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Walter Harding
(1917-1996)
Introduction to Roland
Robbins' Discovery at Walden
I am not one to get excited
over historical sites. Like Henry James, I find myself much more
stimulated by ideas than things. Even though I have found the
writings of Henry David Thoreau to be worthy of a lifetime of study,
I have rarely found myself able to wax sentimental over his
birthplace or his grave. Yet I must confess that when Roland Wells
Robbins took me out to Walden Pond last summer and before my very
eyes excavated nails, plaster, bricks and glass from the site of
Thoreau's cabin, I felt that little shiver of excitement which one
reserves for the most special occasions run up and down my spine
like an ecstatic butterfly.
Like every other student
of Thoreau who has visited Concord, I had often found myself
wondering just where the site of Thoreau's cabin was. It hardly
seemed possible that the foundation of such a sturdy little building
as he described could completely disappear in a hundred years. Yet
never did two Thoreauvians arrive at Walden Pond at the same time
but that a controversy arose over where it could have been. Some
said the cairn marked the spot- but then there were rumors that
years ago the cairn itself had been in a different spot.
Others were sufficiently
sure of a nearby foundation hole to mark it with four granite posts.
Still others studied all the clues in Walden and decided on
completely unmarked sites. Like that genius of the Renaissance who
decided the best way to discover the number of teeth in a horse's
head was to look in a horse's mouth rather than to consult
Aristotle, Roland Robbins ended the controversy by going out and
searching for the evidence. And after a prodigious amount of labor,
and with a precision in his work that put the most scholarly
archeologists to shame, he discovered and authenticated the exact
site of the cabin so that now we are far more certain of just where
Thoreau dwelt than on which boulder the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth
Beach.
I must confess too that
when I first heard of Mr. Robbins' discovery, I was skeptical. Many
other men had searched and found nothing. Even if he had found
something, how was he certain that it was not the relic of the hut
built by the theological student Hotham some years after Thoreau's
death? But after spending hours poring over Mr. Robbins' records and
photographs, examining all the material he has uncovered, talking at
length with him, and going out and digging around at his site
myself, I am completely convinced that his discovery is authentic.
Now Mr. Robbins has set
down the story of his discovery for all to read. It is a careful
recording of each step in his labors, scholarly in the best sense of
the word, and as fascinating as a detective story. One does not have
to be a follower of Thoreau to find this story interesting. But I
will wager that few will read his words without taking a copy of
Walden down from the shelves and reading that great masterpiece with
a new interest.
A
Note on the Text:
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Source: Roland Robbins'
Discovery at Walden (Stoneham, MA:
G. R. Barnstead & son, 1947)
pp. xv-xvi in
The Walter Harding Collection in the
Thoreau Society Collections
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