It must be the largest lake in Middlesex.

November 7. 


8 A. M. – To Long Pond with W. E. C. . . .

Close by we found Long Pond, in Wayland, Framingham, and Natick, a great body of water with singularly sandy, shelving, caving, undermined banks; and there we ate our luncheon.

The mayflower leaves we saw there, and the Viola pedata in blossom.

We went down it a mile or two on the east side through the woods on its high bank, and then dined, looking far down to what seemed the Boston outlet (opposite to its natural outlet), where a solitary building stood on the shore.

It is a wild and stretching loch, where yachts might sail, — Cochituate.

It was not only larger but wilder and more novel than I had expected.

In some respects unlike New England.

I could hardly have told in what part of the world I was, if I had been carried there blindfolded.

Yet some features, at least the composition of the soil, were familiar.

The glorious sandy banks far and near, caving and sliding, — far sandy slopes, the forts of the land, where you see  the naked flesh of New England, her garment being blown aside like that of the priests (of the Levites?) when they ascend to the altar.

Seen through this November sky, these sands are dear to me, worth all the gold of California, suggesting Pactolus, while the Saxonville, factory-bell sounds o'er the woods.

That sound perchance it is that whets my vision. . . .

Dear to me to lie in, this sand; fit to preserve the bones of a race for thousands of years to come. And this is my home, my native soil; and I am a New-Englander. Of thee, O earth, are my bone and sinew made; to thee, O sun, am I brother. It must be the largest lake in Middlesex. To this dust my body will gladly return as to its origin. Here have I my habitat I am of thee.

Dear to me to lie in, this sand;

fit to preserve the bones of a race

for thousands of years to come.

And this is my home,

my native soil; and I am

a New-Englander.

Of thee, O earth,

are my bone

and sinew made.

To thee,

O sun,

am I brother.

To this dust

my body will gladly return

as to its origin.

Here have I

my habitat

I am of thee.

Returned by the south side of Dudley Pond, which looked fairer than ever, though smaller, - now so still, the afternoon somewhat advanced, Nobscot in the west in a purplish light . . .

At Nonesuch Pond, in Natick, we saw a boulder some thirty-two feet square by sixteen high, with a large rock leaning against it, -- under which we walked, -- forming a triangular frame, through which we beheld the picture of the pond. How many white Indians have passed under it! Boulder Pond!

Thence across lots by the Weston elm, to the bounds of Lincoln at the railroad.

Saw a delicate fringed purple flower, Gentiana crinita, between those Weston hills, in a meadow, and after on higher land.
. . .

The sun sets while we are perched on a high rock in the north of Weston.  It soon grows finger cold.

At Walden are three reflections of the bright full (or nearly) moon, one moon and two sheens further off.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 7, 1851

It is a wild and stretching loch, where yachts might sail, —Cochituate. See August 24, 1857 ("B. says . . . that Cochituate Pond is only between three and four miles long, or five including the meadows that are flowed, yet it has been called even ten miles long.")

Lake Cochituate was created by the construction, beginning in 1846, of a dam to raise Long Pond, as it was then called , nine feet to create the first public drinking water reservoir for Boston. The Lake consists of three linked kettle ponds in "the Great Sand Plain of Framingham" having a general north and south direction, within the Middlesex County towns of Framingham, Wayland and Natick. The Pond is nearly three and one half miles long , and its greatest breadth about eighteen hundred feet. It naturally discharges into the Sudbury River about 14 miles above Concord where the Sudbury or North River joins the Assabet to form the Concord River. See Annual Report of the Cochituate Water Board For 1851.

And this is my home, my native soil; and I am a New-Englander. See November 8, 1851 ("When I saw the bare sand at Cochituate I felt my relation to the soil. These are my sands not yet run out. Not yet will the fates turn the glass. This air have I title to taint with my decay. In this clean sand my bones will gladly lie. Like Viola pedata, I shall be ready to bloom again here in my Indian summer days. Here ever springing, never dying, with perennial root I stand; for the winter of the land is warm to me. While the flowers bloom again as in the spring, shall I pine? When I see her sands exposed, thrown up from beneath the surface, it touches me inwardly, it reminds me of my origin; for I am such a plant, so native to New England, me thinks, as springs from the sand cast up from below")

The Weston elm. See October 24, 1852 ("There is an agreeable prospect from near the post-office in the northwest of Sudbury. The southeast (?) horizon is very distant. . .extending to the Weston elm in the horizon. You are more impressed with the extent of earth overlooked than if the view were bounded by mountains.")

