11. Thoreau's Comments on the Expense of Building the Town House, 1851

During the 1850s, Henry David Thoreau contributed to changing the local landscape by surveying for the Town of Concord. He provided the surveys that the town required as it planned new roads (Middle Street, for example), established a third municipal cemetery (Sleepy Hollow), and erected its new Town House. The printed town reports for the decade include records of several payments made to him for such work. While Thoreau no doubt appreciated the opportunity for gainful employment, as a social critic he could not resist commenting in his journal entry for September 27, 1851 on the high cost of the Town House in contrast with the low value placed by Concordians on true education. The image shown here is from Volume 9 (Journal, Volume 3) of the 1906 Manuscript Edition of Thoreau's writings.