Henry David Thoreau lived at Walden Pond in a hut of his own construction for some two years and two months. Much attention has been devoted to that time and the experiment in living it represented. But little is said about what happened to that famous hut - now more familiarly called a cabin (see column at right) - once it's builder quit the premises.

Two years and two months isn't very long to use a well-built structure - it could hardly have been worn out in that time. In fact, Henry's good friend, Ellery Channing, noted that it could have lasted a century. Milled lumber and the supplies used to build buildings (nails, etc.) were valuable and it was quite common until earlier this century to move buildings which had outgrown their original purpose. In fact, many buildings in Concord both large and small have been moved (some more than once) during their lifetimes, a practice no longer customary. Moving a small structure like the hut would have been a fairly simple matter.

And that is indeed what happened to it....several times, and all within Concord. However, the available sources on just where and when it was moved are somewhat contradictory. There have over the years been some fanciful tales passed around, many of which are untrue, best as can be substantiated. And as you will see, many interesting questions are still left open.

Hugh moved it away from the Pond - but not far - into a bean field close to what is now Walden Street. Thoreau notes with great amusement in a letter to Emerson that Hugh, being given to poor judgement born of drink, dug the cellar hole too big. Despite Thoreau's warnings to that effect, the hole collapsed into itself and left Hugh quite dispirited. Not long thereafter, Whalen got drunk and ran away from Concord, eventually turning up in Sterling. Again the hut was empty. It was put up for sale and for a time, it was left unoccupied.

In 1849, it was bought by James Clark, one of the sons at the Brook Clark Farm on the Old Carlisle Road (now Estabrook Road). He had great admiration for Henry and, according to some sources, fancied himself to be a second Thoreau. He hoped to gain inspiration from the hut. James and his brother Daniel moved it to the farm on September 3rd of that same year. In the process, the plaster cracked.

So, did the hut inspire James? Perhaps, but "[f]inally, the poor fellow became insane and was placed in an asylum," noted Edward Bacon in his 1897 Walks and Rides Around Boston. James died five years after moving the hut.

But that's far from the end of the story of its travels. (Find out what else happened next month in the February, '99 edition.)