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CHRPNICLE5 oftU
WHITE. MOUNTAINS

"t^ • Frederick,^?C( Kilbournc

No. '34Z

CHRONICLES OF THE
WHITE MOUNTAINS

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THE FLUME, BEFORE THE BOULDER FELL

The Boulder (shown lodged between the Walls) fell into the Stream during

a Storm and Flood in June, 1883

CHRONICLES OF THE
WHITE MOUNTAINS

FREDERICK W. KILBOURNE

Wi^A Illustrations

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

<^\% ifUtEt^ibe ^xzii CambriDoe

1916

Published May tqib

B.P., J.P.K., AND H.R.H.

1066151

IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Mountains in whose vast shadows live great names.
On whose firm pillars rest mysterious dawns,
And sunsets that redream the apocalypse;
A world of billowing green that, veil on veil,
Turns a blue mist and melts in lucent skies;
A silent world, save for slow waves of wind,
Or sudden, hollow clamor of huge rocks
Beaten by valleyed waters manifold; —
Airs that to breathe is life and joyousness;
Days dying into music; nights whose stars
Shine near, and large, and lustrous; these, 0 these,
These are for memory to life's ending hour.

Richard Watson Gilder

PREFACE

Allen H. Bent, in the Introduction to his ad-
mirable Bibliography of the White Mountains, pub-
lished in 191 1, makes the doubtless somewhat sur-
prising remark that "the White Mountains . . .
have had more written about them, probably, than
any other mountains, the Alps alone excepted.'*
When one seeks an explanation for this circum-
stance, that a district of so limited area and moun-
tains of such relatively low elevation have received
an apparently disproportionate amount of literary
attention, one may find it, in part at least, as
pointed out by the author ^ of an article printed now
nearly twenty-five years ago, in the facts that these
mountains are the only considerable group worthy
of the name of mountains in the northeastern United
States and that they are, with the exception of the
until recently almost unknown and comparatively
inaccessible Southern Appalachians of North Caro-
lina, the only highlands of scenic consequence in the
eastern part of the country. The facts just named,
coupled with that of the nearness of the White
Mountains to the North Atlantic coast and their
consequent accessibility to the people of the earliest
settled portion of the United States and to European
visitors to America as well, early rendered them

* William Howe Downes in "The Literature of the White Moun-
tains,*' New England Magazine, August, 1891.

PREFACE

widely famed for their scenery and thus drew to
them the attention of the makers of books.

If it should be inquired, further, why these hills,
so insignificant as compared with the Rockies, for
instance, should have been made so much of and
should still retain so much of men's interest, it may
be adduced that as respects mountains in general
scenic attractiveness depends far more upon other
considerations than that of altitude for its appeal
and that the White Mountains are a striking case
in support of this opinion, for it is the testimony of
travelers that the relative inferiority in height of the
New England hills does not detract from their
grandeur and beauty or cause them to lose interest
for those familiar with loftier peaks and ranges.
Indeed, it is doubtful if any other mountains of any-
thing like their altitude are more impressive or
stupendous in aspect, and, as to the character of
the landscape views they offer for the pleasure of
the beholder, it is enough to say that they prove the
truth of Humboldt's dictum — "The prospect from
minor mountains is far more interesting than that
from extreme elevations, where the scenery of the
adjacent country is lost and confounded by the
remoteness of its situation." At any rate, the ap-
peal of the White Hills to the imagination of men
has always been strong, and therein lies the chief
reason for the existence of so many books about
them.

In view of this fact of there being so voluminous
a literature on the subject, the preparation of
another volume to be added to such an apparent

PREFACE

plethora would seem at first blush to be, if not an

absolutely gratuitous performance, at least a work
of supererogation. The only circumstance that may
be brought forward to justify the undertaking of
such a project must be the notion that the book fills
a gap — occupies, as it were, a field that is not now
cultivated and that has been for a long time neg-
lected — and thus supplies a need. Such, in any
event, is my belief, and it is to the historical side of
the subject that I allude.

Let me name and briefly characterize the princi-
pal books on the White Mountains and thereby
achieve, if I can, the double purpose of demonstrat-
ing that there is such a lack in this literature as I
have just maintained to exist, and of acknowledging
some of the sources of the information I shall present
later on.

The first extended and detailed descriptions of the
scenery of the region are those which are to be found
in volume II of President Dwight's Travels in New
England and New York, published in 1821. The
Mountains were first descriptively dealt with to
such an extent as to be the exclusive subject of a
separate volume, by the botanist William Oakes,
whose Scenery of the White Mountains, with sixteen
lithographic plates, appeared in 1848. The scenic
beauties of the region were delineated and inter-
preted in poetry and poetic prose by the genius of
Starr King, whose The White Hills; their Legends,
Landscape and Poetry, originally published in 1859-
60, is a classic of mountain literature and will doubt-
less ever remain the best book of its kind about the

PREFACE

Mountains. The Reverend Julius H. Ward's The
White Mountains; a Guide to their Interpretation
(1890^), is another work, to quote from the author's
preface, " written in illustration of the modern inter-
pretation of Nature which has been taught us by
Emerson and Wordsworth and Ruskin." In this
volume of Ward's, the scenery of different localities
is described and the emotions evoked and thoughts
suggested by mountain peaks or groups and other
scenic features of the district are presented. Samuel
Adams Drake, in his The Heart of the White Moun-
tains, their Legend and Scenery, with illustrations by
W. Hamilton Gibson (1881), not only describes the
region, but gives a wealth of legendary, historical,
and other information. Mr. Gibson's pictures are, it
may be remarked in passing, of high merit, giving,
as they do perhaps better than any others, an ade-
quate idea of the height, massiveness, and precipi-
tousness of the mountain walls, as well as of the
beauties of landscape and of forest scenery.

The scientific aspects of the region have been
thoroughly studied and extensively set forth in a
multitude of books and articles written by a host of
trained and competent scholars and observers, in-
cluding Oakes, Tuckerman, Hitchcock, Huntington,
Agassiz, Guyot, Scudder, Slosson, and Emerton,
while the natural history has been amply and well
taken care of in the books of the late Frank Bolles,
the late Bradford Torrey, Winthrop Packard, and
others.

The field of the guide-book is fairly well covered

» Third edition, 1896.
xii

PREFACE

by Chisholm's White Mountain Guide-Book, prepared
originally by the late M. F. Sweetser. The same
writer's The White Mountains; a Handbook for Trav-
elers, which embodies the results of thorough and
extensive explorations made in 1875, was first pub-
lished in 1876 and was last revised down to 1896, the
year before its editor's death. It is the most com-
plete local guide I have ever seen, and revision to
date is all that is needed to make it still of excep-
tional value. Baedeker's United States contains an
accurate and comprehensive section on the Moun-
tains. The Appalachian Mountain Club published
in 1907 the first part of a valuable Guide to the
Paths and Camps in the White Mountains. Part II
will be published this year.

The history of the White Mountains is literary
ground that has been for the most part untilled for
many years. Frank H. Burt, editor of Among the
Clouds in succession to his father, prints regularly
a valuable chronology (copyrighted) in his paper,
and in his booklet Mount Washington, published in
1904, he has given a summary of the history of the
chief peak and various items of historical information
about the Mountains generally. Sweetser's White
Mountains contains an abundance of historical
material, mainly in the form of notes. The principal
historical works on the Mountains are more than
half a century old and are out of print. Lucy
Crawford's The History of the White Mountains from
the First Settlement of Upper Coos and Pequaket was
first published in 1846; J. H. Spaulding's Historical
Relics of the White Mountains appeared in 1855; and

xiii

PREFACE

Benjamin G. Willey's Incidents in White Mountain
History dates also from 1855.^

None of these is a systematic chronicle of events.
The first is not a history, as it purports to be, but is
in reality mostly an autobiography of the pioneer
Ethan Allen Crawford, apparently dictated in large
part by him to his wife, the nominal author. It is
full of interesting information, simply and often
quaintly set down, about the early days. The second
is a very miscellaneous collection of Indian legends,
old traditions, and brief relations of early events and
incidents, some of which were important and many
trivial, with accounts of some later occurrences of
which the author had personal knowledge. The last
is the most serious attempt to write the history of
the district. It presents, without much sense of
proportion, a great body of information concerning
the pioneer days in the region, much of it in the
form of anecdotes illustrating backwoods life, and is
especially full in its account of the destruction of the
author's brother's family and in Indian history and
traditions.

It is this last long unoccupied and never ade-
quately cultivated field that I have attempted to
till, with the result that follows and constitutes
the body of this work.

The existence of Mr. Bent's Bibliography ^ renders

* The date of publication is 1856. It was reissued, with minor
revisions and under the title, History oj the White Mountains, by
Frederick Thompson in 1870,

* The Society of American Foresters has published an extensive
and valuable Bibliography of the Southern Appalachian and White
Mountain Regions, compiled by Helen E. Stockbridge. It dates also
from 191 1.

xiv

PREFACE

superfluous the appending of any to this book. My
indebtedness is to many writers. Much information
was obtained also from correspondents. To all I
make grateful acknowledgment. I have examined
many guide-books, books of travel, newspapers (par-
ticularly Among the Clouds and the White Mountain
Echo), and other sources. Specific obligations, not
hereinbefore acknowledged by naming books, will
appear in place. Pains have been taken to verify
quotations and statements by going to the original
sources whenever I could obtain access to them. I
have purposely refrained from adding footnotes un-
less some additional information contributed or side-
light thrown thereby seemed to warrant them. Mere
references to the places or authorities cited I have
omitted, as interruptions to the reading and affecta-
tions of scholarliness.

A word, in conclusion, as to the guiding principle
followed in selecting subjects for illustration. As
this is a work dealing more especially with man's
associations with the region and his modifications of
the appearance of it, the pictures presented should
have to do mostly with human works. Whenever
a picture combining scenic with historical interest
could be used, the idea of doing so was kept in
mind, but, in general, in the presentation of illus-
trations, emphasis has been laid, properly, upon
the historical side of this matter.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION Xxiii

I. INDIAN LEGEND AND HISTORY .... I

II. EARLY EXPLORERS 17

III. FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS : I. THE

TOWNS 39

' IV. FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS: II. THE

SOLITARY PLACES — THE WILLEY DISASTER 70

V. FURTHER DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS —
SOME NOTED AMERICAN VISITORS OF THE
EARLY DAYS Id

VI. SOME FOREIGN VISITO"RS AND THEIR AC-
COUNTS OF THEIR TOURS OF THE WHITE
MOUNTAINS 139

VII. the' early HOTELS AND THE BEGINNINGS OF

THE REGION AS A SUMMER RESORT . . I54

VIII. THE POETS AND PAINTERS IN THE WHITE

HILLS 175

IX. THE LATER SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATIONS OF THE

MOUNTAINS 204

X. THE COMING OF THE RAILROADS — THEIR

LATER EXTENSIONS 220

XI. THE HOTELS ON MOUNT WASHINGTON — THE
CARRIAGE ROAD AND THE MOUNT WASH-
INGTON RAILWAY — HOTELS AND SHELTERS
ON OTHER SUMMITS 229

xvii

CONTENTS

xii. some noteworthy white mountain

"characters" 259

xiii. casualties on the presidential range —
the terrible experience of dr. ball —
some destructive landslides . . 267

xiv. winter ascents of mount washington —
the winter occupation of mount
moosilauke and of mount washing-
ton — the u.s. signal service on
mount washington 3o5

xv. later hotels 331

xvi. early trails and path-builders — the
appalachian mountain club and its
work in the white mountains . . 345

xvii. the great fire on mount washington —

other recent events of interest . 36o

xviii. the lumber industry in the white
mountains — the peril of the forests
— the white mountain national for-
est—other reservations .... 377

xix. the changes in the character of white
mountain travel and business in re-
cent years 405

INDEX 411

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE FLUME BEFORE THE BOULDER FELL FrOtlUspiece

From a photograph by F. G. Weller

THE DEATH OF CHOCORUA 12

From an engraving by G. W. Hatch after the painting by Thomas
Cole

THE NOTCH HOUSE 86

From an engraving by J. Couaen In Willis's American Scenery, after
a drawing by W. H. Bartlett

THE WILLEY HOUSE 9O

From an engraving by E. Benjamin in Willis's American Scenery,
after a drawing by W. H. Bartlett

THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN .... 102
From a photograph by Blair, Bretton Woods, N. H.

THE OLD MOUNT CRAWFORD HOUSE AT BEMIS . 1 58

From Starr King's The White Hills, Estes & Lauriat, Boston, 1887

THE FRANCONIA NOTCH, WITH THE LAFAYETTE

HOUSE 166

From a lithograph by J. H. Bufford, Boston, in Oakes's White Moun-
tain Scenery, after a drawing by Isaac Sprague

THE OLD PROFILE HOUSE, OPENED 1 853, CLOSED

1905 170

From a photograph by F. G. Weller

THE FLUME HOUSE I70

An old view showing the house when smaller than at present

A VIEW NEAR CONWAY 1 92

From an engraving by Fenncr, Sears & Co., after a painting by
Thomas Cole

xix

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE DOUBLE GATE OF CRAWFORD NOTCH . . 226

From a pbotograDh by Blalr

HALFWAY HOUSE ON THE CARRIAGE ROAD . . 234

From a photograph by the Shorey Studio, Gorham, N. H.

Jacob's ladder, mount Washington railway . 240

Showing the early type of locomotive with vertical boiler

From a heUotype in M. F. Sweetaer's Views in the White Mountains

SUMMIT HOUSE AND OBSERVATORY, MOUNT WASH-
INGTON, ABOUT 1895 250

From a photograph by Peter Eddy, Fabyan, N. H.

THE NEW SUMMIT HOUSE ON MOUNT WASHINGTON,

ERECTED AND OPENED IN I915 . . . . 25O

From a photograph by the Shorey Studio

SUMMIT OF MOUNT WASHINGTON IN 1854: TIP-TOP
HOUSE, OLD SUMMIT HOUSE, AND FIRST OBSERV-
ATORY 256

From Willey's Incidents in White Mountain History

TIP-TOP HOUSE ON MOUNT MOOSILAUKE . . . 256

From a copyright photograph by F. C. Jackson, Warren, li. H., 1913

THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT .... 264

From a photograph by Peter Ekidy

CURTIS MONUMENT, LAKE OF THE CLOUDS, AND

A. M. C. HUT . . . . . . . 278

From a photograph by the Shorey Studio

CLIMBING MOUNT WASHINGTON IN WINTER . . 306

From a photograph by the Shorey Studio

OBSERVER, SUMMIT OF MOUNT WASHINGTON, ABOUT

1875 316

From a photograph by B. W. Kilbum
XX

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE SUMMIT HOUSE IN WINTER, ABOUT 1 875 . 316

From a photograph by B. W. Kilbum

THE FIRST GLEN HOUSE 338

From a heliotype in M. F. Sweetaer's Views in the Whiu Mountains

THE SECOND GLEN HOUSE, 1885-1893 . . . 338

From the Glen House Book, 1889

THE MOUNT WASHINGTON HOTEL, BRETTON WOODS 342

From a photograph by Blair

THE MOUNT PLEASANT TRAIL 35O

From a photograph by Blair

A. M. C. HUTS ON MOUNT MADISON . . . * . 35O

From a photograph by the Shorey Studio

A. M. C. HUT ON MOUNT MONROE .... 354
From a photograph by the Shorey Studio

MOUNT MONROE HUT INTERIOR .... 354

From a photograph by the Shorey Studio

THE FIRE ON MOUNT WASHINGTON AS SEEN FROM

GORHAM 364

From a photograph by Guy L. Shorey

LOST RIVER 372

From a photograph

MAP OF THE WHITE MOUNTAIN NATIONAL FOREST 398
ROAD AND TRAIL MAP OF THE WHITE MOUNTAIN

REGION . . . . „ • . . Endpaper

INTRODUCTION

Seventy miles in an air line from the Atlantic,
northwesterly from Portland, Maine, lies the grand
and beautiful group of stern and lofty hills, with
rugged valleys and gentle intervales interspersed,
which is called by the commonplace appellation of
the "White Mountains," or, sometimes, especially
in literary use, the "White Hills." This name is
applied both to the entire group (made by some to
include, besides the New Hampshire ranges and
peaks, the neighboring hills in western Maine), and
also, specifically, to the range containing the highest
peaks, now commonly designated, for obvious rea-
sons, the "Presidential Range."

In the nomenclature of physical geography these
northern hills are termed monadnocks, a name given
to more or less isolated residual elevations composed
of rock which has resisted the general wearing-down
of the former plateau, of which the heights formed
a part, to the present peneplain. Geologically, the
White Mountains belong to the older or crystalline
belt of the Appalachian system and are made up of
ancient metamorphic rocks, chiefly gneisses with a
core of granite forming the highest portion. The area
of the region is about 812,000 acres.

The epithet "White" alludes, of course, to the
appearance of the summits and seems most appro-
priate in the six months, more or less, when they

xxiii

INTRODUCTION

are covered with snow. The winter dress of the
Mountains, which is often worn temporarily in
other seasons, would seem to furnish the most prob-
able explanation of the origin of their name, for
which the early navigators along the coast, to whom
they were a landmark, appear to be responsible.
This very plausible supposition becomes, however,
upon investigation more and more improbable, the
preponderance of evidence in the end inclining the
scale in favor of the view that the Mountains are so
called from their white or whitish-gray aspect when
seen from a distance, ^ which appearance is due partly
to the bare grayish rocks of the treeless summits, but
chiefly to atmospheric conditions. The question is
not one, it would seem, that can be definitively
settled. Indeed, it is not one of great moment; but,
nevertheless, I have thought it a subject of sufficient
interest t6 justify a bringing together of such refer-
ences bearing on it as I have been able to collect.
From these statements, the reader may, if he will,
form his own conclusion, with the firm assurance
that, whichever way his mental vote may be cast,
no one can declare him to be absolutely wrong.
The regrettable thing in connection with this matter
of the name of the Mountains is not, in any case,
the uncertainty as to its origin, but is, rather, the
unpleasing certainty that a commonplace and un-
distinctive appellation has been fastened upon them
for good and all.

* On the side of Samuel Lewis's map of 1794 in the following note:
"N. B, The White Hills appear many leagues off at Sea like White
Clouds; just rising above the Horizon."

xxiv

INTRODUCTION

Just when the White Mountains received their
present designation is another subject of inquiry
that cannot be positively determined. The earliest
name I have found is that of "the Christall hill,"
applied to the highest peak or to the main range. This
occurs in a passage in Christopher Levett's A Voyage
into New-England, published in 1628. Now, as the
region had not then been visited by white men, this
name must, it is evident, allude to the appearance of
the summits as affected by distance and the atmos-
phere. The fact of the earlier occurrence, also, of
this appellation negatives the explanation of the
origin of it given in Belknap's History of New Hamp-
shire on the authority of Hubbard's manuscript
History of New England. The passage in Belknap's
work refers to the explorers of 1642, the first white
visitors, and runs as follows: "They had great ex-
pectation of finding precious stones on these mts.;
and something resembling crystal being picked up,
was sufficient to give them the name of the crystal-
hills.'* Whatever the origin of this name, which ap-
pears to have been the common one in the earlier
part of the seventeenth century, it antedates, as its
occurrence in Levett's narrative testifies, the con-
nection of Darby Field with the Mountains, and so
cannot have been given to them by him, as some
writers say. Governor Winthrop, recording in his
journal Field's ascent of the future Mount Washing-
ton, speaks of it as " the white hill," and when again
mentioning the event uses the plural of the same
name.^ The present designation first appears in

* The first passage is quoted in full on page 20. The second be-

XXV

INTRODUCTION

print as a distinctive name, it is believed, in Josse-
lyn's New England's Rarities Discovered, a work pub-
lished in 1672.^

Drake, who holds strongly to the opinion that the
name of the Mountains does not allude to the pres-
ence of snow on them, declares that "the early
writers succeed only imperfectly in accounting for
this phenomenon [the white appearance of the sum-
mits], which for six months of the year at least," he
says, "has no connection whatever with the snows
that cover the highest peaks only from the middle of
October to the middle of April, a period during which
few navigators of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries visited our shores, or, indeed, ventured to
put to sea at all." He adduces quotations directly
* denying the theory he is opposing, from two eight-
eenth-century writers, one of whom, William Doug-
lass, says 2 positively: "They ['the White Hills, or
rather mountains '] are called White, not from their
being continually covered with snow, but because
they are bald a- top, producing no trees or brush, and
covered with a whitish stone or shingle"; while the
other, the celebrated ranger, Major Robert Rogers,
states ^ that the Mountains are "so called from their

gins, "Mention is made before of the white hills, discovered by one
Darby Field."

1 The passage is quoted on page 23.

* In his A Summary . . . of the First Planting, . . . and Present
State of the British Settlements in North America (1748-53).

' In his A Concise Account of America (1765). Rogers says further:
"I cannot learn that any person was ever on the top of these moun-
tains. I have been told by the Indians that they have often attempted
it in vain, by reason of the change of air they met with, which I am
inclined to believe, having ascended them myself till the alteration

xxvi

INTRODUCTION

appearance, which is much like snow, consisting, as
is generally supposed, of a white flint, from which
the reflection of the sun is very brilliant and daz-
zling."

In support of the other view may be cited the
statement of Josselyn ^ as to the presence of snow
on the Mountains, which he evidently regards as
the reason for their name, and the following remark
of Belknap in this connection: " During this period,
of nine or ten months [end of October or beginning
of November to July] the mountains exhibit more or
less of that bright appearance from which they are
denominated white ... it may with certainty be con-
cluded, that the whiteness of them is wholly caused
by snow, and not by any other white substance, for
in fact, there is none." ^

The most extended discussion of the subject of
the whiteness of these mountains and its cause that
I have come across in my reading is in volume III
of the English writer Edward Augustus Kendall's
Travels through the Northern Parts of the United States
in the Years i8oy and 1808, a work published in 1809.
Of the twenty pages devoted to an account of his
tour through the White Mountains, eight are en-
tirely given up to this topic, of which he also speaks
briefly in another, and earlier, chapter.

After quoting Belknap's conclusion, just given,

of air was very perceptible, and even then I had not advanced half-
way up; the valleys below were then concealed from me by clouds."

^ See page 23.

* Belknap says in another place: "Some writers, who have at-
tempted to give an account of these mountains, have ascribed the
whiteness of them to shining rocks, or a kind of white moss."

xxvii

INTRODUCTION

and expressing the opinion that the historian relied
"on the statements of persons very incompetent to
make such as are to the purpose," he goes on to say
that, while he saw the Mountains only when they
were covered with snow, he was assured that they
appear white at all seasons of the year, and he says
further, that he had himself observed a similar
phenomenon elsewhere. As authority for this fact
of the perennial white appearance of the New
Hampshire hills, he cites the result of the obser-
vations of "the younger Rosebrook, in Briton's
Woods," who was frequently employed as a guide
and invariably, when performing this service, ques-
tioned as to this matter by those whom he was con-
ducting. Rosebrook's statement was that, when the
snow is melted, the summits still appear white when
seen from a considerable distance, but not when
viewed from nearer points, and that he was puzzled
to account for this, the explanation that it is due to
moss not being satisfactory to him. That this condi-
tion must be true of the White Mountains and that
it is not peculiar to them was shown, it seemed to the
traveler, by the remark made to him by a Vermont
farmer with respect to the mountains west of Lake
Champlain as seen from his side of the lake: "Some
of their tops were white all the year round, even when
the snow was gone." Mr. Kendall was finally, when
visiting the St. Lawrence country, enabled to settle
the question to his own satisfaction, as by his own
observations he made sure of the fact and dis-
covered the explanation of it. He had opportunity,
while traveling there, to pass over some of the sum-

xxviii

INTRODUCTION

mits west of the river, which he observed to exhibit
the same phenomenon and which he found to be
composed of the same kind of rock as the White
Mountains. His investigations in the Laurentians
led him to the conclusion that the white appearance
of these and other high mountains like them is due
to the reflection of the sunlight from the rock when
the atmosphere is rare and the distance is sufficiently
great to permit of only the high bare portions being
seen. In producing this effect, he affirms, the color of
the rock is of minor importance, the chief requisite
being that the rock should be bare and of a density
of composition adapted for reflecting the rays of
light. So much for the question as to why the White
Mountains are "white" and have their name.

When we come to the perhaps more important,
and doubtless more interesting, subject of Indian
names of the Mountains, we are again on uncertain
ground. Several of such designations of the principal
range have come to us, vouched for by various
authorities. Belknap speaks of the name "Agioco-
chook," which occurs in a reduced form as "Agio-
chook," as having been applied to what is now
known as the "Presidential Range." This name
Mr. Drake found in print as early as 1736 in the
narrative ^ of John Gyles's captivity published in
Boston in that year. It is also recorded by School-
craft, who says it is plural in form.

As to its meaning, which the Reverend Edward

^ "These White Hills, at the head of the Penobscot River, are by
the Indians said to be much higher than those called Agiockochook,
above Saco," says Captain Gyles.

xxix

INTRODUCTION

Ballard thought to be "The Place of the Great
Spirit of the Forest," Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull's
opinion is that the word Captain Gyles imperfectly
represented in English syllables is Algonquin for "at
the mountains on that side" or "over yonder." As
to the fanciful interpretations, such as that given
above, or that of another writer, "The Place of the
Storm Spirit," Dr. Trumbull affirms that there is no
element of any Algonquin word meaning "great,"
''spirit," "forest," "storm," or "abode," or any
combination of the meaning of any two of these
words, in "Agiocochook." The shortened form of
this name, which occurs in the early ballad on the
death of Captain Lovewell, has been adopted by
Whittier, Edna Dean Proctor, and other authors as
a poetical name for Mount Washington.

Another Indian name was communicated to the
Corresponding Secretary of the Massachusetts His-
torical Society by the Reverend Timothy Alden,
afterwards founder and president of Allegheny Col-
lege, in a letter dated 1806, which was published
in the Collections of the Society in 1814. "I have
lately been informed," he says, " that the White Hills
were called by one of the eastern tribes, I cannot
ascertain which, Waumbekketmethna. I have spelt it,
as I think all aboriginal names ought to be, as pro-
nounced. Waumbekket signifies white, and methna,
mountains, as I am told." This name is the only
Indian name for the White Hills that, according to
Drake, bears internal evidence of genuineness. That
writer says that it "easily resolves itself into the
Kennebec- Abnaki waubeghiket-amadinar, ' white

XXX

INTRODUCTION

greatest mountain.' " "It is very probable, however,"
he says further, "that this synthesis is a mere trans-
lation, by an Indian, of the English 'White Moun-
tains.' I have never, myself, succeeded in obtaining
this name from the modern Abnakis." Schoolcraft,
commenting on "Waumbek," says that it is "a
word, which in some of the existing dialects of the
Algonquin, is pronounced Waubik, that is. White
Rock." In the form "Waumbek Methna," or some-
times still further shortened to "Waumbek," this
name, which has been given the fanciful interpreta-
tion of "Mountains with Snowy Foreheads," or the
like, has also been much used by the poets. Would
that it might have been the geographical name also !

Still another alleged Indian appellation of the
Mountains, which is mentioned by a number of
writers, may be set down here for the sake of having
the record complete. This is the harsh-sounding
combination of words, "Kan Ran Vugarty," said to
mean "The Continued Likeness of a Gull," and
having, obviously, in common with the others,
reference to the white appearance of the summits.

Among these hills rise four great New England
rivers, the Connecticut, the Merrimac, the Andros-
coggin, and the Saco. As the source, then, of these
very important elements in the existence and de-
velopment of New England's industry and com-
merce, the White Mountains have a more than local
significance, all of the States of this section, saving
Rhode Island, being thus directly affected by them.
As a summer playground and region of scenic beauty,
they have acquired a reputation more than nation-

xxxi

INTRODUCTION

wide. The district, indeed, was the first to receive
that rather often applied sobriquet of American
Mountain regions, "The Switzerland of America,"
Philip Carrigain, once secretary of state of New
Hampshire, in his state map ^ of 1816, bestowing
that, in this instance perhaps somewhat far-fetched,
appellative upon the hills of his native State.

This northern upland, which it is my purpose to
treat on the historical side only, has not, it must be
admitted at the outset, been the theater of great
events. No wars or battles have been fought there;
no great political movements have been initiated or
carried on there; indeed, the region is not a political
entity and "White Mountains" is only a geographi-
cal expression. It has not even been to any great
extent the scene of thrilling adventures with the
Indians. Little, in fact, of a nature to make the
region interesting historically, in the usual connota-
tion of that term, has occurred during the nearly
three centuries it has been known to us. And so the
materials of the historian of the White Mountains
are meager, especially as compared with the data
available to the historian of a region that has an
eventful history, such as, for instance, the Lake
George and Lake Champlain locality, and this
dearth is not altogether encouraging to one who
would fain have an interesting story to tell.

* The text on the side of the map contained these words: "With
regard to the face of the country, its features are striking and pic-
turesque. The natural scenery of mountains of greater elevation than
any others [!] in the United States; of lakes, of cataracts, of vallies
[sic] furnishes a profusion of the sublime and beautiful. It may be
called the Switzerland of America."

xxxii

INTRODUCTION

It must be, therefore, of peaceful and compara-
tively uneventful pioneer life in a district remote
from the centers of population, industrial life, and
civilization, and of the unsung heroisms of hardy
men in contending with the forces of nature, that
the first part of the story will largely consist.

There will be something of interest also, I venture
to think, in such chronicles as I shall set down of the
small beginnings of the region as a vacation play-
ground and of its great growth as such when the
beautiful scenery and health-giving air had become
known to a nation in course of time sufficiently in-
creased in population and possessed of leisure,
wealth, and facilities to travel and to maintain
summer resorts.

Besides these main events of exploration, settle-
ment, and development as a district for summer
rest and recreation, there have occurred in the
region from time to time many minor incidents, as
to which, as well as to the matters just mentioned,
I have assumed frequenters of the Mountains and
even occasional visitors to them may desire to in-
form themselves. Acting, at any rate, on this as-
sumption, I have undertaken in the ensuing pages
the pleasant task of culling out and recording the
more important occurrences. These events and inci-
dents, then, form the materials of this chronicle.

CHRONICLES OF
THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

INDIAN LEGEND AND HISTORY

Little can be told of the character and life of the
Indians who inhabited or frequented this region
during the prehistoric ages comprising the period
before the coming of the white man. Investigators
have not been able to ascertain much about them,
and consequently the information that has been ac-
cumulated as compared with that gathered concern-
ing the Indians of southern New England, who were,
after the white man's advent, in close contact with
the settlements, is comparatively meager and in-
definite. Even the names and relationships of the
northern Indians are by no means certain.

That powerful tribes once lived in and roamed
over the valleys shadowed by these hills, not only
does tradition tell us, but also remains bear witness.
Of their encampments and favorite retreats, how-
ever, there is lack of adequate knowledge. By the
time that the settlers had begun to penetrate to this
region the aborigines had been so reduced by pes-
tilences and wars that those who were then living
were probably but a very small fraction of their
former number. According to what seems to be the
most reliable information, the tribes inhabiting the

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

foothills and intervales of the White Mountains
more especially were the Sokokis on the Saco and
the Arosagunticooks, or Anasagunticooks, on the
Androscoggin. The former were divided into nu-
merous branches, of which the Ossipees and Pequaw-
kets (or Pigwackets) — especially the latter, who
by some are identified with the Sokokis as a whole
— were the most prominent. To the south in the
valley of the Merrimac was the country of the Pen-
nacooks, under whose sachem were all the clans
occupying the territory now constituting New
Hampshire, while to the west at the junction of
the Connecticut and Ammonoosuc Rivers were the
Coosucs, a small band, probably a branch of the
Pennacooks. These tribes all belonged to the Abnaki
group of the great Algonquian family. They were
savages of a not very high type of culture, who relied
for their subsistence mainly on the results of their
hunting and fishing, their agriculture being confined
to the cultivation of maize on a limited scale. They
built conical houses or wigwams and lived in vil-
lages, which were in some cases inclosed with pali-
sades. Such remains, therefore, as we find of their
occupancy of the region are of the most primitive
kind. On the banks of the rivers and near the ponds
or lakes traces of their encampments are frequently
discovered. In some of the intervales com hills ^
used to be seen, and there were also here and there
evidences of the destruction of trees by girdling. In

^ "The remains of their fields are still visible in many places;
these are not extensive, and the hills which they made about their
corn stalks were small." (Belknap.)

INDIAN LEGEND AND HISTORY

Conway, pipes and pieces of kettles made of a soft,
easily cut earthenware have often been found.

In Ossipee, near the lake, is a large monumental
mound about fifty feet in diameter and ten feet high,
from which skeletons buried with the face down-
ward, tomahawks, and other relics have been taken,
and tomahawks and pieces of ancient earthenware
have been found on the surrounding meadow. Here
also corn hills were once discernible. " In their capi-
tal fishing places, particularly in great Ossapy & Win-
ipiseogee rivers," says Belknap, "are the remains of
their wears, constructed with very large stones."

Within the limits of the town of Fryeburg, Maine,
there are many mounds, one of them sixty feet in
circuit, and various other remains which indicate the
sites of Indian encampments. Northwest of Frye-
burg village, in a bend of the Saco and on its east
bank, was situated Pequawket, a large village of the
Indians of that name. Hither, after the English
began to occupy the seacoast, retired the Sokokis,
originally a large tribe, whose principal village had
been upon Indian Island near the mouth of the
Saco. Mounds believed to be of prehistoric origin
are also extant in Woodstock, West Thornton, and
other towns in the region.

