Henry David Thoreau - Biography.

Henry David Thoreau - Biography. American essayist and naturalist Birth July 12, 1817 Death May 6, 1862 Place of Concord, Massachusetts Birth Known for Observing nature and social philosophies in his writing Milestones 1837 Graduated from Harvard University; started a school in Concord the following year, where he taught until its close in 1841 Early 1840s Contributed nature essays and poems to the transcendentalist journal The Dial 1841-1843 Lived in Ralph Waldo Emerson's home and worked briefly on Staten Island as a tutor in 1843 1845-1847 Built a small cabin on the shores of Walden Pond outside Concord, where he lived a simple lifestyle studying nature and writing 1849 Published the book of observations A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers and Civil Disobedience, an essay on nonviolent resistance 1854 Published Walden; or, Life in the Woods, a collection of essays on his experiences living on Walden Pond 1863 Excursions, a collection of essays, was posthumously published. 1864 The Maine Woods, a collection of three essays describing trips he had taken to Maine, was posthumously published. 1865 Cape Cod, a collection of travel essays, was posthumously published. 1895 Poems of Nature was posthumously published. Quote 'Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail.' Walden, 'Where I Lived and What I Lived For' (1854) Did You In 1844, Thoreau and a friend accidentally set the Concord woods on fire. Know Thoreau helped slaves escape on the Underground Railroad and spoke out against the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Thoreau was jailed briefly in 1846 for refusing to pay a poll tax during the Mexican War; he later discussed this act of nonviolent resistance in the essay 'Civil Disobedience.' On and off throughout his life, Thoreau worked in his father's pencil factory, and at one point devised a better system for graphite processing. He took over the factory after his father's death in 1859. Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.