Page:The first and last journeys of Thoreau - lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts.djvu/49



THE FIRST AND LAST

JOURNEYS OF THOREAU

his daily and nightly walks about the Township of Concord and its immediate vicinity, in Acton, Bedford, Carlisle, Lincoln, Sudbury, and Stow, Henry Thoreau was frequently taking longer excursions, several of which were united by him in his first Book, the Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers. Of these the first was made in company with his elder brother John, and it began during the summer vacation of their small private school in Concord, in 1839. This school opened in the "Parkman House," a former residence of Deacon Parkman (one of the family of which Francis Parkman the historian was the most distinguished member), standing where the Concord Library now is. This [1]