Page:Thoreau - His Home, Friends and Books (1902).djvu/57

Rh at Chelmsford where, according to the family day-book, he "kept shop and painted signs." Another venture in trade was in Boston about 1820 for three years; the family lived on Pinkney Street and here Henry began his school-life. John Thoreau seemed unable to recover fortune and he returned to Concord to venture and succeed in another craft. A few years earlier, pencil-making had been introduced here by the Munroe family, to whose large-hearted success the Concord Free Public Library stands as monument. To this business John Thoreau now devoted himself and, with ingenuity and industry, succeeded so well that his sister said he won the first medal at the Salem Mechanics' Fair. A more immediate and practical result was his ability to gain an income. His business was later increased by preparing plumbago for publishing houses in New York and Boston. All the family assisted in both crafts and the exact process of mixing plumbago was carefully concealed from visitants or even chance inmates of the home. Among treasured mementoes of Concord I have a gift-pencil bearing the stamp,—"J. Thoreau & Son, Concord, Mass." The "lead" or plumbago was mined in Acton, a few miles distant, and the coarse grinding was in the mill now at Concord Junction, marked on present-day maps, "Loring's Lead