To Purgatory in Sutton by railroad and buggy.

June 16. 

June 16 

Saw at the Natural History Rooms a shell labelled Haliotis splendens, apparently same with mine from Ricketson’s son, with holes and green reflections. 

To Purgatory in Sutton: by railroad to Wilkinsonville in the northeast corner of Sutton (thirty cents) and by buggy four or five miles to Purgatory in the south or southeast part of the town, some twelve miles from Worcester. 

The stream rising from the bottom of it must empty into the Blackstone, perhaps through the Mumford River. Sutton is much wooded. 

The woman at the last house told of an animal seen in the neighborhood last year. Well, she “had no doubt that there had been a bad animal about.” A Mr. Somebody, who could be relied on, between there and Sutton Centre, had been aroused by a noise early one morning, and, looking out, saw this animal near a wood-pile in his yard, as big as a good-sized dog. He soon made off, making nothing of the walls and fences, before he and his sons got their guns ready. They raised part of the town, a body of shoemakers, and surrounded a swamp into which it was supposed to have entered, but they did not dare to go into it. Also a strange large track was seen where it crossed the road. 

Found at the very bottom of this Purgatory, where it was dark and damp, on the steep moss and fern covered side of a rock which had fallen into it, a wood thrush’s nest. Scarcely a doubt of the bird, though I saw not its breast fairly. Heard the note around, and the eggs (one of which I have) correspond. Nest of fine moss from the rock (hypnum ?), and lined with pine-needles; three eggs, fresh.

Found in the Purgatory the panicled elder (Sambucus pubens), partly gone to ribbed seed, but some in flower, new to me; Polygonum cilinode (?), not yet in flower; moose-wood or striped maple; and also, close by above, Actoea alba, out of bloom; and a chestnut oak common. Cow-wheat numerously out.

Heard around, from within the Purgatory, not only Wilson’s thrush, but evergreen forest note and tanager; and saw chip-squirrels within it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 16, 1856

Purgatory is a 0.25-mile-long chasm between granite walls rising as high as 70 feet, once believed to have originated in the sudden release of dammed-up glacial meltwater near the end of the last Ice Age.  Today ice lingers in boulder caves into the early summer, however there is there is no evidence of water erosion in the chasm or on its walls.

June 16. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 16

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

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