The Thoreau Sauntering Society

Meet the Beekeeper

FALL 2024

Former Inhabitants: A Saunter at Brister’s Hill and Thoreau’s Beanfield 

Sunday, September 8
12 pm 
$20/person. Registration Required. 

Register

It is well known that Henry Thoreau famously lived at Walden Pond from 1845 until 1847. But he was not the first person to call Walden Woods home, and Thoreau documented them and their stories in the “Former Inhabitants” chapter of “Walden”. But who were they?

 

Join us on interpretive walk from Brister’s Hill to Thoreau’s beanfield with historian Richard Smith and biologist Dr. Amity Wilczek. The walk will discuss the history of the Former Inhabitants of Walden Woods, who they were, and why they were there. Along the way we will cover the biological and botanical history of the Hill and the beanfield; how they looked when Brister Freeman and Thoreau were there and how it’s changed since then, including the plants that Thoreau and the Former Inhabitants would and would not be familiar with, including invasives.

 

Richard Smith has lectured on and written about antebellum United States and 19th-Century American history and literature since 1995. He has worked as a public historian in Concord, Massachusetts for 25 years, specializing in Henry David Thoreau, the Transcendentalists, the Anti-Slavery movement and the Civil War. As a Living History Interpreter, he has portrayed Henry Thoreau at Walden Pond and around the country since 1999. He has written eight books for Applewood Books and is a regular contributor to Discover Concord Magazine.  

 

Dr. Amity Wilczek is an evolutionary ecologist whose role as an educator and researcher has been shaped by attention to place, history, and student experience. Her teaching career started at Harvard and Brown before transitioning to Deep Springs College, where over 10 years she served as Herbert Reich Chair of Natural Sciences, Academic Dean, and Vice President. Her work on plant responses to changing environments has appeared in Science, PNAS, Ecology, American Naturalist, and Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Amity currently lives in Concord, Massachusetts and serves as trail steward of the Emerson-Thoreau Amble for the town.

PAST THOREAU SAUNTERING SOCIETY PROGRAMS

Saturday, June 23, 2024 – A Family Birding Saunter with MYBC

Saturday, May 11, 2024 – A Birding Saunter with Peter Alden, part of A Day of Birds at Thoreau Farm

Saturday, May 4, 2024 – Thoreau Farm Garden Clean-up

Sunday, April 28, 2024 – Welcome Bees to Thoreau Farm

Sunday, February 11, 2024 – Super Cup Sunday Fungus Saunter with Lawrence Millman

Sunday, October 29, 2023 – “My vicinity afford many good walks”; A Saunter Exploring Thoreau Farm’s Biology & History

Sunday, May 21, 2023 – “My vicinity afford many good walks”; A Saunter Exploring Thoreau Farm’s Biology & History

Sunday, February 12, 2023 — Super Cup Sunday Mushroom Saunter 

Sunday, October 23, 2022 — A Mushroom Saunter with mycologist Dr. Lawrence Millman

Sunday, October  16, 2022 — Autumnal Tints Saunter with Peter Alden and Ken Turkington

Sunday, September 25, 2022 — Determined to Know Beans: A Biological & Historical Saunter of Thoreau’s Bean Field at Walden Pond.

Sunday, September 11, 2022 — A Saunter with Peter Alden at Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge  

**Saunters proceed rain or shine and fees are non-refundable. Should your plans change, your saunter fees can be applied to a future saunter.