Woodsburner (51 page)

Woodsburner
is a work of fiction that draws upon a number of real events. On April 30, 1844, Henry David Thoreau did indeed set fire to the Concord Woods during an excursion with his friend, Edward Sherman Hoar. In July of the following year, Thoreau took up residence in a simple cabin at Walden Pond, thus embarking on what would come to be regarded as one of the iconic undertakings of American literary history.

For details of what happened on the day of the fire, I have, for the most part, relied on two primary sources: the newspaper report in the
Concord Freeman
of May 3, 1844, and, of course, Thoreau's own journals. It is interesting that Thoreau does not mention the fire in his journal until an entry in 1850, in which he describes the event at length. By Thoreau's own account, he was attempting to cook a fish chowder in a pine stump. Driven by strong winds, the fire quickly grew out of control and spread north from Fair Haven Bay. By the day's end an estimated three hundred acres of the Concord Woods lay in ruins, and were it not for the efforts of the people of Concord, the flames might have reached the town itself. Meteorological records confirm that the early months of 1844 were exceedingly dry, and on the day of the fire a strong wind was blowing out of the south. Had the winds shifted, the fire might have spread to the nearby Walden Woods, though it is likely that the new railway to Fitchburg would have, ironically, provided a firebreak.

Most of the burned land was privately owned, and Edward Sherman Hoar's father paid reparations to the owners, which dissuaded them from taking legal action against Edward and Henry. For months afterward, the residents of Concord complained of the lingering effects of smoke and ash, and it appears that the sudden loss of woodland may have also bolstered their growing sense of the natural world as a place in need of protection from careless adventurers. A modern-day visitor to Concord might be surprised to learn that deforestation was already a concern in the early 1800s as rapidly growing cities, towns, and farms spread across the land. The first half of the nineteenth century saw two concurrent developments in the way that Americans viewed their new world. Increasingly, as Americans flocked to cities, they began to view the countryside as a thing apart from where they lived and worked, a separate place to be visited for recreation. And at the same time, many were growing conscious of the natural world's vulnerability; it should come as no surprise, then, that among Thoreau's contemporaries, the seeds for the modern environmental movement were being sown.

Many thanks to all who generously read the unpolished manuscript and offered advice: Marsha Moyer, David Liss, Amanda Eyre Ward, Dominic Smith, Caroline Levander, and Ted Weinstein.

For research, I owe thanks to the Concord Free Public Library, the A. Frank Smith, Jr., Library at Southwestern University, and the libraries at the University of Texas at Austin. A number of texts were essential to this work, especially
The Days of Henry Thoreau: A Biography
, by Walter Harding;
Thoreau: A Life of the Mind
, by Robert D. Richardson, Jr.;
The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance
, by Henry Petroski;
American Literary Publishing in the Mid-Nineteenth Century: The Business of Ticknor and Fields
, by Michael Winship; and, of course, the writings of Thoreau himself, especially
A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
and his incomparable
Journal
. The following organizations and Web sites were invaluable resources as well: the Walden Woods Project (
www.walden.org
) and the Thoreau Society (
www.thoreausociety.org
).

I can hardly find words to describe my indebtedness to Marly Rusoff for believing in this project, and I am awed by the finesse with which she and Michael Radulescu piloted the manuscript through the shoals and eddies of publication. With great insight, enthusiasm, and thoughtful critique, Janet Silver embraced the
manuscript and helped me find my way to its full realization. And I will be forever grateful to Nan A. Talese for welcoming me to Doubleday and enlisting the expertise of Luke Hoorelbeke, John Fontana, Sean Mills, Greg Mollica, Pei Loi Koay and so many others.

In the course of writing this book, I came to know many talented authors through the Writers' League of Texas. Every writer should be so fortunate as to have access to such a vibrant writing community (
www.writersleague.org
).

I am especially happy to be able to acknowledge, at last, the boundless encouragement of my parents, John Paul Pipkin and Mary Frances Pipkin.

And, to be sure, without the immeasurable patience and support of my wife, Eileen, these pages would never have had the slightest hope of coming into being.

JOHN PIPKIN
was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, and he holds degrees from Washington and Lee University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Rice University. He has taught writing and literature at Saint Louis University, Boston University, and Southwestern University. He currently lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and son. He can be reached via his Web site at
www.johnpipkin.com
.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses,
organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product
of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events,
or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2009 by John Pipkin

All Rights Reserved

Published in the United States by Nan A. Talese/Doubleday,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

www.nanatalese.com

DOUBLEDAY
is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Pipkin, John.

Woodsburner : a novel / John Pipkin. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
(alk. paper)
1. Thoreau, Henry David, 1817–1862—Fiction.
2. Walden Pond (Middlesex County, Mass.)—Fiction.
3. Forest fires—Fiction. I. Title.
PS
3616.165 2009
813′.6
—
DC
22
2008033233
eISBN: 978-0-385-53047-7

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