University of Virginia Library

"Native to New England": Thoreau, "Herald of Freedom," and A Week
by
Linck C. Johnson

Thoreau's admiration for Nathaniel Rogers, editor of Herald of Freedom, an anti-slavery newspaper published in Concord, New Hampshire, has been fully documented.[1] But some confusion still exists about the text of Thoreau's "Herald of Freedom," a review of the newspaper that first appeared in the Dial in April 1844. A truncated version later appeared in the posthumous A Yankee in Canada, with Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers in 1866. In a recent edition of Reform Papers, Wendell Glick pointed out some apparent inconsistencies in the 1866 printing. He therefore adopted the Dial version as copy-text of "Herald of Freedom," adding the text of two leaves Thoreau drafted sometime after Rogers' death in 1846. But these and other surviving manuscripts in the Houghton Library indicate that Thoreau in 1847 revised "Herald of Freedom" for A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. Before the publication of A Week in 1849, however, Thoreau omitted the revised version of "Herald of Freedom," which apparently consisted of the truncated text printed in A Yankee in Canada plus at least the two leaves of new material printed in Reform Papers. A study of the original review and his later revisions thus clears up a number of questions about the various texts of "Herald of Freedom"; it also offers new insights into Thoreau's attitude toward Rogers and other reformers, and his conception of A Week.

In his review in the Dial, Thoreau stressed the connection between Rogers and New England. Remarking that Rogers had once been a lawyer in Plymouth, New Hampshire, "still further up the Merrimack," he began "Herald of Freedom" by praising Rogers' editorials, "flowing like his own mountain-torrents . . . and always spiced with the essence of the fir and the Norway pine."[2] Although Thoreau humorously noted that "there is rather too much slope to his channel" and appealed for "more pause and deliberation," he commended the health and vigor of Rogers' "yankee style" (D, 509). Thoreau, already planning a book about the boating and walking tour he and his brother made into New Hampshire in 1839, obviously savored Rogers' loving references to the people and places of New England.[3] In a

series of extracts from Herald of Freedom, for example, he included Rogers' call to the people of New England to an anti-slavery convention in Boston, and Rogers' similar summons to a convention in New Hampshire, which read in part:

His selection of this incantatory catalogue of towns, mountains, and rivers revealed Thoreau's own keen interest in the topography of New Hampshire, which was to play such a crucial role in A Week; it also illuminated his distinction between Rogers and other reformers. Retaining a foothold in his native soil, Rogers "looks out from a serener natural life into the turbid arena of politics," Thoreau remarked (D, 508). In contrast to most reformers, whose obsession with disease and evil repelled Thoreau, Rogers fights slavery "with what cheer may be" (D, 508-509). Rogers' perspective also enabled him to speak in the voice of common humanity. Early in the review Thoreau remarked that no other paper "keeps pace so well with one forward wave of the restless public thought and sentiment of New England" (D, 508), and, following the extracts from Herald of Freedom, he described these "timely, pure, and unpremeditated expressions of a public sentiment" as "the most generous gifts a man can make" (D, 512). Calling for a collection of Rogers' writings, Thoreau concluded: "Long may we hear the voice of this Herald" (D, 512).

The voice of this Herald was not, however, destined to be heard for very long. Rogers retained control of the newspaper long enough to reprint Thoreau's review and to acknowledge receipt of Emerson's First of August Address on emancipation in the West Indies, which Thoreau sent to him. But by the end of 1844 Stephen S. Foster, with the support of William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and others of the Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society, had wrested control of Herald of Freedom from Rogers, who had begun "to agitate for the dissolution of all anti-slavery societies, charging them with infringing upon the individual prerogatives of their members."[4] In March 1845, Rogers established a rival Herald of Freedom, prefixed by the article The, but failing health forced him to relinquish

the editorship in the summer of 1846. He died on October 23, 1846.

Probably because he was determined to remain aloof from the controversy among the abolitionists, and because he was increasingly preoccupied with other matters, Thoreau did not comment on the conclusion of Rogers' career. Although he sent a tribute to Wendell Phillips to the Liberator in March 1845, shortly before Rogers established The Herald of Freedom, the letter was probably not intended as a gesture of support to the Garrisonians. In fact, Thoreau probably agreed with Emerson, who felt that Rogers was right, "without or against any or all statements."[5] But as he prepared to move to Walden Pond, Thoreau apparently decided to devote himself to literary rather than to political matters. Thus, at the time of Rogers' death in the fall of 1846, Thoreau was busy writing an extended Journal account of his recent trip to Maine, gathering material for Walden, and drafting A Week.

