Thomas Wentworth Higginson, (born December 22, 1823, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.—died May 9, 1911, Cambridge), American reformer who was dedicated to the abolition movement before the American Civil War.
During the Civil War Higginson accepted command of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, later the 33rd U.S. Colored Troops, the first black regiment in the U.S. armed forces. After 1864 he wrote a series of popular biographies and histories and a novel. Higginson discovered and encouraged the poet Emily Dickinson.
“It is the charm of pedestrian journeys that they convert the grandest avenues to footpaths. Through them alone we gain intimate knowledge of the people, and of nature, and indeed of ourselves. It is easy to hurry too fast for our best reflections. The thoughts that the railway affords us are dusty thoughts; we ask the news, read the journals, question our neighbor, and wish to know what is going on because we are a part of it. It is only in the footpath that our minds, like our bodies, move slowly, and we traverse thought, like space, with a patient thoroughness.”
— Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Oldport Days.
The Order Of Walkers 