Of Indian legend not much has come down to
us, and most of that belongs to other parts of the
Mountains than the main ranges. Says Starr
King: —

The Indian names and legends are shorn from the
upper mountain region. They have not been caught for
our literature. The valleys are almost as bare of them as

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

the White Mountain cones are of verdure. What a pity
it is that our great hills

Piled to the clouds, — our rivers overhung

By forests which have known no other change

For ages, than the budding and the fall

Of leaves — our valleys lovelier than those

Which the old poets sang of — should but figure

On the apocryphal chart of speculation

As pastures, wood-lots, mill-sites, with the privileges,

Rights and appurtenances, which make up

A Yankee Paradise — unsung, unknown

To beautiful tradition ; even their names

Whose melody yet lingers like the last

Vibration of the red man's requiem,

Exchanged for syllables significant

Of cotton mill and rail-car!

We can scarcely find a settler who can tell any story
learned in childhood of Indian bravery, suffering, cruelty,
or love.

Such a region in Europe would have a world of
tradition and mythology associated with it — wit-
ness the wealth of legend possessed by the low hills
of the Rhine Valley or by the Scottish Border.

The chief legends worthy of recording, of the few
that there are, center about the names of the In-
dian chiefs Passaconaway and Chocorua. Of the
former, a great New Hampshire chieftain, whose
name means Child of the Bear and who was long the
head of the Pennacook Confederation, his leader-
ship probably antedating the landing of the Pil-
grims, Indian tradition has it that he was carried
to Mount Washington in a sleigh drawn by wolves,
whence he rose toward Heaven in a chariot of fire,
like Elijah. This legend of his apotheosis suggested

INDIAN LEGEND AND HISTORY

to Mr. Sweetser the mysterious story of St. Aspin-
quid, an Indian sage, who, it has been handed down,
was converted to Christianity in 1628 and preached
the Gospel widely for forty years. His death oc-
curred more than fifty years later and his funeral
on Mount Agamenticus in York County, Maine, is
said to have been attended by many sachems and to
have been marked by a great hunting feast. One
antiquary believes Passaconaway and St. Aspin-
quid, because of the correspondences between their
ages and reputations, to be the same person, and he
advances the theory that Passaconaway retired to
Mount Agamenticus during King Philip's War, re-
ceived the other name from the seashore Indians,
and died there some years afterward.

Passaconaway's life story is an interesting one
and his character was of a remarkably high order.
He became known to the white men soon after their
coming, for Captain Levett reported having seen
him in 1623. His confederation, which is estimated
to have had at the beginning of the seventeenth
century several thousand warriors, had, in less than
twenty years, been almost exterminated by famine,
pestilence, and pitiless warfare with other Indians.
In 1629, Passaconaway and his subchiefs granted a
considerable tract of land between the Piscataqua
and Merrimac Rivers to the banished Antinomian,
Rev. John Wheelwright, and others of the Massa-
chusetts Bay Colony, in return for what the In-
dians deemed a valuable consideration in "coats,
shirts, and kettles." Three years later, the sachem
dispatched to Boston an Indian who had killed an

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

English trader named Jenkins while the latter was
asleep in a wigwam. When, in 1642, Massachusetts
sent a force of forty armed men to disarm Passa-
conaway, he voluntarily delivered up his guns, after
the General Court had sent an apology to him for
some unwarranted proceedings on the part of the
white men, which he, as the authorities to their
credit admitted, rightfully resented.

Some two or three years later, Passaconaway and
his sons put themselves, their people, and their
lands under the jurisdiction and protection of Mas-
sachusetts, and from this time he was nominally a
sort of Puritan magistrate, administering the colonial
laws upon his subjects. John Eliot, the apostle to
the Indians, visited the chieftain in 1647, and by his
preaching so impressed him and his sons that the
clergyman was entreated to live with them as their
teacher. Eliot probably converted Passaconaway
about this time.

In 1660, the great sachem, overcome with the
burden of his years and weary of honors, abdicated
his chieftainship at a solemn assembly of the moun-
tain and river Indians held at Pawtucket Falls
(Lowell). His farewell address was heard by two or
three Englishmen, who reported it to be a fine piece
of oratory. Various forms ^ of it have come down to

^ There is one version in Hubbard's Indian Wars, another in
Bouton's History of Concord, and another in Barstow's History of
New Hampshire. In view of these, Little, in his History of Warren,
facetiously remarks, "We come to the probably correct conclusion
that Passaconaway said something very pretty and exceedingly
eloquent sometime." One paragraph of the Potter version I have
omitted.

INDIAN LEGEND AND HISTORY

us. A fanciful version, given by Hon. Chandler E.
Potter in his "History of Manchester," runs as
follows: —

Hearken to the words of your father. I am an old oak,
that has withstood the storm of more than an hundred
winters. Leaves and branches have been stripped from
me by the winds and frosts — my eyes are dim — my
limbs totter — I must soon fall! But when young and
sturdy, when my bow no young man of the Pennacooks
could bend it — when my arrows would pierce a deer at
an hundred yards — and I could bury my hatchet in a
sapling to the eye — no wigwam had so many furs —
no pole so many scalp locks, as Passaconaway's. Then
I delighted in war. The whoop of the Pennacooks was
heard on the Mohawk — and no voice so loud as Pas-
saconaway's. The scalps upon the pole of my wigwam
told the story of Mohawk suffering. . . .

The oak will soon break before the whirlwind — it
shivers and shakes even now; soon its trunk will be pros-
trate — the ant and the worm will sport upon it ! Then
think, my children, of what I say; I commune with the
Great Spirit. He whispers me now — "Tell your peo-
ple. Peace, Peace, is the only hope of your race. I have
given fire and thunder to the pale faces for weapons — I
have made them plentier than the leaves of the forest,
and still shall they increase! These meadows they shall
turn with the plow — these forests shall fall by the axe —
the pale faces shall live upon your hunting grounds, and
make their villages upon your fishing places ! " The Great
Spirit says this, and it must be so ! We are few and power-
less before them ! We must bend before the storm ! The
wind blows hard! The old oak trembles! Its branches
are gone! Its sap is frozen! It bends! It falls! Peace,
Peace, with the white man — is the command of the
Great Spirit — and the wish — the last wish — of Pas-
saconaway.

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

After his abdication, the province of Massachu-
setts granted him a tract of land in Litchfield, where
he lived for a time. Eliot and General Gookin saw
him when he was in his one-hundred-and-twentieth
year. When and how he died are unknown; the
tradition of his departure from earth has been al-
ready given.

Many were the wild and fascinating stories about
this great chief current among the Indians and the
colonists. He seems to have been in early life a
great warrior and later to have become a powwow,
a sort of priest and necromancer combined. When
the settlers came to Massachusetts, he used all his
magic arts against them, but with such lack of suc-
cess that he became convinced that they were pro-
tected by the Great Spirit, and so he avoided war-
fare with them. To the Puritans his actions in this
instance suggested themselves as a parallel to those
of a character in their favorite book, and one of the
fathers gave him accordingly the name of the In-
dian Balaam. Some of the powers attributed to him
are thus quaintly described in William Wood's "New
England's Prospect" (1634): —

He can make the water burne, the rocks move, the
trees dance, metamorphise himself into a flaming man.
Hee will do more; for in winter, when there are no green
leaves to be got, he will burne an old one to ashes, and
putting those into the water, produce a new green leaf,
which you shall not only see, but substantially handle
and Carrie away; and make of a dead snake's skin a living
snake, both to be seen, felt, and heard. This I write but
upon the report of the Indians, who confidently affirm
stranger things.

INDIAN LEGEND AND HISTORY

Passaconaway's son Wonnalancet succeeded him
as chief. He is said to have been "a sober and grave
person, of years between fifty and sixty," and to
have been "always loving and friendly to the Eng-
lish." He was converted to Christianity by the
Apostle Eliot and lived a noble life, restraining his
warriors from attacking the colonists, even during
King Philip's War. Finding it impossible, at a later
day, to prevent his people from engaging in open
hostilities, he gave up the chieftaincy and with a
few families who adhered to him, sought retreat at
St. Francis ^ in Canada. He returned to the Merri-
mac valley in 1696, but after a short time finally
retired to St. Francis, where he died.

His successor as chieftain, after his abdication in
1685, was his nephew, Passaconaway's "grant-
son," Kancamagus. This resolute warrior made
several attempts to retain the friendship of the
colonists, as is evident from his letters to Governor
Crandall, but was unsuccessful and finally yielded,
after many slights and much ill-treatment, to the
solicitations of the warlike and patriotic party in
the confederation. He organized and led the terri-
ble attack on Dover in 1689, which was the death-
throe of the Pennacooks. He was present at the
signing of the truce of Sagadahoc, but after that
disappears from history. He may have retired with
the remainder of his people to St. Francis. Potter
thus characterizes him : —

* The Indian town of St. Francois de Sales, near Becancour, op-
posite Three Rivers on the St. Lawrence, which had from the earlk^
times been inhabited by a clan of the Abnakis.

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Kancamagus was a brave and politic chief, and in view
of what he accomplished at the head of a mere remnant
of a once powerful tribe, it may be considered a most for-
tunate circumstance for the English colonists, that he was
not at the head of the tribe at an earlier period, before it
had been shorn of its strength, during the old age of Pas-
saconaway, and the peaceful and inactive reign of Won-
nalancet. And even could Kancamagus have succeeded
to the sagamonship ten years earlier than he did, so that
his acknowledged abilities for counsel and war could
have been united with those of Philip, history might
have chronicled another story than the inglorious death
of the sagamon of Mount Hope in the swamp of Pokano-
ket.

After the powerful confederacy of the Pennacooks
was broken up, the northern tribes remained in their
ancestral home a few years longer, but were soon
nearly annihilated by expeditions from the New
England towns, the remnant finally migrating to
Canada.

Perhaps the most celebrated Indian name asso-
ciated with White Mountain legend is that of the
chieftain Chocorua, whose name has been attached
to the easternmost peak ^ of the Sandwich Range, a
peak which Sweetser says "is probably the most
picturesque and beautiful of the mountains of New
England." Near its summit Chocorua was killed by
white men.

One form of the legend concerning this Indian was
narrated to Mr. Sweetser by an old inhabitant of

^ The mountain was known and mapped as Chocorua decades
before the legend ever appeared in print. On Belknap's map of New
Hampshire, issued with the second volume of his history, in 1791,
Chocorua appears, being the only mountain of the Sandwich Range
to be located or named.

INDIAN LEGEND AND HISTORY

Tamworth, who had written it down many years
before as he had received it from his ancestors. The
story runs as follows: —

When the Pequawket Indians retreated to Canada,
after Lovewell's battle [1725], Chocorua refused to leave
the ancient home of his people and the graves of his fore-
fathers. He remained behind, and was friendly to the in-
coming white settlers, and especially with one Campbell,
who lived near what is now Tamworth. He had a son,
in whom all his hopes and love were centered. On one
occasion he was obliged to go to Canada to consult with
his people at St. Francis, and, wishing to spare his son
the labors of the long journey, he left him with Campbell
until his return. The boy was welcomed to the hut of
the pioneer, and tenderly cared for. One day, however,
he found a small bottle of poison, which had been pre-
pared for a mischievous fox, and, with the unsuspecting
curiosity of the Indian, he drank a portion of it. Cho-
corua returned only to find his boy dead and buried. The
improbable story of his fatality failed to satisfy the heart-
broken chief, and his spirit demanded vengeance. Camp-
bell went home from the fields one day, and saw the dead
and mangled bodies of his wife and children on the floor
of the hut. He tracked Chocorua and found him on the
crest of the mountain, and shot him down, while the
dying Indian invoked curses on the white men.

In another form of the legend,^ Campbell was an
active partisan of Cromwell, who, on the restoration
of the Stuarts, fled to America with his beautiful
and high-born wife and settled in this remote wilder-
ness. The son of Chocorua, who was then prophet

^ This is the form adopted by Mrs. Lydia Maria Child in her story
of "Chocorua's Curse," printed in the 1830 issue of The Token, art
annual published at Boston. The story is accompanied by a steel
engraving, by George W. Hatch, of Thomas Cole's painting of
"The Death of Chocorua."

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

of the powerful Pequawkets, was a frequent visitor
at Campbell's house and there met his death by
accidental poisoning. The murder of the family and
the death of the chief on the mountain are related
to have occurred also substantially as narrated in
the other form of the story.

Another account, which is probably nearer the
truth, makes Chocorua an inoffensive Indian, a
friend of the whites, who was shot by a party of
hunters, at a time when Massachusetts was, during
a campaign against the Indians, offering a bounty
of £ioo for every scalp brought to Boston.^

Legend represents the chieftain as raising himself
upon his hands, when wounded to death by the
bullet of Campbell, on the precipice of the moun-
tain which has received his name, to utter an
anathema upon his enemies, which Mrs. Child has
put into this form: —

A curse upon ye, white men! May the Great Spirit
curse ye when he speaks in the clouds, and his words are
fire ! Chocorua had a son — and ye killed him while the
sky looked bright! Lightning blast your crops! Wind
and fire destroy your dwellings ! The Evil Spirit breathe
death upon your cattle ! Your graves lie in the war path
of the Indian! Panthers howl, and wolves fatten over
your bones ! Chocorua goes to the Great Spirit — his
curse stays with the white man !

Although tradition would have it that the curse
was effectual, as a matter of fact the towns in this

• ^ The Chocorua legend has been the subject of a number of poems,
including a juvenile production of Longfellow's, mentioned elsewhere,
a spirited lyric of forty lines by Charles J. Fox, and a 280-line poem
by Mrs. V. G. Ranney.

< I-

o «

u g

-< a,

INDIAN LEGEND AND HISTORY

vicinity were never molested by Indians, pestilence,
or other severe troubles. Even such a calamity as
the continued dying of cattle in the town of Albany,
which was attributed to Chocorua's curse, was
found after many years to be due to a natural
cause, the presence of muriate of lime in the water
they drank.

h A fanciful legend purporting to give the Indians*
idea of the origin of the White Mountains, or, rather,
of the formation of the lofty Agiocochook, is thus set
down in Spaulding and in Willey: —

Cold storms were in the northern wilderness, and a lone
red hunter wandered without food, chilled by the frozen
wind. He lost his strength and could find no game; and
the dark cloud that covered his life-path made him weary
of wandering. He fell down upon the snow, and a dream
carried him to a wide, happy valley, filled with musical
streams, where singing birds and game were plenty. His
spirit cried aloud for joy; and the "Great Master of Life"
waked him from his sleep, gave him a dry coal and a
flint-pointed spear, telling him that by the shore of the
lake he might live, and find fish with his spear, and fire
from his dry coal. One night, when he had laid down his
coal, and seen a warm fire spring up therefrom, with a
blinding smoke, a loud voice came out of the flame, and
a great noise, like thunder, filled the air; and there rose
up a vast pile of broken rocks. Out of the cloud resting
upon the top came numerous streams, dancing down,
foaming cold; and the voice spake to the astonished red
hunter, saying, "Here the Great Spirit will dwell, and
watch over his favorite children.'*

The Indians who lived in the valleys of this region
looked with awe upon the Mountains, or at least,
the upper parts of the ranges. By them the highest

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

summits, cloud-capped often in all seasons or daz-
zlingly white in winter, were thought to be the
abodes of superior beings, who were invisible but
who revealed their presence by the appalling tem-
pests and by the deafening noises which we now
know to be due to slides and falling rocks, and the
ascent of the peaks was, therefore, regarded as not
only perilous or impossible but sacrilegious. The
terrible thunder and the blinding lightning seemed
to them the voice of the Supreme Being and the
sign of his wrath and omnipotence.

A deluge tradition similar to that held by so many
savage tribes was current among them. A quaint
account of this legend is given in Josselyn's "Ac-
count of Two Voyages to New England": —

Ask them whither they go when they dye, they will
tell you pointing with their finger to Heaven beyond the
white mountains, and do hint at Noah's Floud, as may be
conceived by a story they have received from Father to
Son, time out of mind, that a great while agon their
Countrey was drowned, and all the People and other
Creatures in it, only one Powaw and his Webb foreseeing
the Floud fled to the white mountains carrying a hare
along with them and so escaped ; after a while the Powaw
sent the Hare away, who not returning emboldned there-
by they descended, and lived many years after, and had
many Children, from whom the Countrie was filled again
with Indians.

Another tradition of the early days is connected
with the Giant's Grave, a mound of river gravel or
sand on which was situated the first public house in
the Fabyan region. It was affirmed that an Indian
maniac once stood here and, waving a burning pitch-

INDIAN LEGEND AND HISTORY

pine torch kindled at a tree struck by lightning an
instant before, cried out this prophecy, "No pale-
face shall take deep root here ; this the Great Spirit
whispered in my ear." Two inns on this site have
been burned and considerable damage has been done
by freshets. These facts very likely have given rise
to the tradition.

One of the wildest and most beautiful of the In-
dian legends connected with the Crystal Hills is
that of the mystery of the Great Carbuncle, which
Hawthorne has immortalized in a characteristic
twice-told tale, bearing this title and introducing
eight adventurers of various degrees, conditions,
and descriptions as seekers for the marvelous stone.

There are several forms of the tradition,^ which
was acquired from the aborigines by some of the
early explorers and which was reported by them on
their return to the settlements, a few even going so
far as solemnly to afhrm having seen the wondrous
object. According to a generally received form of
the legend, somewhere in the glen of the Dry, or
Mount Washington, River,, a tributary of the Saco
which joins the latter nearly opposite the Franken-
stein CliflF, was hidden, under a shelving rock, a
glorious carbuncle. This gem, it was declared, had
been placed there by the Indians, who killed one of
their number so that an evil spirit might haunt the

^ Says the matter-of-fact historian Belknap of this fancy: "From
them [the Indians], and the captives whom they sometimes led to
Canada through the passes of these mountains, many fictions have
been propagated, which have given rise to marvelous and incredible
stories; particularly, it has been reported, that at immense and in-
accessible heights, there have been seen carbuncles, which are sup-
posed to appear luminous in the night."

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

place. The great stone ever and anon startled the
rangers in their lonely night camps or the farmers in
the log houses in the Saco lowlands by flashing its
glittering light far out over the country. Led by the
reports of the gem's existence and marvelous bril-
liancy, several parties of adventurers are said to
have gone in quest of it, hoping in some way to ob-
tain fabulous riches as the reward of their search.
One expedition, it is recorded, even took along "a
good man to lay the evil spirit," but all got nothing
for their arduous toil but sore bruises and bitter
disappointment.

There is a further tradition that one old Indian
pronounced a curse upon the pale-faced seekers,
and, as his dying wish, prayed that the Great Spirit
by a black storm of fire and thunder would rend the
cliff, roll the carbuncle down to the valley, and bury
it deeply under the ruins of rocks and trees. So
firm and persistent became belief in this mysterious
jewel's existence that, even after the Revolution, as
we are informed by the author of an early history of
Maine, it had not been entirely given up by dwellers
in the region.

EARLY EXPLORERS

Plainly visible from the sea as the summits of
the White Mountains are in clear weather, they
must have been seen by a number of the early ex-
plorers of northeastern America when cruising along
the coast. Who was the first European to behold
them cannot be told, but the Florentine navigator
Verrazano is the first, it appears, who speaks of
having seen them. In the year 1524, as he was skirt-
ing the coast of the future New England, he visited
the site of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. His record
of the progress of his voyage at this point says, "We
departed from thence keeping our course Northeast
along the coast, which we found more pleasant
champion and without woods, with high mountains
within the land." *

The Mountains appear, it is probable, vaguely lo-

^ Letter of Giovanni da Verrazano to the King of France, July 8,
1524, of which three copies exist. The version given above is from
the translation made for Hakluyt's Voyages, in 1583, of the copy
printed by Ramusio in 1556. A second copy was found in the Strozzi
Library in Florence. A third copy, which has the distinction of being
contemporaneous, is now in Rome and was first printed in Italy in
1909. It was translated into English by Dr. Edward Hagaman Hall,
Secretary of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society,
and was published in the Report of that society for 19 10. Our passage
reads thus in Dr. Hall's translation: "Wedeparted, skirting the coast
between east and north, which we found very beautiful, open and bare
of forests, with high mountains back inland, growing smaller toward
the shore of the sea."

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

cated, on a number of early maps. They are doubt-
less the montanas of Ribero's map of the Polus
Mundi Arcticus (1529). They are shown as Les
Montaignes on a map of the world painted on parch-
ment by the Bishop of Viseu in 1542 under the orders
of Francis I, and they appear also in Nicolo del
Dolfinato's map in the "Navigationi del Mondo
Nuovo," published at Venice in 1560. Probably the
Montes S. Johannis of Michael Lok's map (1582)
are the White Mountains. They are drawn on the
"Mappemonde" of Mercator, published at Duis-
burg in 1569, as lying west of the great city of
Norumbega. On Sebastian Cabot's map of the
world, drawn in 1544, montagnas is found in the lo-
cation, roughly, of this group. John Foster's map of
New England, 1677, is the first in which the name
of "White Hills" appears.^ In Holland's map of
1784, which embodies the results of a survey made
at public expense by Captain Samuel Holland in
I773~74 and which is entitled, "A Topographical
Map of the State of New Hampshire," the names of
individual peaks are given for the first time. Philip
Carrigain, whose name is commemorated by that
striking mountain of bold and massive form, which
stands almost exactly in the center of the White
Mountain region, published a map of New Hamp-
shire in 1 81 6. This well-known work was compiled
by him from town surveys which the legislatures of
1803 and 1805 had ordered and which had been

* This map was printed in the Reverend William Hubbard's Nar-
rative of the Troubles with the Indians in New England. In the first
impression the name was printed "Wine Hills," obviously a misprint,
but the map was recut the same year with the correct name substituted.

EARLY EXPLORERS

returned to the office of the secretary of state, a
position held by Carrigain in the years just named.
The first carefully prepared map of the Mountains
was that published by Professor G. P. Bond of
Harvard College in 1853. It was made from original
triangulations.

To return to the subject of exploration. The
great French explorer and founder of Canada,
Samuel de Champlain, evidently descried these
mountains during his expedition of 1605, for in his
account of his voyage along the coast of Maine, when
he must have reached the vicinity of Portland, he
made this entry in his journal; "From here large
mountains are seen to the west, in which is the
dwelling place of a savage captain called Aneda,
who encamps near the river Quinibequy." *

The Englishman Christopher Levett, the pioneer
colonist in Casco Bay, in his account of his voyage
to New England of 1623 and 1624, which was pub-
lished in 1628, has this reference to the White
Mountains: "This River [undoubtedly the Saco], as
I am told by the Salvages, commeth from a great
mountain called the Christall hill, being as they say
100 miles in the Country, yet it is to be scene at the
sea side, and there is no ship arives in New England,
either to the West so farre as Cape Cod, or to the
East so farre as Monhiggen, but they see this moun-
taine the first land, if the weather be cleere." ^

* The Kennebec.

2 Apparently the voyagers of those early days were blessed with
exceptionally good eyesight. President Dwight states that the sailors
of his day averred that they could see Mount Washington from a
point at sea 165 miles from it.

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

It was not until some years after the coast was
settled that any one could venture so far away from
the security and supplies of the settlements as these
remote hills, even for the purpose of exploration.
But at length adventurous spirits undertook this
arduous and dangerous exploit. Darby Field, whom
recent researches recorded by Warren W. Hart in
Appalachia show to have been probably a native
of Boston, England, and therefore not of the na-
tionality attributed to him in Winthrop's "Journal,"
is generally credited with being the first European
to visit and explore the White Mountains.

It was in June, 1642,^ that he made the first and
probably also the second of his expeditions to this
region, accounts of which are thus set down by
Winthrop : —

One Darby Field, an Irishman, living about Pascata-
quack,^ being accompanied with two Indians, went to the
top of the white hill. He made his journey in 18 days.
His relation — at his return was, that it was about one
hundred miles from Saco, that after 40 miles travel he did,
for the most part, ascend, and within 10 miles of the top
was neither tree nor grass, but low savins, which they
went upon the top of sometimes, but a continual ascent
upon rocks, on a ridge between two valleys filled with
snow, out of which came two branches of the Saco River,
which meet at the foot of the hill, where was an Indian
town of some 200 people. Some of them accompanied

* "1642, (4) [i. e., fourth month, or June]. The first discovery of
the great mountaine (called the Christall Hills) to the N. W. by
Darby Field." Quoted from the Reverend Samuel Danforth's Al-
manac for 1647, in Belknap and elsewhere.

* Pascataquack appears to have been a general name for the region
along the Piscataqua River. Field was a resident of Exeter at this
time.

EARLY EXPLORERS

him within 8 miles of the top, but durst go no further,
telling him that no Indian ever dared go higher, and that
he would die if he went. So they staid there till his return,
but his two Indians took courage by his example and went
with him. They went divers times through the thick
clouds for a good space, and within 4 miles of the top
they had no clouds, but very cold. By the way, among
the rocks, there were two ponds, one a blackish water and
the other reddish. The top of all was plain about 60 feet
square. On the north side there was such a precipice, as
they could scarcely discern to the bottom. They had
neither cloud nor wind on the top, and moderate heat.
All the country about him seemed a level, except here
and there a hill rising above the rest, but far beneath
them. He saw to the north a great water which he judged
to be 100 miles broad, but could see no land beyond it.
The sea by Saco seemed as if it had been within 20 miles.
He saw also a sea to the eastward, which he judged to be
the Gulf of Canada : He saw some great waters in parts
to the westward which he judged to be the great lake
which Canada River comes out of. He found there much
Muscovy glass, they could rive out pieces of 40 feet long
and 7 or 8 broad. When he came back to the Indians, he
found them drying themselves by the fire, for they had
had a great tempest of wind and rain. About a month
after he went again, with five or six of his company, then
they had some wind on the top, and some clouds above
them which hid the sun. They brought some stones
which they supposed had been diamonds, but they were
most crystal.

Field was then, evidently, the first person to
ascend Mount Washington, for the Indians of the
region, if we may believe Field's statement given
in the passage just quoted from Winthrop, and
there is no reason to doubt its truth, had never
dared to undertake the ascent to this supposed

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

abode of the Great Spirit. He is thought to have
gone up the ridge (Boott Spur) between Tucker-
man's Ravine and the valley of the Dry, or Mount
Washington, River.

The glowing account Field gave on his return
of the riches he had found fired other daring men
to undertake the exploration of the Mountains.
Thomas Gorges, Deputy-Governor, and Richard
Vines, Esq., Councillor, of the Province of Maine,
started out later in the same year. Winthrop gives
the following account of their journey and its
results: —

The report he [Darby Field] brought of shining stones,
etc., caused divers others to travel thither, but they
found nothing worth their pains. Among others, Mr.
Gorge [sic] and Mr. Vines, two of the magistrates of Sir
Ferdinand Gorge his province, went thither about the
end of this month [October]. They went up Saco river
in birch canoes, and that way, they found it 90 miles to
Pegwagget, an Indian town, but by land it is but 60.
Upon Saco river they found many thousand acres of rich
meadow, but there are ten falls, which hinder boats, etc.
From the Indian town they went up hill (for the most
part), about 30 miles in woody lands, then they went
about 7 or 8 miles upon shattered rocks, without tree or
grass, very steep all the way. At the top is a plain about
three or four miles over, all shattered stones, and upon
that is another rock or spire, about a mile in height, and
about an acre of ground at the top. At the top of the
plain arise four great rivers, each of them so much water,
at the first issue, as would drive a mill ; Connecticut river
from two heads at the N. W., and S. W. which join in one
about 60 miles off, Saco river on the S. E., Amascoggen
which runs into Casco Bay at the N. E., and Kennebeck,
at the N. by E. The mountain runs E. and W. 30 or

EARLY EXPLORERS

40 miles, but the peak is above all the rest. They went
and returned in 15 days.

John Josselyn, traveler and writer, appears to
have explored the White Hills during his second
visit to New England, between 1663 and 1671. He
gives a quaint and curious description of them in
his " New England's Rarities Discovered " (1672) : —

Four score miles (upon a direct line), to the Northwest
of Scarborow, a ridge of Mountains run Northwest and
Northeast an hundred Leagues, known by the name of
the White Mountains, upon which lieth Snow all the year,
and is a Landmark twenty miles off at Sea. It is a rising
ground from the Sea shore to these Hills, and they are
inaccessible, but by the Gullies which the dissolved Snow
hath made; in these Gullies grow Saven Bushes, which
being taken hold of are a good help to the climbing Dis-
coverer; upon the top of the highest of these Mountains
is a large Level or Plain of a day's journey over, whereon
nothing grows but Moss ; at the farther end of this Plain
is another Hill called the Sugar Loaf, to outward appear-
ance a rude heap of massie stones piled one upon another,
and you may as you ascend step from one stone to
another, as if you were going up a pair of stairs, but
winding still about the Hill till you come to the top,
which will require half a days time, and yet it is not above
a Mile, where there is also a Level of about an Acre of
ground, with a pond of clear water in the midst of it;
which you may hear run down, but how it ascends is a
mystery. From this rocky Hill you may see the whole
Country round about; it is far above the lower Clouds,
and from hence we beheld a Vapour (like a great Pillar),
drawn up by the Sun Beams out of a great Lake or Pond
into the Air, where it was formed into a Cloud. The
Country beyond these Hills Northward is daunting terri-
ble, being full of rocky Hills, as thick as Mole-hills in a
Meadow, and cloathed with infinite thick Woods.

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

In his "An Account of Two Voyages to New-
England" (1674), Josselyn gives further descrip-
tion of the country "as Rockie and Mountanious,
full of tall wood." "One stately mountain there is
surmounting the rest, about four score mile from the
Sea," he says, and continues, "Between the moun-
tains are many ample rich and pregnant valleys as
ever eye beheld, beset on each side with variety of
goodly Trees, the grass man-high unmowed, uneaten,
and uselessly withering"; and "within these val-
leys are spacious lakes or ponds well stored with
Fish and Beavers; the original of all the great
Rivers in the Countrie." He corrects his previous
statement as to the snow's lying upon the moun-
tains the entire year by excepting the month of
August; speaks of the black flies as "so numerous
. . . that a man cannot draw his breath, but he will
suck of them in"; remarks that "some suppose the
white mountains were first raised by earthquakes";
and adds, "they are hollow, as may be guessed by
the resounding of the rain upon the level on the
top."

Belknap records an ascent of Mount Washington
made by "a ranging company," April 29, 1725,
which found the snow four feet deep on the north-
west side, the summit almost bare of snow though
covered with white frost and ice, and the alpine
pond frozen. A similar party, he relates, was "in
the neighborhood of the White Mountains, on a
warm day, in the month of March," in 1746, and
was "alarmed with a repeated noise, which they
supposed to be the firing of guns. On further

EARLY EXPLORERS

search," he continues, "they found it to be caused
by rocks, falling from the south side of a steep
mountain." The same authority tells also of an
ascent to the summit made on the 6th of June, 1774,
by Captain Evans and some other men who were
making a road through the eastern pass of the moun-
tains, and who found "on the south side, in one of
the deep gullies, a body of snow thirteen feet deep,
and so hard as to bear them." On the 19th of the
same month, some of the same party ascended
again, and in the same spot the snow, they found,
was five feet deep. In the first week of September,
1783, two men who attempted to ascend the Moun-
tain, found the bald top so covered with snow and
ice that they could not reach the summit. "But
this," says the historian, "does not happen every
year so soon; for the mountain has been ascended
as late as the first week in October, when no snow
was upon it."

The pass now called Crawford Notch was known
to the Indians, but was probably little used by them,
because of their superstitious fear of the Mountains.
It is maintained by some, however, that certain war
parties of Canadian Indians used this passage in
making raids upon the New England coast. Belknap
says that the Indians formerly led their captives
through it to Canada, and we are told that in the
spring of 1746 a raiding party attacked Gorham,
Maine, and carried off several prisoners, one of
whom described the march to Canada as being
through the Notch.

It was in 1771 that the pass was first made known

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

to the New England colonists. Timothy Nash, a
hunter, when in pursuit of a moose which had
eluded him, climbed a tree on Cherry Mountain and,
as he was looking about in the hope of espying his
game, he saw to his surprise a deep depression in
the mountain wall. As soon as possible he made his
way thither and explored the defile, following the
Saco down through. On his arrival at Portsmouth,
he informed Governor Wentworth of his discovery,
a most important one, as such a gap in the Moun-
tains would save much in journeying between the
seacoast and the upper Connecticut valley. The
governor, wishing to test the value of the pass as a
trade route, offered Nash a grant of the tract of
land (known to-day as "Nash and Sawyer's Loca-
tion") extending from the Notch to a point beyond
the present Fabyan House, if he would bring a horse
through from Lancaster. Enlisting the aid of a
fellow hunter by the name of Benjamin Sawyer,
Nash succeeded in performing the required task and
in thus gaining the promised reward for himself and
his partner.^ The two worthies soon squandered,
however, the proceeds of their grant. A road ^ was

* The story of the discovery as given in the Crawford History varies
somewhat from the account I have followed, which is based on an-
other and later source. According to the former record, the two
hunters went out together for the express purpose of discovering such
a means of communication and the tree-climbing was done after the
discovery to obtain a better view and thus make sure of the fact.
The condition upon which the grant was made by Governor Went-
worth in 1773, according to this authority, was that they should
make a good road through their tract and procure the settlement of
five families on it within five years.

