the Thoreau Log.
1833
Æt. 16.
Summer 1833. Concord, Mass.

Henry D. Thoreau builds a boat, which he calls “The Rover,” for trips on the river (Thoreau, the Poet-Naturalist, 13).

24 August 1833. Concord, Mass.

Henry D. Thoreau passes the Harvard University entrance exam, but just barely, as Harvard’s president, Josiah Quincy, states: “One branch more and you had been turned by entirely. You have barely got in” (Emerson Society Quarterly 7 (2nd quarter 1957):2).

30 August 1833. Cambridge, Mass.

Henry D. Thoreau enters Harvard College (Studies in the American Renaissance 1989, 180note).

Harvard University 1850 _ 2
Harvard University (ca. 1850) (The Walter Harding Collection in The Thoreau Society Collections)
1 September 1833. Cambridge, Mass.

Henry D. Thoreau starts his first term at Harvard College, rooming with Charles Stearns Wheeler in Hollis Hall no. 20. He enrolls in the following classes:

  • Geometry taught by Benjamin Peirce
  • History; reading Elements of General History, Ancient and Modern by Alexander Fraser Tytler
  • Greek composition, grammar, and antiquities taught by Christopher Dunkin; reading Xenophon’s Anabasis
  • Latin taught by Henry S. McKean; reading Charles Folsom’s Livy and Horace’s Odes
  • Latin composition and antiquities taught by Charles Beck; reading A Grammar of the Latin Language by Karl Gottlob Zumpt
(Thoreau’s Harvard Years, part 1:13; A Catalogue of Officers and Students of Harvard University for the Academical Year 1833-34)
3 September 1833. Cambridge, Mass.

Henry D. Thoreau checks out The Life of Erasmus by Charles Butler from Harvard College Library (Companion to Thoreau’s Correspondence, 286).

6 September 1833. Cambridge, Mass.

Henry D. Thoreau signs his copy of Cicero’s Orations “D H Thoreau Hollis 20 Sept 6th” (Studies in the American Renaissance 1983, 159).

11 September 1833. Cambridge, Mass.

Henry D. Thoreau checks out Travels in Canada and the United States in 1816 and 1817 by Francis Hall from Harvard College Library (Companion to Thoreau’s Correspondence, 286).

18 September 1833. Cambridge, Mass.

Henry D. Thoreau checks out A New History of the Life and Reign of the Czar Peter the Great by John Bancks and Moral Tales, volume 1 by Jean François Marmontel from Harvard College Library (Companion to Thoreau’s Correspondence, 286).

25 September 1833. Cambridge, Mass.

Henry D. Thoreau checks out Adventures on the Columbia River by Ross Cox and Sketches of a Tour to the Lakes by Thomas Loraine McKenney from Harvard College Library (Companion to Thoreau’s Correspondence, 286).

2 October 1833. Cambridge, Mass.

Charles Stearns Wheeler checks out France, volumes 1 and 2 by Lady Morgan for Henry D. Thoreau from Harvard College Library (Companion to Thoreau’s Correspondence, 286).

6 October 1833. Cambridge, Mass.

Henry D. Thoreau misses morning and evening chapel to hike to Concord with Charles Stearns Wheeler (Thoreau’s Harvard Years, 13).

18 October 1833. Concord, Mass.

Henry D. Thoreau’s brother John writes to George Stearns:

  Henry and [Charles] Stearns Wheeler walked up from Cambridge last week. Henry blistered his feet very badly; he said he walked two miles in his stockings; he was three hours coming from Lincoln; he made quite a short visit.
(Life of Henry David Thoreau, 217)
1 December 1833. Cambridge, Mass.

Henry D. Thoreau finishes his first term at Harvard, earning 1,215 points (Thoreau’s Harvard Years, part 1:13).

2 December 1833. Cambridge, Mass.

Henry D. Thoreau starts his second term at Harvard, enrolling in the following classes:

  • Algebra taught by Benjamin Peirce
  • History; reading Elements of General History, Ancient and Modern by Alexander Fraser Tytler
  • Greek composition, grammar, and antiquities taught by Christopher Dunkin; reading Xenophon’s Anabasis
  • Latin taught by Henry S. McKean; reading Charles Folsom’s Livy and Horace’s Odes
  • Latin composition, grammar, and antiquities taught by Charles Beck; reading A Grammar of the Latin Language by Karl Gottlob Zumpt
(Thoreau’s Harvard Years, part 1:13)

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