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His name was Henry David Thoreau, and in his contemplative 1854 classic, “Walden: Or, Life in the Woods,” the famous naturalist, essayist and philosopher described Freeman and some of the other formerly enslaved inhabitants of the land.

“Walden” borrows its name from Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden; or, Life in the Woods,” a memoir, harangue, self-help manual and work of autofiction rolled into one clothbound volume.

But Thoreau’s experiment, immortalized in “Walden; or, Life in the Woods,” became the world’s most famous act of social distancing.

Walden Pond, where Henry David Thoreau settled in semi-seclusion for nearly two years while working on his journals and on “Walden; or, Life in the Woods.”

His second book, “Walden; or, Life in the Woods,” based on his experience of living in a one-room cabin and in a state of rural semi-self-quarantine, found more readers.