Note 93 — III FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS (continued 3)
Reading edition
He was looking after the manufacture of fine plumbago for the electrotypers, which was the family business after pencil-making grew unprofitable. The Thoreaus had a grinding-mill in Acton, and a packing-shop attached to their Concord house. "Parker's society," mentioned at the close of the letter, was the congregation of Theodore Parker, then in Italy, where he died in May, 1860.