^ This "never well-finished county road" was paid for out of the
proceeds of a confiscated Tory estate. It is said to have been a singu-

EARLY EXPLORERS

shortly after built and thus a direct route between
the seacoast and upper Coos was established. The
first merchandise carried down from Lancaster was
a barrel of tobacco and the first commodity trans-
ported in the opposite direction a barrel of whiskey,
most of the contents of which are said to have been
consumed on the way. On December 28, 1803, a
turnpike, the tenth in New Hampshire, was incor-
porated and shortly afterwards ^ was constructed
through the Notch at an expense of $40,000 for
twenty miles, the money being raised by lottery. It
occupied to some extent the site of the old road, was
more skillfully built than its predecessor, and soon
became one of the best-paying turnpikes in the
northern part of the State.

In July, 1784, a journey to the Mountains was
accomplished, which is noteworthy for the number
and character of the members of the party who
made it and because of the purpose for which it was
undertaken. I refer to the expedition made by the
Reverend Dr. Jeremy Belknap, the historian of New
Hampshire, then a resident of Dover; the Rev-
erend Daniel Little, of Wells, Maine ; the Reverend

lar specimen of highway engineering, being laid out, in the main,
fifty or sixty feet higher than the later turnpike, being so steep in
places that it was necessary to draw horses and wagons up with
ropes, and crossing the Saco, we are told, no less than thirty-two
times in ascending the valley. Theodore Dwight, Jr., says the road
was built in 1785. It was in part at least constructed in 1774, as the
statement of Belknap given on page 25 bears witness.

^ Dr. Shattuk, of Boston, in his account, published in the Phila-
delphia Medical and Physical Journal (1808), of his excursion to the
White Hills in the preceding year, says, in speaking of the Notch,
"A turnpike-road is now [August, 1807] building from Bath, through
the Notch, to Portland."

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Manasseh Cutler, of Ipswich, Massachusetts; Dr.
Joshua Fisher, of Beverly, Massachusetts; Mr.
Heard, of Ipswich, and two young collegians,
Hubbard and Bartlett, who set out to make a tour
of the White Mountains "with a view to make
particular observations on the several phenomena
that might occur." For this purpose they were
equipped with various instruments, including ba-
rometers, thermometers, a sextant, and surveying
compasses. They were thus the first of a consider-
able line of scientific inquirers to visit these hills.

The historian has left several records ^ of the trip.
Let me briefly advert to these, noting their character
and provenience. In the first place, much of the
Reverend Doctor's correspondence with his friend
Ebenezer Hazard, of Philadelphia, has been pre-
served and printed in the "Collections" of the
Massachusetts Historical Society.

Among these letters we find a record of Belknap's
intention to make such a journey, for under date of
July 4, 1784, he writes: " I expect, next week, to set
out on a land tour to the White Mts., in company
with several gentlemen of a scientific turn. I may
write you again once before I go; but, if I live to
come back, you may depend on such a description
as I may be able to give." Dr. Belknap's letters to
Mr. Hazard, giving an account of his tour are, un-

^ Dr. Cutler also left an account of the journey, which is graphic
and well written and which may be found in his Life, Journals, and
Correspondence, published in 1888. Belknap was indebted to Cutler
for his information about the ascent and descent of the chief peak.
Cutler's manuscript breaks off before the description of the return
is finished, but the remainder is covered in an account of the tour
written by Mr. Little.

EARLY EXPLORERS

fortunately, not preserved among the Hazard letters.
The want of such a narrative, however, is fully sup-
plied, as has been intimated. There is extant, first,
a memoir, "Description of the White Mountains,"
which was sent by him to the American Philosophi-
cal Society of Philadelphia, and to which "great
attention was paid," writes Hazard. This was pub-
lished in 1786, in the second volume of the Society's
"Transactions," and in substance is similar to the
account afterwards published in the third volume
of Dr. Belknap's "History of New Hampshire."
Both of these records are very different in form from
the third account, which consists of the original
notes kept by the doctor in the form of a diary.
These have been printed with the correspondence
above mentioned, and on them I shall largely rely
for my summary of this notable trip. In the chapter
on the White Mountains, given in the "History," the
author refers to the visit to the Mountains made by
a party of gentlemen in 1784, but gives no intima-
tion that he was one of the company. A few addi-
tional particulars are, however, there given.

The historian's account of the trip recorded in his
diary is so naive and detailed that one may be par-
doned for thinking that it may be of sufficient inter-
est to give rather fully.

At Conway the travelers found Colonel Joseph
Whipple, of Dartmouth (later Jefferson), and Cap-
tain Evans, who was to be their pilot, ready to go
with them. Thence they journeyed through what
is now Jackson and "along the Shelburne Road" to
apparently about three fourths of a mile beyond the

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Glen Ellis Falls, where they encamped for the night.
The next day, Saturday, July 24, the party under-
took the ascent of "the Mountain " from the eastern
side. Dr. Fisher soon gave out, owing to a pain in
his side, and returned to the camp, where Colonel
Whipple's negro man had been left in charge of the
horses and baggage. After about two hours more of
climbing, "having risen many very steep and ex-
tremely difficult precipices, I found my breath fail,"
says Dr. Belknap,^ and in a consultation of the
party it was decided that inasmuch as many stops
had had to be made on his account and as the pilot
supposed they were not more than halfway up to
"the Plain," he should return. Refusing to deprive
those who offered to go back with him of their ex-
pected pleasure, the good doctor came down safely
alone in about an hour and a half and arrived "much
fatigued," at the camp, "about 10 o'clock." It
came on to rain toward night, so those at the camp
repaired their tent with bark, took all the baggage
into it, and anxiously awaited the return of their
friends. The rain increased and continued all night,
but although the tent leaked and the fire "decayed,"
they managed to keep the fire going and themselves
dry.

It ceased raining at daylight on Sunday and soon
thereafter the report of a gun partly relieved the
anxiety of Drs. Belknap and Fisher. Shortly after
the party of climbers arrived safely at the camp.

^ "The spirit was willing but the flesh (i. e., the lungs) weak," he
says in a letter to Hazard, and in the same letter, "You will not
wonder that such a quantity of matter (' i8o or 190 lbs. of mortality')
could not ascend the White Mountains fcurther than it did."

EARLY EXPLORERS

They reported that they passed the night around a
fire, which was their only defense against the rain,
and that "they had ascended to the summit, but
had not had so good a view as they wished, the
Mountain being most of the time involved with
clouds, which rolled up and down, in every direction,
above, below, and around them." Their scientific
observations were by "this unfortunate circum-
stance" for the most part prevented. They eirrived
at the pinnacle of the Sugar- Loaf at i .06, their actual
time of climbing from the tent being five hours and
thirteen minutes. On the highest rock they found an
old hat, which had been left there in June, 1774, by
Captain Evans's party. They dined at 2 o'clock, we
are told, on partridges and neat's tongue, cut the
letters "N.H." on the uppermost rock and under a
stone left a plate of lead ^ on which were engraved
their names. The descent was a particularly diffi-
cult one, as, owing to the clouds, even the guide
could not find the way down. Soon after their return
to the camp they left for Dartmouth.

Their course in ascending the mountain was evi-
dently through Tuckerman's Ravine, probably over
Boott Spur, and up the east side of the cone, their
route in the lower part being indicated by the stream
which bears Dr. Cutler's name.^ Dr. Cutler esti-

* The finding of this plate eighteen years later was "the source of
great mystification to the villagers at Jackson." (Sweetser.)

2 Given to the river, it is said, by Dr. Cutler's express desire.
According to Belknap, another tributary of the Ellis River "falls
from the same mountain," a short distance to the south, and is called
New River. Belknap's map makes Cutler's River flow from the
present Tuckerman's Ravine. The account of Dr. Bigelow, a later
explorer, agrees with this. In later maps, however, the names of the

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

mated 'the height of the "pinnacle" or "sugar-
loaf," as Belknap calls it, to be not less than three
hundred feet. From some unsatisfactory observa-
tions with the barometer, the elevation of the princi-
pal summit above the sea was computed to be nearly
ten thousand feet. The party were disappointed in
their attempt to measure the altitude geometrically
from the base, because "in the meadow they could
not obtain a base of sufficient length, nor see the
summit of the sugar-loaf; and in another place,
where these inconveniences were removed, they
were prevented by the almost continual obscuration
of the mountains by clouds."

"It is likely," says Professor Tuckerman, "that
the plants of the higher regions were observed,^ and
Mr. Oakes possessed fragments of such a collection
made, either now or later, by Dr. Cutler, but the
latter did not notice them in his memoir on the
plants of New England published the next year in
the transaction of the Academy, ^ nor is there any
mention of them in the six small volumes of his
botanical manuscripts which have come to my
knowledge."

As the name of Mount Washington is found in
Dr. Cutler's manuscript of 1784, it is probable that

streams were transposed, the error being noticed by Mr. Sweetser,
who was confirmed in his decision in the matter by Professor Tucker-
man. New River got its name from the fact of its recent origin, it
having been formed in October, 1775, during a great flood.
y. ^ Some general observations on the vegetation of the Mountains,
set down by Dr. Cutler in a manuscript preserved by Belknap, are
quoted in Belknap's History and Dwight's Travels.

^ The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, of which Dr.
Cutler was a member.

EARLY EXPLORERS

the appellation was given to the mountain by the
party whose journey has just been described. The
name first appears in print in Belknap's "History of
New Hampshire," in the third volume, which was
published in 1792.^

Dr. Cutler again visited the Mountains in July,
1804, this time chiefly to collect botanical specimens,
in company with several friends, among whom were
Dr. Nathaniel Bowditch and Dr. W. D. Peck, after-
ward professor of natural history at Cambridge.
The party encamped on the side of Mount Wash-
ington on the night of the 27th, and on the next day
Cutler, Peck, and one or two others made the ascent,
arriving at 12.30. There were no clouds about the
mountain, but the climbers were much chilled, and
the descent was extremely fatiguing. Barometrical
observations made at this time were computed by
Dr. Bowditch to give an elevation of 7055 feet for
the highest summit.

Dr. Peck made during the trip a collection of
alpine plants, the citations of which in Pursh's
"Flora of North America," published in 18 14, "en-
able us," says Professor Tuckerman, "to determine
the earliest recognition of several of the most in-
teresting species."

Of early travelers to the Mountains one of the
most distinguished was the Reverend Dr. Timothy
Dwight, president of Yale College from 1794 to
1817. Dr. Dwight made two journeys on horseback
to this region, the first in 1797 and the second in

^ "It has lately been distinguished by the name of Mount Wash-
ington," is Belknap's statement.

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

1803.^ His companion on the first expedition
("Journey to the White Mountains") was a Mr. L.,
one of the tutors of Yale College, and their objects
were to examine the Connecticut River and to visit
the White Mountains. Their first objective point
was Lancaster, whence they proposed to proceed
through the Notch to their second, Portland. They
reached Lancaster on the morning of September 30.
They left there on October 2, stayed overnight at
Rosebrook's, and on October 3 passed through the
Notch, of which Dr. Dwight gives a vivid descrip-
tion. It is "a very narrow defile," he says, "extend-
ing two miles in length between two huge cliffs,
apparently rent asunder by some vast convulsion of
nature. This convulsion," he continues, "was, in
my own view, unquestionably that of the deluge."
He gives interesting information about the size
and character of the mountain towns, describes
Mount Washington and other features of the land-
scape graphically, and, altogether, has provided a
very readable narrative of his tour. In his visit to
the Mountains in 1803, President Dwight had as
companion two graduates and a senior of Yale
College, and their object was to ride up the Con-
necticut River as far as the Canadian boundary
("Journey to the Canada Line"). In the course of
the tour, however, the party left the Connecticut,
went up the Lower Ammonoosuc, turned aside from

* Dr. Dwight also made two horseback journeys to Lake Winne-
pesaukee. The first of these was made in the autumn of 1812 and the
second in the same season of the next year. In both excursions he
touched the fringe of the White Mountain region, passing through
Plymouth in both and ascending Red Hill on the second.

EARLY EXPLORERS

the latter to visit Bethlehem, whence they returned
to the Ammonoosuc, and then went on to the Notch,
which they visited on September 30. "I renewed,"
says the traveler, "a prospect of all the delightful
scenes, which I have mentioned in a former account."
It was at this time that he gave to one of the water-
falls near the Gate of the Notch the name "Silver
Cascade," which it still bears. He revisited Rose-
brook's, and then went by way of Jefferson to
Lancaster and thence onward to Canada.

Another early scientific explorer of the White
Hills, who has left us an account of his excursion
and a record of his observations, and who deserves
a brief mention, was Dr. George Shattuk, of
Boston. He was one of a party of six, which set out
from Hanover, July 8, 1807, taking along various
scientific instruments. On Saturday the nth the
members of the party started from Rosebrook's to
ascend Mount Washington, at the summit of which
they arrived the following day. Dr. Shattuk notes
that the temperature there at noon was 66° and that
the day was not very clear, the distant horizon be-
ing smoky. He describes briefly the plants, the
character of the surface of the summit, the rareness
of the atmosphere, and other phenomena. Unfor-
tunately, his attempts to make barometrical obser-
vations for the purpose of estimating the height of
the mountain were, he says, "defeated by an acci-
dent, the prevention of which was beyond my con-
troul."

The next noteworthy American explorer of the
White Hills was Dr. Jacob Bigelow. Botany was the

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

particular interest of this famous Boston physician,
who was born in 1797 and who lived to the ripe old
age of ninety-two. His tour to the Mountains was
made in 1816, in company with Francis C. Gray,
Esq., Dr. Francis Boott, in whose honor a spur of
Mount Washington has been named, Nathaniel
Tucker, and Lemuel Shaw, Esq., afterward Chief
Justice of Massachusetts. On their way they
climbed Monadnock and Ascutney. The ascent of
the White Mountains "was at that time," says the
doctor,^ "an arduous undertaking, owing to the
rough state of the country and the want of roads or
paths." "We were obliged," he says further, "to
walk about fifteen miles and to encamp two nights
in the brushwood on the side of the mountain."
Each man of the party having carried up a stick,
they were enabled to build a fire on the summit and
to prepare a meal from such supplies as their guides
had brought up. The day (July 2) was a fine one,
but the atmosphere was hazy, so that their view of
distant objects was very indistinct. The tempera-
ture at noon was 57° F. From the registration of a
mountain barometer at that hour, calculations were
made which gave the height within a few feet of the
correct altitude. As a memorial of their achievement

^ Dr. Bigelow published an account of the journey and a list of the
plants collected in the New England Journal of Medicine and Surgery,
for October, 18 16. The quotations in the text are taken from some
autobiographical notes, quoted in a Memoir of Jacob Bigelow, M.D.,
LL.D., by George E. Ellis (1880). Writing these notes about fifty
years after the event. Dr. Bigelow's memory must have played him
false, for he gives the year of the journey as 1815 and states that it
was the 4th of July when the party was on the summit and that in
celebration of the day Mr. Gray was invited to deliver an impromptu
address.

EARLY EXPLORERS

of the ascent they left their names and the date
inclosed in a bottle cemented to the highest rock.
In the afternoon they descended in about five hours
to their camping place, and the following day they
reached Conway.

This expedition, besides achieving the most satis-
factory determination of the height of Mount
Washington that had been made, was noteworthy
as a natural history survey. Dr. Bigelow's article
"Some Account of the White Mountains of New
Hampshire," provided a statement of all that was
known of their mineralogy and zoology, but is
especially important from a botanical standpoint,
for his list of plants, or florula, "determined," says
Professor Tuckerman, "in great measure the phse-
nogamous botany of our Alps." Very appropriately
Dr. Bigelow's name has been since given to a grassy
plot (Bigelow's Lawn), rich in alpine plants, below
the cone of Washington on Boott Spur. Dr. Boott
returned to the Mountains in August of the same
year, and as a result of his trip added a "consider-
able" number of species to the botanical collection.

Another noted botanist to explore the Mountains
was William Oakes, ^ who visited them, in company

* There is a memoir of him in the American Journal of Science and
Arts for January, 1849, by Asa Gray, who calls him "the most dis-
tinguished botanist of New England." Oakes was born at Danvers,
July I, 1799, and was drowned by falling overboard from a ferryboat
between Boston and East Boston, July 31, 1848, it is supposed as a
result of a sudden attack of faintness or vertigo. He graduated in
1820 from Harvard, where his previous fondness for natural history'
was developed under the instruction of Professor W. D. Peck. Oakes
named Mounts Clay and Jackson, sending his guide to the summit of
the latter to kindle a bonfire there to celebrate the event. His own

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

with his friend Dr. Charles Pickering, in 1825,
again in 1826, and from 1843 on, every summer. To
him we are indebted for additions to our botanical
knowledge, but especially for one of the classics of
White Mountain literature, his "Scenery of the
White Mountains," a book consisting of descriptive
letterpress accompanying large lithographic plates
from drawings by Isaac Sprague.^ His purpose of
publishing a smaller volume to be called "The Book
of the White Mountains" and to consist of descrip-
tions of things of interest, a flora of the alpine plants,
with the mosses and lichens, and a complete guide
for visitors, was frustrated by his tragic death the
year (1848) of the publication of his "Scenery."

name is perpetuated in the Mountains by Oakes Gulf, the deep ravine
to the east of Mounts Pleasant and Franklin,

^ There are in all sixteen full folio pages of plates. The sixteenth
plate and a part of the fourteenth are from paintings by G. N.
Frankenstein, a well-known artist of Cincinnati, after whom a cliff
and a railroad trestle in the Crawford Notch are named.

Ill

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS
I. THE TOWNS

It was not until the latter part of the eighteenth
century that the New England colonies were suf-
ficiently established, 2ind the country secure enough
from Indian depredations, for the settlement of the
remoter regions to be thought of and attempted.
Fryeburg, just over the New Hampshire border in
Maine, appears to be the first town in this region to
have been chartered. The land there was granted,
in March, 1762, to General Joseph Frye of Andover,
Massachusetts, an officer in the king's army, in con-
sideration of his gallant deeds on the frontier. The
conditions of the grant were, according to Willey, —

That he should give bond to the province treasurer to
have the township settled with sixty good families, each
of which should have built, within the term of five years,
a good house, twenty feet by eighteen, and seven feet
stud, and have cleared seven acres for pasturage and till-
age. He should reserve one sixty-fourth of the township
for the first Protestant minister, one sixty-fourth for a
parsonage forever, one sixty-fourth for a school fund for-
ever, one sixty-fourth for Harvard College forever. A
Protestant minister was to be settled in the township
within ten years.

It was supposed that all of the land granted to
General Frye was located in the province of Maine,

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

but it was subsequently found that a considerable
part of it was in New Hampshire. The readjustment
of grants that was made after this became known
is described farther on, where the settlement of Con-
way is narrated.

Nathaniel Smith made the first settlement on the
west line of the town, on the same site as that of the
ancient Indian village of Pequawket (or "Pegwag-
get," as Winthrop spelled it). Smith was, according
to Willey, "a sort of squatter, led hither of his own
free will and inclination." "His cabin was reared,"
the historian says further, "and his family moved
into it the year succeeding the grant, in the sum-
mer of 1763." Among the other early settlers were
Moses Ames, John and David Evans, Samuel Os-
good, David Page, Nathaniel Frye, and Joseph
Frye, Jr., who came chiefly from Concord, New
Hampshire, and Andover, Massachusetts. To reach
this point, they had to make their way through an
unbroken wilderness for sixty or seventy miles.
Their nearest white neighbors were, for a time,
the inhabitants of Saco, and Sanford, nearly sixty
miles distant, was their source of supplies. The only
mode of conveyance was on horses and their only
way thither was a blazed trail. Such were the hard-
ships these first settlers had to encounter, and the
willingness to endure them indicates of what stern
stuff the pioneers were made! Fryeburg grew rap-
idly, in fact attained nearly its full size in a few
years, and was for some time the chief village in the
White Mountain region. It was incorporated in
January, 1777. The locality had been a favorite

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

resort of the Indians, and for many years after the
dispersion of the Pequawket tribe, solitary members
of it continued to linger about their old home.
Many of them fought on the American side in the
Revolution and rendered good service, receiving
testimonials for it from the Government.

The New England colonists had visited this region
on several occasions long before its settlement was
thought of, and for a very different purpose. In the
early part of the eighteenth century, during Queen
Anne's War, the savages, who were allies of the
French, became very troublesome to the English
settlements, keeping the colonists in a continual
state of alarm by their attacks and depredations.
At length, the authorities of Massachusetts, goaded
to desperation by this condition and by fresh forays,
determined upon punitive measures. Accordingly,
in September, 1703, a force of three. hundred and
sixty soldiers was sent to invade the Pequawket
country. But, on account of the obstacles they had
to encounter in their journey and the ignorance of
their guides, this incursion availed little. Another
punitive expedition was undertaken in the autumn
of the same year by Colonel March, of Casco, with
very little success. He happened upon a party of
Indians and twelve of them were either killed or
captured. This partial success encouraged the
General Court to offer a bounty of forty pounds for
scalps, in the hope of inducing thereby more effective
measures to be taken for preventing Indian raids on
the settlements and for inflicting further punish-
ment on the savages. One consequence of this offer

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

was a snowshoe expedition, made in midwinter
through the mountain passes and led by Colonel
Tyng, of Tyngsboro, which brought back five of
those repulsive trophies.

On May 8, 1725, O.S., occurred the foremost
military event in the history of this entire region,
the battle of Pequawket, or battle of Lovewell's
Pond, as it is more usually called, the name of the
brave commander of the white men having been
later given to the pond on the border of which this
engagement took place. This remote lakelet, sit-
uated in the midst of the woods and bordered by
low hills, with its two islets and its placid waters,
has to-day nothing about it suggestive of warfare,
but rather everything suggestive of peace and
quiet; but its north shore was once the scene of one
of the bloodiest combats in the Indian history of
New England.

During the year 1724 the Indians were uncom-
monly bold andjsavage and committed numerous
depredations upon the more exposed settlements,
such as Dunstable,^ killing a considerable number of
white men. In September of this year, the Indians
carried away two men from the town just mentioned
and killed eight or nine of the ten men sent in pur-
suit. The General Court of Massachusetts, aroused
by the report of these forays and killings, passed a
bill offering a bounty of a hundred pounds for every
Indian scalp.

^ Dunstable (later Nashua) was then a frontier town of Meissa-
chusetts, being south of the then recognized boundary between that
colony and New Hampshire. The latter did not become an entirely
separate colony until 1741.

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

Captain John Lovewell, the son of an ensign in
Cromwell's army, was an able colonial partisan, and
his expeditions against the Indians were among the
most successful of the retaliatory measures of the
colonists. In December, 1724, with a few followers,
he killed one Indian and took prisoner another, a
boy, northeast of Lake Winnepesaukee. In Feb-
ruary, 1725, he led a force of forty men to the head
of Salmon Falls River, now in Wakefield, New
Hampshire, where he came upon a party of ten In-
dians, who were asleep by their fires. Stationing his
men advantageously, he killed the entire number.
For the ten scalps his force received one thousand
pounds when it reached Boston after a triumphal
march there. We can realize to how desperate a pass
the struggle between the settlers and the Indians
had come, when we know that Lovewell's party did
not wait to learn whether the Indians were friendly
or not, but assumed, from their possession of new
guns, much ammunition, and spare blankets and
moccasins, that they were on a marauding excursion.
That they had killed Indians was all the soldiers
cared to know.

Lovewell's last and most memorable expedition,
which resulted in the bloody encounter by the pond,
left Dunstable on April 15, 1725, with the object
of attacking the Indian village of Pequawket nn the
Saco. His force on this occasion consisted at the
start of forty-six men, volunteers from Dunstable,
Woburn, Concord, and other towns in the vicinity.
It was an arduous and dangerous undertaking, a
desperate adventure, to attempt to march more than

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

a hundred miles into the wilderness, much of which
was unbroken and all of which was without a
friendly habitation or inhabitant. But Lovewell was
a daring spirit and he had brave companions. By
sickness, which compelled some to return and others
to remain near Ossipee Pond, their ranks were re-
duced to thirty-four when they reached Saco (now
Lovewell's) Pond on Thursday, May 6. Until Sat-
urday morning they lay encamped on the west
shore in the vicinity of the chief Indian village, pre-
paring for the encounter, uncertain whether their
presence had been detected, fearful of attack in the
darkness of the night, and undecided as to what
course were best to pursue. They were glad when
Saturday morning dawned after a night of alarm,
in which they had listened to the distant barking
of dogs and the stealthy marching of Indians, as
it seemed, in their near vicinity. After they had
breakfasted and while they were at their devotions,
a gunshot was heard and soon they caught sight of
an Indian on a point of land on the opposite side
of the pond. Concluding that the main body of
the enemy was on the north side, the intrepid band
marched thither. When they reached the slight
elevation at the northeast point of the pond, they
left their packs there. Freed from these impedi-
ments, they advanced cautiously and soon dis-
covered an Indian, who had evidently been out
hunting, and who, according to Belknap, was the
Indian previously seen. They ambushed him, but
missed him at the first fire, and he was not killed
until after he had mortally wounded their leader

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

and also wounded another of their company. Then
they started back for the place where the packs had
been left.

Meanwhile the sachem Paugus, with forty-one
warriors ^ in two companies, had discovered and
counted the packs and had laid an ambuscade with
the design of so surprising Lovewell's men as to
cause them to surrender at once. When the white
men came up and began searching for their packs,
the Indians suddenly sprang up, with a terrible
whoop, fired their guns directly over the heads of the
whites and ran toward them with ropes demanding
if they would have quarter. Replying that it would
be "only at the muzzles of their guns," the brave
captain and his band began the battle by rushing
toward the Indians, firing as they advanced. Love-
well's men drove the Indians some distance by their
charge, but were repulsed by a counter-charge in
which the wounded Lovewell and eight of his men
were killed. Then the intrepid band began a retreat,
fighting step by step, until they reached a spot where
a ridge of rocks was on their left, with the pond at
their rear and the mouth of a brook on their right.
Here they made a stand and continued to fight,
maintaining their position until sundown, when the
savages retreated, under the command of Wahwa.
They left many dead and wounded, including
Paugus, who was killed, late in the contest, prob-

^ One account says seventy, another eighty, and another sixty-
three. Belknap, however, declares that there were two companies and
that their number was forty -one, and says in support of this statement
that he had it from Evans, who had it from one of the Indians who
was in the fight.

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

ably by the fearless Ensign Seth Wyman, who had
become the final leader of the white men. It had
been a protracted and fierce fight at close quarters,
the hideous yells of the Indians, the cheers of the
whites, and the cracks of the muskets mingling in
an indescribable hurly-burly. Chaplain Frye, after
he was mortally wounded and could fight no longer,
was often heard praying audibly for victory.

About midnight, when it became certain that
the savages would not return to renew the contest,
the remnant of the command, of whom only nine
remained unwounded, began their memorable re-
turn. Thirteen or more of their number they left
dead or dying on the field; four others, after they
had gone but a mile and a half, found they could go
no farther. The main party of eleven reached Dun-
stable on May 13 in the night. Several of those left
behind managed after terrible sufferings to reach
Dunstable or one or other of the coast settlements.
Such is the story of the bloody battle ^ of Love-
well's Pond, which has been described at some
length because of its intrinsic interest and because it
was the only contest of this sort within the White
Mountain region.

The Indians soon abandoned their village here
and retired to St. Francis on the St. Lawrence. The
bodies of the dead white men were buried a short
time afterward by a party under Colonel Tyng,
which went to the scene of the action for the pur-

* A number of ballads and poems have been composed on this his-
toric encounter, including an early anonymous ballad and the first
printed production of Longfellow.

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

poses of succoring the wounded and of attacking the
Indians, if any were to be found.

Starr King has said of this historic pond that it
is "more deeply dyed with tradition than any other
sheet of water in New England." The village within
whose limits the pond lies and whose settlement and
growth have already been recorded is idyllic for its
beauty and tranquillity and has a number of in-
teresting associations. Here Daniel Webster taught
in the noted academy for nine months in 1802, and
often, it is said, he fished in Lovewell's Pond. Frye-
burg was the old home of a number of prominent
New England families, such as the Osgoods and the
Danas; poets have made it a place of resort and have
written of its beauties and noble views; and Howells
has placed here the scene of the opening chapter of
his "A Modem Instance."

The only notable happening in the latter-day his-
tory of this quiet White Mountain village occurred
at the end of August, 1906, when the principal
hotel, the Oxford, built about fifteen years before,
was burned to the ground, together with many
houses and stores. The fire started at 10.30 a.m.,
from some unknown cause, in the kitchen of the
hotel and quickly spread, fanned by a high wind, to
the neighboring houses. The whole business center
was threatened and aid was summoned from Portland
and elsewhere. Fortunately, the time of the occur-
rence of the fire enabled the guests all to get out in
safety. From the village the fire spread to the woods
in the direction of Lovewell's Pond, where it burned
fiercely all night and for some time after. Between

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

twenty-five and thirty buildings were destroyed, the
total property loss being $100,000. The burning of
the only large hotel in the village was a great blow
to it as a summer resort, one, indeed, from which it
has not as yet recovered.

Plymouth, beautiful for situation, on a terrace
near the confluence of the Pemigewasset and Bakers
Rivers, is on the border of the White Mountain
region and has from early times been an important
town. It was granted, July 15, 1763, to Joseph
Blanchard and others, and the first settlement was
made in the summer of the next year by Captain
James Hobart and Lieutenant Zachariah Parker, of
Hollis. Other settlers, with their families, joined
them in the autumn. The intervales of Plymouth
were doubtless favorite resorts of the Indians for
hunting, and, according to tradition, they had a vil-
lage or encampment near the mouth of Bakers River.*
Indian remains of various kinds have been found in
this vicinity.

K In the year 1712, Captain Baker, of Newbury, led
a force of Massachusetts rangers up the Pemige-
wasset Valley and surprised a body of Indians at this
place, killing several of them and plundering their
wigwams of a large quantity of furs the savages
had collected. According to a story of doubtful
authenticity. Baker's company was pursued by
a larger band of Indians, but escaped through a
stratagem, which is said to have been due to a
friendly redskin who had accompanied them and
^ Its beautiful Indian name wcis Asquamchemauke!
48

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

which deceived the pursuers as to the number of
the pursued. After this foray into their ancestral
domain, at any rate, the main body of the Pemige-
wassets retired to Canada.

A noted visitor to this particular region before the
time of its settlement was the future hero of Ben-
nington, who, in company with his brother William,
David Stinson, and Amos Eastman, was trapping in
April of the year 1752 within the limits of the present
town of Rumney, north of Plymouth. When about
to return home the party of trappers were surprised
by a body of Indians. John Stark and Eastman were
easily captured, as they were on the shore of a lake
(afterward known as Lake Stinson) and had no
chance to escape. The other two were in a canoe
and attempted to get away, in which purpose
William Stark alone was successful, Stinson being
killed by a musket shot. The future general was
taken to Canada, but was ransomed the next
autumn.

Formerly a shire town of Grafton County, Ply-
mouth has always had a goodly number of profes-
sional men among its permanent residents, and the
beauty of its location and environment early at-
tracted many summer visitors. The first county
courthouse, which was raised before July, 1774, and
which stood in the south part of the village until
1876, when it was removed to a new location, re-
stored (it had been used as a wheelwright's shop),
and presented to the Young Ladies' Library Asso-
ciation by a benefactor of the town, is historically
interesting as the place where Daniel Webster made,

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

in 1806, his first defense of a murderer and de-
livered his "only solitary" plea against capital
punishment.^ The chief business of the village was
formerly the manufacture of gloves, begun in 1835.
The " Plymouth buck gloves" were for years widely
esteemed, but, following a number of years of pros-
perity, the business gradually declined. After the
Boston, Concord, and Montreal Railroad reached
Plymouth in 1850 and located its general offices
there, the railroad and State business, combined
with the fine natural advantages, soon rendered the
town a rich and thriving one. When the lease of this
railroad to the Boston and Lowell was made, in
June, 1884, however, the business offices of the rail-
road were lost to Plymouth.

One of the next places to be settled in the White
Hills was Conway, 2 the site of which was granted
by Governor Benning Wentworth to Daniel Foster
and others in October, 1765, on condition that each
grantee should pay a rent, if it were demanded, of
one ear of Indian corn annually for ten years, and,
after the end of that period, of one shilling proc-
lamation money for every one hundred acres. The

* This was not the first plea made by Webster, as is usually stated.
The correct statement of the matter is to be found in E. S. Stearns's
History of Plymouth (1906).

2 I am indebted for some facts about the settlement of Conway to
an article on "The Town of Conway," by Mrs. Ellen McRoberts
Mason in the Granite Monthly for June, 1896. Conway gets its name,
according to Sweetser, " from that gallant old English statesman,
Henry Seymour Conway, Walpole's friend, commander in chief of
the British army, and, at the time when this mountain glen was
baptized, a prominent champion of the liberties of America."

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

charter was for 23,040 acres of land, with the ad-
dition of 1040 acres for roads, ponds, mountains,
rocks, etc. This land was divided into sixty-nine
equal shares, and each grantee, or his heirs and as-
signs, was required to plant and cultivate five acres
of land within the term of five years, for each fifty
acres contained in his share. Two shares, containing
five hundred acres, were to be reserved for Governor
Wentworth, one was to be reserved for the support
of the gospel in heathen lands, one for the Church of
England, one for the first settled minister, and one
for the benefit of schools. Soon came an inflow of
settlers from Concord, Pembroke, Exeter, Ports-
mouth, Durham, Lee, and other places, who had
been led to remove to this locality by the glowing
accounts they had heard of the fertility of the soil
and of the abundance of game and fish. These set-
tlers received their lands under the Maine grants to
General Frye, whose territory, it was found on the
subsequent adjustment of the boundary between
the province of New Hampshire and the province of
Maine, included more than four thousand acres in
New Hampshire. Finally, the general relinquished
his land in Conway and selected an equal number
of acres in Maine. This addition of land to Conway
caused the area of that town to exceed the number of
acres granted, and so, to remedy this state of affairs,
the area was reduced by moving the northern
boundary line farther south. By this strange hap
the first settlers on the intervale lands proved to be
the first settlers of Conway, when they might have
been expected to be the first of Fryeburg, and some

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

of those early settlers who would have been other-
wise citizens of Conway became citizens of the town
of Bartlett.

