railroad workers. He resided a mile and a half from town center, often walking there along the Fitchburg railroad line that followed the edge of the pond.

The deepest point is feet. A shore 1. Others descend steeply into the water from the trail surrounding it. On that trail, marked by granite posts, is a cabin that once belonged to Henry David Thoreau.

The memoir details the two years he spent living in that cabin and watching the lake. He was commended both at the time and today for his appreciation of the land; he encouraged respecting nature despite the site being somewhat degraded.

Aside from taking inspiration from the story of Zilpah White, the area was filled with pure, icy waters. In the book, Thoreau also paid tribute to local legends surrounding the lake. Noticing how the shore was particularly resilient, he asked some locals for information. He later wrote:. It has been conjectured that when the hill shook these stones rolled down its side and became the present shore.

The area surrounding the lake was designated a protected area in , although the lake and cabin were registered as a National Historic Landmark in