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The Thoreau Farm Trust is a non-profit group dedicated to the restoration and reuse of the c.1730 farmhouse in Concord where Henry David Thoreau was born. Currently, there is no house site in Concord that celebrates the entire life and legacy of this extraordinary American author and philosopher and our country's first environmentalist.
The fact that the house where Thoreau was born is located in a modest neighborhood and is surrounded by farmland makes it a perfect place to carry on Thoreau's belief in living simply and close to the land.
Mary Jones Dunbar, Thoreau's widowed grandmother, married widower Jonas Minot in 1798 and moved to the farm with her children, including her daughter Cynthia, Thoreau's mother. Cynthia grew up in the house on the Virginia Road farm, living there for 14 years until 1812 when she married John Thoreau. In 1813, Jonas died and Cynthia returned to the farm with John at Mary's request to take over her "widow's third" and they tried to make a go of the farm. Unable to do so during a particularly harsh stretch of New England weather, they left Virginia Road and moved back to the town center in 1818 with their 8-month-old son, Henry, who had been born on the farm. Although he lived on the farm for only a short time, it provided both inspiration and subject matter for his writings.
a little irreverent. a lot of fun.
