Henry David ThoreauWriter / Peacenik Born: 12 July 1817 Died: 6
May 1862 (tuberculosis) Birthplace: Concord, Massachusetts Best
known as: Author of Walden Name at birth: David Henry Thoreau A
former schoolteacher, Henry David Thoreau spent two years in the
1840s living in a one-room hut beside Walden Pond in
Massachusetts, where he studied nature and wrote peaceful essays
and poems. His journal of these years became his most famous
work: Walden, or a Life in the Woods (published 1854). Thoreau
also wrote Civil Disobedience (1849), advocating non-violent
resistance to unethical governments; the same notion was later
advocated by Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Always a hit
with college readers, Thoreau became a pop icon for anti-war and
pro-environment groups late in the 20th century. Extra credit:
Thoreau was christened David Henry Thoreau, but switched to
calling himself Henry David after graduating from Harvard... He
was a lifelong bachelor... His single-room cabin at Walden Pond
was 10 feet wide by 15 f