Spent the noon on the bank of the Contoocook

July 17. 

Saturday. Passed by Webster’s place, three miles this side of the village. 

Some half-dozen houses there; no store nor public buildings. A very quiet place. Road lined with elms and maples. Railroad between house and barn. The farm apparently a level and rather sandy interval, nothing particularly attractive about it. A plain public graveyard within its limits. 

Saw the grave of Ebenezer Webster, Esq, who died 1806, aged sixty-seven, and of Abigail, his wife, who died 1816, aged seventy-six, probably Webster’s father and mother; also of other Websters, and Haddocks. Now belongs to one Fay [?] of Boston. W. was born two or more miles northwest, but house now gone. 

Spent the noon on the bank of the Contoocook in the northwest corner of Concord, there a stagnant river owing to dams. Began to find raspberries ripe. Saw much elecampane by roadsides near farmhouses, all the way through New Hampshire. 

Reached Weare and put up at a quiet and agreeable house, without any sign or barroom. Many Friends in this town. Know Pillsbury and Rogers here. The former lived in Henniker, next town.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 17, 1858