Here on the intervales an Indian village or en-
campment had formerly been situated, — the relics
found have been mentioned, — and the savages
enviously witnessed the inroads of the white men
upon their favorite haunt.

In 1766, Foster and several others built houses
five miles farther north on the river bottoms and
thus began the settlement of the village and future
summer resort of North Conway.

As Conway was Incorporated by its charter, held
its first proprietary meeting In the town of Chester,
December 2, 1765, elected Its officers, and has ever
since kept up Its organization, it was the first White
Mountain town, antedating Fryeburg by more than
eleven years.

During the next thirty or forty years most of the
other now well-known places were established. The
site of the town of Jefferson was granted, under
the name of Dartmouth, to Colonel Goffe, in 1765,
and again, in 1772, to Theodore Atkinson, Mark H.
Wentworth, and others. It was settled about 1773
by Colonel Joseph Whipple, who was the first set-
tler to come through the Notch, and who owned a
vast area and exercised for many years an almost
feudal sway over the country in the vicinity of his
home. The town was incorporated under its present
name in 1796.

An adventure of Colonel Whipple's, related by

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

Willey and others, exhibits his bravery and re-
sourcefulness. During the Revolutionary War, a
party of Indians under the control of the English
were admitted to his house, and, before he was
aware of their purpose, the colonel was made pris-
oner. Being permitted to go to his bedroom to
secure some clothes for his journey with the Indians,
he managed, while his housekeeper was entertaining
the Indians with some mechanical articles, to make
his escape from the window. Going to a field where
some of his men were at work, he ordered each of
them to shoulder a stake from the fence as he would
a gun. Thus reinforced the colonel again presented
himself before the Indians, who were in pursuit of
him. The enemy, seeing as they supposed a body
of armed men approaching, hurriedly seized what
plunder they could lay their hands upon and fled.

Among the defiles at the head of Israel's River ^
tradition locates the destruction of a detachment
of Rogers's Rangers under horrible circumstances.
In October, 1759, the famous colonial partisan,
having led about one hundred and fifty of his vet-
erans to the St. Lawrence, made a night attack on
the Indian village of St. Francis, surprising the sav-
ages when they were sleeping after having spent most
of the night in a grand dance. The village was
plundered and burned, after its inhabitants had been
killed or dispersed, and thus the errand on which

* This river, alas! is named after Israel Glines, a noted hunter and
trapper of this region in the eighteenth century, whose brother John
gave his name to a stream which runs through the neighboring village
of Whitefield. Singrawack, said to mean "The Foaming Stream of
the White Rock," is its Indian name!

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Rogers had been sent by General Amherst was ac-
complished. The victorious white men carried off
the church plate, the candlesticks, and a large silver
image. , They kept together for about ten days, when,
their provisions failing, the rangers broke up into
small parties that they might the better procure
subsistence by hunting. Two of these parties were
overtaken by pursuing bodies of Indians, who cap-
tured or killed most of the unfortunate rangers. The
main body, after enduring extreme suffering from
hunger, finally reached Charlestown, or Number
Four, the nearest place of relief. One party of nine,
which had the silver image, attempted, so the story
goes, to find a way of escape through the Notch,
but was misled by a treacherous Indian guide, who
piloted the unfortunate men into the gorges of
Israel's River and fled after poisoning one of them
with a rattlesnake's fang. Under terrible hardships
all but one of the rangers, it is said, perished. The
survivor eventually reached the settlements. The
golden candlesticks of the church of St. Francis were
found near Lake Memphremagog in 1816 and the
early settlers of Coos came upon various relics of the
rangers, but the silver image has not been recovered.
Numerous legends have grown up about this
romantic episode, the most beautiful of which is that
of a lonely (hunter encamped one night up among
the White Hills. The night mist rolled back and
disclosed "a great stone church, and within this was
an altar, where from a sparkling censer rose a curl-
ing wreath of incense-smoke, and around it lights
dispersed a mellow glow, by which in groups before

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

that altar appeared a tribe of savages kneeling in
profound silence. A change came in the wind ; a song
long and loud rose, as a voice-offering to the Great
Spirit; then glittering church spire, church and altar,
vanished, and down the steep rock trailed a long line
of strange-looking men, in solemn silence. Before
all, as borne by some airy sprite, sported a glittering
image of silver, which in the deep shadows changed
to fairy shape, and, with sparkling wings, disappeared
in the rent rocks." This was followed by a loud
laugh of triumph, whereupon the hunter awoke.

The pathetic story of Nancy, ^ who came up the
Notch with Colonel Whipple and who lived with
his family in Jefferson, may well be set down here.
This poor girl, whose tragic fate is recalled by
Nancy's Brook, Nancy's Bridge, and Mount Nancy,
near Bemis Station in the Crawford Notch, was en-
gaged to a farmhand of the Colonel's, who had com-
pletely won her affections. Her lover and she agreed
to go to Portsmouth to be married. While she was
at Lancaster, whither she had gone to make prep-
arations for her journey through the wilderness, the
prospective husband to whom she had entrusted
her savings, the pay for two years* service, set out
from Jefferson for Portsmouth, leaving no explana-
tion or message for her. On her return at night she
resolved to follow the recreant lover, in spite of all

^ Her surname appears to be somewhat uncertain. Frank H.
Burt's Among the White Mountains (1884) gives it as Barton. The
same surname is given in an article on Jefferson by J. M. Cooper, in
the Granite Monthly for August, 1898. The White Mountain and
Winnepissiogee Lake Guide Book (1846), makes it Rogers and even
gives the name of the treacherous lover as Jim Swindell (!).

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

dissuasion, in the hope of overtaking him before
dawn in his probable camp in the Notch. But she
arrived there after an arduous journey through the
snow and in the teeth of a northwest wind, only to
find the camp abandoned. As the ashes of the camp-
fire were still warm, the dauntless girl determined to
push on, but she was soon compelled to give up and
to sink down in utter exhaustion, near the brook
which has been given her Christian name. There,
at the foot of a tree, she was found curled up in the
snow by a party of men from Colonel Whipple's,
who, alarmed for her safety, had followed her trail.
The perfidious lover is said to have become insane
on learning of her fate. This episode of Nancy,
which is recorded in many books and the truth of
which is vouched for by Ethan Allen Crawford and
by J. H. Spaulding, as told to them by persons who
knew the facts, is assigned to the year 1778.

Another servant of Colonel Whipple's, who was
said to be the first of her sex to come through the
Notch, was a woman who in her old age was known
as Granny Stalbird or Starbird. Having learned
from the Indians the virtues of various roots and
herbs, she became, after the death of her husband,
a noted doctress, famous all through this region for
her skill. A number of stories of her adventures and
eccentricities have been handed down. Her memory
was gratefully cherished by the early settlers for her
many deeds of mercy. Among her patients was
Ethan Allen Crawford, who was once treated by her
for an injury to his foot.

Lancaster, named after Lancaster, Massachusetts,

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

whence several of its early settlers came, was granted
in July, 1763, to Captain David Page and others
and was occupied in the autumn of the same year
by Captain Page, Edward Bucknam, and Emmons
Stockwell and their families. The troubles of the
Revolutionary War hindered the progress of the new
settlement, all the inhabitants but Stockwell and
his family leaving the new town for older and more
secure settlements. Stockwell's brave determination
to stay and abide the consequences induced some,
emboldened by his example, to return.

Littleton was chartered in November, 1764, under
the name of Chiswick. Among the grantees, who
were mostly from southeastern Connecticut, was
James Avery, who had associated with himself
twelve others of the same name and many relatives
and who thus controlled the franchise. This he dis-
posed of to Colonel Moses Little and his associates
in 1768. On account of non-compliance with the
provisions of the charter, the town was rechartered in
January, 1770, under the name of Apthorp. The
first settlement was made shortly after by Captain
Nathan Caswell, who was induced by the energetic
proprietors of Apthorp to leave his home in Orford
and make a hazard of new fortunes in the Am-
monoosuc wilderness. Caswell reached his new
home on the nth of April, 1770. He found there
only a bam, in which his son, Apthorp, was bom
that night, the first white child born within the
limits of Littleton. In November, 1 784, when Dalton^

^ The name of the daughter town perpetuates that of the Honor-
able Tristram Dalton, another of the early proprietors of Apthorp.

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

was separated from Apthorp and incorporated, the
name of the mother town was changed to the pres-
ent one, in honor of the principal proprietor.

Franconia was granted in 1764 under its present
name to Jesse Searle and others. No move was made
by them toward settlement, so a more extensive
grant was made in 1772 to Sir Francis Bernard,
Bart., His Excellency Thomas Hutchinson, the
Honorable Corbyn Morris, Esq., and others, the
tract being called Morristown in honor of the last-
named gentleman. Franconia was settled perma-
nently two years later by Captain Artemas Knight,
Zebedee Applebee, and others. These conflicting
grants later gave rise to much controversy, and it
was not until nearly the beginning of the nineteenth
century that the dispute was finally settled in favor
of the original grantees. The name of Franconia was
reassumed in 1782.

The town owed its early prosperity mainly to the
discovery of iron ore in the vicinity. In December,
1805, a company was incorporated under the name
of the New Hampshire Iron Factory Company. The
principal works, which were owned by this company,
were situated on the Gale River and consisted of a
blast furnace, a cupola furnace, a forge, a machine
shop, etc. About the middle of the last century from
twenty to thirty men were constantly employed and
two hundred and fifty tons of pig iron and from two
to three hundred tons of bar iron were produced
annually. The ore, which was said to be the richest
up to then discovered in the United States, was ob-
tained from a mountain in the east part of Lisbon,

58.

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

about three miles from the furnace. The works have
long since ^ been abandoned, but the remains of the
furnace are plainly to be seen on the west bank of
the river near the point where the road to Sugar Hill
leaves the main thoroughfare of Franconia. Not far
from this establishment were the upper works, called
"The Haverhill and Franconia Iron works," which
were incorporated in 1808 and which were built on
the same plan as the other.

Jackson was first settled by Benjamin Copp in
1778.2 Here he and his family lived alone until other
settlers came in 1790. Among these latter was Cap-
tain Joseph Pinkham and his family (after whom
the Pinkham Notch is named) , who came when the
snow was five feet deep on the level. Their hand-
sled, it is said, was drawn by a pig which had been
taught to work in harness. The settlement was first
called New Madbury, but, on its incorporation in
1800, the name was changed to Adams. In 1829, to
suit the prevailing political opinions, the name was
again changed, to the present one.

Berlin was granted in 1771 to Sir William Mayne,
Bart., his relatives, Thomas, Robert, and Edward
Mayne, and several others from Barbados. Its orig-
inal name was Maynesborough, which was changed
to the present one in 1829, when the town was in-
corporated.

* About 1865, says a writer in the Granite Monthly, for August,
1 88 1. According to another writer in the same periodical, operation
was resumed in 1859 after some years of suspension and the buildings
were burned in 1884.

" Some books say 1779. The centennial of the settlement was
celebrated on July 4, 1878.

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Bartlett, named after the president of the State
at the date of the town's incorporation (1790), was
originally granted to William Stark and others for
services during the French-and- Indian War. Two
brothers by the name of Emery and a Mr. Harriman
were among the first settlers there. A few years
later, in 1777, Daniel Fox, Paul Jilly, and Captain
Samuel Willey, from Lee, began a settlement in
what is now known as Upper Bartlett.

Whitefield was granted, as Whitefields, to Josiah
Moody and others in July, 1774, and was occupied
soon after by Major Burns and other settlers. It was
incorporated December i, 1804.

The territory originally occupied by the town of
Bethlehem was almost exactly that of the lost town
of Lloyd Hills, ^ said to have been granted by Gov-
ernor Wentworth in or about 1774. This town had
only a paper existence, as the records of the grant
are lost and the original grantees probably made no
effort to settle it. In the silence of the charter rec-
ords of New Hampshire as to the town, we know of
it through its being given as a boundary in the grant
of Whitefield in 1774 and from its name appearing
on Holland's map (1784). The royal government
having been overthrown, the territory became the
property of the State and the earlier grant was
ignored.

The first settlement in the limits of the town was

made in 1790 by Jonas Warren, Nathaniel Snow,

Amos Wheeler, and others. On December 27, 1799,

the General Court of New Hampshire incorporated

* Various early histories say "Lord's Hill."

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

the town of Bethlehem and the first town meeting
was held March 4, 1800. Additions of territory were
made in 1848 and in 1873. The hamlet of Bethlehem
led a precarious existence in its early days. Famine
frequently frowned on the settlement and in 1799 the
inhabitants were reduced to such straits that they
were compelled to make a load of potash and to
send it to Concord, Massachusetts, a distance of
one hundred and seventy miles, for sale, subsisting
on roots and plants until their envoys returned with
provisions, four weeks later. President Dwight, in
1803, found chiefly log huts, the settlements being
"recent, few, poor, and planted on a soil, singularly
rough and rocky." "There is nothing in Bethlehem,"
he remarks, "which merits notice, except the pa-
tience, enterprise and hardihood, of the settlers,
which have induced them to venture, and stay, upon
so forbidding a spot; a magnificent prospect of the
White Mountains; and a splendid collection of other
mountains in their neighbourhood."

Lisbon, within whose limits is the summer resort
of Sugar Hill, far-famed for the beauty of its views,
was first granted to Joseph Burt and others on Au-
gust 6, 1763, under the name later^ given to the town
which was to become the capital of the State. Much
of the same territory was included in the grant bear-
ing the name of Chiswick, made the following year.
By the failure of the grantees to make the required
settlements, however, both grants were forfeited,
and in October, 1768, another charter was issued, to

^ The future state capital received its present name in June, 1765.
It had previously been called Penacook, and Rumford.

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Leonard Whiting and others, covering the territory
now forming the town of Lisbon, the title of Gun-
thwaite being bestowed upon the grant. For some
time the name of the town was evidently somewhat
unsettled, for it appears in State documents of
twenty years later as "Concord, alias Gunthwaite."
In 1824, by act of legislature the town was given the
name it now bears. The discovery of gold in the
town in 1866 created great excitement and many
mining operations were set in motion. Soon the
business became of a highly speculative nature, and
during ten years the sum of $1,500,000, it is esti-
mated, was squandered in such operations in Lisbon
and vicinity.

Woodstock, which received its present name in
1840 by act of legislature, was first granted in Sep-
tember, 1763, to Eli Demerit. On account of the in-
definiteness or non-preservation of the records the
course of events in the early history of the town is
somewhat uncertain, but the charter appears to
have been forfeited by non- settlement and the town
to have been regranted, in 1 771, to Nathaniel Cush-
man, Dr. Ebenezer Thompson, of Durham, and
others, among whom was John Demerit, nephew of
Eli, who had at least nine hundred acres. Most of
the older authorities say that the town was origi-
nally granted under the name of Peeling, then for a
time was called Fairfield, and subsequently bore
again, by restoration, the name of Peeling, until
1840. They attribute the first settlement of the
town to John Riant and others and make it date
from about 1773.

V <-

FirfST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

A recent writer,^ however, states that the town
was originally granted under the name Fairfield and
that in 1799 the legislature granted a town charter
under the name of Peeling, the first town meeting of
which any record is to be found being held in 1800.
The same authority attributes the first settlement
to one James McNorton, whose name does not ap-
pear in the early history of Peeling, but who is
stated to have built a home, soon after the original
grant, on the east bank of the Pemigewasset. At the
outbreak of the Revolution, he joined the patriot
army, leaving a wife and children in his newly made
home and being destined never to return, perish-
ing, it is said, at Valley Forge. In all, the infant
town furnished four soldiers to the Continental
army.

Randolph was granted in 1772 to John Durand
and others, of London, and bore the name of its first
proprietor until 1824, when it received the name of
the famous Virginian. Its first settlers were Joseph
Wilder and Stephen Jillson.

Carroll, originally called Bretton Woods, which
name has recently been revived and applied to the
locality and railroad stations of two large summer
hotels in the limits of the township, was granted
February 8, 1772, to Sir Thomas Wentworth, Bart.,
the Reverend Samuel Langdon, and eighty-one
others. The town, whose permanent population has
always been small, received its present name in
1832, the year of its incorporation.

* Justus Conrad, in his article "The Town of Woodstock," in the
Granite Monthly for July, 1897.

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Warren ^ was granted to John Page, of Kingston,
near Portsmouth, and others, July 14, 1763, and
settlement was commenced in the autumn of 1767
by Joseph Patch, who came from Hollis, New Hamp-
shire. The territory under the shadow of that out-
lying mountain, Moosilauke, one of the finest of
viewpoints, was the special stamping-ground of the
Pemigewassets, a local sub-tribe, or family, of In-
dians, whose retirement to Canada has been men-
tioned. The first settlers inherited the clearings in
which these red men used to plant their maize and
bury their dead. The region had been the scene of
much Indian warfare, and even after the Indians'
departure and the advent of the white men, the dis-
trict was a thoroughfare for marauding bands from
Canada, who used to sweep down upon the de-
fenseless Massachusetts towns, arid for their white
enemies in pursuing or making counter-attacks.
The first habitations built here by the colonists were
two log huts for the temporary shelter of travelers
journeying to the Coos country. Patch lived like a
hunter with no companion but a faithful dog. The
first family, that of John Mills, of Portsmouth, came
in the spring of 1768. They were followed the next
year by an Irishman by the name of James Aiken,
who discovered after he had built his log house that
he had neighbors. Joshua Copp was the fourth set-
tler. The next family to come was that of a Mr.

* The history of this town has been fully dealt with by William
Little, whose History of Warren was published in 1870. The town
is said to take its name from Admiral Sir Peter Warren, who com-
manded the fleet in the attack on Louisburg in 1745; it may, how-
ever, have been named after a town of the same name in England.

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

True. Thus a hamlet was begun. The charter was
renewed and a grant of additional territory made in
1770.

The town of Gorham, long a leading summer re-
sort and now an important industrial community,
formed until its corporation in 1836 a part of Shel-
burne, which was chartered as early as 1769 and
rechartered in 1770, soon after which date it was
settled.

An early incident in Shelburne's history has to do
with an Indian raid. On August 3, 1781, a party of
six of the savages who had visited Bethel and Gilead,
Maine, capturing three men in the former and killing
one in the latter, stopped at Shelburne on their way
to Canada. At the house of Captain Rindge, they
killed and scalped Peter Poor, and took Plato, a
colored man, prisoner. The inhabitants, it is re-
lated, after spending the night on "Hark Hill" in
full hearing of the whoops and cries of the Indians,
fled in a body to Fryeburg, fifty-nine miles distant,
where they remained until the danger was past.

The territory of the town of Campton, in the
Pemigewasset Valley, formed, with that of the
neighboring town of Rumney, a grant made, it ap-
pears, in 1761, just after the English conquest of
Canada, to Jared Spencer of East Haddam, Con-
necticut, Christopher Holmes, and others. Camp-
ton took its name from the circumstance that the
proprietors built their camp within its limit when
they came up to survey this town and Rumney.
Owing to the death of Spencer at East Windsor,
Connecticut, on his way home from New Hamp-

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

shire, in 1762, before any settlement was made, his
heirs and others obtained a new charter in 1767. The
town was settled in 1765 by two families by the
name of Fox and Taylor. Joseph and Hobart
Spencer, two of the early settlers, were very likely
sons of the original grantee. Though but in its in-
fancy, the town furnished nine or ten soldiers to the
Revolutionary army, five of whom died in the serv-
ice. Thirty of its citizens laid down their lives in
the war for the Union. Campton Village and West
Campton early became favorite resorts for artists,
who are attracted by the rich bits of meadow and
woodland scenery which abound there. Following
the artists came literary people and families in
search of the summer quiet and restfulness not to
be found in the more fashionable mountain resorts.
Campton was a favorite resort of James T. and
Annie Fields, and of Miss Larcom. At West Camp-
ton was located, until its destruction a few years ago
by fire, a famous inn, the Stag and Hounds, which
was one of the most ancient among the Mountains
and which in its early days was frequented by
Durand, Gay, Gerry, Griggs, Richards, George L.
Brown, and other landscape painters.

The neighboring town of Thornton was granted,
in 1763, to the family from which it gets its name,
and was settled in 1770 by Benjamin Hoit. There is
no village, but there are several groups of farms,
Thornton Street, Thornton Center, and West
Thornton.

The southern outlying wall of the White Moun-
tains is the picturesque and lofty Sandwich Range,

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

terminating on the east in the beautiful peak of
Chocorua in Albany. The immense mass of Sand-
wich Dome, the slide-scarred Whiteface, and Pas-
saconaway, loftiest of the summits of this group, are
other notable features of the Range. On the south-
erly side of these mountains is the pleasant town of
Sandwich, which has attained considerable reputa-
tion as a summer resort. It was granted originally
in October, 1763, by Governor Benning Wentworth
to Samuel Oilman, Jr., and others, of Exeter, and
then contained an area of six miles square. Upon
the representation of the grantees that the north and
west sides of the tract were "so loaded with inac-
cessible mountains and shelves of rocks, as to be
uninhabitable," an additional grant of territory on
the east and south, called Sandwich Addition, was
made by the governor in September of the following
year, bringing the total area up to ten miles square.
The town was settled soon after 1765, when Or-
lando Weed was granted by the proprietors at
Exeter seven hundred acres, seventy pounds of law-
ful money, and seven cows, on condition that he
would settle seven families in Sandwich, build seven
substantial dwelling-houses, and clear forty acres of
land within three years. Among the first settlers
were Daniel Beede, John Prescott, David Bean,
Jeremiah Page, and Richard Sinclair. Members of
many noted New England families later settled in
the new township. Soldiers were furnished to the
Revolutionary army, a Sandwich regiment being
honorably mentioned in the records of the battle of
Bunker Hill. Many small industries were early

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

established, but they declined after some years.
Most of the descendants of the original settlers
either were killed in the Civil War or moved away,
the farms were taken possession of by strangers,
and the town became mainly a summer resort. The
picturesque village of Center Sandwich was another
favorite haunt of the poet Lucy Larcom.

Situated east of Sandwich and between the Sand-
wich and Ossipee Ranges is the town of Tamworth,
named after an English town on the river Tyne. The
township was granted in October, 1766, to John
Webster, Jonathan Moulton, and others, and was
first settled in 1771 by Richard Jackman, Jonathan
Choate, David Philbrick, and William Eastman.

The early settlers endured uncommon hardships
on account of an early frost, which cut off nearly all
their crops and reduced the families almost to utter
starvation. The men were often obliged to go thirty
or forty miles to Gilmanton or to Canterbury for
grain, which they brought from thence on their backs
or on hand-sleds. Amid all their discouragements
the pioneers resolved not to abandon the settle-
ment. Fortunately, they killed now and then a deer
or other animal whose flesh was palatable, and
thus managed to sustain themselves until they were
able to secure permanent relief.

In the east part of the town, on the Chocorua
River, is the small hamlet long known as Tamworth
Iron Works, but now called Chocorua. An iron
factory was established here before the Revolution,
but was abandoned early in the nineteenth century.
The metal was obtained from bog-iron ore in the bot-

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

torn of Ossipee Lake. Here, in 1775, the first Ameri-
can machine-made nails were turned out, and here
also the first American screw-auger was made, in
1780, Mr. Weed, the maker, having seen an auger
on a British prize frigate at Portsmouth. Many
anchors were cast at Tamworth and were hauled
thence to Portsmouth on sledges.

On account of the noble mountain scenery, the
pleasant lowlands, and the beautiful lakes, Tam-
worth has been a favorite resort of nature-lovers.
Near Chocorua Lake are the summer residences
of the late Horace E. Scudder, the late Professor
William James, the late Frank Bolles, Secretary of
Harvard University, and others. In the closing years
of his life ex- President Cleveland found a summer
home in Tamworth.

Such are the facts, for the most part in brief state-
ment, as to the settlement and early history of the
principal towns in the Mountains. The later history
of the towns is largely bound up with the story of the
region's industrial development and so will be dealt
with only as a part of this wider subject. In some
cases, however, an event of recent occurrence, un-
related to any general movement, has for conveni-
ence been narrated, out of chronological order, in
the foregoing pages.

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS
II. THE SOLITARY PLACES — THE WILLEY DISASTER

The main interest of White Mountain settlement,
however, Hes aside from the history of the founding
of the towns. It centers about the settlements made
in the isolated places, such as Nash and Sawyer's
Location and the Notch, where various individuals
of hardy spirit established themselves; or, rather,
the main interest lies in the settlers themselves of
these localities and in the story of their hardships
and of their perseverance. The names of Crawford,
Rosebrook, and Willey are the most famous ones
in this connection, and the days of the families of
these names are the heroic days of White Mountain
history.

In 1792, Eleazar Rosebrook, a native of Grafton,
Massachusetts, settled with his family in Nash and
Sawyer's Location, in a then remote and lonesome
spot in the valley of the Ammonoosuc, near the site
of the present Fabyan House, now such a busy rail-
road center in the summer. About 1775, he had come
from Grafton with his wife and child into the re-
mote district known as Upper Coos, making a tem-
porary stay at Lancaster until he could look about
and find such a place as he desired in which to set-
tle. Pushing through the woods up the Connecticut
River into what is now Colebrook (then known

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

as Monadnock), he built a log cabin to which he
brought his wife and two small children — a second
child, a daughter, had been born to them at Lan-
caster. Hannah Rosebrook was a true helpmate for
such a sturdy pioneer, and she cheerfully endured
the hardships and privations which their living in
this solitary wilderness entailed. The narration of
one or two homely incidents of their life here will
show the mettle of this couple. They had taken with
them a cow, and, as there were no fences, the animal
was at liberty to go where she pleased. Many times
Mrs. Rosebrook, when her husband was away, would
shut her older child up in the house, and, taking
her infant in her arms, would go in search of the
animal, to which a bell was attached to enable her
to be found. Expeditions of this nature would some-
times take the courageous woman far into the woods
and force her to wade the river to get to the animal,
but she never flinched from any hardship of this
sort. Salt was an article much needed in this coun-
try and some families suffered considerably from
lack of it. Once, when there was a shortage of this
commodity, Rosebrook went on foot to Haverhill
and returned, a distance of about eighty miles, with
a bushel of it on his back. This was not regarded by
this powerful and resolute man as any great feat.

Rosebrook served in the army during the Revolu-
tionary War. Before he left to join his company,
the pioneer took his family for safety to North-
umberland, where a sort of fort had been built.
Here a son was born. A man named White, who had
an invalid wife, thereupon kindly took Mrs. Rose-

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

brook and her children into his house, giving them
their board for what household service Mrs. Rose-
brook could give. During a leave of absence from
the army, Rosebrook removed his family to Guild-
hall, Vermont. He rendered brave service in the
army. On one occasion an officer and he had a nar-
row escape from capture when they were sent to
Canada as spies, their pursuers being outwitted by
a clever stratagem of Rosebrook's.

While her husband was in the army, Indians fre-
quently came to the house where Mrs. Rosebrook
was staying, and she had to tolerate their presence,
as she feared to incur their displeasure when there
was no man to resist them. On one occasion, how-
ever, when they had become intoxicated, she cleared
her house of them, even dragging one drunken squaw
out by the hair of the head, and narrowly escaping
a tomahawk thrown by the angry female, who, when
sober, came back next day, begged Mrs. Rose-
brook's forgiveness, and promised amendment,
which promise, it is said, was strictly kept.

At Guildhall the Rosebrooks remained for many
years in comparative comfort, but at length, life
having become too easy, the pioneer determined to
move again, making in January, 1792, the change
already mentioned. At the place to which he then
came, his son-in-law, Abel Crawford, was living
alone in a small hut, he having bought out three or
four settlers who had decided to leave. Mr. Rose-
brook in turn bought Crawford out, and, soon after,
the latter, "rather than to be crowded by neigh-
bors," moved twelve miles down the Saco River

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

into Hart's Location, near the present Bemis Sta-
tion, where he lived to a great age, known and loved
as the " Patriarch of the Mountains." Here he built,
some time previous to 1820, the Mount Crawford
House, which was kept for many years by his son-in-
law, Nathaniel T. P. Davis, and whose site is east
of the railroad track at Bemis.

Rosebrook lived in his new place of abode for a
number of years in a small log cabin. At length,
having sold his farm in Guildhall, he laid out the
proceeds on his property here. The turnpike through
the Notch was incorporated, as has been stated, in
1803. It was some time in that year that Rose-
brook, as travel and business had increased, built
a large and convenient two-story dwelling, with two
rooms underground, on the high mound afterwards
called the "Giant's Grave." He also built a large
barn, stables, sheds, and mills. This house in the
Ammonoosuc Valley, at the present Fabyan station,
was the first house for the accommodation of
travelers erected in the White Mountains. Here
Rosebrook lived and prospered for the rest of his
days. He died in 1817,^ at seventy years of age,
from a cancer, after patiently enduring great suf-
fering.

^ The inscription on his headstone in the little cemetery on the
knoll near Fabyan reads as follows: —

"In memory of Cap. EHezer Rosbrook [sic] who died Sept. 25,
181 7 in the 70 year of his age.

"When I lie buried deep in dust,
My flesh shall be thy care.
These with'ring limbs with thee I trust
To raise them strong and fair."

The headstone to his wife's grave, on which the name is spelled
correctly, states that she died May 4, 1829, aged 84.

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

President Dwight, who, as we have seen, stayed
overnight at Rosebrook's on his first journey to the
Mountains, thus speaks of his host: —

This man, with a spirit of enterprise and industry, and
perseverance, which has surmounted obstacles, demanding
more patience and firmness, than are in many instances
required for the acquisition of empire, planted himself in
this spot, in the year 1788. . . . Here he stationed himself
in an absolute wilderness; and was necessitated to look for
everything which was either to comfort or support life,
to those, who lived at least twenty miles from him, and to
whom he must make his way without a road. By his in-
dustry he has subdued a farm of one hundred and fifty,
or two hundred acres; and built two large barns, the very
boards of which he must have transported from a great
distance with such expense and difficulty, as the inhab-
itants of older settlements would think intolerable. . . .
Hitherto he has lived in a log hut ; in which he has enter-
tained most of the persons traveling in this road during
the last eight years. . . . For the usual inconveniences of
a log house we were prepared ; but we found comfortable
beds, good food, and excellent fare for our horses; all
furnished with as much good-will, as if we had been near
friends of the family. Our entertainment would by most
Englishmen, and not a small number of Americans, be
regarded with disdain. To us it was not barely comfort-
able; it was, in the main, pleasant. . . . During twelve out
of fourteen years, this honest, industrious man laboured
on his farm without any legal title. The proprietor ^ was
an inhabitant of New York; and sold him the land through
the medium of an agent. When he bought it, the agent
promised to procure a deed for him speedily. Through-
out this period he alternately solicited, and was promised,
the conveyance, which had been originally engaged. Nor

^ This is diflferent from what is given on a preceding page, which
is taken from the Crawford History, the chief source for information
about Rosebrook and Ethan Allen Crawford.

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

did he resolve, until he had by building and cultivation
encreased the value of his farm twenty fold, to go in per-
son to New York, and demand a deed of the proprietor
himself. The truth is; he possesses the downright un-
suspecting integrity, which, even in men of superior un-
derstanding often exposes them to imposition, from a con-
fidence honourable to themselves, but, at times, unhappily
misplaced. Here, however, the fact was otherwise: for the
proprietor readily executed the conveyance, according to
the terms of the original bargain. In my journey of 1803,
I found Rosebrook in possession of a large, well-built
farmer's house, mills and various other conveniences; and
could not help feeling a very sensible pleasure at finding
his industry, patience, and integrity thus rewarded.

Rosebrook left his property to his grandson,
Ethan Allen Crawford, who, with his cousin and,
later, wife, Lucy Howe, had tenderly cared for his
grandfather in his last illness. Crawford, whose
grave, situated in the little cemetery ^ not far from
the Fabyan House and marked with a modest shaft,
is seen yearly by thousands, was the most famous of
the pioneers of the White Mountains. From his
great strength and his stature — Starr King and
others say "He grew to be nearly seven feet in
height," but a daughter affirms that he stood just
six feet two and one-half inches in his stockings —
he was known as the "Giant of the Hills." He was
bom in 1792 in Guildhall, Vermont. When he was

* What more fitting resting-place for the remains of the pioneer
could have been found ! Here he lies near the site of his hotel and in
view of the Notch named after his family and of the mountain up
which so many times he guided persons. This is truly a hallowed
spot, containing, as it does, the dust of four such noble men and
women as Eleazar and Hannah Rosebrook and Ethan Allen and Lucy
Crawford. ,

^ ' ■ ■ I ( ''

■b nv "-'- *• •'*■*<' i't ■'■*■

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

an infant, his parents, as we have seen, moved to
Hart's Location in New Hampshire and Hved in a
log house in the wilderness, twelve miles from neigh-
bors in one direction and six miles in the other. Here
he grew up in circumstances that made him tough
and healthy. In 1811, he enlisted as a soldier for
eighteen months. Soon he was taken sick with what
he called "spotted fever," and, when he was recov-
ering, he started for home on a furlough, reaching
there, traveling mostly on foot, in fourteen days.
After regaining his health, he returned to his duty.
Upon the expiration of his term of service, he en-
gaged in various occupations, such as making roads,
working on a river, and farming. On the 8th and
9th of June, 1 815, he records that the ground froze
and snow fell to the depth of a foot or more, lasting
for two days, during which he drew logs to a saw-
mill with four oxen. His extraordinary strength ap-
pears from his being able to lift a barrel of potash
weighing five hundred pounds and to put it into
a boat, hoisting it two feet. There was only one
other man of those working with him who could do
more than lift one end of the barrel. He had settled
in Louisville, New York, near a brother, and had
got a good start when, in 1816, a letter was received
from his grandfather Rosebrook, telling of his illness
and asking for one of them to come to live with him.
Ethan went to visit his grandfather, not intending
to stay permanently with him, but when the af-
flicted old man entreated him with tears to make
his future home here, Ethan's determination to re-
main in Louisville was overcome. Returning to that

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

place, he sold his property there and came back to
his grandparents, assuming the indebtedness on the
farm and taking care of them, as has been noted.
Then began his connection with the region in whose
early annals he played so important a part.

