English
Henry David Thoreau
The Great Conservationist, Visionary, and Humanist
He spent his life in voluntary poverty, enthralled by the study
of nature. Two years, in the prime of his life, were spent living in a
shack in the woods near a pond. Who would choose a life like this?
Henry David Thoreau did, and he enjoyed it. Who was Henry David Thoreau,
what did he do, and what did others think of his work?
Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts on July
12, 1817 (“Thoreau” 96), on his grandmother\’s farm. Thoreau, who was of
French-Huguenot and Scottish-Quaker ancestry, was baptized as David
Henry
Thoreau, but at the age of twenty he legally changed his name to Henry
David. Thoreau was raised with his older sister Helen, older brother
John, and younger sister Sophia (Derleth 1) in genteel poverty (The 1995
Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia 1). It quickly became evident that
Thoreau was interested in literature and writing. At a young age he began
to show interest writing, and he wrote his first essay, “The Seasons,” at
the tender age of ten, while attending Concord Academy (Derleth 4).
In 1833, at the age of sixteen, Henry David was accepted to
