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COLLECTIONS SPOTLIGHT: LESSONS FROM WALDEN POND
COLLECTIONS SPOTLIGHT: LESSONS FROM WALDEN POND
BY KATE TALLMAN, COLLECTIONS ASSOCIATE
Devoted 19th-century naturalist and author Henry David Thoreau drew divine inspiration from the world around him. In 1845, he moved to a remote cabin on Walden Pond in Massachusetts and lived alone for two years, retreating from the demands of modern life and immersing himself in the New England wilderness. He started journaling about the flora and fauna around him in 1837 in appreciation of his surroundings, but the detailed records of his daily walks would continue until his death, spanning 25 years of seasonal changes.
His descriptions recorded the flowering dates of 500 species of plants, flowers and shrubs, and unintentionally created records that biologists would pore over a century and a half later. Scientists from Boston University found that almost half of the wildflowers Thoreau eagerly anticipated each Massachusetts spring no longer, or rarely, bloomed in the region. Urban development, pollution and the shifting patterns of wildlife are all attributed as the cause, but the fundamental role that a lived human experience played in this scientific discovery is key.
In Clarksville, the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center is the custodian of many of our shared histories. While we do not have scientific collections, our historical collections tell the stories of people living through similar environmental shifts. Clarksville has endured annual flooding events due to its location in the Cumberland River floodplain. The most destructive floods occurred during the winters of 1926-1927 and 1936-1937, in 1975, 1997 and 2010. These events caused millions of dollars in damage and hundreds of deaths, reshaping Montgomery County – all within the lifetime of an average American.
The Museum archives contain a dramatic illustration of this history in photos of trains struggling to carry goods during the worst of it. The flood of 1927 saw the Cumberland River swell to three miles across at its widest point, homes submerged and bridges washed away. It was the worst flood in recorded history, until a decade later when it was surpassed by more than five feet.
After three weeks of steady rainfall, homes and businesses were engulfed, the Clarksville Waterworks had to shut down and the city could no longer supply drinking water to its citizens. Emergency aid, provided by military personnel, faculty at Austin Peay and locals, struggled to provide shelter, clothing and potable water to those affected. The difference in water levels can be seen in photos taken of the old Waterworks building. While taken from different angles, the water in relation to the windows on the right side of the building is markedly higher in 1937.
Citizens float by the Waterworks in a canoe, 1937
Archives Collection, Customs House Museum & Cultural Center
Thoreau’s journal is an idyllic example of citizen recordkeeping in a region that has seen marked environmental changes in recent years. Middle Tennessee has not yet experienced the same shifts, but we have evidence of changing weather conditions molding the current environment. The Port Royal Bridge in Montgomery County was originally built prior to the Civil War and bore witness to many historic events in the area. Most of the buildings in Port Royal were built by the labor of enslaved men and women, with the profits from the tobacco industry and commercial trade. While the exact year of its construction is unknown, the bridge was built during the town’s economic peak, serving as a reliable land route between Nashville and Hopkinsville and creating the economic stability for the founding of our city. It stood during the emancipation of the enslaved people who had built the city’s structures, and through one of the earliest recorded August 8th Emancipation Day celebrations in Clarksville. In 1866, the bridge was swept away by a flood and rebuilt.
The old Clarksville Waterworks building during the flood of 1927
Archives Collection, Customs House Museum & Cultural Center
Port Royal endured post-Civil War economic downturn and a regional depression, caused by new railways which subverted the usefulness of the Red River route and signaled a new era of industrialization. The covered version of the bridge was built in 1904 and lasted until the 1970s, when it was again washed away in a flood. The final reincarnation was destroyed by yet another flood in 1998 and was not repaired. The stone piers are all that remain of this piece of Montgomery County history.
A Pan American train on the L&N line, December 1926
Archives Collection, Customs House Museum & Cultural Center
A Mineral Branch Railroad train struggles through flooding, 1937
Archives Collection, Customs House Museum & Cultural Center
Postcard featuring the Port Royal Covered Bridge, 1965
Archives Collection, Customs House Museum & Cultural Center
When Henry David Thoreau began journaling his observations about the world around him, it was not in the pursuit of scientific knowledge. Rather, it was driven by intense appreciation for the natural world and a focused understanding of the unique beauty his part of the world held. These very human experiences wrote Walden, and it is these same kind of experiences that led to the photographs and postcards in our archives.
As Earth Day approaches this April, try observing your days through this lens. How is your world shifting? How are you shaping, or being shaped by, your surroundings? History leaves no person untouched, and we are all recordkeepers of our collective story. Nothing embodies this more than the quote that began this story, which was not written by Thoreau, but by Montgomery County Historian Eleanor Williams about the flood of 1937. The beauty of the Museum’s historical collections lies in the kaleidoscope of experiences told within each individual piece, and how each of these experiences create the record of Clarksville.
walden.org
customshousemuseum.org/collections/explore-the-collections/
The Old Port Royal Bridge, ca. 1970
Archives Collection, Customs House Museum & Cultural Center