In July, 1818, less than a year after his grand-
father's death, while Crawford was absent, his
house took fire and burned to the ground, causing
him a loss from which he was never able to recover.
With the help of his neighbors, a small house,
twenty-four feet square, which belonged to him and
was situated one and a half miles distant, was drawn
by oxen to the site of the burned house. This was
fitted up so as to be a comfortable home for the
winter of 1819. In it he entertained individuals who
came along, as best he could, but parties were com-
pelled to go to his father's, eight miles from the
Notch, for accommodation. From year to year he
struggled along, working at various occupations,
such as assisting travelers up and down the Notch,
guiding people up Mount Washington, and building
paths, endeavoring all the while to lighten the
pecuniary burden which he was carrying.

In 1 819, with his father, he opened the first path
to Mount Washington, which started from the site
of the present Crawford House, and which was im-
proved into a bridle path by Thomas J. Crawford
in 1840. This trail was advertised in the news-
papers and soon visitors began to come. In the sum-
mer of 1820, a party consisting of Adino N. Brackett,
John W. Weeks, General John Wilson, Charles J.
Stuart, Noyes S. Dennison, Samuel A. Pearson,

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

all of Lancaster, and Philip Carrigain, "the author
of the New Hampshire Map" (as Mr. Crawford
quaintly puts it) , made the ascent of the chief peak
of the Presidential Range and gave names to such
peaks as were unnamed. These were Adams, Jef-
ferson, Madison, Monroe, Franklin, and Pleasant.
They engaged, as guide and baggage-carrier, Mr.
Crawford, who has given a brief account of the ex-
pedition, which is enlivened by a quiet humor. He
was, he says, "loaded equal to a pack horse," as the
"party of distinguished characters" wished to be
prepared to stay two nights. They reached the top
of Washington via the Notch, where they stayed
some hours enjoying the prospect and naming the
peaks as aforesaid. Descending to a lower level, they
spent one night. Mr. Crawford recorded that he was
"tired to the very bone" that night through being
compelled virtually to carry one member of the
party, "a man of two hundred weight," who for
some reason was not able to get along without his
assistance. About a month later, Brackett, Weeks,
and Stuart, accompanied by Richard Eastman,
spent a week in leveling to the tops of all these
mountains from Lancaster, camping on them four
nights, one of which, that of August 31, was passed
on the summit of Mount Washington. The height
of the highest peak was computed by them to be
6428 feet.

The following summer, Crawford cut a new and
shorter path ^ to the summit of Mount Washington,

* This path was made passable to horses by Horace Fabyan soon
after 1840 and was known thereafter as the Fabyan Bridle Path.

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

which went directly up over a course nearly the
same as that of the present railroad. On August 31
of the same year (1821), three young ladies, the
Misses Austin, formerly of Portsmouth, came to
Crawford's house to ascend the hills, as they wished
to have the honor of being the first women to reach
the top of Mount Washington. They were accom-
panied by their brother, a friend of the family, and
a tenant on their farm in Jefferson. They went as
far as Crawford's first camp that night, but, bad
weather coming on, they could go no farther, and
were compelled to stay there until a more favorable
day should come. When their stock of provisions
began to fail, Mr. Faulkner, the tenant, returned to
Crawford's house and asked the pioneer to go to
their relief. Mr. Crawford had severely injured him-
self with an axe when cutting the path, and was
lame in consequence, but he nevertheless went to
their assistance and accompanied them to the top,
where they had the good fortune to have a splendid
clear view. The ladies are said to have felt richly
repaid for the discomfort and hardship entailed in
a journey under such unfavorable conditions. They
were out, all told, five days.

Mr. Crawford built in July, 1823, three small
stone huts on Mount Washington, but, owing to the
dampness of the place where they were located, they
were little used. The ruined walls of one may still
be seen near the Gulf Tank on the railroad.

In the spring of 1824, Mr. Crawford built and
raised a frame, thirty-six by forty feet, the outside of
which was in the autumn finished and painted. This

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

addition, the interior work on which was completed
in the winter and spring of 1825, was ready for the
accommodation of the summer guests of the latter
year. He thought his house with this enlargement
would be sufficiently commodious to take care of all
who would be likely to come, but in a few years, such
was the increase in the number of visitors, another
addition was imperatively demanded. Sometimes
the guests were so numerous that they could be ac-
commodated for the night only at great inconveni-
ence to the family.

After considerable delay and much consideration,
Mr. Crawford, although he was in debt, and would
get, by such a step, more involved, finally decided to
build again ; so, having succeeded in getting a loan,
in the winter and spring of 1832 he bought and drew
the lumber and other materials for an addition.
This was raised in May, and before the last of July
the outside was finished and painted. It was sixty
feet long and forty feet wide, consisted of two stories,
and was provided with two verandas, that on the
Mount Washington side being two-storied and
extending the entire length of the building. The
plastering and papering were postponed until the
next year, in the summer of which the addition was
first used.

About this time Mr. Crawford was much an-
noyed by the encroachment of the new proprietor of
an establishment for the entertainment of travelers
which had been erected three quarters of a mile be-
low his house. This man, who bought the place in
the autumn of 1831 and took possession of it the

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

following January, acted in such a clandestine man-
ner toward Mr. Crawford in the matter of acquiring
and occupying the property, that the latter, who
was prepared to be neighborly, was much offended.
Moreover, the rival landlord made use of the moun-
tain road which Mr. Crawford had constructed at
great expense of money and labor, and tried by false
representations to the authorities at Washington
to have the post-office taken away from Crawford's
house and transferred to his own.

This rival hotel, which appears to have been on
the site of the present White Mountain House, ^ did
not, however, interfere with Crawford's summer
business, and for a number of years the sturdy
pioneer continued to entertain visitors and to con-
duct individuals or parties up the paths he had
made.

At length, seriously involved in pecuniary dif-
ficulties and broken down in health, Crawford, on
the advice of some friends and of members of his
family, decided to give up his farm and to retire to
a more secluded place, where health might be re-
gained. Hard as it was for him to leave the spot
where he had lived twenty years, had worked so

^ The distance, as given in the text, and the additional statement
of Mr. Crawford, that Mount Washington could not be seen from it
on account of Mount Deception intervening, point to this conclusion.
The English traveler Coke speaks of it as displaying a gayly painted
sign of a lion and an eagle, "looking unutterable things at each other
from opposite sides of the globe," and as having already attracted
numerous guests. He declares that the spirit of rivalry had proved of
some service to Mr. Crawford, as it had "incited him to make con-
siderable additions to his own house, all of which were run up with
true American expedition."

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

hard, and, as he says, "had done everything to
make the mountain scenery fashionable," and dis-
tressing as it was to let the property go into the
possession of others, he bravely accepted his lot, and,
having made an arrangement with his brother-in-
law to change situations with him for a time, he
moved to a farm at Guildhall, Vermont, his birth-
place. This removal took place in 1837, the year
which is signalized in White Mountain hotel his-
tory by the establishment in the landlordship of
Crawford's old hostelry of the man who was to give
his name to the railroad center that was to rise at
this place, — Horace Fabyan, of Portland, of whom
more will be said later.

After Crawford had remained on his brother-in-
law's place ten months, where he raised barely
enough to support his family, Mr. Howe was com-
pelled to lease the Crawford farm at the Giant's
Grave, which was put into other hands. As he
wanted his own place at Guildhall to live on, Craw-
ford again had to move. Fortunately, he was al-
lowed to take the use of an unoccupied dwelling,
one mile farther down the Connecticut River, and
by various arrangements he was permitted to live
for a number of years on this "beautiful farm,"
which included the site of his grandmother's home
and the scene of her adventures with the Indians.

The fifth year a lawyer in Lancaster obtained
a lease of the place and thereafter Crawford was
obliged to give him half of what he raised. This
condition not pleasing him and his family, he deter-
mined to make a change; so, in 1843, he hired the

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

large three-story dwelling,^ then empty, which was
in sight of where he had formerly lived at the Moun-
tains. There he passed the remainder of his days.

In spite of his strength and wonderful endurance,
Crawford was not destined to be long-lived. Worn
out by the hardships of his early life and by the suf-
fering caused by bodily ailments and by distress and
anxiety due to the pecuniary embarrassments of his
later life, he died prematurely on June 22, 1846, at
the age of fifty-four.^ He was a man of fine qualities
— "one of nature's noblemen," says Willey. His
wife, Lucy Crawford, was a fitting mate for such a
hardy and brave man. Other members of the Craw-
ford family were of the same sturdy type. Ethan's
father, Abel, has already been mentioned. In his
younger days he sometimes acted as guide to per-
sons who wished to climb Mount Washington. In
September, 181 8, he performed this service for John
Brazer, of Cambridge, and George Dawson, of
Philadelphia, whose expedition deserves mention

^ This building, the inn of his unneighborly rival of the early
thirties, stood on the site of the present White Mountain House, a
portion of which it still forms.

* Both the headstone and the granite shaft in the cemetery give
his age at death as fifty-two. The Crawford History states, at the
beginning of chapter ii, that he was born in 1792, and on page 187,
in giving the family genealogy, Crawford says, "Ethan Allen is my
name, and I am fifty-three." The shaft of granite was erected in
memory of Crawford and of his wife, who died February 17, 1869,
aged seventy-six. Crawford's headstone bears the following interest-
ing inscription: — "In Memory of Ethan Allen Crawford, who died
June 22, A.D. 1846; aged 52.

" He built here the first Hotel at the White Mountains, of which he
was for many years the owner and Landlord.

"He was of great native talent & sagacity, of noble, kind, and
benevolent disposition, a beloved husband and father, and an honest
& good man."

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

because of the amusing fact that they nailed to
a rock a brass plate ^ with a Latin inscription en-
graved on it as a record (of course, calmly prepared
some time beforehand) of their ascent, the antici-
pated achievement and arduousness of which were
evidently realized.

Another ascent under the guidance of the future
"Patriarch" is pleasantly narrated by Grenville
Mellen, the poet and miscellaneous writer, who was
one of the participants in the excursion. This "pil-
grimage" was made in August, 1819 (the year of the
opening of the bridle path), and was from Portland
through Fryeburg to the top of Mount Washington
(the party camped out one night "in a rude-fash-
ioned camp" part-way up the trail), and over the
same route in returning. The chronicler portrays his
guide and host, who, he says, "received us with a
wintry smile (he never laughed, in the world!) and
a sort of guttural welcome," in the following some-
what rhetorical paragraph : —

Crawford has no compeer. He stands alone; and we
found him, in all the unapproachableness of his singu-
larity. We defy Cruikshanks [sic] to hit him; and paint-
ing and poetry would despair, before such a subject. What
we shall say, in downright prose, will be mere attempt.
If you wish to unfold him, and his sons, go and hire him,
or them, as guides; and let them act themselves out before
you, on a pilgrimage to Mount Washington.

It was he, who in 1840, at seventy- five years of
age, made the first ascent of Mount Washington on

* This brass plate remained intact on the summit until July, 1825,
when it was carried off by some vandals from Jackson.

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

horseback. At eighty, he could, it is said, walk with
ease five miles, before breakfast, to his son's house.
He constantly attended the sessions of the New
Hampshire Legislature, in which he was a repre-
sentative of his district, when eighty-two years of
age. A man of great good-humor, it was his pleasure,
after he was confined to the house, to entertain
visitors with amusing and interesting anecdotes.
He died at eighty-five, having survived, it will be
noted, his son Ethan by several years. His length
of days is in striking contrast to the latter's short
life.

His eight sons were all, it is affirmed, more than
six feet tall, and Ethan was not alone in his en-
dowment of unusual physical strength. Thomas J.
Crawford, already spoken of as a pathbuilder, kept
from 1829 to 1852 the Notch House, which was
built in 1828 by Ethan and their father and which
stood between the present Crawford House and the
Gate of the Notch, its site being marked to-day by a
signboard. About 1846 he constructed the carriage
road up Mount Willard.

The tragic episode of the destruction of the house-
hold of Samuel Willey, Jr., in the Crawford Notch
has been many times narrated — most fully by the
householder's brother, the Reverend Benjamin G.
Willey, who devotes two chapters of his "Incidents
in White Mountain History" to this unhappy event.
The lonely and awe-inspiring place of the disaster,
and the fact that the slide caused the greatest loss
of life of any accident or natural disturbance that
has occurred in the White Mountain region, and the

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

further fact that an entire household perished, have
attached a melancholy interest to the event and its
scene and have drawn to them an amount of atten-
tion which may seem disproportionate to the im-
portance of the occurrence. However this may be,
it is certain that the interest in the sad fate of the
Willey family has been long-continued and general.
One evidence which proves the existence of this in-
terest comes to mind when one thinks of the great
number of persons who, during all the years that
have elapsed since the time of the disaster, have
visited the scene from curiosity.^

Further witness to the generality of this interest
is afforded by recalling the considerable literature
which has grown up about the story of the catas-
trophe and which includes, besides numerous re-
countings of the circumstances, a romance^ based
in part upon this event and written by an author
bearing the family name, one of Hawthorne's
"Twice-Told Tales," and several poems. Haw-
thorne's allegory, "The Ambitious Guest," is the
chief literary monument of the Willey disaster.
Among the poems inspired by it the more notable
are one by Mrs. Sigourney, the Connecticut poet,'
and, particularly, a spirited narrative ballad by Dr.

* It was formerly the custom, one which was established early, for
visitors to add a stone from the material of the slide to a memorial
pile on the spot where the bodies of a number of the victims were
found. In process of time this has accumulated into a natural monu-
ment of considerable size, but of late years it has become hidden be-
cause of the growth of vegetation about it.

* Soltaire, by George F. Willey.

' "The White Mountains after the Descent of the Avalanche in
1826," printed in the Ladies' Magazine (Boston), August, 1828.

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

Thomas W. Parsons, the Dante translator and "the
Poet" of Longfellow's "Tales of a Wayside Inn."

The sublimity of the scenery and the tragedy of
the fate of an entire family made a profound im-
pression upon travelers who passed that way in the
score or so of years after the event, and those who
published accounts of their tours in almost all cases
devoted a goodly portion of the record of their trip
to the White Mountains to a narration of the story
of this sad occurrence. Especially is this true of the
foreign travelers who traversed the Notch in these
early days.

The facts about the terrible storm to which the
avalanche was immediately due, and those relat-
ing to the disastrous effects of the heavy rain and of
the landslide, which were learned or inferred by
relatives and friends of the destroyed family as the
result of visits to the scene a few days afterward,
together with much conjecture as to the circum-
stances and course of events on the fatal Monday
night, are set down in great detail by the historian
brother, who was one of the searchers for the bodies
of the victims. A few additional particulars may be
gleaned from the narrative of Crawford and from
the recollections of contemporaries recorded in the
newspapers.

The highway, whose construction through the
Notch shortly after the discovery of the pass has
been already chronicled and which connected Upper
Coos with the seaboard, soon became an important
route of commerce. After the turnpike was built,
early in the nineteenth century, long lines of wagons

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

loaded down with merchandise of various descrip-
tions passed through the gateway both summer and
winter, and toward the end of the eighteenth cen-
tury pleasure travelers — few in number, to be sure,
when compared with the later travel of this char-
acter — had begun to find their way thither, mostly
in private carriages. This increasing traffic made
greatly felt the need of public houses as places of
shelter, particularly in winter, when the northern
winds are bitterly cold and the road is buried in
snow, often deeply drifted, and the passage through
the defile therefore extremely arduous and not a
little hazardous. From soon after the beginning of
the last decade of the eighteenth century, there had
existed on this route simple taverns for the entertain-
ment of the passing traveler who should be in need
of a meal, or who, overtaken by night or storm,
should require a lodging, in the house of the elder
Crawford near the modern Bemis Station at the
southern entrance of the Notch and in Eleazar
Rosebrook's inn (near the present Fabyan House),
thirteen miles distant from the other. In view of the
circumstances just mentioned, it is evident that the
opening of a public house somewhere on the road
between these two places would be not only an act
likely to be profitable to the innkeeper, but also one
partaking of the nature of a benefaction to the
traveler. Especially was such an establishment in
the depths of the Notch itself a desideratum in those
days.

There is a disagreement in the statements as to
the time of building of the house which was to be-

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

come famous as the Willey House. Mr. Spaulding
says it was erected by a Mr. Davis in 1793, which
would make its building contemporaneous with
the settlements of Rosebrook and Crawford. Mr.
Willey is very indefinite as to the time when the
house was constructed, his statement being that it
"had been erected, some years previous to the time
[1826] of which we write, by a Mr. Henry Hill." *

Be that as it may, this simple story-and-a-half
dwelling, situated about midway between the two
houses that have been mentioned, was doubtless a
timely inn to many a weary teamster or "lated
traveler" in its early days. The supervention of a
tragedy was destined, however, to intermit its use as a
place of shelter and to change the nature of the inter-
est of visitors in the building and its environment.

After it had been kept by Mr. Hill and others
for several years its occupancy was abandoned.^ In

* Mr. Crawford says in the ffw/or)', under 1845, "the Notch House,
which place was settled, Uncle William [i.e., William Rosebrook, then
seventy-two years old, who lived with the Crawfords] says, about
fifty-three years ago, by one Mr. Davis, who first began there; since
which period, others have lived there for a short time, until Samuel
Willey bought the place, and repaired it." The signboard (missing in
1914) at the site states that the house was built by Davis in 1792,
was repaired and occupied by Fabyan in 1844, and was burned in
1898. E. A. Kendall, who passed through the Notch in November,
1807, speaks of a house, twenty miles from Conway, evidently the
old Mount Crawford House at Bemis, at which he ate a meal, and
says that "at a distance of seven miles, there is another house, which
second house is only three miles short of the Notch," the context
showing that by the latter he means the Gate of the Notch.

* Ethan Allen Crawford engaged the house in the fall of 1823,
"and agreed to furnish it with such things as are necessary for the
comfort of travelers and their horses." He records the buying of hay
at Jefferson in the winter of 1824 and the carrying of it sixteen miles
to furnish the Notch place.

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

the autumn of 1825, after the house had been for
several months untenanted, Samuel Willey, Jr., a
son of one ^ of the early settlers of Upper Bartlett,
moved his family into it. As the house was much
in need of repairs, he spent the autumn in making
such as would render it comfortable during the
winter, and he also enlarged the stable and made
such other improvements as the time would permit.
In the spring further improvements were planned
and begun with the design of making the house more
worthy of patronage, which had been good during
the winter and was increasing.

Nothing unusual occurred during the winter and
spring to arouse any apprehension as to the unsafe-
ness of the situation of this lone abode, but one
rainy afternoon in June Mr. and Mrs. Willey, when
sitting by a window which looked out upon the
mountain which now bears their name, saw, as the
mist cleared up, a mass of earth begin to move, in-
crease in volume and extent, and finally rush into
the valley beneath. This was soon followed by an-
other slide of lesser magnitude. Although these
avalanches occurred near the house, they did no
damage to the property, but they served to startle
the occupants greatly, and Mr. Willey at first pur-
posed to leave the place and, it is believed, even
made ready to do so, under the impulse of the first
panic. His decision against an immediate removal

* Samuel Willey, who came to Bartlett from Lee, later moved to
North Conway and lived on what is known as the "Bigelow Farm"
until his death, in 1844, when he was more than ninety years of age.
His son, Benjamin G.j the historian, was the second pastor of the
Congregational Church in Conway. He died in 1867.

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

was largely determined by the counsel of Abel
Crawford, who with a force of men Wcis at work
the day of the storm repairing the turnpike near
by.

After a short lapse of time, Mr. Willey, who had
looked about in vain for a safer place in which to
establish his home, became calmer and his appre-
hensions of danger were allayed, if not altogether
removed. Would that he had heeded the warning!
But he came to think that such an occurrence was
unlikely to happen again, and so remained, little
fearing danger and not presaging any evil, to fall a
victim with all his family two months later.

The midsummer of 1826 was characterized in the
White Mountain region by high temperatures and
a long-continued drought. Under the hot sun the
soil became dry to an unusual depth and so prepared
to be acted upon powerfully by any heavy rain.
The great heat and extreme drought continued un-
til after the middle of August, when clouds began
to gather and eventually to gain permanence and
to give rain, at first but little in quantity. Finally
on Monday, August 28, came a day of occasional
showers, which were but a premonition of what was
to follow, for toward evening the clouds began to
gather in great volume. They were of dense black-
ness, which condition combined -with their magni-
tude to make a sublime and awful aspect of the
heavens. Just at nightfall it began to rain, and then
ensued a storm which will be ever memorable for
its violence and its disastrous consequences. Some
time during this furious downpour, which lasted

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

for several hours, ^ occurred the dreadful avalanche
which buried the entire household of the little dwell-
ing in the depths of the Notch.

The destructiveness of the storm began to be
evident to the dwellers south of the Notch early
the next morning when the intervales became so
flooded that the cattle and horses had to be removed
from them, and when daylight revealed the desolat-
ing effects of the copious rains on the summits and
sides of the mountains. Many trees were seen to be
destroyed, a vast amount of rocks and earth to be
displaced, and many grooves and gorges to have
been created on the slopes.

At first no fears were felt by the relatives and
friends of the family in the solitary Notch House as to
their safety and, indeed, so occupied were they with
their own immediate concerns because of the floods,
that they had little time to think of anything else.
Not until Wednesday night, when unfavorable re-
ports began to reach the southern settlements, did
suspicions arise that all was not well with the house-
hold in the Notch. It seems that the first person to
pass through the Notch after the storm was a man
named John Barker. He left Ethan Allen Crawford's
about four o'clock and reached the Notch House
about sunset, on Tuesday. Finding it deserted ex-
cept by the faithful dog,^ he concluded that the

^ " At eleven o'clock," says Ethan Allen Crawford, " we had a
clearing-up shower, and it seemed as though the windows of heaven
were opened and the rain came down almost in streams."

* This animal, it is recorded, did what he could to make the dis-
aster known, for, before any news of it had reached Conway, he
appeared at the home of Mr. Lovejoy, Mrs. Willey's father, and,

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

family had betaken themselves to Abel Crawford's,
and he took up his lodging for the night in the va-
cated house. Evidences of a hasty departure were
seen in the opened doors, the disarranged beds, the
scattered clothes, and the Bible lying open on the
table. When trying to compose himself to sleep he
heard a low moaning. Unable, because of the dense
darkness and of having no provision for striking a
light, to do anything in the way of ascertaining the
source of this or of rescuing the person or creature
giving utterance to it, Barker lay terrified and sleep-
less until dawn, when he arose and, after a search,
found the cause of his excitement. It was an ox,
which had been crushed to the floor by the fallen
timbers of the stable. After releasing the suffering
animal. Barker proceeded on his way to Bartlett,
and on arriving at Judge Hall's tavern told about
the fearful slide at the Willey farm. That night a
party of men from Bartlett started for the Notch.
They arrived at their destination toward morning,
on Thursday, after a difficult journey. As soon as
day broke they began their search. The confirmed
reports of the perishing of the family having reached
the relatives, they too started for the scene of the
disaster, which they reached about noon of that day.
Many other people had come as the result of the
spreading of the news.

by meanings and other expressions of anguish, tried to tell the mem-
bers of the family that something dreadful had happened. But not
succeeding in making himself understood, he left, and, although he
was afterward frequently seen running at great speed, now up and
now down the road between the Lovejoy home and the Notch House,
he soon disappeared from the region, doubtless perishing through
grief and loneliness.

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

It was a vast scene of desolation and ruin that
met the eyes of the searchers as they approached the
spot. On a clearing perhaps a hundred rods below
the house, one great slide had deposited its material,
consisting of large rocks, trees, and sand. The sides
of the mountain above the house, once green with
woods, were lacerated and stripped bare for a vast
extent, while the plain appeared one continuous bed
of sand and rocks with broken trees and branches in-
termingled with them. Many separate scars and slide
deposits were to be seen above and below the house,
which stood unharmed amid the ruin all about it.
The avalanche of greatest magnitude, which started
far up on the mountain-side directly behind the
house, would have overwhelmed it but for a curious
circumstance arising from a peculiarity in the con-
figuration of the ground. It so happened that the
slide, when it had reached a point not far above the
little dwelling, had to encounter in its course down
the mountain a low ridge, or ledge of rock, which
extended from this place to a more precipitous part
of the mountain. This, when met, not only some-
what arrested the slide, but, what was yet more
remarkable, served to divide it into two parts. One
portion of the d6bris flowed to one side, carrying
away the stable above the house, but avoiding the
latter building, while the other passed by it on the
other side. In front of the house the two divisions
reunited and flowed on in the bed of the Saco. This
strange circumstance in the action of the landslide,
with its even more singular results, the sparing of the
house and the destruction of its inmates, — for it

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

was doubtless this particular convulsion that was the
occasion of the latter event, — lends to the story of
the disaster, when one thinks of the perversity of
fate in this instance and of what might have been,
a peculiar pathos.

Just how the members of the household met their
deaths will never be known. Whether, on hearing
the frightful noise which must have accompanied
the avalanche and have heralded its coming, they
fled precipitately before it from the house and were
overwhelmed by it when it reached the low ground,
or whether they had already, for fear of being
drowned by the rising waters above the habitation,
betaken themselves to the foot of the mountain be-
fore the slide came down and there had been caught
in its course and carried away with it, we cannot tell.
However it may be, these alternative suppositions,
at any rate, embody the principal theories that have
been advanced as to the probable course of events,
but, it must be admitted, they both rest upon in-
ference and, largely, upon conjecture.

Such search^ as had been made for the bodies up
to noon on Thursday had been unavailing. Not
long after, however, a man who was searching along
the slide just below the house happened, through the
accidental moving of a twig, to notice a number of
flies about the entrance to a sort of cave formed by

* Among the searchers was Ethan Allen Crawford, who had been
sent for by the friends of the Willey family. He tells of nailing to a
dead tree, near the place where the bodies were found, a planed board
on which he had written with a piece of red chalk, "The family found
here," which " monument " was afterward taken away by some of the
later occupants of the house and used for fuel.

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

material of the slide, and as the result of a search
which was immediately instituted about this spot
the location of one of the bodies was disclosed. This
body proved to be that of David Allen, one of the
farmhands. Not long after, the eager searchers came
upon the body of Mrs. Willey, even more terribly
mangled than that of the farmhand. Further search
soon revealed the body of Mr. Willey, not far away.
These were all that were found that day, and, as it
was decided to bury them near their habitation
until they could be more conveniently moved to
Conway the next winter, coffins were made of such
materials as could be obtained there, and the bodies,
after prayer by a Bartlett minister, were buried in a
common grave.

Search was continued on the next day, and during
its course the body of the youngest child was found
and buried. On Saturday^ the body of the eldest
child, a girl of twelve years, and that of the other
hired man, Da,vid Nickerson, were recovered and
buried. The bodies of the three other children have
never been found. They were covered so deeply be-
neath the sand and rocks that no search has ever
been able to discover them. In view of the magni-
tude and extent of the avalanche and the quantity
of materials deposited upon the valley, it is more
remarkable that so many bodies were recovered
than that these were not found.

The only living things about the premises to

^ Mr. Crawford says Nickerson's body was recovered on Saturday
and that of the eldest daughter on Sunday, the latter being found
some distance from where the others were and across the river, she
apparently having met death by drowning.

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

escape were the dog and two oxen. These latter were
endangered by falling timbers, but suffered no seri-
ous injury. Two horses were, however, crushed to
death by timbers of the stable.

The foregoing narrative embodies the main facts
of this melancholy event. The story of the storm
which was the proximate cause of the landslide would
not, however, be complete without some mention
of the disastrous work of this terrific downpour, not
only in the region in the vicinity of the Willey
House, but elsewhere, for it did great damage in
other parts of the Mountains also.

The road through the Crawford Notch was in
many places destroyed. All the bridges but two
along the entire length of the turnpike, a distance of
seventeen miles, were carried away. The directors,
seeing it would take a great sum to repair the road,
voted, after the good people of Portland had con-
tributed fifteen hundred dollars to help and en-
courage them, to levy an assessment upon the shares.
These sums, with some other assistance, provided
means for accomplishing the work, which is said to
have been carried on by the hardy natives by moon-
light as well as in the daytime.

The storm utterly destroyed the road through the
Franconia Notch also, and travel had to be sus-
pended until after repairs were made by means of a
state appropriation of thirteen hundred dollars.

The best part of Abel Crawford's farm was de-
stroyed. A new sawmill, which had just been built
by Crawford, who was away from home at the time
of the flood, was swept away, together with a great

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

number of logs and boards and all the fences on the
intervale. Twenty-eight sheep were drowned and a
great deal of standing grain was ruined. The water
rose so high as to run through the entire house on the
lower floors and sweep out the coals and ashes from
the fireplace. Many other dwellers on the banks of
the Saco and its tributaries suffered more or less
damage.

At Ethan Crawford's on the Ammonoosuc much
injury to property and live stock was occasioned by
the flood. The whole intervale in the vicinity of the
Giant's Grave was covered with water for a space of
more than two hundred acres. The road was greatly
damaged and in some places entirely demolished.
The bridge was carried away, taking with it in its
course down the river ninety feet of shed which had
been attached to the barn that escaped the fire of
1818. Fourteen sheep were drowned and a large
field of oats was destroyed. The flood came within
a foot and a half of the door of the house, a. strong
stream ran between the house and the stable, and
much wood was swept away. Mr. Crawford's camp
at the foot of the mountain, with all its furnishings,
which were enclosed in a sheet-iron chest, was car-
ried away by the rising water. No part of the iron
chest, or of its contents, which included eleven
blankets and a supply of cooking-utensils, was ever
found, except a few pieces of blanket that were
caught on bushes at different places down the river.

An incident relating to a party of travelers, which
occurred at the time of the storm, may well be nar-
rated here. On the 26th of August, some gentlemen

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

from the West arrived at Crawford's for the pur-
pose of ascending Mount Washington. Crawford,
as the weather was threatening, advised them not
to go that afternoon, but as their time was limited
they said they must proceed, and so he guided them
to the camp, where they arrived at ten o'clock at
night. Early the next morning it began to rain,
which took away all hope of ascending the mountain
that day. Reluctant to abandon their excursion,
now that they were so near the goal, it was decided
that Crawford should go to his home for more pro-
visions and return to the camp. Crawford arrived
home tired from a slow and wearisome journey
through the rain and mud. His brother Thomas,
who happened to be at the house, cheerfully con-
sented to take his place. When the latter arrived at
the camp, he found that the rain had put out the
fire and that the party were holding a council as to
what was to be done. He told them that it would be
very unpleasant, if not dangerous, to remain where
they were, and that by rapid traveling it might be
possible to reach the house. By fast walking, by
wading, and by crossing the swollen streams on
trees cut down and laid across to serve as bridges,
they managed to reach the house safely about eight
o'clock in the evening. Fortunately, they reached
the bridge over the Ammonoosuc just in time to
pass over it before it was swept away. Had they re-
mained, they would have shared the same fate as
the Willey family, or, at least, have suffered greatly
from cold, hunger, and exposure. On the following
Wednesday, the water having by that time suf-

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

ficiently subsided to permit the fording of the Am-
monoosuc, with Thomas Crawford for guide, some
of the party, with the addition of another small
party from the West, achieved the ascent of the
mountain, although they had much difficulty in
finding their way owing to the destructive effect of
the rain on the path.

Farther down the Ammonoosuc, at Rosebrook's,
and elsewhere in the valley, much damage was done,
although conditions were not so bad as at Crawford's.
Many other slides, also, besides the one at the
Willey House, devastated great areas on the slopes
of the Mountains, notably a very extensive one on
the west side of Mount Pleasant.

Such, then, were some of the effects of this most
remarkable storm in White Mountain history, which
will be ever memorable for its destruction of prop-
erty and human life.

The disaster at the Willey House did not deter
others from occupying it, for, somewhat more than
a year after, a man named Pendexter moved into it
with the object chiefly of affording entertainment
for travelers during the winter. Some time after his
removal a storm, not so severe as that of 1826, but
yet a very heavy one, took place. The impressive
circumstances of this terrific storm of thunder,
lightning, and rain, together with the remembrance
of what had occurred there, so affected the family
then residing there, that, it is said, not a word was
spoken for nearly half an hour.

FURTHER DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS —

SOME NOTED AMERICAN VISITORS OF THE

EARLY DAYS

Whether or no the natural curiosity commonly
called the "Old Man of the Mountain," or the
"Profile," was known to the Indians cannot be de-
termined with certainty; the tradition that it was
worshiped by them, at any rate, is very doubtful,
as they appear to have left us no legend concerning
it. The story of the discovery of this the cardinal
wonder of the New Hampshire highlands, and un-
doubtedly the most remarkable freak of nature of its
kind in the world, is a prosaic one enough. According
to Sweetser, the discovery was made in 1805 by
Francis Whitcomb and Luke Brooks, two men who
were working on the Notch Road, and who, hap-
pening to go to Profile Lake (then known as Fer-
rin's Pond) to wash their hands, were by this chance
the first white men to behold the face.

