The cabin site was higher than the pond, and on a small cove, which is
seen through the trees in this photo. The pile of rocks was to mark the
original site of Thoreau's cabin. In 1945 the actual site was unearthed
a few feet away, to the left of the area photographed, and the pile of
rocks has since grown into a much larger mound.
In 1881 Walt Whitman visited the cabin site, and later wrote:
"Then to Walden Pond, that beautifully embower'd sheet of water, and spent
over an hour there. On the spot in the woods where Thoreau had his solitary
house is now quite a cairn of stones, to mark the place; I too carried
one and deposited on the heap."
In 1883, and again in 1893, John Muir visited Walden. He wrote,
"No wonder Thoreau lived here two years. I could have enjoyed living here
two hundred or two thousand. It is only about one and a half or two miles
from Concord, a mere saunter, and how people should regard Thoreau as a
hermit on account of his little delightful stay here I cannot guess."
This is close to the view Henry would have enjoyed from his cabin
door. The tour returns back to the cove and about 90 years foward, to an
early Spring. - Start of tour
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