Thoreau's interest in Rogers was rekindled by the publication of a collection of Rogers' newspaper writings in June 1847.[6] Thoreau, who had called for such a collection in "Herald of Freedom," apparently borrowed the volume from Emerson shortly after its publication. The editor obviously shared Thoreau's enthusiasm for Rogers' descriptive powers, for the collection contained a good deal of travel writing, including an account of a trip through the White Mountains, reprinted as "Anti-Slavery Jaunt to the Mountains" from Herald of Freedom for September 10-October 8, 1841. Thoreau probably read this section with particular interest, since he described a similar jaunt at about the same time of year in "Thursday" in A Week, which he had recently begun to circulate to publishers. As he read other selections, Thoreau was probably also struck by the congruity between his own political positions and Rogers' comments on the military, moral versus political action, and the individual's relationship to church and state. In fact, Thoreau would soon discuss all of these issues in a lecture on "The Rights and Duties of the Individual in Relation to Government," delivered early in 1848.

Whether or not it inspired his lecture, the collection of Rogers' writings prompted Thoreau to revise "Herald of Freedom" for A Week, which failed to attract a publisher in 1847. On a surviving leaf of notes, most of them truncated quotations with page references to the collection, Thoreau jotted, "It was here that the Herald of Freedom was printed at the time our voyage was made."[7] This "voyage" was obviously the brothers' trip on the Concord and Merrimack, for, following a description of their arrival in Concord,

New Hampshire, at the end of four surviving manuscript leaves from "Thursday," Thoreau concluded: "It was here that the Herald of Freedom was published at this time. We had".[8] The second sentence breaks off at that point, so it was probably followed in the manuscript of A Week by a revised and compressed version of the original Dial article, later used as copy for "Herald of Freedom" in A Yankee in Canada, plus some leaves of additional material Thoreau drafted in 1847 from his notes on the collection of Rogers' newspaper writings.

Although the revised Dial text has not survived, a comparison of the first sentence of "Herald of Freedom" in the Dial and in A Yankee in Canada suggests that the revised text served as copy for the 1866 printing:

The revisions in the opening sentence reveal an effort to place "Herald of Freedom" in the context of A Week. As in the surviving manuscript from "Thursday," the version in A Yankee in Canada begins "We had" rather than "We have," the first of numerous alterations in verb-tense in the 1866 printing. Wendell Glick has objected that if Thoreau revised "have" to "had" in consideration of Rogers' death in 1846, he surely would not have allowed "now, in his riper years" to stand.[10] But in the context of A Week, "had" would have referred to the time before the voyage, while "now" would have referred to the time of the voyage in 1839, when Rogers was still alive. It is, of course, also possible that the editors of A Yankee in Canada did not scrupulously follow copy, since, as Glick has pointed out, changes like "Merrimack" to "Merrimac" indicate unauthorized editorial meddling (RP, 293). But editorial meddling hardly explains the alteration of "those parts" to "these parts," which was clearly designed to fit "Herald of Freedom" into A Week. In the Dial, Thoreau was praising a writer in another town, so he

referred to Concord, New Hampshire as "those parts"; in "Thursday," he was describing a visit to that town, so he referred to it as "these parts."

Other substantive variants in the 1866 printing suggest that the editors of A Yankee in Canada had access to the text of "Herald of Freedom" Thoreau had revised for A Week. The second paragraph of the Dial version began: "We have neither room, nor inclination, to criticise this paper, or its cause, at length, but would speak of it in the free and uncalculating spirit of its author. Mr. Rogers seems to us to occupy an honorable and manly position in these days, and in this country . . ." (D, 508). The first sentence was omitted in the 1866 printing, in which the paragraph began, "Mr. Rogers seems to us to have occupied an honorable and manly position in these days, and in this country . . ." (YC, 207). The omission of the first sentence is even more significant than the shift in verb-tense. Like the title of the article, also omitted in A Week, the sentence called attention to the newspaper and its cause. Its omission shifts our attention from the antislavery newspaper Herald of Freedom to the qualities of its editor, Nathaniel Rogers.

