Chapter XIV: Former Inhabitants and Winter Visitors

In the quiet of winter, Thoreau conjures up the former inhabitants of the woods, whose dwellings once dotted the area near his house.

He points out the cellar-holes of Cato Ingraham, a former slave; Zilpha, a colored woman who spun linen; and Brister Freeman, a 'handy Negro.'

He recalls the site of Breed's hut, associated with the demon Rum, and a fire that burned it down, leaving only the cellar and a grieving heir.

He describes the sites where Wyman the potter squatted and where Hugh Quoil, an Irish ditcher and rumored soldier of Waterloo, lived and died.

He reflects on the cellar dents as all that remains of these lives, and spies a lilac bush still growing, a lone survivor of a family.

He describes living as snug as a meadow mouse during the deepest snows and his long tramps through the woods to visit trees or watch an owl.

He recounts visits from a long-headed farmer, with whom he would talk of rude and simple times by the fire.

His most frequent visitors were a poet, deterred by nothing, and a philosopher, with whom he had discourse that 'expanded and racked' his little house.