Charles Stearns Wheeler was a prominent young Transcendentalist and member of the Transcendental Club. A brilliant scholar at Harvard, he was a classmate and friend of
Henry David Thoreau. In 1837, the two spent a summer vacation in a cabin Wheeler had built on the shore of Flint’s (Sandy) Pond in Lincoln, Massachusetts. This experience is generally believed to have been a source of inspiration for Thoreau’s later and more famous residence at Walden. Wheeler was also acquainted with
Jones Very. In 1838, during Very’s celebrated period of remarkable spiritual inspiration, Wheeler was called upon to replace him as Greek tutor at Harvard.