Thoreau in the Dial stressed the poetry of Rogers' "yankee style," an aspect of his work that received even greater emphasis in the 1866 printing. For example, in his introduction to the extracts from Herald of Freedom, Thoreau noted in the Dial: "We cannot do better than enrich our pages with a few extracts from such articles as we have at hand" (D, 509). In the 1866 printing, the extracts were introduced with the comment: "Some extracts will show in what sense he was a poet as well as a reformer" (YC, 208). Moreover, that increasing emphasis on Rogers' literary abilities governed the selection of extracts, for, of the seven extracts included in the Dial, only Rogers' two descriptive summonses to the people of New England were retained in the 1866 printing. By omitting the other extracts, which were purely political, Thoreau apparently sought to shift even more attention from Rogers the reformer to Rogers the writer. The omissions also made room for at least two leaves of additional material Thoreau attached to the revised text of "Herald of Freedom" in the manuscript of A Week.[11]

From his notes on the collection of Rogers' writings, Thoreau drafted a new conclusion to "Herald of Freedom." In addition to the comment, "It was here that the Herald of Freedom was printed at the time our voyage was made," which served to introduce the revised version in "Thursday," in the notes he remarked, "But since our voyage he has died and now there is no one in New England to express adequately the contempt and indignation at any cant and inhumanity—which may still be felt" (MH, 11). Whereas in the Dial he had concluded with a call for a collection of Rogers' writings and

the comment, "Long may we hear the voice of this Herald," Thoreau thus began the new conclusion:

The contrast between the first paragraph, carried over from the Dial, and the second paragraph, which forms a transition to the additional material drafted in 1847, reveals a marked shift in tone. In 1844, Thoreau praised Rogers' expressions of "indignation and humanity"; in 1847, he mourned that there was no one left to express "indignation or contempt." In the intervening years, Thoreau's own contempt for cant and inhumanity had grown apace, fueled by his arrest in 1846, the Mexican War, and by the failure of the political and religious establishment in New England to oppose slavery. A good deal of his contempt found an outlet in A Week, in which he attacks the Church in "Sunday," and the State in "Monday." In the new conclusion to "Herald of Freedom" drafted for "Thursday," he thus approvingly quoted Rogers' stern rebuttal to one who argued that Christ never preached abolition. In short, Rogers denied the premise, but asserted that, if true, it simply demonstrated that Christ "'did'nt do his duty'" (RP, 56).

Although he applauded Rogers for rejecting any external authority if it conflicted with the demands of conscience, Thoreau in both his notes and in the conclusion drafted from them praised Rogers' poetry at the expense of his politics. As noted above, Thoreau apparently omitted Rogers' political statements when he revised the Dial text for A Week. Similarly, with the exception of the reference to Christ, all of the extracts alluded to in the notes or quoted in the new conclusion illustrated Rogers' feeling for New England rather than his political views. Indeed, Thoreau clearly sought to distinguish between Rogers' political writings, which revealed all of his limitations, and Rogers' descriptive writings, which revealed his enduring love of nature: "His was not the wisdom of the head, but of the heart. If perhaps he had all the faults, he had more than the usual virtues of the radical. He loved his native soil, her hills and streams, like Burns or Scott. As he rode to an antislavery convention, he viewed the country with a poet's eye, and some of his letters written back to his editorial substitute contain as true and pleasing pictures of New England life and scenery as are anywhere to be found" (RP, 57-58).

Thoreau's comment helps explain his decision to revise "Herald of Freedom" for A Week. The tribute to Rogers was clearly not intended as a pat on the back to abolitionists or other reformers, nor even as an assertion of Thoreau's own political views. Instead, Rogers served as a paradigm of a man whose commitment to a transient cause did not blind him to the permanent verities of nature and human life. In his "true and pleasing pictures

