He was born in Concord, Massachusetts, and graduated from Harvard in 1837. There are legends stating Thoreau did not want to pay the five dollar fee required from Harvard College to receive a college diploma or a sheet of paper; therefore, he never received it. In fact, the degree had no academic merit: Harvard College offered a master of arts degree to anyone of its graduates "who proved their physical worth by being alive three years after graduating, and their saving, earning, or inheriting quality or condition by having Five Dollars to give the college." (Thoreau's Diploma)

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Articles About Thoreau, Henry David

Sunrise at Walden Pond	July 28, 2009
The morning was a time that offered much to Henry David Thoreau and Walden Pond seemed a fitting place to celebrate the sun's arrival. It was dark on a quiet winter morning and snow lined the side of the road. I began to walk down along the north side of the pond towards Thoreau's house site. The sky was dark and some snow had melted along the trail.
Thoreau Other's Waters: The Concord River	June 26, 2009
When reading Thoreau for the first time, a reader might assume that the writer is speaking aloud his mind, giving a voice to his innermost thoughts, opinions and edicts. I came, I saw and this is what I think. Thoreau came to Nature as though he were responding to a call. It was his muse, the very source of his thoughts.
A Transcendentalist in New York: Thoreau's Staten Island Experience	February 5, 2007
Most considerations of New York's literary history involve obvious writers - artists like Brooklyn's Walt Whitman and Manhattan's Edith Wharton.