Three reflections of the bright full (or nearly) moon. See October 8, 1851 ("The sun set red in haze,. . .and the moon rose in like manner at the same time. . . . The moon is full."); February 3, 1852 ("The moon is nearly full tonight,"); March 7, 1852 ("To the woods by the full moon."); April 3, 1852 ("I came out mainly to see the light of the moon reflected from the meadowy flood. It is a pathway of light, of sheeny ripples, extending across the meadow toward the moon, consisting of a myriad little bent and broken moons.")

It is surprising that so many birds find hair enough to line their nests with.

June 24.

P. M. – Boated to Clamshell Hill. 


My lilies in the pan have revived with the cooler weather since the rain. (It rained a little last night.) This is what they require that they may keep.

Mayweed yesterday.

The calopogon is a more bluish purple than the pogonia.

The Gnaphalium uliginosum seems to be almost in blossom.

Gratiola out in mud near river, — those bare, rather hard, muddy tracts on the edge of the meadow next the river, where mint grows and the mud has wide cracks, some nearly an inch wide, produced by the sun since the water went down.

It is cooler and remarkably windy this afternoon, showing the under sides of the leaves and the pads, the white now red beneath and all green above.

Wind northwest.

Found what I take to be an Indian hoe at Hubbard Bathing - Place, sort of slate stone four or five eighths of an inch thick, semi circular, eight inches one way by four or more the other, chipped down on the edges.

At the Clamshell curve, great masses of a kind of fresh - water eel - grass have lodged against the potamogeton in mid - channel, as against a shore, half a foot deep, and stretch across the river, long, green, narrow, ribbon - like.

It is apparently the Vallisneria spiralis, eel-grass, tape - grass. It grows at the bottom in shallow places, slanting and waving down - stream.

But what has collected it here all at once? Is it this strong wind operating on shallow places at curves? Or is it that some animal — muskrat or what-not — has loosened it? Or have men been at work up-stream somewhere? Does it always happen at this season? By the botany it does not blossom till August.

There were piles of dried heart - leaf on shore at the bathing - place, a foot high and more.

Were they torn up and driven ashore by the wind? I suspect it is the wind in both cases.

As storms at sea tear up and cast ashore the seaweeds from the rocks. These are our seaweeds cast ashore in storms, but I see only the eel-grass and the heart leaf thus served.

Our most common in the river appears to be between the Potamogeton natans and pulcher; it answers to neither, but can be no other described.

See it in fruit.

I do not see the ranunculus flowers very abundant yet — will it not be this year? Then there is that long, somewhat cylindrical, fine - capillary and bladdery leaved plant which I had wrongly thought belonged to the Ranunculus.

Is it not a utricularia ? All these, but especially the R. Purshii, have a strong fresh - water marsh smell, rather agree able sometimes as a bottle of salts, like the salt marsh and seaweeds, invigorating to my imagination.

In our great stream of distilled water going slowly down to ocean to be salted.

Sparganium, some time.

Pontederia, just out.

The lower translucent, waved leaves of the potamogeton are covered with a sort of very minute black caddis-case.

The peat [?] - black petioles of these leaves are much like seaweed.

There are the heart-leaf ponds, but I cannot say the potamogeton rivers on account of the tautology, and, beside, I do not like this last name, which signifies that it grows in the neighborhood of rivers, when it is not a neighbor but an indweller.

You might as well describe the seaweeds as growing in the neighborhood of the sea.

The brown thrasher’s nest (vide 21st) has been robbed, probably by some other bird. It rested on a branch of a swamp-pink and some grape-vines, effectually concealed and protected by grape-vines and green briar in a matted bower above it.

