A Peronal Independence Day

It was on this day in 1845 that Henry David Thoreau moved into his cabin on Walden Pond, just outside Concord, Massachusetts. He was not quite 28 years old at the time, and he had decided to try an experiment in simple living. He was inspired in part by the memory of a summer trip he took with his beloved brother John just before his brother had died of lockjaw.

Thoreau built a tiny cabin on the land, 10 feet wide and 15 feet long, with an attic and a closet, two windows, and a fireplace. It cost 28 dollars and 12 cents to build. The single biggest expenditure was $3.90 for nails. He moved into the cabin on this day, Independence Day, in 1845, to signify his new independence from his family and from civilization. But he had not exactly moved to the wilderness. There were farms in the area, and Thoreau could see the nearby railroad tracks from his cabin's window. He walked to town every day, and his mother frequently gave him bundles of food to eat.

But at his cabin, he kept a huge garden, seven miles of bean rows altogether, and he spent a lot of time weeding them and chasing away the woodchucks. He baked unleavened bread on a stone over a fire in the sand outside, and supported himself by hiring himself out as a surveyor and a builder. He found he could earn enough money if he worked for about a month and a half out of the year.

Thoreau ultimately lived at Walden for two years, two months, and two days. And he wrote it all down, trying to capture how his experience changed his view of civilization, and what it was he loved so much about this small, unimportant place. He published Walden; or Life in the Woods in 1854. It sold 256 copies in its first year, but it has never gone out of print, and has been translated into virtually every language.