Thoreau in Minnesota
In 1861, Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) and a young Horace Mann, Jr. spent two weeks getting from Massachusetts to Minnesota, by rail and by steam. The pair stayed for a month exploring the the Twin Cities area. Thoreau kept notes on the plants, animals and natural phenomena of the region. On June 11, 1861 while staying at “Mrs. Hamilton’s exclusive boarding house” he searched “faithfully” around Lake Calhoun for the wild crab apple. His persistence paid off and he discovered “quite a cluster” of trees behind the boarding house. This apple was one of the reasons why Thoreau went west in the first place, and he recorded the find in his journal. Specimens of the apple returned to Concord. Thoreau and Mann decided to accompany a tourist excursion with to the Lower Sioux Agency in Redwood, Minnesota. Thoreau’s excursion up the Minnesota did not go unnoticed. A Minneapolis newspaper covered the events aboard the Frank Steele and listed among the “very choice and select company” one “Henry D. Thoreau, Esq., the celebrated abolitionist.” Then they took to water and rails again and followed a more northern route to return home. Though the intent was to relieve Henry Thoreau’s symptoms of consumption, the trip was also his one and only chance to “Go West.” Thoreau and Mann were took advantage of the opportunity to “botanize” at Niagara Falls, Mackinac Island and on Barn Bluff in Redwing. You can read all about Henry David trave’s in Corinne Hosfeld Smith’s new book Westward I Go Free: Tracing Thoreau’s Last Journey . After you burn through all 460 pages you may want to head down to the Minnesota River Valley National Wild life Refuge on Saturday, October 20th for a “Thoreau Country Minnesota”. The fun goes on from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. There will be Four speakers, including Mr. Thoreau himself, reading “Walking.”
Barn Bluff and Red Wing in the 1860′s