The foundation of pretty stout twigs, eight or nine inches in diameter, surmounted by coarse strips of grape bark, giving form to the nest, and then lined with some harsh, wiry root-fibres ; within rather small and shallow, and the whole fabric of loose texture, not easy to remove.

Also got a blackbird’s nest whose inhabitants had flown, hung by a kind of small dried rush (?) between two button - bushes which crossed above it  of meadow grass and sedge, dried Mikania scandens vine, horse tail, fish-lines, and a strip apparently of a lady’s bathing-dress, lined with a somewhat finer grass; of a loose and ragged texture to look at.

Green mikania running over it now.

A yellowbird’s nest (vide 21st ) in a fork of a willow on Hubbard’s Causeway, resting chiefly on the leading branch; of fine grass, lined with hair, bottom outside puffing out with a fine, light, flax - like fibre, perhaps the bark of some weed, by which also it is fastened to the twigs.

It is surprising that so many birds find hair enough to line their nests with.

If I wish for a horsehair for my compass sights I must go to the stable, but the hair-bird, with her sharp eyes, goes to the road.

The small white (perhaps sometimes violet or puplis) aster-like flower of Hubbard’s meadow, for some days.

If an aster, then the earliest one.

H. D. Thoreau,  Journal , June 24, 1853

The calopogon is a more bluish purple than the pogonia. See June 21, 1853 ("Calopogon out. I think it surpasses the pogonia, though the latter is sometimes high colored and is of a handsome form; "); June 23, 1853 ("Pogonias are now very abundant in the meadow-grass, and now and then a calopogon is mixed with them .The last is broader and of more singular form, commonly with an unopened bud above on one side."); July 5, 1852 (The calopogon, or grass-pink, now fully open, . . — its four or five open purple flowers — . . . makes a much greater show than the pogonia. It is of the same character with that and the arethusa. "); July 7, 1852 ("The Arethusa bulbosa, " crystalline purple;" Pogonia ophioglossoides, snake-mouthed arethusa, "pale purple;" and the Calopogon pulchellus, grass pink, "pink purple," make one family in my mind, — next to the purple orchis, or with it, — being flowers par excellence, all flower, all color, with inconspicuous leaves, naked flowers,")

The brown thrasher’s nest (vide 21st) has been robbed. See June 21, 1853 ("The nest of a brown thrasher with three eggs, on some green- riar, perfectly concealed by a grape-vine running over it ; eggs greenish -brown; nest of dry sticks, lined with fibres of grape bark and with roots.")  See also May 23, 1858 ("Brown thrasher's nest on ground, under a small tree, with four eggs"); May 27, 1855 ("A thrasher’s nest on the bare open ground with four eggs which were seen three days ago. The nest is as open and exposed as it well can be, lined with roots, on a slight ridge where a rail fence has been, some rods from any bush."); June 5, 1856 ("A brown thrasher’s nest with four eggs considerably developed, under a small white pine on the old north edge of the desert, lined with root-fibres."); June 6, 1857("A brown thrasher's nest, with two eggs, on ground, near lower lentago wall and toward Bittern Cliff. ")  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Brown Thrasher

A yellowbird’s nest in a fork of a willow on Hubbard’s Causeway. See . June 21,1853 ("I saw a yellowbird's nest in the willows on the causeway this afternoon and three young birds, nearly ready to fly, overflowing the nest, all holding up their inute or more, on noise of my approach")  See also e.g.  June 5, 1859 ("A yellowbird's nest; four eggs, open bills and keeping them steadily open for a mdeveloped. ")June 7, 1855 ("A yellowbird’s nest on a willow bough against a twig, ten feet high, four eggs."); June 9, 1855 ("A yellowbird’s nest eight feet from ground in crotch of a very slender maple"); June 9, 1856 ("A yellowbird’s nest in a poplar on Hubbard’s Bridge; four fresh eggs; ten feet high, three rods beyond fence."); . June 20, 1855 ("A summer yellowbird’s, saddled on an apple, of cotton-wool, lined with hair and feathers, three eggs, white with flesh-colored tinge and purplish-brown and black spots") and A Book of the Seasons,: the Summer Yellowbird

A strange turtle at Long Pond

April 13. 