Instead of exhibiting the nation-wide tendency to
find in any such natural formation a fancied re-
semblance to the profile of the Father of his Coun-
try, one or other of them exclaimed, it is said, and
perhaps thereby revealed his political affiliations,
"That is Jefferson" (he was then President).

The late W. C. Prime, long a summer resident of
the Franconia region, and, when occupying his cabin

10 1

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

on Lonesome Lake,^ a near neighbor, so to speak,
of the Old Man, gives a different version of the find-
ing. His account of it, which is based upon "Fran-
conia tradition, tolerably well verified by my own
investigations among old residents," bestows the
honor of being the first white beholder of the Profile
upon a Baptist clergyman from Lisbon, who, having
occasion to see one of the men working on the new
road, and having driven for this purpose up to this
part of the Notch, happened, while talking to the
man, to glance up through the trees in such a line
of vision that he saw the face outlined against the
sky. Exclaiming, "Look there ! " he directed the at-
tention of the men, who had been cutting out bushes
on the knoll by the lake, to the startling object.

Mr. Justus Conrad has this to say of the matter
in question in the Granite Monthly for July, 1897: —

It is claimed by some writers that the Old Man of the
Mountain and the Flume were discovered in 1805, but
these wonders were no doubt known to some long before
this. The region was a favorite haunt of the red men, and
it is stated, on reasonable authority, that the friends of
Stark made the first discovery while searching for him
after his capture by the Indians.

However this may be as to the finding of the Pro-
file, it may be adduced in opposition to the view just

^ This picturesque tarn is situated on the ridge, and under one of
the high bluffs, of Mount Cannon, and is about one thousand feet
above the road. The lake and the adjoining territory were for some
years the property of this well-known New York journalist, author,
and angler and his friend, W. F. Bridge. Here they used to stay for
longer or shorter periods and to entertain their friends in their quaint
woodland cottage on the shore of the lake. General McClellan spent
many happy days in this secluded spot,

102

THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN

FURTHER DISCOVERIES

put forward so far as it relates to the other Franconia
curiosity, that, inasmuch as the Flume is situated off
the main trail or road, it is not likely that it would be
come upon by those passing through the Notch hur-
riedly. It seems more probable that its discovery
came about in the manner that is related a little
farther on.

The existence of the Profile was first made known
to the world at large by General Martin Field, who,
after visiting it in 1827, sent a brief description of it
to Professor Silliman, editor of the American Journal
of Science and Arts, who published the letter in the
Journal for July, 1828, together with an engraving
in which the figure is so curiously exaggerated as to
be grotesque.

It remained, however, for Hawthorne to give the
Profile literary immortality, which he did, by cele-
brating it in one of his most beautiful allegorical
tales, "The Great Stone Face." It is introduced
also into a later story, Professor Edward Roth's
pleasing legendary tale of "Christus Judex." The
theme of this is the search of an Italian painter,
Casola, for a suitable model for the face of a figure of
Christ sitting in judgment, which he had resolved to
paint for the altar-piece of the church in his native
town.*

* As the little book is probably known to but few, perhaps a brief
summary of the story may be given here. Having failed, after much
seeking, to find a satisfactory countenance or representation of one
in the Old World, Casola is much discouraged until he hears from his
mother that a dying missionary has told her of having seen a face in
the wilderness of America such as might belong to a judging Christ.
Acting upon this report, the painter immediately crosses the sea and
has himself conducted to the region in the land of the Abnakis where

103

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Such is the fame of the Profile, that almost un-
canny counterfeit presentment carved by Nature's
hand, that perhaps a brief digression from the his-
torical to the descriptive may be pardoned by the
reader. This illusion, for, as Dr. Prime points out,
"there is no rock-hewn face there," and "the profile,
therefore, exists only in the eyes that see it," is pro-
duced by the accidental position of the edges and
various projecting points of three disconnected
ledges, which have different vertical axes and which
form severally the forehead, the nose and upper lip,
and the chin. These surfaces and projections form
the outline of a profile when viewed in combination
from a certain direction; but when the beholder
moves a short distance from the proper line of vision
the appearance vanishes and he finds himself looking
only at a rough, jagged cliff.

Not content with the production of this startling
optical effect, which alone would be a sufficient
appeal to the vision of any traveler. Nature has
lavishly provided a strikingly beautiful situation and
most picturesque surroundings as a setting for this
marvel. The combination of ledges which forms the
material of this illusion is set on the southeast end of
the long majestic ridge of Mount Cannon, or Profile,
at an altitude of twelve hundred feet above Profile
Lake, a sheet of water, "than which," to quote Dr.
Prime again, "there is nowhere on earth one more

the missionary had labored. Having arrived there, he finds, among the
converted Indians of a village on the Kennebec, some who guide him
to the region of lofty mountains to the westward, where he at length
attains the object of his search and finds in the Profile the fulfillment
of his conception of ideal grandeur.

104

FURTHER DISCOVERIES

beautiful." From the base of the projection forming
the chin to the top of that forming the forehead the
vertical distance is from thirty-six to forty feet.^

A word or two as to the permanency of the material
of this marvelous visual effect. Professor Hitchcock's
fear, expressed more than forty years ago, that, owing
to the friability of the granite of which the ledges are
composed and its consequent rapid disintegration,
the ledges might soon disappear, has so far not been
realized. Myriads of travelers have gazed with ad-
miration and awe upon that stern and somewhat
melancholy visage looking imperturbably down the
valley from its lofty situation, and myriads of per-
sons who have not visited the spot have been made
familiar with the appearance of the Old Man
through pictures or other representations. Sad will
be the day (may it never come !) when that marvel of
Nature shall be marred or be no longer to be seen.

Regarding the discovery of the other great natural
curiosity of the Franconia Notch, the Flume, there
is little to tell. Indeed, beyond the bare statement
that it was made at about the same time as that
of the Profile, and by Mrs. Jessie Guernsey, ^ wife of

1 According to the State Survey of 1871, when the measurement
was made by young men from Dartmouth College, attached to the
survey party,

* The name was evidently in early days pronounced in the English
fashion, for it was sometimes spelled "Garnsey." Harry Hibbard's
long poem "Franconia Mountain Notch," first published in 1839,
contains the following stanza on the Flume : —

"And, farther down, from Garnsey's lone abode.
By a rude footpath climb the mountain-.side,
Leaving below the traveler's winding road,
To where the cleft hill yawns abrupt and wide.
As though some earthquake did its mass divide,

105

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

the pioneer settler of this locality, while fishing along
the brook, information appears to be lacking.

Perhaps the earliest printed description of the
Franconia Notch appeared in the New Hampshire
Statesman and Concord Register of September 9 and
16, 1826. It contained an account of an ascent of
Mount Lafayette, which received its present name,*
probably during the great Frenchman's stay in the
United States, in 1824-25. Another early ascent of
this noble peak was accomplished by Forrest Shep-
ard, a Mr. Sparhawk, of Dartmouth College, and a
guide, on the 7th of August, 1826. Mr. Shepard sent
an account of his trip to Professor Silliman, which was
printed in the American Journal oj Science and Arts
for June, 1827.

The summit was reached at 1 1 a.m. after a "rugged
ascent" of several hours. The climbers were envel-
oped in passing clouds while on the mountain, ob-
taining only glimpses of the country below and
around them, during occasional momentary break-
ings away. In the late afternoon, while there was a
thunderstorm below them, they were enfolded in a
slight mist, through which the sun suddenly burst,
causing to their "astonishment and delight" a pe-
culiar meteorological phenomenon. As it was de-
scribed by Mr. Shepard, their shadows were seen

In olden time; there view the rocky Flume,

Tremendous chasm 1 rising side by side.

The rocks abrupt wall in the long, high room,

Echoing the wild stream's roar, and dark with vapory gloom."

The Guernsey farm is located about one mile south of the Flume
House, and is still occupied by persons of that name.

^ President Dwight proposed to call it Mount Wentworth. In Car-
rigain's map of 1816, it was called the Great Haystack.

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FURTHER DISCOVERIES

reposing upon the bosom of the cloud, while around
each of their shadow heads was an entire rainbow,
which persisted for twelve or fifteen minutes.

A great portion of the "Crawford History" is
devoted to accounts of the individuals or parties
Ethan Allen Crawford entertained in his home and
tavern and of the excursions made by them, under
his piloting, through the Mountains, up Mount
Washington, or over the Range. Among these early
travelers to the region were a number of noted
men, of whose visits Mr. Crawford gives interesting
and entertaining reminiscences or anecdotes, drawn
from his recollection or taken from entries which
they made in his "album."

One of the earliest of such visitors was Chancellor
James Kent, of New York, who came to the Craw-
ford inn in the summer of 1823, accompanied by
two young men. The famous jurist^ wished to pass
through the Notch, and as the stage did not then
run on that route, he put up at Crawford's for the
night, and arranged to secure a conveyance from
the proprietor to carry his party to Conway. In the
morning Crawford harnessed his two mares to a
wagon and the journey was made that day. "While

* Chancellor Kent had just retired from his office on account of
having reached the age (sixty years) which was then the age limit for
the chancellorship, and was taking a pleasure tour through the
"Eastern States." One of his young companions was his son, Wil-
liam, then twenty-one, afterwards Judge of the Supreme Court of
New York and Professor of Law in Harvard University. Some books
state that Chancellor Kent ascended Mount Washington, but there
is nothing in the Crawford History to that effect. His age and the fact
that at that early date the mountain could be ascended only on foot
would seem to render it unlikely that he made such an arduous
trip.

107

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

on the way," says the pioneer, "we had an interest-
ing time in exchanging jokes, etc."

Crawford tells, under the date of 1825, of accom-
panying a botanist, who was making a collection
of plants of the White Mountains, in some of his
tours, which occupied several weeks. This must
have been Oakes, whose visits have been already
mentioned.

In 1829 came another botanical explorer. Dr.
J. W. Robbins, who traversed the entire Range, de-
scending into and crossing the Great Gulf and visit-
ing all the eastern summits for the first time for
scientific purposes. The plants of the southeastern
ridge had been collected by Benjamin D. Greene in
1823, and Henry Little, a medical student, also ex-
plored this part of the Mountains in that same
year. About this time, also, the naturalist Nuttall
botanized here and detected several species of
plants, some of such rarity, it is said, that they have
hardly been seen since.

Professor Benjamin Silliman, the noted scientist,
made at least two excursions to the White Moun-
tains. He visited them for the first time in May,
1828, and from memoranda taken from letters to
his family and printed in the American Journal of
Science and Arts for January, 1829, we learn that
he went from Concord to Center Harbor, ascending
Red Hill, and then on to Conway. On Monday, the
19th, on which day he rode through the Notch, he
writes, "We . . . have this day passed the grandest
scenes that I have any where seen. The whole day's
ride, in an open wagon, has been in the winding defile

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FURTHER DISCOVERIES

of mountains, which probably have not their equal
in North America, until we reach the Rocky Moun-
tains." He describes the Notch and narrates briefly
the Willey disaster, the scene of which he visited
again the next day, examining the scenery, the
geological phenomena, and the ruins. His letter of
that day gives further details of the catastrophe and
describes the slides and their effects.

Professor Silliman's second expedition to the
Mountains was made in August and September,
1837, and is recorded in the Journal for April, 1838.
On the first day of September, 1837, in company
with his son and two gentlemen of Boston, he as-
cended Mount Washington under severe weather
conditions, which rendered the trip "very ardu-
ous." They became involved in a cloud, which froze
on their clothing and "tufted the rocks with splen-
did crystallizations of ice." The path was slippery
with ice, and above the tree-line the wind blew "a
frozen gale." As there were occasional outbursts of
the sun, they persevered and reached the summit,
where, however, the wind blew so furiously that
"the strongest man could not keep his standing
without holding fast by the rocks," and only a few
minutes at a time could be given to the peak on
account of the severity of the cold and the violent
pelting of the storm. " For science," he says, " there
was little to survey." He notes that the descent,
although, of course, more rapid than the ascent and
much less fatiguing to the lungs, was very trying to
the limbs, and especially to the larger muscles and to
the patella, "which seemed as if it would part with

109

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

the strain." The pedestrian ascent occupied two and
a half hours; the entire journey about ten hours "of
strenuous and constant exertion."

Besides the elder President Dwight, accounts of
whose journeys to the Mountains have been given
in the preceding chapter, another member of that
noted family has by his writings pleasantly asso-
ciated his name with the region. This is President
Dwight's nephew and pupil, Theodore Dwight, Jr.,
who, forced to abandon his theological studies be-
cause of ill health, became a traveler and later a
metropolitan magazine editor, publisher, and phil-
anthropist, and who was the author of numerous
works, including several volumes of travel.

About 1825,^ he made a horseback journey
through New England, going up the Connecticut as
far as the mouth of its tributary, the Ammonoosuc,
following the latter up to the White Mountains, and
thence passing through the Crawford Notch and
continuing on to Boston.

The literary fruits of this tour were several. His
"Sketches of Scenery and Manners in the United
States" (1829), has a chapter ^ on "The White
Mountains," in which he gives extensive descrip-
tions of the scenery, an account of the Willey disaster

* I have been unable to ascertain the date of this trip. In his
Northern Traveller, in speaking of a quarry near Concord, he notes the
removal of a very large piece of rock in 1824, which he may have seen
at the time. He also refers to the Notch House (Willey House) as
being unoccupied in summer. Mr. Willey moved into the house in the
autumn of 1825.

^ The book contains two rude lithographic prints, one a view of the
Notch and the other showing the effects of the slides. They are simi-
lar to those in his later book, Things as They Are.

1 10

FURTHER DISCOVERIES

with reflections upon it, a description of the house,
and a long quotation having to do with the descrip-
tion of a storm experienced by a traveler through
the Notch who took shelter from the elements in the
solitary dwelling when it stood untenanted previous
to the advent of the Willeys.

Again, in the later editions^ of his guide-book,
"The Northern Traveller," he includes directions
for traveling through the Mountains, a brief ac-
count of the destruction of the household of Mr.
Calvin [sic] Willey, and various bits of information,
particularly about the first road and the turnpike
through the Notch.

The detailed relation of his trip to the highland
country of northern New Hampshire was, however,
reserved for his entertaining volume of travels in the
North and East, which was published anonymously
in 1834 under the title, "Things as They Are; or.
Notes of a Traveller through Some of the Middle
and Northern States." ^ He writes pleasantly of the
incidents of the journey and of the people he encoun-
tered, and was much impressed with the wildness
and the sublimity of the scenery up the valley of
the Ammonoosuc and through the Notch. Finding a

^ In the first edition (1825) there are a number of pages in the
appendix devoted to the White Mountains. The later editions con-
tain an interesting cut of the Notch (Willey) House, engraved by
O. H. Throop, 172 Broadway, New York.

2 The second edition was published in 1847 with the author's name
on the title-page and under the title, Summer Tours; or, Notes of a
Traveller through Some of the Middle and Northern States. The book
contains crude wood-cuts of the "Notch of the White Hills, from the
North" (lower frontispiece) and of " One of the White Hills, stripped
of forest and soil by the storm of 1826."

Ill

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

party of travelers assembled at Crawford's who had
arranged to make an ascent of Mount Washington,
he stopped there long enough to join them in this
undertaking, which he found to be "a very labori-
ous task." It was accomplished, however, without
mishap under the guidance of Mr. Crawford, who
pointed out the objects of interest, such as Lake
Winnepesaukee and the Androscoggin, during the
occasional intervals of an unfavorable day, when the
clouds for a short time broke away. The entire trip
he declares was a great delight to him. He concludes
with noting his thorough appreciation of the pleas-
ure and value of the physical exertion necessary for
the climb and with some reflections, suggested by
the agreeableness of the experience, as to the tend-
ency of the town dweller to indolent habits and
luxury.

The summer of 1831 was marked by the coming
of many visitors, chief among whom was one of the
most noted of men to come to the Mountains, New
Hampshire's most famous son, "a member of Con-
gress, Daniel Webster." He arrived at Crawford's
on a warm day in June and asked the landlord to go
up the mountain with him. The ascent was made
"without meeting anything worthy of note, more
than was common for me to find," says the guide,
but "things appeared interesting" to the statesman,
we are told. On their arrival at the summit, Webster
is reported to have made a brief address, as follows:
"Mount Washington, I have come a long distance,
have toiled hard to arrive at your summit, and now
you seem to give me a cold reception, for which I am

112

FURTHER DISCOVERIES

extremely sorry, as I shall not have time enough to
view this grand prospect which now lies before me,
and nothing prevents but the uncomfortable atmos-
phere in which you reside!" As they began to de-
scend, there was a snowstorm on the top, the snow
freezing on them and causing them to suffer with the
cold until they had got some distance down. They
returned safely, however, to the hostelry, where Mr.
Webster rejoined his women friends, whom he had
left there while he made the ascent. On leaving, the
next day, the statesman, after paying his bill, gener-
ously gave his host and guide a gratuity of twenty
dollars. In honor of this famous son of the Granite
State, his name has been given to the grand moun-
tain ^ at the southern end of the Presidential Range,
where the chain falls off sharply into the Notch, a
peak which is, as Mr. Oakes has declared, "among
the most unique and magnificent objects of the
White Mountains."

The literary associations of the great New Eng-
land romancer with the White Hills have been
touched upon incidentally in sundry places in this
chronicle. So important, indeed, not only in this
respect but biographically and psychologically, is
his connection with them — they played so impor-
tant a part in his life — that the record of it demands

^ Professor C. H. Hitchcock states that it is probable that the name
of Mount Webster was proposed by Mr. Sidney Willard (after whom,
he says, Mount Willard is named) for the peak known to earlier
visitors as Notch Mountain. It is sometimes stated that Mount
Willard was named by Thomas J. Crawford after Mr. Joseph Willard,
once clerk of the Superior Court in Boston, who had ascended the
mountain with Crawford.

113

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

and deserves special and detailed treatment. Haw-
thorne's physical contact with the region, like that
of his college classmate Longfellow, was limited, the
parallel even extending probably to the number of
visits and to their being made in early and in late
life only. The character of the visits of the two men
were, however, very different. Hawthorne's early
one was a brief but comprehensive expedition
through the heart of the region, while Longfellow
seems to have penetrated no farther than Conway
in his early days. Hawthorne's later journey thither
came at the very end of his life and was cut short
almost before it had begun, death overtaking the
weary traveler at the gateway town of Plymouth.

Furthermore, unlike Longfellow, Hawthorne owed
much to the White Mountains. , They were one of the
formative influences of his boyhood, much of which
was passed in a wilderness home at Raymond, Maine,
on the shore of Sebago Lake, where the imaginative
boy could see, far away on the northwestern horizon,
the peaks and slopes of the Mountains, "purple-
blue with the distance and vast," or, much of the
time, glitteringly white in their covering of snow.

The first decade after Hawthorne's graduation
from Bowdoin in 1825 was a dismal period in his
career. He returned to Salem and formed several
plans of life. Authorship was, to be sure, the career
that appealed to him and that Nature intended him
to pursue, but it then ofTered little chance of a liveli-
hood. So strong, however, was his desire to follow
his bent for literature, that he determined to be, in
any case, a writer of fiction, a resolve which he held

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FURTHER DISCOVERIES

to in the face of the most discouraging obstacles.
After the failure of "Fanshawe," he became utterly
disheartened, and, despairing of success as an author,
became almost a hermit. But he kept on writing, re-
turning to his original plan of writing short stories,
in which he was eventually to meet with success.

Once a year or thereabouts while he was living this
solitary life in his mother's house, he used to make an
excursion of a few weeks, in which, he says, "I en-
joyed as much of life as other people do in the whole
year's round." It is one of these expeditions, that of
the autumn of 1832, that is of present interest for
us. It had a profound result upon the despondent
author and bore rich literary fruit. This excursion,
which was to the White Mountains, Lake Cham-
plain, Lake Ontario, and Niagara Falls, had the
psychological effect of raising his spirits and of stim-
ulating his ambition, and provided him with the
materials for a number of plots for short stories.
So far as the White Mountains are concerned the
record of his doings there is a strikingly brief one.
Writing to his mother from Burlington, Vermont, on
September 16, he says: "I have arrived in safety,
having passed through the White Hills, stopping
at Ethan Crawford's house and climbing Mount
Washington." On this same journey he doubtless
visited the Franconia Notch and saw that marvelous
countenance he was to immortalize in literature, but
there is no record of the fact. Nor do we hear of
other expeditions to the Mountains, although it is
possible they were made. From such a limited ac-
quaintance with the region as this fleeting glimpse

115

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

of it afforded, what remarkable fruit was genius able
to produce!

The passage of the White Mountain Notch and
the defile itself were described in a sketch printed in
the New England Magazine for November, 1835. The
sight of the devastation wrought by the slides in the
Notch and the story of the Willey disaster of six
years before his visit suggested to his fertile imagina-
tion the theme for his allegorical tale of "The Am-
bitious Guest." His stay at Crawford's is vividly
described in the sketch, "Our Evening Party among
the Mountains." On that evening he heard the
legend of "The Great Carbuncle" told, which he
expanded into the beautiful tale of this title.

It was in 1840 that the idea of a story in which a
human countenance gradually assumes the aspect of
a semblance of the face formed of rock, and becomes
at length a perfect likeness of it, presented itself to
the mind of Hawthorne and was jotted down in his
notebooks. Some years after this germ developed
about the Franconia Profile and bore fruit in the
allegorical tale of "The Great Stone Face," in which
various persons, a man of wealth, a military man, a
statesman (Hawthorne is supposed to have had
Daniel Webster in mind when portraying this char-
acter) , and a great poet, are successively acclaimed,
but mistakenly, as fulfilling the prophecy that a
child should be born in the valley who should become
the greatest and noblest person of his time and
whose countenance should in manhood be a per-
fect likeness of the Great Stone Face. The poet,
when he comes, finds the true person in a humble

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FURTHER DISCOVERIES

dweller in the valley, Ernest, a wise and simple man,
beloved by all, and when approaching old age bearing
a striking resemblance to the natural phenomenon.

Written in Salem in 1 848, "The Great Stone Face "
was submitted to Whittier, then editor of The Na-
tional Era, and was accepted for that journal and
published January 24, 1850, the author receiving
twenty-five dollars for this product of his imagina-
tion. Thus ended Hawthorne's literary connection
with the White Mountains.

For two or three years before his death, Haw-
thorne's health had been gradually failing from some
mysterious malady, which sapped his physical
strength and brain-power until he could work no
more. Several journeys were taken in the hope that
a change of climate and scene would restore his
vitality and spirits, but although they had a bene-
ficial effect upon him the improvement was only
temporary. After the sudden death in April, 1864, of
Hawthorne's publisher and intimate friend, William
Davis Ticknor, almost at the outset of a southward
journey they were taking together for their health,
Hawthorne returned to his home a complete wreck.

At this juncture his college mate and lifelong
friend, ex-President Franklin Pierce, came at once to
Concord to offer his services in Hawthorne's behalf.
He could suggest, however, nothing more hopeful
than a journey to the highlands of New Hampshire,
his thought being that the mountain air might re-
invigorate the invalid. They had to wait several
weeks for settled weather, but at length on Thurs-
day, May 12, 1864, they started from Boston going

117

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

by rail to Concord, New Hampshire, which they
reached in the evening. The weather being un-
favorable and Hawthorne feeble, they remained
there until the following Monday, when they
started on. Traveling by easy stages in a carriage,
they reached Plymouth on Wednesday evening, the
1 8th, about six o'clock.

Seeing that Hawthorne was becoming very help-
less, General Pierce > decided not to pursue their
journey farther and thought of sending the next
day for Mrs. Hawthorne and Una to join them there.
But alas ! there was to be no next day for Hawthorne.
Some time in the night, in Room No. 9 in the Pemi-
gewasset House, the novelist passed quietly away,
so quietly indeed that his death was not discovered
by his friend until several hours afterward.

The connection of another great New England
author, Emerson, with this region appears to have
been limited to one visit, so far as I have been able
to ascertain. This sojourn is well worthy of record,
however, because made at a crisis in his career, at
the time, indeed, when the young minister of the
Second Church of Boston had just made known to
his people his repugnance to the Communion rite
and had proposed its modification. The matter hav-
ing been referred to a committee for consideration,
the troubled clergyman, meanwhile, betook him-
self, during a suspension of the church services while
some repairs were being made, to the Mountains to
ponder his course of action and to get spiritual re-
fresh ment.

This was in July, 1832, when he was twenty-nine
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FURTHER DISCOVERIES

years old, the same year, by the way, in which his
future fellow townsman, Hawthorne, made the trip
through the Mountains which was so important
an incident in his career, but from a very different
standpoint. On the 6th, Emerson has an entry in
his Journal, dated at Conway, in which he sets down
the question, ''What is the message that is given me
to communicate next Sunday?" So it is probable
that he preached by invitation in the village church.

The end of the following week found him at Ethan
Allen Crawford's, where he remained over Sunday.
The entry in the Journal for Saturday contains a
statement which gives his idea of the benefit to be
derived by withdrawing to the hills. It has an ironi-
cal touch for us when we make a mental comparison
of the primitive conditions of this particular locality
in that day with the busy activity and luxury which
characterize it to-day.

"The good of going to the mountains," he de-
clares, ** is that life is reconsidered ; it is far from the
slavery of your own modes of living, and you have
opportunity of viewing the town at such a distance
as may afford you a just view, nor can you have any
such mistaken apprehension as might be expected
from the place you occupy and the round of customs
you run at home."

Sunday in this environment without the outward
accompaniments of religion was evidently dull and
without pleasure for the sensitive soul of the philoso-
pher, for he writes on this day, "A few low moun-
tains, a great many clouds always covering the great
peaks, a circle of woods to the horizon, a peacock on

119

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

the fence or in the yard, and two travellers no bet-
ter contented than myself in the plain parlour of
this house make up the whole picture of this un-
sabbatized Sunday."

Although there are occasional references to the
White Mountains, as to "Agiochook" and the
"Notch Mountains," in Emerson's writings, the re-
gion seems to have made no great impression on
him. He found his place of rest and refreshment
amid the quieter beauties of the region in south-
western New Hampshire dominated by Monadnock,
which, says Starr King, "the genius of Mr. Emerson
has made . . . the noblest mountain in literature."

What more grateful honor could come to a moun-
tain-lover than the permanent association of his
name with the most striking piece of scenery of its
kind in New England ! Such was the good fortune
of Edward Tuckerman, Professor of Botany in Am-
herst College from 1858 to his death in 1886, and in-
defatigable explorer of the White Mountains, whose
name is perpetuated in the region he loved so well by
having been given to the wonderful ravine on the
east side of Mount Washington, north of Boott
Spur. This remarkable gorge, because of the sublim-
ity of its steep cliffs with their semicircular sweep,
its close relation to the chief summit, its famous
snow arch, and the comparative ease with which it
may be traversed, has become by far the most widely
known of the White Mountain ravines. The route of
several of the early explorers ^ in ascending Mount

* Probably of Gorges and Vines in 1642. The party of Captain
Evans traversed it in 1774. Mr. S. B. Beckett, author of a railroad

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FURTHER DISCOVERIES

Washington, hundreds of pedestrians now pass
through it every year and clamber up the side of the
Mountain CoHseum, as the upper part of the gorge
or the ravine proper is sometimes called.

The kindly professor, who for his contributions
to our knowledge of the botany of the region well
merited the local distinction conferred upon him,
first visited the Mountains in 1837. He made collec-
tions in that year and the following three years, and
again made botanical explorations from 1842 ^ to
1853, spending each year several months in this
region. He determined the relationship and range
of many species and varieties of the plants, especially
the lichens, found here. Starr King, to whose book
Professor Tuckerman contributed two chapters, ap-
plies to him Emerson's description of the forest seer
beginning : —

" A lover true, who knew by heart
Each joy the mountain dales impart."

Speaking of the Mountain region when he first
visited it. Professor Tuckerman says, revealing by
his words his simple tastes and love of wild nature :
"It was then a secluded district, the inns offering
only the homely cheer of country fare, and the paths
to Mount Washington rarely trodden by any who

guide-book to Portland, the White Mountains, and Montreal, pub-
lished at the first-named city in 1853, and a gentleman from Charles-
ton, South Carolina, made a thorough exploration of the ravine in
1852, accompanied on a part of their trip by J. S. Hall, one of the
builders of the first Summit House. Mr. Beckett and his companion
are responsible for the names Hermit Lake, the Fall of a Thousand
Streams, and the Mountain Coliseum.
1 His companion that year was Asa Gray.

121

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

did not prize the very way, rough as it might be,
too much to wish for easier ones."

It is but natural that such a lover of the moun-
tains and the woods as Henry Thoreau should make
journeys to the White Mountains, where he would
expect to find so much to interest him both in the
way of scenery and in the way of natural history.
We are not surprised, then, to find the records of
such trips in his Journal.

His first visit was made as a sort of supplement or
side-trip to his famous boating excursion, the record
of which forms the groundwork of his first literary
venture, "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack
Rivers." The bare facts of this trip to the Moun-
tains, which was taken in September, 1839, are set
down in the Journal and some details are to be found
under "Thursday " in the "Week." I give the course
of the journey and its incidents as recorded in the
former. Having left the boat near Hooksett, as
it was impracticable to proceed farther in it, the
brothers, Henry and John, walked to Concord,
New Hampshire, from which town they went by
stage on Friday, the 6th, to Plymouth, a distance of
forty miles, finishing out the day by going on foot
to Tilton's Inn in Thornton. The next day they
walked through Peeling (Woodstock) and Lincoln to
Franconia, pausing on the way to visit the Flume,
the Basin, and the Notch, and to see the Old Man of
the Mountain. On the 8th the sturdy trampers went
on to Thomas J. Crawford's hotel, where they stayed
on the loth. The following day was devoted to an
ascent of Mount Washington, after the completion

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FURTHER DISCOVERIES

of which they rode to Conway. They returned to
Concord by stage on the nth, and the next day re-
gained their boat at Hooksett and started on the
return voyage.

July, 1858, was the time of Thoreau's second visit
to this region. Setting out in a private carriage with
a friend on the 2d, he ascended Red Hill on the 5th,
and proceeded through Tarn worth, Conway, North
Conway, and Jackson to the Glen House. Having
previously engaged Wentworth, who "has lived
here [four miles above Jackson] thirty years, and
is a native," as baggage-carrier and camp-keeper,
he started at 11.30 a.m. on the 7th to ascend the
Mountain road. After spending the night at a shanty
near the foot of the ledge, with "a merry collier and
his assistant, who had been making coal for the
summit, and were preparing to leave the next morn-
ing," Thoreau completed the ascent. As a result of
an earlier start, he reached the Summit half an hour
before the rest of his party and enjoyed a good view,
which was hidden from his companions by a cloud
that settled down before their arrival.

Descending the next day (with some difficulty
owing to a dense fog) into Tuckerman's Ravine, over
the rocks and the snow, which latter he notes was
" unexpectedly hard and dangerous to traverse," the
party camped about a third of a mile above Hermit
Lake. While here the guide, he records, made a fire
without removing the moss and it spread even above
the limit of trees, "thus leaving our mark on the
mountain-side." A friend for whom he had left a
note at the Glen House joined them at this camp,

123

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

and the party slept In the tent the night of the 8th,
with some discomfort, their fire being put out by
rain. The next afternoon, Thoreau, in returning
from an ascent of the stream, sprained his ankle ^ so
badly that he could not sleep that night, or walk the
next day. So they stayed at the camp until the 12th,
when, the weather clearing up, they descended and
passed the night at a camp a mile and a half west of
Gorham. Two days more brought them through
Randolph, Kilkenny, Jefferson Hill, Whitefield, and
Bethlehem to the Franconia Notch, where they
camped the night of the 14th half a mile up the side
of Lafayette, which peak was ascended on the 15th,
a good view being had of near points. After descend-
ing, they rode to West Thornton and then began
their homeward journey.

It is superfluous to add that Thoreau's record is
interspersed with frequent items of information on
his special interests, the birds and flowers. He con-
cludes his account of this journey with some observa-
tions as to the best views and with a list of the plants
found at different limits on Mount Washington.

Another literary visitor to the White Mountains
in the pre-railroad days, of whose experiences on the
excursion we have some account, was the future

^ Emerson, when giving, in his paper on Thoreau, instances of
"pieces of luck" which happened to the naturalist, mentions his fall
in Tuckerman's Ravine, and states that, "As he was in the act of
getting up from his fall, he saw for the first time the leaves of the
Arnica mollis." Unfortunately, this pretty story is not in accordance
with fact. Thoreau's finding of the plant took place, we learn from
the Journal, the day before and not at this time. Nor was he alone and
made helpless by his fall, and so in danger of perishing had not some
one chanced into the ravine and been attracted by his shouts, as one
account says.

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FURTHER DISCOVERIES

historian of the struggle between France and Eng-
land for supremacy in North America, Francis
Parkman.^ As early as 1841, his sophomore year at
Harvard, the studious young man had fixed upon
the writing of the history of the conflict between
the two European Powers on the soil of this conti-
nent as his life-work, and even before that he had
formed a passion for the woods and outdoor life.
With a wisdom unusual for his years, he saw that a
much wider range of knowledge and experience than
could be gained in the study would be needed to
equip him to handle adequately such a theme, and in
this equipment a familiarity with the topography
and life of the wilderness regions with which he was
to deal was, he judged, a very important element.
Having, as a preliminary step, begun, on entering
college, a course of physical training designed to
develop the utmost strength, agility, and endurance
of which he was capable, he followed this up with a
succession of journeys into the wilds of the United
States and Canada to secure the background which
he had foreseen he would need for his future work.
To this preparatory training the vacations and lei-
sure of a number of years were devoted.

