On-line texts about the Estabrook Woods:

Information about the Estabrook Country has been hard to come by. The excellent start made in the 1970s by the MCZ's Concord Field Station to inventory its natural resources and land use ran out of steam. It did, however, result in a series of pamphlets  (see, Estabrook Woods bibliography). Ernst Mayr said that this flagging in interest was because his successors did not share his sense of urgency in giving students hands-on training in the natural world, and because discoveries in molecular biology diverted grant funds to laboratory work.

Unfortunately, two excellent documents about the Estabrook Country, Allie Bemis's "Notes on the Land and People of Estabrook Woods." (ms. 1973-74) and Janet Buerger et al.'s LWV study "Portfolio: A Collection of Information on the Estabrook Woods, Thoreau's Other Great Wild Tract..." (especially the Dec. 1994 edition, with blue cover), are not readily available. A copy of the Bemis work is available only at the Concord MA Free Public Library. Buerger's book (Dec. 1994 edition) is available only at the Henley Library of the Thoreau Institute, Lincoln MA. It had been available at the Warburg Library, Middlesex School, but it is no longer in their catalogue.

To remedy this difficulty, we are posting on this site other recent texts. These documents have much information about Estabrook Woods and Henry Thoreau.

(1.) The first is my book, "The Seasons in Estabrook Country: An Anthology About the Cycle of the Year and This Landscape" (Lincoln, Mass. 1999) 110 pp. Now out of print, this is an anthology of the writings of fifty people about Estabrook Country from 1653 to 1999, with many notes on colonial, revolutionary, literary, and natural history. Seventy of the quotations are from Henry Thoreau. Now out of print, the book is available at the public libraries of Concord, Lincoln, and Carlisle; at Concord Academy; the Henley Library of the Thoreau Institute; and at the Ernst Mayr Library of Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology. For general information about "The Seasons ," including the names of the fifty people whose words are included, and reviews, quotations, and hardcopy availability, please click here.

For a hyperlinked web text of the entire book, please click HERE.

(2.) The second is my article in the journal of the Thoreau Society entitled, "Henry Thoreau and the Estabrook Country: A Historic and Personal Landscape," The Concord Saunterer, n.s., 4 (Fall 1996):73-148. This is a discussion of Henry Thoreau's writings (70,000 words) about this great wild tract, especially from his Journal, with extensive annotations. A table of contents can be viewed here. Hardcopy of The Concord Saunterer is also in the periodical section of Concord MA Free Public Library, the Henley Library (Thoreau Institute, Lincoln MA), and university libraries. Copies of the back issue can also be purchased from The Thoreau Society, Concord MA, or from the Editor, The Concord Saunterer (Department of English, East Carolina State University, Greenville NC 27858-4353).

The full hyperlinked text of the Saunterer article is available for viewing or downloading. It is in one-page HTML formatting, but is large (330K). Notes are hyperlinked. Also, a hyperlinked PDF (460K) is available for download here.

(3.) The third is "The Estabrook Country: A Rediscovered Great Wild Tract," in the December, 2000 issue of Appalachia (click here for full text and graphics), the conservation and mountaineering journal of the Appalachian Mountain Club. A copy is available at Special Collections of the Concord Free Public Library.

(4.) Lucille Daniel wrote an endearing essay in 2001 on getting lost in Estabrook Woods in "Lost and Found: The Pleasure of Finding Your Way." Appalachia, Summer 2001.

(5.) J. Walter Brain's historical-poetical article in 2001 about "The Estabrook Woods experience and the old cellar holes" is now posted here.

(6.) As of April, 2002, posted here is my "Bibliography of the Biodiversity and Natural History of the Sudbury River and Concord River Valley, including the Great Meadows Refuge, Estabrook Woods, and Walden Woods." This contains references to 400 studies of wild plants and animals in this area, including 65 studies that are specific to Estabrook Woods. Copies are in Concord Free Public Library; the Lincoln and Sudbury Public Libraries; the Henley Library of the Thoreau Institute; and at the Ernst Mayr Library of Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology.

(8.) A longer range project will be for me to post the full annotated text of all Thoreau's writings about his Easterbrooks Country. These amount to more than 70,000 words, principally from his journals. The document would be entitled The Easterbrooks Country Journal of Henry Thoreau. (It is my hope to also include his botanical references with modernized nomenclature. But that may be biting off more than I want to chew.)