Politics

The day before, on Nov. 5, 1860, Henry Thoreau had visited a neighbor’s 12-acre oak lot in Concord. He measured a white oak and noted its circumference at the ground was 19 feet. Three feet higher it measured 11 feet, seven inches. In addition to white oaks he observed red, black and swamp white oaks, and a few maples. By counting the rings on a white oak stump he estimated the tree’s age when cut down at 147 years. In his journal, Thoreau extrapolates to humans his observations about trees:

“I am struck by the fact that the more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core, and I think that the same is true of human beings. We do not wish to see children precocious, making great strides in their early years like sprouts, producing a soft and perishable timber, but better if they expand slowly at first, as if contending with difficulties, and so are solidified and perfected. Such trees continue to expand with nearly equal rapidity to an extreme old age.”

The rest of the journal entry for Nov. 5 is speculation on the growth of oaks, pines and other trees. The entry for the following day is unusually brief:

“Sawed off half of an old pitch pine stump at Tommy Wheeler’s hollow. I found that, though the surface was entire and apparently sound except one or two small worm-holes, and the sap was evidently decaying, yet within, or just under the surface, it was extensively honeycombed by worms, which did not eat out to the surface. The rings included in the outmost four of five inches were the most decayed, -- including the sapwood.”

On that day, Nov. 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln defeated John C. Breckinridge, Stephen A. Douglas and John Bell, and was elected the 16th president of the United States. Thoreau makes no mention of the event. The Civil War started in April 1861. Thoreau died May 6, 1862, maintaining his journal until a few months before his death. In its more than 2 million words, he never mentions Lincoln by name.