Monday. 

To Middleborough ponds. There was no boat on Little Quitticus; so we could not explore it. 

Set out to walk round it, but, the water being high,— higher than anciently even, on account of dams, — we had to go round a swamp at the south end, about Joe’s Rocks, and R. gave it up. 

I went to Long Pond and waited for him. 

Saw a strange turtle, much like a small snapping turtle or very large Sternothaerus odoratus, crawling slowly along the bottom next the shore. Poked it ashore with a stick. It had a peculiarly square snout, two hinges to the sternum and both parts movable. Was very sluggish; would not snap nor bite. Looked old, being mossy above on the edge, and the scales greenish and eaten beneath. The flesh slate colored.* 

I saw that it was new and wished to bring it away, but had no paper to wrap it in. So I peeled a white birch, getting a piece of bark about ten inches long. I noticed that the birch sap was flowing. This bark at once curled back so as to present its yellow side out ward. I rolled it about the turtle and folded the ends back and tied it round with a strip of birch bark, making a very nice and airy box for the creature, which would not be injured by moisture, far better than any paper, and so I brought it home to Concord at last. 

As my coat hung in R.’s shanty, over a barrel of paper, the morning that I came away the turtle made a little noise, scratching the birch bark in my pocket. R. observed, 

“ There is a mouse in that barrel. What would you do about it?”

“Oh, let him alone,” said I, “ he ’ll get out directly.”

“ They often get among my papers,” he added.

“ I guess I ’d better set the barrel outdoors.” 

I did not explain, and perhaps he experimented on the barrel after my departure.

As I sat on the shore there, waiting for R., I saw many mosquitoes flying low over the water close to the sandy shore. 

The turtle when I first saw him was slowly and tremblingly pacing along the bottom, rather toward the shore, with its large head far out on its outstretched neck. From its size and general color and aspect, I did not doubt at first that it was a snapping turtle, notwithstanding the season.

H  D. Thoreau, Journal, April 13, 1857 

To Middleborough ponds. See June 30, 1856 ("To Middleborough ponds in the new town of Lakeville") and  June 24, 1856 ("To Sassacowen Pond and to Long Pond")

I rolled [the strip of birch bark]about the turtle and folded the ends back and tied it round with a strip of birch bark, making a very nice and airy box for the creature. . .and so I brought it home to Concord at last. See April 25, 1857 ("I find that I can very easily make a convenient box of the birch bark, at this season at least, when the sap is running") See also   April 23, 1856 ("Brought it [a beetle] home in a clam’s shells tied up, —a good insect-box."); June 23, 1852 ("I am inclined to think that my hat, whose lining is gathered in midway so as to make a shelf, is about as good a botany-box as I could have and far more convenient. . .").

* The Freetown Turtle compared with Storer’s Sternothoerus.

Answers to the generic description, except perhaps that the posterior valve of the sternum is movable.

Compared with the S. odoratus. 

There is no peculiar scent to it. The upper shell is flattened on the dorsal ridge for the width of the dorsal plates and is not carinated there. (I find one as flat, and others are not carinated.) Color out of water a dirty brown. The marginal plates are a little narrower. 

The sternum (as well as that of my S. odomtus) is apparently composed of 11 instead of 9 plates, the anterior portion being composed of 5 instead of 3 plates. The posterior portion is distinctly movable, much more than the odoratus, and it is quite rounded on the sides. 

Irides not distinct. It appears as if blind. No yellow lines what ever on the head or neck. Jaws not dark-brown, but bluish-slate, as is the skin generally.

My two S. odoratus are 3 3/5 inches long by 2 1/2 wide and 1 1/2 inches high, being highest behind. The Freetown turtle is 4 inches long by 2 3/4 and 1 5/8  high, being highest forward. It has much green moss (?) on the rear and marginal plates, and the scales of the sternum are greenish and worn or carious. It is quite sluggish. Otherwise it apparently answers to Storer’s S. odoratus.

