1 August 1852
Framingham, Massachusetts

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        James J. Buckley, a school superintendent and correspondent for the Middlesex News, wrote an article for the News on 30 July 1988 entitled "Framingham’s ‘August Firsts,’ Statewide Abolitionist Festivals," in which he asserted that "Concord’s Henry Thoreau was the main speaker during the oratorical segment of the [1 August 1852] festivities" at Harmony Grove in Framingham. Buckley’s attribution is clearly an error, for we learn from Thoreau’s journal that on the afternoon of the preceding day, 31 July 1852, he walked "To Assabet over Nawshawtuct" in Concord and that on the following afternoon he walked "To Conantum" (J, 4:269, 271). He would not have had sufficient time the morning of 1 August 1852 to travel to Framingham, deliver a speech, and return to Concord. Buckley had no doubt confused the 1852 anti-slavery celebration of the anniversary of Emancipation in the British West Indies with the 1854 anti-slavery Fourth of July celebration at Harmony Grove, where Thoreau delivered "Slavery in Massachusetts" (see lecture 43 above).