Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862) (shown above in 1856 with his own survey map of Walden Pond) was related to the Dunbar family (see Volume 2) and thus a cousin of the Ives family. His mother was Cynthia Dunbar (1787 – 1872) and his father was John Thoreau, Jr (1787 – 1859). He was a descendent of Robert Dunbar of Hingham, MA, as was our Alice Dunbar. His line runs back: Cynthia Dunbar was the daughter of Asa Dunbar (1745 – 1787) and Mary Jones. Cynthia was born in Keene, NH and died in Concord, MA, outliving her son, Henry.
Her husband, John Thoreau was a shopkeeper in Concord and his family came from Jersey in the Channel Islands. Asa was the son of Samuel Dunbar (1704 – 1786) and Mary Hayward. He was born in Bridgewater, MA and graduated from Harvard in 1767. He became a Congregational minister in Salem, MA and Keene, NH. Samuel was the son of Peter Dunbar (1668 – 1719) and Sarah Thaxter (1668 – 1720). He was born in Hingham and moved to Bridgewater like his nephew, Jesse. Peter was the son of Robert Dunbar (1630 – 1693), as was his brother, Joshua (1670-1736), the ancestor of Alice Dunbar. Both lived in Hingham.
When Henry went to Maine and wrote what became, The Maine Woods, he visited his Dunbar cousins. He wrote, “On the 31st of August, 1846, I left the Concord in Massachusetts for Bangor and the backwoods of Maine…I proposed to make excursions to Mount Ktaadn, the second highest mountain in New England…” My daughters and I have climbed Mt. Katahdin several times and spent more time in the Maine woods. We also did a canoe trip down the Allegash. Henry’s story of the trip appeared in Union Magazine (New York) in 1848. He returned to the Maine woods in 1853; his account of this trip was published in The Atlantic Monthly in June, July August, 1858. His third trip took place in 1857 and he spent time on the Allegash River. His account appeared in 1864 after his death as “The Allegash and the East River.”
In it he was one of the first to call for national preserves of forests. He lived near Walden Pond in Concord, MA, from March 1845 to Sept.1847, in the small house he built. He wrote about his experience in Walden, published in 1854. Thoreau was not a literary success in his own life time and only two of his books, Walden, and A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers, were published before he died. He has since become one of the mostly read writers of his time. He would also likely approve of Albert’s Furman Biology Camps in the mountains and beach, as well as his carpentry skills; all served as themes for his work.
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