In these days of railroads and summer resorts in
the White Hills it is hard to think of them as a wil-
derness region, but such they were in 1841, when
Parkman, wishing to begin his explorations by

^ Parkman kept a diary of each of his vacation trips, the best por-
tions of which were used in writing various books, but the part relating
to his White Mountain sojourn is for the most part unpublished. His
account of his adventure at the Willey Slide is quoted in C. H. Farn-
ham's A Life of Francis Parkman.

125

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

familiarizing himself with the wilder parts of his na-
tive New England, made, as the first of such trips,
an excursion to northern New Hampshire.

Accompanied by a classmate, Daniel Denlson
Slade,^ Parkman passed around Lake Winnepe-
saukee, and through the valley of the Saco and the
Crawford Notch. Thence the pair crossed to the
Franconia Range, where they spent several delight-
ful days. They then retraced in part their course,
and crossed over to the Connecticut River, whence
they proceeded to Colebrook and the Dixville Notch.
An ascent of the Magalloway River with Indian
guides concluded the excursion. While they were so-
journing at Crawford's inn (the Notch House), the
ascent of Mount Washington was made. An inter-
esting human touch appears in the record that Park-
man was greatly pleased by the "strength and spirit
and good-humor " shown on this occasion by a young
woman, who was a member of a lively party he had
fallen in with, and who had previously charmed him
by the "laughing philosophy" with which she had
taken a "ducking" in his company while passing
through the Notch on the stage in a pouring rain. It
maybe added that the acquaintance so pleasantly
begun ripened into a lifelong friendship.

The most noteworthy feature of this first trip of
Parkman's was an exploit undertaken by him alone
and characterized by him as "the most serious ad-
venture it was ever my lot to encounter." This little
excursion, which nearly cost him his life, was not a

* Mr. Slade contributed an interesting account of the trip to the
New England Magazine for September, 1894.

126

FURTHER DISCOVERIES

premeditated one. While staying at Crawford's he
walked one day down the Notch to the Willey House,
and out of curiosity began to ascend the pathway of
the avalanche. Coming to the "inaccessible preci-
pices" which Professor Silliman had noted as pre-
venting his further progress in ascending this place
a few years before, the adventurous young man
determined to scale them, and succeeded in doing
so "with considerable difficulty and danger." The
descent was a yet more perilous undertaking, as, in
order to get out of the ravine in which he found him-
self, he was compelled first to climb up its steep and
decaying walls to the surface of the mountain. His
splendid nerve and presence of mind enabled him
to achieve this well-nigh impossible and extremely
hazardous climb. His badly torn clothing, his lac-
erated fingers, and bruised legs were material indica-
tions of the difficulty of the feat, the recital of the
fact and the details of whose accomplishment aston-
ished the company at the hotel and Landlord Craw-
ford as well.

"The entire journey was a delight to us," says
Mr. Slade, "and in Parkman especially it augmented
the love for the wild and picturesque, with which he
had become enamored, and upon which he expati-
ated most fully in his diary."

Three of America's most noted preachers and
patriots of the nineteenth century, Henry Ward
Beecher, Phillips Brooks, and Thomas Starr King,
were lovers of the White Mountains. The pastor of
Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, made a short visit to
the region in the early days, and in the latter part of

127

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

his life spent a portion of every summer there; the
rector of Trinity Church, Boston, and Bishop of
Massachusetts, tramped the hills as a young man
and visited them at least once in later life ; the visits
of the Boston and San Francisco divine had as one
result the creation of the most famous of books on
these mountains.

The eloquent pastor of the Hollis Street Society
of Boston appears to have first visited the Moun-
tains in July, 1849.^ A passionate lover of the grand
and beautiful in Nature, he became interested in the
region his name is to be forever associated with,
through his intimacy with another enthusiast for
mountain scenery. This was his elder friend and al-
ways congenial companion, Dr. Hosea Ballou, 2d, a
noted Universalist clergyman, the first president and
one of the founders of Tufts College. Dr. Ballou
made the first of a series of visits to the White
Mountains in 1844. He was, as his notebooks testify,
a most careful observer, and he had made himself
familiar by study with most of the great mountains
of the earth. Thus he was eminently qualified to
describe accurately the scenery of the New Hamp-
shire highlands. After his first two visits he "em-
bodied," as Mr. Frothingham puts it, "his fondness
for them, in a beautiful and eloquent paper."

^ Richard Frothingham, in A Tribute to Thomas Starr King, says:
"He first visited the White Hills at the age of thirteen [he was born
December 17, 1824], probably with his father; but I have no facts
as to this visit." The author, Hosea Starr Ballou, of the Life of
Hosea Ballou, 2d, D.D., thinks this statement is apparently an error.
King himself, in The White Hills, speaks of seeing Abel Crawford
"in the year 1849, when we made our first visit to the White
Hills."

128

FURTHER DISCOVERIES

This article, » entitled "The White Mountains,"
which appeared in The Universalist Quarterly for
April, 1846, turned Starr King's attention to the
White Hills, led him to visit them, and was thus a
progenitor of the greater work.

King's companions on his first visit were a lifelong
friend, Professor Benjamin F. Tweed, principal of
the Bunker-Hill Grammar School of Charlestown
and afterwards professor in Tufts College, and two
others, who joined King and Tweed at Lowell. The
party took the usual route of the pre-railroad days,
going to Center Harbor on Lake Winnepesaukee the
first day, delaying to ascend Red Hill the next morn-
ing, and in the afternoon and night traveling in an
overloaded stage to Conway, part of this journey
being made through a forest fire and a thunder-
storm. The belated travelers did not reach their
destination until half -past eleven, but they were
happy in having seen a never-to-be-forgotten sight,
that of the woods on fire on the entire surface of the
highest summit of the Ossipee Range. The following
day, which was Saturday, they proceeded through
the Notch to Crawford's Notch House, where Sun-
day was spent. When they were standing directly in
front of the Willey House, a heavy peal of thunder
and the associations and scenes of the place pro-
foundly moved them, Mr. King records. Monday
morning, July 23, the ascent of Mount Washington
was made on horseback, there being twelve in the

^ "On this subject," says Mr. Frothingham, "I know nothing
which had appeared superior to it; and well remember Mr. King's
enthusiasm for the White Hills at the time of its publication."

129

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

party, which included two guides. They arrived at
the summit at half-past eleven, dined out on the
rocks, — there was then no shelter there, — had a
"most magnificent" view, as the day was "very
clear," and, after having remained an hour, began
the descent, which Mr. King found so much more
tiresome than the ascent that he "walked more than
half the way." It began to rain when they reached
the summit of Clinton and most of the party were
drenched when they regained the tavern. A visit to
the Franconia Notch and its objects of interest com-
pleted the tour.

Mr. King repeated his visit many times, making
his headquarters at Gorham, and in 1853 began to
print accounts of his explorations ^ in the Boston
TranscripL After having for ten years viewed the
Mountains, in their beauty and grandeur in winter
as well as in summer, he embodied the results of his
observations and explorations in "The White Hills:
Their Legends, Landscape, and Poetry," which was
published in 1859 on the eve of his final departure for
California and which was at once received with
great favor. ^

This noble volume, which one is safe in prophesy-
ing will never be equaled or superseded in its field,
is thus characterized by Mr. Frothingham: "This

^ A companion for several seasons in his explorations was Henry
Wheelock Ripley, who prepared editions of the Crawford History,
printed in 1883 and 1886, and who purposed to add to that work a
modern history of the Mountains.

* Mr. King's name is preserved in the Mountains by two fine
memorials, Mount Starr King in Jefferson, named in 1861, and King's
Ravine, the tremendous gorge, first explored and described by him,
on the north side of Mount Adams.

130

FURTHER DISCOVERIES

production is far more than a description of the
White Hills; its rich descriptions of every variety of
landscape apply to all natural scenes, and bring out
their inmost meaning. There is much of himself in
this volume, of his rare spiritual insight, — much
of what his cultured and reverent eye saw in the
beauty and the grandeur that God is creating every
day."

Less notably associated with the Mountains in a
literary way than Starr King, but far more memo-
rably connected with them in a ministerial way, was
the great preacher and pastor of Plymouth Church,
Brooklyn's most famous citizen, Henry Ward
Beecher. The year 1856 appears to be the date of
Mr. Beecher's earliest acquaintance with the region.
He evidently stayed at the Crawford House, then
kept by J. L. Gibb. Humorously declaring himself
"only a freshman, and in the first term at that," in
"a university of mountains," he does not, he says,
in the introductory paragraph of his paper contrib-
uted to The Independent at that time, "propose to
set forth and write out the whole of the White
Mountains." " I will give you," he continues, "just
a sprig of my experience." What his readers get,
however, is an altogether delightful essay, ^ the first
part of which gives an account of a descent on horse-
back from the top of Mount Washington, an expe-
rience which gave him "one half-hour of extreme
pleasure and two hours of common pleasure." It is

^ "A Time at the White Mountains," one of his regular contribu-
tions, over his customary signature, a " #", to The Independent (July
31, 1856). It is reprinted in Eyes and Ears.

131

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

entirely to the "half-hour of extreme pleasure,"
which was a time passed in separation from his
party, that this part of the essay is devoted. In elo-
quent and beautiful language he tells what he saw
and what he thought and felt when solitary in such
a place.

In the second half of the essay his descriptions of
a beautiful stream, which joins the Saco near the
hotel, of its pools, its "avenue of cascades" (one of
which, a double one, was afterwards given his name),
and its environment of forest and mountains, and of
the glorious view, are charmingly done. Especially
pleasing are his word-picture of the pool he selected
for a refreshing plunge and his description of the
witnessed actions and imagined thoughts of some
trout whose " mountain homestead " he had so greatly
and strangely disturbed.

Mr. Beecher's becoming an annual visitor to the
White Mountains was on this wise. For nearly thirty
years he had been a sufferer from that distressing
malady, hay fever, which attacked him every year
about the i6th of August, almost to the day. For
nearly six weeks he was sorely afflicted, reading,
writing, and almost all forms of mental work being
impossible. Finally his attention was called to the
relief that the air of the White Mountains affords
many sufferers, and, trying the experiment, he
happily found exemption there from the attacks of
the disease. He returned year after year in the
seventies to the Twin Mountain House and soon the
region became one of his subsidiary pulpits, as his
thirst for doing his Master's work was such as not

132

FURTHER DISCOVERIES

to allow him to lose any opportunity. The first year
or two he rested, but after that he began holding in-
formal services on Sundays.

The use of the large hotel parlor followed, with
preaching every Sunday morning. Soon the capacity
of this summer church was outgrown, and then one
of the large tents used at the State fairs was secured,
benches being provided for the congregation. In
this, during the last two or three years that he visited
the Twin Mountain House, he preached regularly
every Sunday for six weeks. For a number of years
also, at the request of the guests, he led the daily
service of morning prayer. This, his summer parish, ^
became his most prominent field of work outside of
Plymouth Church. From the neighboring hotels and
near-by towns people came by hundreds to hear the
famous preacher, filling the great tent. Thus he made
his infirmity an instrumentality for good.

It was in the first year (1862) of his rectorship of
the Church of the Holy Trinity, Philadelphia, that
Phillips Brooks, tired from six months of hard labor
in ministering to his large parish and in keeping the
many engagements that pressed upon him, made his
first visit to the White Mountains. To the vacation
of this year "he had looked forward," says his biog-
rapher, "with the eagerness of a schoolboy, to whom
the holiday is the most real part of his existence."
Accompanied by the Reverend Charles A. L. Rich-
ards and the Reverend George Augustus Strong,

^ In 1875 he published A Summer Parish: Sabbath Discourses and
Morning Service of Prayer, at the "Twin Mountain House," White
Mountains, New Hampshire, during the summer of 1874.

133

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

his fellow students and close companions at the
theological seminary and lifelong intimate friends,
he set out, on August 4, to make the tour of the
Mountains, an excursion which was not so common
then as later, and which was a notable event in their
lives. Phillips Brooks was not fond of exercise in
those days, or indeed at any time in his life, but was
endowed with rugged health. He did not like walk-
ing, or at any rate did not practice it as a regular
form of exercise, but while staying in Boston in July
he had taken lessons in horseback riding, which activ-
ity proved of service to him on this trip. The party
made their headquarters at the Glen House, and
Brooks did his share of' mountain-climbing with the
others. Their initial, or, as it were, practice climbs
were up Mounts Surprise ^ and Hayes, two of Starr
King's favorite viewpoints, near Gorham. In the
course of their wanderings they were joined by Mr.
Brooks's friend, the Reverend Mr. Cooper, of Phila-
delphia, and by his brother William, of Boston. The
trip culminated in an excursion which came near to
putting an end to the great preacher's career then
and there. Inspired by Starr King's exuberant en-
thusiasm for the sublimity of the views to be gained
by making such an expedition and for the physical
joys of the experience, the travelers determined upon
doing what was then known as "going over the
Peaks," which meant crossing the Northern Peaks
from Madison to Washington. When it is remem-
bered that there were then no defined paths and

* The biography of Phillips Brooks has it " Mount Suspense,"
which seems to be a slip.

134

FURTHER DISCOVERIES

guiding marks or signs for the trampers and that
guides were few, the difficulty of the excursion in
those days will be at once evident. Having secured
a man as guide who was said to know the way, they
started from the Glen House at six o'clock on the
morning of August 12, intending to make a two days*
trip of it. After going two miles or so on the road to
Gorham, they struck up the mountain-side. Six
hours' severe labor in the hot sun and close air and
over fallen timber and deep beds of moss brought
them to the timber-line. They climbed Madison,
crossed its two summits, dined between Madison and
Adams, and, after ascending the latter, passed on to
Jefferson. At the base of this peak they had meant to
camp, but, as it was blowing "half a hurricane," the
guide insisted that the wind was too high and the
temperature too low to make camping safe for heated
and tired men and that therefore they must push for-
ward. It was at sunset that they stood on the summit
of Jefferson, and there were still two or three hours
of good work before them. Mr. Brooks, for the first
part of the day, had stood the prolonged exertion as
well as any of the party, but somewhere on the part
of the way which they were now passing over, the
young giant, who in those days required double
rations and on this occasion had been provided for
only on the scale of ordinary men, began to flag, and
declared he could go no farther. He implored his
companions to leave him under the shelter of a rock,
with a shawl, for the night, but as, of course, they
would not hear to this and as they entreated him to
go on, he struggled forward for a few minutes at a

135

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

time and then flung himself down exhausted for a
long rest. Night came on and the way was lost in
the darkness, by the guide as well as by the others.
Finally they divined what was the matter with
Brooks and gave him food, some one having, for-
tunately, an egg or two in reserve. Mr. Brooks
having gained a little strength from food and rest,
and the moon having risen and the wind being in
their favor, they pressed on, and at last, a half-hour
after midnight, the exhausted trampers reached their
goal, the Tip-Top House. Tired as they were they
had to sleep on the office, floor, as every bed was
taken. The following day they walked down the car-
riage road in the morning and spent the remainder
of the day resting. The remaining days of the trip
were passed at North Conway, where an ascent of
Kearsarge was accomplished on foot, and some other
expeditions were made, one of which resulted for
Brooks in a sprained ankle, which accident brought
his tramp abruptly to a close.

Mr. Brooks evidently enjoyed the trip, for we find
him in August of the following year again tramping
in the Mountains, accompanied by Mr. Richards,
Professor C. J. Stills, one of his parishioners, and his
brother Frederick.^ This tour, in the course of which
he met numerous friends, was interspersed with
rowing, occasional resorts to horseback riding, and
mountain-climbing. One of the tramping excur-
sions was from the Glen up Mount Washington,

* When writing to his brother to induce him to take this trip, Mr.
Brooks mentions the Reverend Mr. Strong and the future Bishop of
New York, Henry C. Potter, as planning to go.

136

FURTHER DISCOVERIES

after which the travelers returned to North Con-
way.*

The visitors who came in the early days to explore
the Mountains or to see their scenic features stayed
at most but a short time, far from long enough to
form a strong love for the region or to enjoy its
beauties satisfactorily. Probably the first city per-
son to prolong his summer sojourns or to make fre-
quent returns was Dr. Samuel A. Bemis, who as a
boy had walked from Vermont to Boston, where he
became a leading dentist and amassed a fortune.
From 1827 to 1840 he spent nearly every summer in
the White Hills, and in the latter year he took up
his permanent residence in the glen in Hart's Loca-
tion, at the base of Mount Crawford, in which
Abel Crawford had lived so many years. There Dr.
Bemis built the stone cottage, so well known to
travelers up and down the Notch, which he made
his home until his death in May, 1881.

Having lent large amounts of money to Nathaniel
T. P. Davis, the proprietor of the Mount Crawford
House, on mortgage, on which Crawford's son-in-
law ultimately had to default his payments, Dr.
Bemis was obliged to foreclose. Thus he came into
possession of a vast tract of woodland, extending for
miles up the Notch. This great estate the eccentric
old patriarch bequeathed to his long-time superin-

* My account of these summer excursions of Mr, Brooks is drawn
from Dr. Allen's Life and Letters of Phillips Brooks. The details of
the trip over the peaks are quoted by the biographer from the Rev-
erend Charles A. L. Richards's account of it as set down in Remem-
brances of Phillips Brooks by Vivo of his Friends [Richards and Strong].
(1893.)

137

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

tendent, George W. Morey. Bemis Station on the
railroad, Bemis Brook, Bemis Pond, and Mount
Bemis, in addition to the cottage, preserve the name
and memory of this lover of Nature, who is said to
have named more of the mountains of this region
than any other man.

SOME FOREIGN VISITORS AND THEIR ACCOUNTS
OF THEIR TOURS OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

The next Englishman after Josselyn to visit the
White Hills and to give an account ^ of his journey
was Edward Augustus Kendall, Esq., a miscella-
neous writer, who, during the course of his travels in
this country, passed through this region by wagon in
November, 1807. From Portland he proceeded to
Gorham, where he first saw the Mountains, he says,
after leaving the Kennebec.^ Thence he traveled to
Conway, and from there he rode over the new turn-
pike through the Notch and through "Briton's
Woods," Bethlehem, "Lyttleton" (where he passed
the night) , and Bath to the Connecticut River. Owing
to the lateness of the season he could not ascend any
of the Mountains, the summits of which were then
covered with snow. On his way thither, when he
reached Hiram, Maine, on the 17th, he had experi-
enced the first serious fall of snow, and his journey,
being undertaken at this late time of year, was neces-
sarily a hasty one. He paused long enough on the

^ In his Travels through the Northern Parts of the United States in
the years 1807 and 1808, in three volumes, published at New York in
1809. The Dictionary of National Biography characterizes it as "a
somewhat dull account of his wanderings." His discussion of the
whiteness of the Mountains and its cause has been summarized in
the Introduction.

* He got his first view of them from some high land in Hallowell,
Maine.

139

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

way to eat a meal at "a small public house," twenty
miles from Conway (evidently the Mount Crawford
House), and speaks of passing another house, seven
miles farther up (the Willey House), Captain Rose-
brook's house, and the latter's son's farm in "Brit-
on's Woods." The greatest height to which he as-
cended, he states, was the "Beaver Meadow"
(where the Saco rises), the origin of which tract he is
at pains to explain.

The derivation of place-names evidently was a
subject of much interest to him, for he interrupts his
narrative often to introduce extended discussions of
the origin of some of those he meets with in the
course of his travels. Of such names in this region,
Ammonoosuc and Coos receive attention, and there
is a lengthy canvassing of the signification and
proper form of the name "Moose Hillock."

The tricennial period 1830 to i860 was memorable
in White Mountain travel by reason of the visits of
a number of foreign tourists, who made excursions
to this region a part of their American tours and who
have included in the record of their travels accounts
of the incidents and experiences of their trips
through the Mountains. Among the earliest of these
foreign visitors was a London barrister of royal name
and eminently fair mind, who made a tour of North
America in the years 183 1 and 1832. Henry Tudor,
Esq., had been an extensive traveler, and he under-
took the transatlantic voyage for the purpose of
visiting the only quarter of the globe that he had not
seen and also for the sake of regaining his health,
which was somewhat impaired. He had no intention

140

SOME FOREIGN VISITORS

ofpublishing an account of his travels (which he had
given in letters to various friends), and would never
have done so, he declares, had he not been dis-
pleased with the tendency of some tourists to Amer-
ica "to sully the fair reputation, and to depreciate
whatever is excellent in the rising greatness of our
transatlantic brethren." Particularly he reprobates,
in his Preface, the " Domestic Manners of the Amer-
icans," pronouncing Mrs. Trollope's observations as
"at once uncharitable" and as "illogical in their de-
ductions." Moreover, he devotes a part of the body
of his book, " Narrative of a Tour in North America "
(1834), to some remarks upon that lady's strictures.

Our present interest in Mr. Tudor and his travels,
however, lies solely in the fact that he made, in the
latter part of October, 1831, an excursion through
the White Mountains, going by wagon from Maine
to Conway, riding through the Notch in a carriage,
passing Thomas Crawfurd's [sic] hotel, and his
brother's hostelry also, and crossing by way of
Littleton to the Connecticut River. At the Notch
House he felt, he says, an inclination to ascend the
Mountains and might have done so had not a re-
cent fall of snow rendered it impracticable. He was
filled with admiration of the bold and romantic
scenery, especially of the Notch, and was much
impressed by the story of the destruction of the
household of "Mr. Martin Willey," which he nar-
rates with considerable fullness.

Two other foreigners who paid a visit to the region
about this time were Charles Joseph Latrobe, an
experienced English traveler and observer, and his

141

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

friend, the Count de Pourtal^s, a young Frenchman,
who together made an extended tour of North
America in 1832 and 1833. On their voyage to New
York from Havre, they had as fellow passenger
Washington Irving, who was returning to his native
land after seventeen years' absence. With him they
formed an intimate acquaintance on shipboard,
which was resumed ashore and which led to his be-
coming their companion in a number of their excur-
sions, the association being continued for the greater
part of the summer and autumn of 1832. Latrobe's
entertaining letters to a younger brother narrating
the incidents of his travels, describing the places
and persons seen, and commenting on the govern-
ment, politics, manners, customs, institutions, spirit,
etc., of the country in general or of particular re-
gions, were published in two volumes in 1835, under
the title "The Rambler in North America," the
work being dedicated to Irving.

It was in July, 1832, that the travelers, in com-
pany with Irving, who had appointed Boston as a
rendezvous previous to a visit to the White Moun-
tains, and whom the foreigners found at the Tremont
Hotel awaiting their arrival, made their journey to
the northern wilderness. They approached the re-
gion via Concord, Lake Winnepesaukee, and Con-
way, whence they passed through the Notch and
descended the valley of the Ammonoosuc. The as-
cent of Mount Washington was achieved by the
party, but "under disadvantageous circumstances."
"Upon gaining the summit," says Latrobe, "after
some hours* toil and much expectation, we were

142

SOME FOREIGN VISITORS

enveloped in heavy mist, which set our patience at
defiance, and sent us cold and wet on our downward
route."

Mr. Latrobe, on the preceding day, ascended
alone, "under better auspices," the summit "third
in rank," and so gained a view which enabled him to
give a brief description of the scenery for the benefit
of the recipient of his letters. Irving being obliged to
return to New York for a few days, Pourtal^s and
Latrobe continued on to Lancaster without him and
thence crossed Vermont and proceeded to Saratoga
Springs, where they kept their appointment to meet
Irving again.

Of what impression the White Mountains made
upon the great writer who has immortalized the
Hudson and the Catskills in literature, we have no
record. Writing to his brother Peter, he declares the
central New Hampshire country "beautiful beyond
expectation" and his course down the Connecticut
River to Springfield as a passing "through a con-
tinued succession of enchanting scenes"; but he
writes nothing of the White Mountains further than
the brief statement, "We kept together through the
mountains." Possibly the unpleasant experience
encountered on the Mount Washington trip is re-
sponsible for his silence as to this region.

In the autumn of the same year (1832) as that of
the visit of Latrobe and his companions, another
English traveler, E. T. Coke, a lieutenant of the
Forty-fifth Regiment, in the course of a compre-
hensive tour of the United States and the British
provinces, made a trip to the Mountains, of which

143

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

he has given a lively account in the second volume
of his "A Subaltern's Furlough," published in 1833.

A fatiguing and rough coach journey of eighteen
hours took him from Concord to Conway on the i8th
of October. Such was the soldier's ambition that the
next morning he started at a quarter to three to
go through the Notch. The traveler (who was of
an artistic bent and wished to do some sketching),
on the arrival of the coach at the southern entrance
to the Notch, alighted from it, and, ordering his
baggage to be left at the inn beyond the pass, sat
down to admire the "awful, grand and sublime
spectacle, which the Notch presents." The chance
rolling of a stone down the mountain-side and the
starting-up of a partridge brought to his mind the
thought of an avalanche and caused him to hasten
his sketching work and leave the valley. He found
his baggage at Ethan Crawford's, where he arrived
after a toilsome journey and where he stayed several
days, entertained, he notes, by his host's hunting
stories. It was too windy to climb Washington on
the 2 1st, but on the 226., he started with a guide at
4.30 A.M. and reached the summit at 8.15, having
been one and three quarters hours in covering the
three miles from the base. Of the view, which he
found "most extensive," he remarks, "It did not, I
must confess, altogether answer my expectations,
nor, to my taste, was it equal to that from Mount
Holyoke, where all was richness and life."

After his descent, he proceeded to Bethlehem and
thence to Littleton, where he arrived in the evening.
The next day (the 23d) being cold and rainy, he

144

SOME FOREIGN VISITORS

remained at Littleton, but on the 24th he rode out
to Franconia, and, passing through the Franconia
Notch, crossed over to the Connecticut River and
Vermont. On his way he visited the "Profile of the
Old Man of the Mountain," about which he remarks,
"No art could improve the effect, nor could any
attempt be made to assist it; for, the profile being
seen perfect only from one point, the slightest devia-
tion from that spot throws all into a confused mass."

In the autumn of 1835, the noted English writer,
Harriet Martineau, who was spending two years of
travel in the United States, visited the White Moun-
tains.^ She left Boston on the i6th of September in
company with three friends, going by way of Lake
Winnepesaukee, which the party crossed on a steam-
boat and in the neighborhood of which they paused
long enough to make an ascent of "Red Mountain"
(Red Hill). This done, they proceeded to Conway,
whence they went in a private conveyance through
the Crawford Notch, stops being made at Pen-
dexter's and the elder Crawford's, and Ethan Allen
Crawford's hospitable dwelling being reached at
nightfall.

Their purpose of ascending Mount Washington
the next day was frustrated by a tempest of wind
and snow on that peak, but the day was spent "de-
lightfully" in climbing Mount Deception, tracing

^ She devotes a section of volume ii of her Retrospect of Western
Travel (published in 1838), to a description of the region and a narra-
tion of the incidents of her journey. The earlier part of the trip is
related in her Society in America. This is followed by a brief account
of the Willey disaster, by a pleasant characterization of Ethan Allen
Crawford and of his hospitality, and by a description of the host's
ways of entertaining and amusing his guests.

145

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

the course of the Ammonoosuc, and watching the
storms. In the late afternoon, the tourists set out
in a wagon for Littleton, passing Bethlehem ("con-
sisting, as far as we could see, of one house and two
barns"), and reaching about six o'clock their desti-
nation, where they were most comfortably enter-
tained "at Gibb's house." The following day was
devoted to an excursion to the Franconia Notch.
Unfortunately, the weather was showery and cloudy,
and soon after their arrival they were glad to take
refuge from one pelting downpour in the Lafayette
House, then just erected. Although, as she puts it,
"we . . . made ourselves acquainted with the prin-
cipal features of the pass," she makes no mention of
the Profile, whose existence was apparently unknown
to her and which was doubtless on that day hidden
by clouds or mist. After dinner, however, when
they had duly given an account of themselves in
the host's new album, they started, in defiance of
the weather, to see the Flume, which she calls the
Whirlpool and characterizes as "the grand object
of the pass." In spite of the fact that it rained hard
during their stay of half an hour there, and although
they returned to Littleton in pitch darkness and
arrived there wet to the skin, the experience did not
discourage the writer from concluding her account
with the opinion that the Franconia Defile is "the
noblest mountain pass I saw in the United States."
The most famous of foreign scientists to explore
the Mountains was Sir Charles Lyell, F.R.S., the
eminent geologist. Early in his second visit to the
United States, in 1845, he set out, accompanied by

146

SOME FOREIGN VISITORS

his wife, on an excursion thither from Boston, the
first part of their itinerary being along the seacoast to
Portland. Their course from there was to Conway,
then through the Crawford Notch to Fabyan's,
where they remained several days, ascending Mount
Washington on horseback on October 7. Leaving
Fabyan's, they journeyed to Bethlehem and the
Franconia Notch, and thence traveled by stage to
Plymouth, whence they returned via Concord to
Boston.

Geological and botanical matters were naturally
uppermost in Sir Charles's mind during the tour, but
he sets down many interesting observations and re-
marks concerning things political, social, and reli-
gious. He records the names of many botanical
specimens found, and he was particularly interested
in the alpine species of plants inhabiting Mount
Washington, the explanation of whose presence there
he discusses briefly. At Fabyan's he found Mr.
Oakes ("one of the ablest botanists in America"),
who was his companion in walks about there and
who was a member of the party of nine which made
the ascent of the chief peak.

The geological matter that especially engaged the
great scientist's attention was that of the effects of
slides on the rocks over which they had passed, his
object being to determine whether any of the grooves
and scratches on them are caused by avalanches. As
a result of his investigations at the scene of the
Willey Slide, where he clambered up four hundred
feet above the river under the guidance of the elder
Crawford, and at other places, he became convinced

147

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

that the long and straight furrows could not be due
to this cause.

Although he stayed a couple of days or so at the
Franconia Notch and went from there to Plymouth
by stage, he does not speak of the Profile or of the
Flume. Lack of time to make the side trip to the
latter when on his way through the Notch may have
been the reason for his silence about it. Perhaps,
also, such curiosities as these did not appeal to his
scientific mind.

Another foreigner of note who included a tour to
the White Mountains in her course of travel in
America was the Swedish novelist, Fredrika Bremer,
who spent two years in this country. In August,
1 85 1, the month preceding her departure, she paid
a visit of several days to the Mountains, of which
trip she has left an entertaining account,^ with lively
comments on some of the incidents of the journey
and on some of the practices of fellow tourists, and
especially with much description of the scenery,
which impressed her greatly. That of the Franconia
Notch reminded her of "the glorious river valleys of
Dalecarlia or Norsland" in her native land, but was
pronounced by her "more picturesque, more playful
and fantastic," and declared to have "more cheerful
diversity" and an "affluence of wood" and "beauti-
ful foliage" that are "extraordinary." She declined
to attempt the ascent of Mount Washington because
of the difficulty of the expedition and because of the

* See volume il of her The Homes of the New World: Impressions
of America. Translated by Mary Howitt, in two volumes (1853).
The work is a transcription of her letters to her sister at home.

148

SOME FOREIGN VISITORS

nature of the view, visited the Flume, which inter-
ested her greatly, and saw the Profile,^ which struck
her very differently from most people. So singular is
her impression of it that her characterization of it
may well be given here for its interest.

The peculiarity of these so-called White Mountains is
[she says] the many gigantic human profiles which, in
many places, look out from the mountains with a precision
and perfect regularity of outline which is quite astonish-
ing. They have very much amused me, and I have
sketched several of them in my rambles. We have our
quarters here ^ very close to one of these countenances,
which has long been known under the name of "the Old
Man of the Mountain." It has not any nobility in its
features, but resembles a very old man in a bad humor,
and with a nightcap on his head, who is looking out from
the mountain half inquisitive. Far below the old giant's
face is an enchanting little lake, resembling a bright oval
toilet-glass, inclosed in a verdant frame of leafage. The
Old Man of the Mountain looks out gloomily over this
quiet lake, and the clouds float far below his chin.

In this connection it may also be of interest to
know that, while she was visiting in Boston, more
than a year before, Charles Sumner read to her one
day Hawthorne's story of "The Great Stone Face,"
which "poem in prose," as she characterizes it, gave
her so much pleasure that she wrote a summary of it
as a part of her letter sent at that time.

A mid-century visitor to America of an unusual
kind and of some distinction was the Honorable

* She also mentions "Willey's House" and briefly narrates the
story of the disaster and that of the fate of Nancy, as connected with
a "place" called "Nancy Bridge."

* She stayed at the Lafayette House.

149

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Amelia Matilda Murray, a maid of honor to Queen
Victoria. A brilliant woman of high social position
(her mother was a lady in waiting upon two prin-
cesses and as a girl Amelia was much at court),
she did not allow court life to absorb by any means
her entire attention, but found time and opportunity
to become an excellent botanist and artist and also
to interest herself in the education of destitute and
delinquent children.

