Author Terry Barkley will discuss his book The Other “Hermit” of Thoreau’s Walden Pond: The Sojourn of Edmond Stuart Hotham on Tuesday, September 24 at 7 p.m. at the Concord Free Public Library. The event will take place in the Periodical Room of the Main Library at 129 Main Street.
Edmond Hotham arrived in Concord in 1868, more than six years after the death of Henry David Thoreau, when the amusement park on the western shore of "Lake Walden" buzzed with townsfolk and tourists. Hotham built an "earth-cabin" about 100 yards from Thoreau's, which he attempted to out-simplify in his pursuit of the "wild life." While residing in his earth-cabin at Walden for six months, Hotham managed to befriend surviving Transcendentalists (including Ralph Waldo Emerson), and became a local celebrity during his days in Concord.
A member of the Thoreau Society, Terry Barkley is a retired professional librarian, archivist, and Harvard-trained museum curator, and a former history teacher. He is the author of four books and co-author of a fifth. His articles have appeared in the Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Living Blues, and in The Brethren Encyclopedia. Terry is currently chair of the Brethren Historical Committee of the Church of the Brethren (Dunkers). He is an independent scholar and musician who lives in Shirley, Massachusetts.
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No registration required. This program is sponsored by the Friends of the Concord Free Public Library. For more information on this program and additional programs at the CFPL, visit the Main Library & Fowler Branch Library at 129 Main Street & 1322 Main Street Concord, MA, call the Library at 978-318-3300, or visit www.concordlibrary.org.