Is not June the month when most of our fresh water fish are spawned?

June 30. Monday. 

June 30, 2019

A. M. — To Middleborough ponds in the new town of Lakeville (some three years old). 

What a miserable name! It should have been Assawampsett or, perchance, Sanacus, if that was the name of the Christian Indian killed on the pond.

By the roadside, Long Plain, North Fairhaven, observed a tupelo seven feet high with a rounded top, shaped like an umbrella, eight feet diameter, spreading over the wall, and the main stem divided suddenly at two feet only below the top, where it was six inches in diameter! 

On the right hand in the old orchard near the Quitticus Ponds, heard and at last saw my tweezer-bird, which is extremely restless, flitting from bough to bough and apple tree to apple tree. Its note like ah, zre zre zre, zritter zritter zrit’. Sylvia Americana, parti-colored warbler, with golden-green reflections on the back, two white bars on wings, all beneath white, large orange mark on breast, bordered broadly with lemon yellow, and yellow throat. These were making the woods ring in Concord when I left and are very common here abouts. 

Saw a haymaker with his suspenders crossed before as well as behind. A valuable hint, which I think I shall improve upon, since I am much troubled by mine slipping off my shoulders. 

Borrowed Roberts’s boat, shaped like a pumpkin seed, for we wished to paddle on Great Quitticus. We landed and lunched on Haskell’s Island, which contains some twenty-five or thirty acres. 

Just beyond this was Reed’s Island, which was formerly cultivated, the cattle being swum across, or taken over in a scow. A man praised the soil to me and said that rye enough had been raised on it to cover it six inches deep. 

At one end of Haskell’s Island was apparently a piece of primitive wood,—beech, hemlock, etc. Under the first I found some low, dry brown plants, perhaps beech drops and the like, two species, but saw none of this year. One who formerly owned Reed’s Island said that a man once lived on Haskell’s Island and had a hennery there. 

The tweezer-birds were lively in the hemlocks.

Rode on to the old Pond Meeting-house, whence there is a fine view of Assawampsett. It is probably the broadest lake in the State. Uriah (?) Sampson told me it was about eight or ten feet deep in the middle, but somewhat deeper about the sides. The main outlet of these ponds is northeast, by Taunton River, though there is some connection with the Mattapoisett River, and Assonet River drains the neighborhood of Long Pond on the west. 

Two men spoke of loon’s eggs on a rocky isle in Little Quitticus. I saw the Lobelia Dortmarma in bloom in the last.

A Southwest breeze springs up every afternoon at this season, comparatively cool and refreshing from the sea. 

As we were returning, a Mr. Sampson was catching perch at the outlet from Long Pond, where it emptied into Assawampsett with a swift current. The surface of the rippling water there was all alive with yellow perch and white ones, whole schools showing their snouts or tails as they rose for the young alewives which appeared to be passing out of the brook. These, some of which I have in spirits, were about an inch and a half long. Sampson fished with these for bait, trailing or jerking it along the surface exactly as for pickerel, and the perch bit very fast. 

He showed me one white perch. It was a broader fish than the yellow, but much softer-scaled and generally preferred. He said they would not take the hook after a certain season. He swept out some young alewives (herring) with a stick on to the shore, and among them were young yellow perch also an inch and a half long, with the transverse bands perfectly distinct. I have some in spirit. The large ones were devouring these, no doubt, together with the ale wives. 

Is not June the month when most of our fresh water fish are spawned?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 30, 1856

The new town of Lakeville (some three years old).Lakeville was incorporated as a separate town in 1853. The town's name comes from the system of lakes in the town, including Assawompset Pond, Great Quittacas Pond, Little Quittacas Pond, Pocksha Pond, and Long Pond. Long Pond is the source of the Acushnet River, and Assawompsett Pond is the source of the Nemasket River, which feeds the Taunton River ~ Wikipedia

The name of the Christian Indian killed on the pond. John Sassamon, also known as Wussausmon (c. 1620–1675), whose murdered body was discovered in Assawompset Pond on January 29, 1675. ~Wikipedia

