Thoreau drops off a corpse

I understand that in 19th century New England, death was a more accepted part of the daily round than it is for most of us today. But even so, this entry from Thoreau’s Journal of May 29, 1859, seems a little offhand.

Sunday. Thorn bushes and the Ranunculus bulbosus are apparently in prime.

Coming out of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery to-day, where I had just been to deposit the corpse of a man, I picked up an oak three inches high with the acorn attached. They are just springing up now on all sides.

The republican swallow at Hosmer’s barn just begun to lay.

Surely there’s more to this story? Thoreau’s father had died on February 3, at a time when the ground may have been frozen too hard for burial. Is it possible that the family had to wait until late May for burial, and that Thoreau is referring to his own father here?

Ranunculus bulbosus, by the way, is a type of buttercup (also known as St. Anthony’s turnip). A republican swallow is better known as a cliff swallow. Why republican? Here is the editors’ footnote from the 1906 edition of the Journal:

This bird was then a comparatively recent addition to the avifauna of eastern Massachusetts, whither it had spread from its early home in the West. The name “republican” was given to it by Audubon on account of its social nesting habits. The notion that its irruption into the East was coincident with the rise of the Republican Party, and that this gave it its popular name, is, of course, a false one.

Thoreau himself was buried in Sleepy Hollow less than three years later. Not far from his grave is the Melvin Memorial, created by Daniel Chester French to honor three brothers who died in the Civil War.