Different Drummers...

Was the phrase "Walking to the beat of a different drummer" an original of Henry David Thoreau's (as used in "Walden") Or did it originate somewhere else?

Thanks for your help!

According to the Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins by Robert Hendrickson (Fact on File, New York, 1997), Thoreau is the author of that phrase. "hear a different drummer -- The expression is from Henry David Thoreau's 'Walden' : 'If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.' A variation is 'march to a different drummer.'"

Those "old guys" certainly had it right, and knew how to say it eloquently. Would that such prose was still the common talk of today.