Tweezer-bird, or Sylvia Americana, parti-colored warbler . . . were making the woods ring in Concord when I left. See June 22, 1856 ("The woods still resound with the note of my tweezer-bird, or Sylvia Americana."). See also note to May 13, 1856. and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the parti-colored warbler (Sylvia Americana)

Saw a haymaker with his suspenders crossed before as well as behind. See June 30,1851 ("The day has been so oppressively warm that some workmen have lain by at noon, and the haymakers are mowing now in the early twilight."); June 30, 1852 ("Haying has commenced.") See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Haymaking

 We landed and lunched on Haskell’s Island . . . Rode on to the old Pond Meeting-house.  See Journal of Daniel Ricketson, June 30 ("Warm and clear. rode to the Middleboro’ Ponds with Thoreau. Visited Haskell’s Island, so-called, in Great Quittacus Pond, from where we bathed and ate our dinner upon the west shore of the Island, then rode to Assawampsett and visited the old meeting-house now fast falling to decay and abuse, and King Philip’s look-out, so called.")

A Southwest breeze springs up every afternoon at this season, comparatively cool and refreshing from the sea. See  June 30,1855 ("2 P. M. -- Thermometer north side of house, 95°");.June 30, 1857 ("Remarkably cool, with wind, it being easterly, and I anticipated a sea-turn."); June 30, 1859 ("Cooler, with a northerly wind."); See also April 28, 1856(" ...on our return the wind changed to easterly, and I felt the cool, fresh sea-breeze."); April 30, 1856 ("at one o’clock there was the usual fresh easterly wind and sea-turn . . .and a fresh cool wind from the sea produces a mist in the air.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Sea-turn

June 30.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, June 30

 A haymaker with 

his suspenders crossed before 

as well as behind.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Suspenders

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

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

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

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560630

Surrounded by whiteweed

June 24. 

June 24.

To Sassacowen Pond and to Long Pond. 

Common yellow thistle abundant about R’s; open a good while. 

Maryland yellow-throats very common in bushes behind his house; nest with young. 

American holly now in prime. 

The light-colored masses of mountain laurel were visible across Sassacowen. 

A kingbird’s nest just completed in an apple tree. 

Lunched by the spring on the Brady farm in Freetown, and there it occurred to me how to get clear water from a spring when the surface is covered with dust or insects. Thrust your dipper down deep in the middle of the spring and lift it up quickly straight and square. This will heap up the water in the middle so that the scum will run off. 

We were surrounded by whiteweed. The week before I had seen it equally abundant in Worcester (in many fields the flowers placed in one plane would more than cover the surface), and here as there each flower had a dark ring of small black insects on its disk. Think of the many dense white fields between here and there, aye and for a thousand miles around, and then calculate the amount of insect life of one obscure species! 

Went off to Nelson’s Island (now Briggs’s) in Long Pond by a long, very narrow bar (fifty rods as I paced it), in some places the water over shoes and the sand commonly only three or four feet wide. This is a noble island, maybe of eight or ten acres, some thirty feet high and just enough wooded, with grass ground and grassy hollows. 

There was a beech wood at the west end, where R.’s son Walton found an arrowhead when they were here before, and the hemlocks resounded with the note of the tweezer-bird (Sylvia Americana). 

There were many ephemerae half dead on the bushes. 

R. dreams of residing here.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 24, 1856

A kingbird’s nest just completed in an apple tree. See June 13, 1855 ("Two kingbirds’ nests with eggs in an apple and in a willow by riverside.") and note to June 8, 1858 ("A kingbird's nest with three eggs, lined with some hair, in a fork — or against upright part — of a willow, just above near stone bridge.")

Sassacowen Pond . . . See September 30, 1856 ("Rode with R. to Sassacowens Pond, in the north part of New Bedford on the Taunton road, called also Toby’s Pond . . .”)

The hemlocks resounded with the note of the tweezer-bird (Sylvia Americana). See June 30, 1856 ("The tweezer-birds were lively in the hemlocks")