LITERATURE 28 “His Profession Was That Of A Surveyor”: Exceptionally Large Autograph Land Survey By Thoreau, Signed By Him Rare, exceptionally large example of one of Thoreau’s surveys, in his hand and signed by him, done for the estate of Marchus and Rebecca Spring, who were prominent philanthropists and active Quaker abolitionists. For several years, Thoreau had worked on and off as a surveyor to supplement his meager income. In 1852 the wealthy Quaker abolitionist Marcus Spring “purchased a two-hundred acre tract on the shores of Raritan Bay, a mile west of Perth Amboy, New Jersey, and incorporating as the Raritan Bay Union and erecting a tremendous brownstone and brick phalanstery, 254 feet long, three stories high, with dormitories, apartments, and schoolrooms, he attempted to establish a co-operative community. When the community did not prosper, he decided in 1856 to rename it Eagleswood and to convert the property over into small estates... Bronson Alcott was visiting at Eagleswood at the moment and suggested Thoreau as the ideal surveyor for the project” (Harding). When Thoreau arrived, he found a community with an “unconventional bent and slightly radical sympathies… just the audience for him” (371). Rebecca Spring herself came from a family of radicals; the daughter of the abolitionist Arnold Buffam, she was one of John Brown’s last visitors in prison before he was executed. The survey was professionally restored and laid down on new linen; there were several tears from the folds, a few burn marks from a fire (which consumed part of the Spring archive); overall in very good condition, beautifully framed. 29THOREAU, Henry David. Autograph signed Survey of “Eagleswood.” Concord, Mass, 1856. Survey measures 22 by 30 inches, ink on linen-backed paper, with annotations in the hand of Marcus and Rebecca Spring. $26,000
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