of New England life and scenery," Rogers had captured something Thoreau sought to capture in A Week. Following a long extract from Rogers' celebration of Swamscot, Massachusetts, a fishing village whose bold and adventurous inhabitants demonstrated the rugged independence of the New England character, Thoreau continued: "He was born and bred far up this stream, under the shadow of the higher hills" (RP, 298 n.). Like his initial reference to "these parts," Thoreau's reference to "this stream" places the revised version of "Herald of Freedom" in the context of A Week. Indeed, by quoting Rogers' descriptions of Plymouth, his native town on the upper reaches of the Merrimack, Thoreau subtly shifted attention back to the narrative in A Week. On the leaf of notes, Thoreau had jotted: "His memory continually reverts to this scenery of his boyhood—even the minuter features of the landscape. We feel inclined to make a pilgrimage if only to see that graceful elm & that clump of pines which he describes so lovingly" (MH, 11). In the context of A Week, that "we" referred to Henry and John Thoreau, bound from Concord to Plymouth. Thoreau revised the passage to read, "To this scenery his memory continually reverted," an introduction to the final extract from the Herald of Freedom, Rogers' description of a magnificent elm in his native town of Plymouth (RP, 298 n.). Thus, as the brothers' arrival in Concord, New Hampshire occasioned the tribute to Rogers, the revised version of "Herald of Freedom" concluded with a glimpse of Plymouth, the brothers' next stop on their journey to the White Mountains.

Thoreau probably omitted the revised version of "Herald of Freedom" from A Week for a variety of reasons. Before he omitted the tribute from the manuscript, Thoreau apparently first deleted Rogers' descriptions of Plymouth, interlining the comment: "His style and vein though often exaggerated and affected were more native to New England than those of any of her sons, and unfinished as his pieces were, yet their literary merit has been overlooked" (RP, 57). As that somewhat lame and grudging conclusion suggests, Thoreau may have lowered his estimate of Rogers' writings. His decision to omit the tribute to the abolitionist was also in keeping with others of his revisions of A Week during 1848, when Thoreau omitted a good deal of material concerning contemporary social issues and added a substantial amount of material on literature and colonial history.[12] For example, he evidently added another Dial essay, "Aulus Persius Flaccus," to "Thursday" in 1848, so he possibly decided that the chapter could not accommodate both the Roman satirist and the abolitionist-editor from New England. In place of the revised version of "Herald of Freedom" in "Thursday," Thoreau consequently added a passage on the early settlement of Concord from Benjamin L. Mirick's History of Haverhill, Massachusetts and the marvelous meditation on a true frontier life (W, 303-304).

Thoreau's primary reason for omitting the tribute to Rogers from

"Thursday" is perhaps suggested by the only quotation from Rogers' writings in A Week. Without identifying Rogers by name, Thoreau in a description of the Merrimack in "Sunday" quotes "one who was born on its head water," who wrote: "'Down out at its mouth, the dark inky main blending with the blue above. Plum Island, its sandy ridges scalloping along the horizon like the sea serpent, and the distant outline broken by many a tall ship, leaning, still, against the sky'" (W, 85). In contrast to "Herald of Freedom," a reminder of New England's failure to live up to its own ideals by opposing slavery and the Mexican War, the quotation in "Sunday" serves a radically different function. Indeed, by echoing Samuel Sewell's The New Heaven and the New Earth, Rogers in the brief extract in "Sunday" had affirmed the promise of life in New England, a promise Thoreau reaffirmed in A Week.

Thoreau's decision to omit the article from A Week resulted in a good deal of confusion about the text of "Herald of Freedom." The editors of A Yankee in Canada apparently discovered the revised pages from the Dial among Thoreau's papers and, not realizing that he had revised it for A Week, used them as copy for "Herald of Freedom." They apparently also had access to the leaves Thoreau had added in 1847, but, with the exception of the revised form of the final paragraph of the Dial version, the editors omitted the additional material. Noting this and other inconsistencies in the version printed in A Yankee in Canada, Wendell Glick rightly decided to adopt the Dial version as copy-text for "Herald of Freedom." But to the Dial version Glick added the text of the two leaves Thoreau drafted in 1847 as part of his revision of "Herald of Freedom" for A Week. Glick argued that, if Thoreau had reissued the review, "he would have incorporated" the additional material (RP, 295). That is possibly true, but Thoreau probably also would have incorporated many of his revisions of the Dial version of "Herald of Freedom." Thus both the revisions incorporated in A Yankee in Canada and the additional material included in Reform Papers are misleading, for, when he made these revisions and drafted the additional material, Thoreau was incorporating "Herald of Freedom" into the manuscript of A Week, where, for a short time at least, Nathaniel Rogers served as a paradigm of a man whose life and writings were rooted in his native soil of New England.

Notes