In July, 1854, she started on a tour of the United
States, Cuba, and Canada, not returning home until
October, 1855. In the latter part of August of the
first year a visit of about ten days to the White
Mountains was made, of which she has left a viva-
cious account in her "Letters from the United
States, Cuba, and Canada," published in 1856.^

Botany and sketching were naturally her special
interests on her American tour. Immediately after
her arrival she made the acquaintance of Asa Gray,
who, she writes on August 4, "has proposed botaniz-
ing over part of this country with me." On the
excursion with which we are concerned, he accom-
panied her as far as Alton Bay, whence he returned
to Boston. The Mountains were approached in the
usual way at that day, that is, via Center Harbor
and Conway. The Honorable Miss Murray did not
particularly enjoy mountain-climbing, and so re-

* An interesting sidelight on her quality is afforded by the fact that
when she was reminded, on proposing to print an account of her
travels, that court officials were not allowed to publish anything
savoring of politics, she resigned her post rather than suppress her
opinions, — she had returned a zealous advocate of the abolition of
slavery. She prepared, but did not publish, a series of sketches to
accompany her book. {Dictionary of National Biography.)

150

SOME FOREIGN VISITORS

fused to ascend Red Hill * with her party. The jour-
ney to Conway, "a drive hot and dusty but very
beautiful," was made in "a kind of char-^-banc,
hired for the purpose." From Conway she went to
the Crauford [sic] House on Sunday morning,
August 20, the start being made at 6 a.m. "Such a
beautiful drive!" she exclaims. At her destination
she found acquaintances and was induced to accom-
pany them on a drive, after six horses, to the summit
of Mount Willard. "Having once embarked in the
undertaking, I was ashamed to insist upon being let
off; but the ascent was really a tremendous one for
any vehicle whatever; and how we ever got safely
up and down again is a marvel to me," she writes.
The temptation to join a party in ascending Mount
Washington on horseback the next day she resisted,
doubtless without much effort. She then continued
her tour, going to the Profile House on the 22d, and
on the morning of the following day driving to the
Flume House. In connection with the Profile and
Profile Lake she records: "A legend is attached to
the latter, which says, that all who rise early may
see the old man of the mountain take his bath in
the lake." She found the scenery round the Flume
House so fine that she removed there on the 24th
and stayed until the morning of the 29th. On the
morning of her last full day at this place, with an
American acquaintance whom she found staying
there, she climbed to the top of "Pemmewhasset,"

^ This long ridge, a number of times mentioned in the text, is
situated north of Lake Winnepesaukee in Moultonborough. It com-
mands a wonderful view, whose praises have been celebrated by
many writers.

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

from which, she says, "there is a charming view up
and down the valley of the Saca [sic] . ' ' Some one had
evidently misinformed her as to the geography of the
valley she was in, for, in recording her ride from the
Flume House to Wells River, she writes, "The road
, . . runs nearly the whole way by the River Saco,
the same we passed at Conway."

She has much to say in praise of the beauty of the
mountain country, which appealed strongly to her
artistic sensibilities. On the social side, the comfort
of the hotels and the cordiality, frankness, and
kindness of the people she met especially struck
this English traveler, who found the hotel life
" like the freedom of a very large country-house in
England."

The English novelist, Anthony Trollope, he of the
"nulla dies sine linea" method of doing literary
work, is another famotts foreigner who visited the
White Mountains and gave an account of his excur-
sion and recorded his impressions of the region in a
book. Early in the course of his travels in North
America, one result of which was an entertaining
and fair-minded volume on the subject, he made
a brief circuit tour of the Mountains. It was in
September, 1861, that, on his way to Canada, he
paused long enough to make the trip. His way of
approach was by the Grand Trunk Railway from
Portland to Gorham, and thence by wagon to the
Glen House. From this starting-point he made an
ascent of Mount Washington on a pony, but, as he
says of this expedition," I did not gain much myself
by my labour," he evidently experienced the rather

152

SOME FOREIGN VISITORS

common lot of being deprived of any view by the
presence of clouds. The following night was passed
at Jackson, and the next day was devoted to a wagon
journey to the Crawford House and a walk up Mount
Willard. After spending the night at this hostelry,
he completed his Mountain excursion by a ride over
Cherry Mountain and thence back to Gorham.

He expresses his surprise in finding a district in
New England with such fine scenery, much of which,
he declares, "is superior to the famed and classic
lands of Europe," and further in finding it so easily
accessible and abundantly supplied with large hotels.
The view from Mount Willard down the Notch he
pronounces unequaled on the Rhine. The brilliancy
of the autumn foliage, unapproached in any other
land, he confesses to be beyond his powers of descrip-
tion.

VII

THE EARLY HOTELS AND THE BEGINNINGS OF
THE REGION AS A SUMMER RESORT

In an earlier chapter have been chronicled the first
comings to the Mountains of inhabitants of the older
and more established and populous settlements on
the seacoast, who came not to stay permanently, but
to pass through the region or to tarry a short time in
it for the purpose of pleasure travel, or of explora-
tion. The more noteworthy of such early visitors
were, it will be recalled, men of learning, such as
President Dwight and Drs. Belknap and Cutler, who
made the journey, long and arduous as it was in the
latter part of the eighteenth century, with a mixed
motive, in which the chief element was the desire
of adding to their stock of information. They had
heard of the beauty and grandeur of the scenery of
the Mountain district, and wished to see it for them-
selves, so the pleasure to be derived from viewing
the landscape was an element in their reason for com-
ing, as was also the desire for recreation; but their
chief concern was ever knowledge of the natural
phenomena and physical conditions of the region and
of the effects of man's occupation of a wilderness and
first attempts at subduing it.

These explorers or travelers, whose main interests
were, as has been said, scientific, or whose minds, at
any rate, were inquiring, were followed early in the

154

THE EARLY HOTELS

nineteenth century by a slowly increasing number of
a class whose purpose in coming was entirely one of
pleasure and recreation, the precursors of the multi-
tude of summer tourists and visitors of recent days.
In the preceding two chapters have been summa-
rized the incidents of the tours of the more noted of
those persons, American and foreign, who came in
the early days to view the scenic beauties and won-
ders of the region, their experiences, and the com-
ments they chose to make on things seen.

This growing desire on the part of travelers and
pleasure seekers, to make a trip to the highlands of
the north country, stimulated the residents and the
local authorities to endeavor to meet the demand
thus created and to turn it to pecuniary advantage,
by affording facilities for making the journey and
more and better accommodations for the entertain-
ment of passers- through or sojourners. This dis-
position manifested itself in the building of better
roads, the construction of bridle paths and trails, the
establishment of stage-lines on certain main-traveled
routes, and the erection of comfortable inns. Fore-
most among the residents of the region in this pio-
neer work were the members of the Crawford family.
The improvements made by them and others fos-
tered in turn the desire of making the excursion, and
in consequence of this reciprocal action, and also
in some measure because of the wider extension of
the knowledge of the existence of such grand and
beautiful scenery so comparatively near at hand, the
number of travelers, as has been indicated, gradually
increased. It remained for the coming of the rail-

155

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

roads, the growth of the country in population and
wealth, and the rise and development of the practice
of spending the summer or a part of it in the country,
and of the closely related custom of taking summer
vacations, all circumstances occurring in or char-
acteristic of the latter part of the nineteenth century,
to make of the White Mountain district the great
summer recreation ground and tourist resort it has
become.

In the earlier period of this growth of the region
as a resort, however, the visitors were tourists only,
who devoted but a few days at most to seeing the
Mountains. Many of them paused long enough, as
we have seen, to make, under the guidance of the
Crawfords or of others, an ascent of the chief peak,
but that done and the notches visited or traversed,
they passed on, in most cases never to return. It was
not until late in the thirties that people came to pass
the entire season or at least to make stays of any
length at one place, and began to make annual re-
turns to some village or hamlet, such, for instance, as
Conway Corner or North Conway. I have spoken
in another place of the pioneer in this custom. Dr.
Bemis, of Hart's Location.

The first inns in the region, therefore, were opened
to provide entertainment for transient guests, which
included the tourists and the many persons engaged
in the commercial traffic that was carried on over
certain main routes of travel, especially that through
the Crawford Notch, which formed the only direct
connection between the seacoast and the upper
Connecticut Valley. These hostelries were, as Haw-

156

THE EARLY HOTELS

thorne expresses it, "at once the pleasure-house of
fashionable tourists and the homely inn of country
travelers," and their guests were often of the mot-
ley character of a group the novelist describes, in
the sketch ^ from which this quotation is taken, as
spending a night at Ethan Crawford's when he was
once a guest there.

The building or opening of the earliest of these
houses of entertainment has been already recorded.
Let the facts be again set down briefly for the sake
of bringing the information into juxtaposition with
other circumstances of the same kind.

The first house of entertainment in the region was
built, it will be recalled, by Captain Eleazar Rose-
brook in 1803 on the site of the present Fabyan
House. This house was burned in 1 818, shortly after
Ethan Allen Crawford received it from his grand-
father, and was immediately succeeded by a small
house, which was moved to the site. In 1824 and
1825, Mr. Crawford added a good-sized building to
this latter structure to accommodate the increasing
number of summer travelers. Another addition was
erected in 1832 and 1833.

Meantime, as travel through the region and es-
pecially over the new turnpike through the Notch
increased, hotels and taverns of a simple type were
opened along the main routes. The rude habitation
known as the "Willey House" was built, as has
been already mentioned, probably in the last decade

^ "Our Evening- Party among the Mountains," one of the
"Sketches from Memory," in Mosses from^ an Old Manse. Hawthorne,
as has been narrated, stopped at Crawford's in the autumn of 1832.

157

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

of the eighteenth century, and, not long after the
opening of Rosebrook's hotel, was opened as a pub-
lic house by one Henry Hill. It was kept by him
and others for several years and was at length aban-
doned. Farther south, on Hart's Location, Rose-
brook's son-in-law, Abel Crawford, began to entertain
travelers at his home, which came to be known as the
"Mount Crawford House," and which was kept
for years by his son-in-law, Nathaniel T. P. Davis.
Here Webster, Everett, Rufus Choate, and Presi-
dent Pierce were guests when visiting the region on
fishing trips. The old house was torn down some
years since, ^ its last openings to the public having
been in 1872 and 1876.

The early inn at Upper Bartlett was kept for years
by "Judge" Obed Hall, who had been a member of
Congress. Grenville Mellen tells of stopping there
in 18 19 and characterizes his host as "the wonder
and curiosity of his region," noting his picturesque
character and rugged, honest hospitality and his
abilities as a talker and story-teller.

The Honorable John Pendexter, who built the
hotel, afterwards enlarged and improved and now
known as the "Pendexter Mansion," in Intervale,
came to the wilderness from Portsmouth ^ in the
winter of 1772 or 1773, living at first in a log cabin
and later in a frame house on the lowland. Another
early house in this locality was Meserve's East

* In 1900. A cottage, still standing at the railroad station, was
built of the sound timber.

* The eighty miles were made by the pioneer on foot, his wife,
Martha, riding on an old horse, with a feather bed for a saddle, and
he dragging the household furniture on a hand sled.

158

THE EARLY HOTELS

Branch House at Lower Bartlett, near the location
of the Pitman Hall of to-day.

The great hotel locality of this region was, how-
ever^ the town of Conway. Here, as the chief stop-
ping-place at the east entrance to the Mountains, a
number of taverns or inns were early established.
About 1 8 12, the Washington House, later the Cliff
House, threw open its doors for the entertainment of
strangers in North Conway, destined to become the
principal tourist center of the town and the leading
summer resort of the eastern side of the region.
Daniel Eastman was its builder and proprietor. By
1825, when summer visitors began to come, the
taverns in the town, besides Eastman's were, accord-
ing to Mrs. Mason, Thomas Abbott's Pequawket
House at Conway (formerly known as Conway
Corner) ; Benjamin Osgood's house at Black Cat, in
the lower end of the town; the McMillan House
at North Conway, established by Colonel Andrew
McMillan, a native of Ireland, who came there from
Concord about 1764; and Samuel W. Thompson's
small tavern in North Conway, situated where now
stands the Kearsarge. Chatauque,^ or Conway Cor-
ner, became, as travel increased, the starting-point
for stage-lines to distant points, such as Concord,
Dover, Littleton, and Portland. In these days most
of the tourists came by coach from Center Harbor,
but numbers, proportionately much greater than in

^ This name was given to the village, according to Mrs. M. E.
Eastman, by an old resident, who, on returning to his native town
after having spent a number of years near Chautauqua, New York,
remarked on the resemblance of the right-angled crossroads to the
"four corners" in the New York State village.

159

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

later days until the advent of the automobile, trav-
eled by private conveyance. Mails in the pre-stage
days were infrequent. In 1775, a messenger brought
"the post monthly"; in 1781, the Government em-
ployed a rider to bring the mail fortnightly. From
1825 to 1829, Samuel W. Thompson carried it on
horseback from Conway to Littleton once a week/
and after that a two-horse wagon was driven over
the route until the stage-line was established.

Noted visitors to North Conway during its in-
fancy as a summer resort were many, the town being,
as has been indicated, the chief gateway to the
Mountains. Some of them who wrote about their
tours are named in the preceding chapters.

The artists, who early made the village a sort of
American Barbizon, and who did so much to extend
the locality's fame, will be dealt with in another
chapter.

An important event in the hotel history of North
Conway was the erection, in 1861, of the structure
which constitutes the south wing of the present
Kearsarge House. The enterprising Samuel W.
Thompson, owner of the older hotel of the same
name, 2 was the builder of the new house of enter-

* Mr. Crawford records that, in 1828, he was transporting the mail
from Conway to Littleton twice a week, and that after the heavy rain
of the 2d day of September, — a downpour "which was as great as
the one we had two years before" and which carried away many of
the newly rebuilt bridges and destroyed much of the road, — it was
impossible to go with a horse. "We carried it," he says, "regularly
on our backs, without losing more than one single trip."

* The old tavern was removed to a side street and made over into
a dwelling-house. It is now used as the Episcopal rectory. I owe this
information to Mr. Thompson's daughter, Mrs. L. J. Ricker, of
Kearsarge Hall.

160

THE EARLY HOTELS

tainment and for many years its proprietor. In 1872
he completed the present hotel.

At Bethlehem the first tavern-keeper's license was
granted on December 8, 1800, by Selectmen Moses
Eastman and Amos Wheeler to their colleague,
Captain Lot Woodbury. The need for such a house
of entertainment grew out of the increasing impor-
tance of the new town as a station of commerce be-
tween Portland and northern New Hampshire. This
public house of Squire Woodbury stood at the west
end of the street, near where the Alpine House of to-
day is situated, and was a famous tavern for many
a year. Other early taverns were those kept by
Thomas Jefferson Spooner, Joseph Plummer, John
G. Sinclair, and the Turners, whose signboard bears
the date of 1789. Gradually Bethlehem declined as a
commercial place and became a summer resort only,
a hotel being built before long solely for the purpose
of entertaining summer visitors, now almost the only
source of revenue to the town and certainly the only
one for Bethlehem Street.

The building of the new Notch House on the
little plateau at the northern entrance (the Gate) of
the Crawford Notch has been barely mentioned in
a preceding chapter. A few details may be added
here. The hotel owed its origin to the thought and
enterprise of Ethan Allen Crawford, then proprietor
of the modest inn at the Giant's Grave. It became
evident to him that an establishment for accommo-
dating the tourists who were coming in increasing
numbers was a necessity at the Notch entrance, as
many wished to stop at that point and leave their

i6i

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

horses while they pursued their way down the hill
on foot to view the cascades, and on their return
needed some refreshment. " Having," says Mr. Craw-
ford, "a disposition to accommodate the public, and
feeling a little self-pride to have another Crawford
settled here, I consulted with my father, and we
agreed to build here and place a brother of mine in
the house." In the autumn of 1827, accordingly, the
Crawfords prepared timber for a frame one hundred
and twenty feet in length, and thirty-six feet in
width; but, just as they were about to raise this,
snow fell so deeply that they had to give the work up
for that year. In the next winter, in the beginning of
1828, Mr. Crawford bought lumber and brick, and in
the spring the building was raised and joiners put to
work on it. They, with some aid from the owners,
before winter set in had the outside of the building
finished and the inside so far advanced toward com-
pletion that the house was a comfortable habitation.
After the chief owner had bought furniture for it in
Portland and had supplied it with provisions, his
brother, Thomas J., moved into it in January, 1829.
Owing to its newness and to its convenient location,
it had a large share of the winter business and it soon
became also a great place of resort for the summer
tourists. Thomas J. Crawford remained its propri-
etor until 1852. About this time, he began to build a
hotel on the site of the present Crawford House, but
he got into pecuniary difficulties and was obliged to
sell out to a company, of which Mr. J. L. Gibb, who
had been the manager of the Lafayette House in
the Franconia Notch, was the head. Mr. Gibb com-

162

THE EARLY HOTELS

pleted the house * and ran it successfully for a num-
ber of years. In 1853, when fire destroyed the other
hotel of this region, the Mount Washington House,
four miles distant, the Crawford House was enlarged
by its enterprising proprietor and the old Notch
House was repaired and refurnished to provide ac-
commodations for the great number of travelers who
came to the Mountains. Both these houses soon fell
victims to the fire fiend, the time-honored old build-
ing being the first to go, in 1854. The new structure
succumbed to the great enemy of summer hotels on
April 30, 1859. In rebuilding it, a feat of rapid con-
struction, which was remarkable then and would
be so even to-day, was performed, but sixty days be-
ing required by the builder to replace the structure
on a somewhat larger scale. And the lumber had to
be drawn seventeen miles! On the night of July 4
its management was able to serve one hundred
guests in the dining-room. The present Crawford
House is substantially the hotel built at that time.

The history of the old hotel in the Ammonoosuc
Valley, whose fate has just been incidentally men-
tioned, may well be recounted here. It will be re-
called that Ethan Allen Crawford, because of his
ill-health and his heavy involvement in debt, was
finally, in 1837, obliged to give up the hotel and farm
of which he had so long been the proprietor. Horace
Fabyan, who had been in the provision business in
Portland, took possession of the hotel in that year

^ It appears to have been sometimes called after its proprietor.
Henry Ward Beecher in his paper, A Time at the White Mountains,
calls it "the Gibbs House."

163

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

and kept it with increasing custom for fifteen years.
Mr. Fabyan, who was destined to give his name to
the hotel and railroad station of the present day, be-
came a noted landlord of those days. In 1844, he
repaired the old Willey House and its stable, and in
1845, built close to it a hotel, seventy feet by forty,
which was ready to receive guests the next season.
Again he extended the field of his activities by taking
charge, in 1851, of the Conway House at North
Conway, which was built by Samuel Thom, Nathan-
iel Abbott, and Hiram C. Abbott in 1850, and is said
to have been then the finest hotel in the northern
part of the State.

Mr. Fabyan made some repairs on the hostelry
at the Giant's Grave soon after taking possession
and named it the "Mount Washington House." A
guest who was there that year has given an interest-
ing account ^ of the circumstances of hotel-keeping
in that day. The rate in 1837 was $1.50 a day. The
price of the trip up Mount Washington was $3.
This included the services of Mr. Fabyan's cousin,
Oliver Fabyan, as guide and the use of horses, which
were taken to a point three miles below the summit.
A custom, begun by Mr. Crawford, of exhibiting for
the pleasure of guests the remarkable echo to be
heard at the Giant's Grave, was a feature of the
entertainment at the Mount Washington House.
Mr. Fabyan had a famous tin horn, six feet long,
which was often sounded, with such a beautiful
effect that one writer says of it, "We never heard
mortal sounds to be named with the echoes of Faby-

* Mr. W. P. Hill in the White Mountain Echo for August 10, 1895.

164

THE EARLY HOTELS

an*s tin horn." In 1845 and 1846, the whole interior
of the old house was remodeled and repaired and
many improvements, including new furniture and
fittings for the house and a considerable amount of
grading and laying-out of grounds, were made. A
new building, one hundred and forty feet by forty
feet and three stories high, was added to the old
house, providing fifty more rooms and making a
building two hundred feet long. This was completed
about 1847-48.^ The fine establishment thus created
was not, however, destined to accommodate travel-
ers for more than a few years, for, in the spring of
1853, the fire fiend again visited this site and the
Mount Washington House was soon in ruins.

For nearly a score of years the White Mountain
House, about three quarters of a mile west, was the
only place of entertainment in this locality. The
history of this house is somewhat obscure. There
was evidently a hotel on this site at an early date,
for Ethan Allen Crawford in the "History" men-
tions it a number of times and, as we have seen, has
much to say of the annoyance to which he was sub-
jected by a man who bought the place in the autumn
of 1 83 1 and took possession of it in January of the
next year. Some time previous to 1843,^ a larger

^ Mr. Fabyan advertised in Tripp's White Mountain Guide of 1851
thus: "The House is large and new, having been built only three
years." The White Mountain and Winnepissiogee Lake Guide-Book of
1846 speaks of the new building as "nearly finished."

* Hosea Ballou, 2d, writing in 1845, says in enumerating and
locating the dwellings along the route through the Mountains, "Sixth:
Half a mile farther northwest [i.e., beyond Fabyan's from the Notch
House] Ethan A. Crawford's, a two-story tavern [Mr. Crawford de-
scribes it as 'the large three-story building'], built within a few
years."

165

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

house seems to have been built here by a Mr. Rose-
brook, one of the pioneer family, members of which
had established themselves at what is now Twin
Mountain. It was this building, apparently, which
Ethan Allen Crawford hired on his return to the
Mountains in the year last mentioned and in which
the remainder of his days was passed. About 1850,
it was repaired and fitted up by Colonel John H.
White and was opened the following June.^ It is
now the oldest hotel in the Mountains.

Passing now geographically from the rugged and
impressive region of the Presidential Range and
Crawford Notch to the milder but no less satisfy-
ingly beautiful Franconia region, we find that estab-
lishments for entertaining tourists were early built
and opened in this part of the Mountains.^ What
appears to have been the earliest house of entertain-
ment in the Franconia Notch was situated about one
thousand feet south of the present Flume House and
on the same side of the road. It was a small affair,'

^ According to an advertisement in Tripp's Guide to the White
Mountains (1851). This guide-book speaks of it in the text as "a
new and neat House"; Beckett's Portland, White Mountains & Mon-
treal Railroad Guide (1853), describes it as "a modern built, neat and
commodious establishment " ; Eastman's The White Mountain Guide-
Book (1858), says it is "on the site of the Rosebrook House."

* I am indebted for a number of facts to Colonel C. H. Greenleaf,
of the Profile House, the senior hotel-man of the White Mountains,
who has lived every summer since i860 at this hotel, of which he be-
came one of the proprietors in 1865.

* In The White Mountain and Winnepissiogee Lake Guide-Book
(1846), the compiler, in describing the Pool, says that curiosity is sit-
uated "about f of a mile from Knight's Tavern." This hostelry is
also mentioned by name in Charles Lanman's descriptive piece, "The
Green and White Mountains," written in 1847 and included in hi8
Adventures in the Wilds 0} the United States and British American
Provinces (1856).

166

THE EARLY HOTELS

evidently opened for the accommodation of the pass-
ing traveler.

The first hotel of any consequence erected in this
region was the Lafayette House, whose site is about
five hundred feet southeast of the present Profile
House and on the other side of the highway. It was
built and opened in 1835,^ as appears from Harriet
Martineau's account of her excursion to the Fran-
conia Notch in that year. Its proprietor for a num-
ber of years was J. L. Gibb, formerly of Littleton
and later of the Crawford House.

About 1848,2 the Flume House, the first hotel of
that name, was built. In 1849, it was bought and
opened, on June 30, by Richard Taft, a native of
Barre, Vermont, then proprietor of the Washington
House at Lowell, Massachusetts, to whom the
Franconia Notch region in particular and New
Hampshire in general owes a great debt, for what he
accomplished in the development of the Mountain
country as a summer resort and in the introduc-
tion of city conveniences, methods, and cuisine into
hotel life in the hills. Says Dr. W. C. Prime: "Mr.
Taft was a man of exceedingly quiet demeanor, but
of great ability, foresight, and cautious energy . . .
a man of the most unswerving probity of character.

* Not 1836, as has been heretofore stated. Narrating her experi-
ences on the day, a rainy one, devoted to this trip she says that her
party took refuge from one shower in "the solitary dwelling of the
pass, called the Lafayette Hotel." "This house," she continues, " had
been growing in the woods thirteen weeks before, and yet we were far
from being among its first guests."

' It must have been open under this name as early as 1848, for
Oakes's White Mountain Scenery, published in that year, mentions it.
It was located a few rods to the south of the present hotel.

167

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

. . . He commanded the respect and confidence of
all men." When he began hotel-keeping at the
Flume House, the price of board was $1.50 a day.
The entire receipts of his first season were only
eighteen hundred dollars, but, as business increased
from year to year, Mr. Taft, with characteristic en-
terprise, acquired the Lafayette House, five miles
above, and a tract of land around it, and in 1852,
with his associates, George T. Brown and Ira Coffin,
began the building of the Profile House. This
famous hostelry was completed and opened to the
public in 1853,^ with a capacity of one hundred and
ten rooms, which was increased by a large addition
in 1866, the year after Colonel Greenleaf entered
the firm. From 1865 to 1869, the proprietors were
Taft, Tyler, and Greenleaf. In the latter year Mr.
Tyler retired from the firm. In 1872, extensive addi-
tions and improvements, including the great dining-
hall, were made by Messrs. Taft and Greenleaf, the
new firm. The old Flume House having been burned,
probably a year or two before, the present hotel was
in that same year erected near its site, the two
properties being owned in common. The first of the
group of cottages, which form such a feature of the
Profile House settlement, was built in 1868.

Before leaving the early history of hotel-keeping
in the Franconia Notch, mention should be made
of the Mount Lafayette House, a small hotel which
once stood on a spot, sometimes called the "Half-

^ This is the correct date of the opening, as a letter in the New
York Herald for July 3, 1853, makes evident, and not 1852, as is
usually stated.

168

THE EARLY HOTELS

way Place" or "Lafayette Place," two and a quarter
miles below the Profile House and near the point of
divergence from the highway of the original bridle
path up Mount Lafayette. Built probably in the late
fifties, it was, after a short existence, burned in the
spring of 1861. Still another hotel situated in this
region and named after the monarch of the Fran-
conias was the Mount Lafayette House which stood
near the junction of the Gale River road with the
road from the Profile House to Franconia, at the
bottom of "Three-Mile Hill." It has a particular
interest to literary folk and others from the associa-
tion with it of Dr. W. C. Prime, author of "I Go
A-Fishing" and "Along New England Roads," and
his sister, the author and entomologist, Mrs. Annie
Trumbull Slosson. Dr. Prime built and occupied a
summer cottage in the hotel grounds, which is still
standing. The hotel property was sold by Mrs.
Slosson in 1908 to James Smith, of Franconia, and
was burned to the ground in May, 191 1.*

Putting on our seven-league boots and jumping
in our narrative of early hotel-keeping to a beautiful
valley on the eastern side of the Mountains, we will
feign ourselves to have landed at Gorham in the
northern part of that district. At this attractively
situated mountain village, which is ninety-two miles
from Portland and to which the railroad made its
way in 1852, the traveler alighted from the train in
the fifties and sixties of the last century at the
White Mountain Station House, which, as this name

* I am indebted for this date to Eva M. Aldrich, Librarian of the
Abbie Greenleaf Library, Franconia.

169

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

indicates, served the dual purpose of station and
hotel. This comfortable hostelry, whose name was
soon changed to the more euphonious one of Alpine
House, had accommodations for two hundred and
fifty guests, and was long a popular place of sojourn.
Gorham became at once, after the coming of the
railroad, one of the chief Mountain resorts, if it did
not, indeed, in the days of Starr King hold the pre-
eminence. The hotel was for many years under the
efficient landlordship of Colonel John R. Hitchcock,
who was also a proprietor, as we shall see, of the
Summit and Tip-Top Houses on Mount Washington,
as well as a director in the original Mount Wash-
ington Carriage Road Company. After twenty years
of existence, however, this famous hotel went the
way of so many others, falling a prey to the flames
in October, 1872. This disaster marked the passing
of Gorham's supremacy as a resort. A second
Alpine House was built in 1876. This was closed
in November, 1905, and was subsequently moved
across the street and made a part of the present
Mount Madison House, which is a commercial
hotel, open all the year round, as well as one used
as a place of summer sojourn.

Traveling now in our imaginary hotel tour of the
White Mountains eight miles to the southward, to
the picturesque location in the valley of the Peabody
River known as the "Glen," we find that the first
public house on that site was begun in 1852 by John
Bellows. It was not completed in time for the season
of that year, but a few guests were entertained.
Probably still in an unfinished state, this modest

170

THE OLD PROFILE HOUSE, OPENED 1S53, CLOSED 1905

ill' II

iiiiiiuTpnrii'*

THE FLUME HOUSE
An Old View showing tlie House when Smaller than at Present

THE EARLY HOTELS

tavern, which was on the stage-road from Gor-
ham to North Conway, was bought by Mr. J. M,
Thompson, who changed its name to the Glen
House, and was indefatigable in developing the
property and making the region popular by building
paths to the waterfalls and other points of interest,
and even one up Mount Washington. Unfortunately,
he was drowned in the Peabody River in October,
1869, when trying to prevent the destruction of his
mill by a flood which followed an autumnal storm of
exceptional severity. A few years after the lamented
death of Landlord Thompson, the hotel passed into
the hands of the brothers Milliken, under whose
skillful management it attained great development
and popularity, only to meet, after years of success,
with repeated disaster, and apparently to come to an
end as a large enterprise. The story of this mingled
prosperity and adversity will, however, be deferred
to a later chapter.

Continuing our tour, let us go farther southward
on the stage-road passing the Glen House, and we
shall come, after a ride of a dozen miles, to the little
village which commemorates in this region the
victor of New Orleans.

Jackson was late in coming to its own as a sum-
mer resort, and this quiet hamlet in a secluded glen
owed its discovery as a center of landscape beauties
to the artists. The pioneer painters came as early
as 1847. Hotel-keeping began with the opening of
the Jackson Falls House in 1858.^ The Iron Moun-
tain House was opened in 1861 and was burned in

^ It was rebuilt and enlarged in 1886.
171

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

1877; a new house of the same name first received
guests in the season of 1885. The year 1876 was the
opening year of the Glen Ellis House. In the early
days Cole, Durand, Judge Story and Daniel Web-
ster were visitors to Jackson. It is related that
board was then $2 a week, the landlady doing the
cooking and the landlord serving the frugal meals.
Now, Jackson is a place of many hotels and board-
ing-houses, as well as of summer cottages in goodly
number. Right in the heart of the village, near the
Wildcat River, is the Wentworth Hall, which re-
produces the picturesque architecture of an English
mansion of Queen Anne's time. The Thorn Moun-
tain House, a part of the Wentworth Hall estab-
lishment, was opened on July 12, 1869, by General
M. C. Wentworth, with twenty- two rooms. In 1914,
the establishment consisted of these two houses and
thirty-one other buildings, including a group of at-
tractive cottages.^ Gray's Inn has long been a lead-
ing hotel of Jackson. Its recent history is of especial
interest. The first hotel of this name was burned in
1902. A new one was soon begun and was nearly
completed, when it, too, went up in smoke in the
winter of 1903. Nothing daunted, Landlord Gray,
who was his own architect and builder, at once
commenced to build another hotel. This time noth-
ing untoward happened and a new and commodi-
ous Gray's Inn was opened the week of August 15,
1904. Open in winter as well as in summer, this
hostelry was a popular place of sojourn at both sea-

' I am indebted to the courtesy of the late General Wentworth for
information as to his establishment.

172

THE EARLY HOTELS

sons. But after about a dozen years of prosperity,
Landlord Gray again met with adversity, for on
February 21, 1916, the inn, together with its casino,
was totally destroyed by fire. Fortunately, the one
hundred and fifty guests all escaped without injury.

Let us conclude this chapter by taking a broad
jump in a southwesterly direction to the extreme
southern limit of the White Mountain region, — to
the town of Plymouth, to be specific in our destina-
tion. In the days of its political importance and
before the advent of the summer visitor, there was,
of course, a transient population of considerable
number in the village from time to time, but espe-
cially when the county court was in session. From
soon after the settlement a tavern was in existence,
conducted successively by Colonel David Webster
and his son, Colonel William. In 1841, Denison R.
Burnham purchased the popular and historic old
Webster Tavern, built an addition, and changed the
name of the inn to that of Pemigewasset House, a
name which has survived a number of fires and is
still retained. Under Mr. Burnham's able manage-
ment the hotel became a popular one, and, after the
coming of the railroad, business increased so that
some time in the early fifties another addition was
made and again later still another.^

This old hostelry was destroyed by fire in 1862,
and the land was then sold to the railroad company,
which immediately erected, in 1863, another hotel
of the same name. This was the house in which

* I am indebted for information about her father's hotel to the
late Abbie Burnham Greenleaf.

173

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Hawthorne died the next year. It was built on a
hillside and fronted on the village street, with which
its main floor was on a level, while in the rear was a
lower floor in which was the railroad station. Large,
commodious, and well-kept, it was long a popular
place of resort. This famous old house was burned
in 1908 and has been replaced by a fine modern
hotel, the New Pemigewasset House, which is sit-
uated a short distance from the old location and
which was opened July i, 19 13.

VIII

THE POETS AND PAINTERS IN THE WHITE HILLS

As is to be expected, the natural beauties of the
White Mountains, their lofty summits, their bare
or tree-clad slopes or crags, their streams, their cas-
cades, their lakes, and their scenic curiosities, and
even their few legends, have been sources of inspi-
ration to a multitude of poets and verse-makers.
Thus the pleasure afforded by some of the best
nature poetry in American literature is another
perennial enjoyment which we owe to the Crystal
Hills. To this additional possession of White
Mountain lovers, many sons and daughters of New
Hampshire, whether they be children who have
remained at home or children who have pitched
their tent permanently elsewhere, have contributed
by singing the glories of these hills in verse of greater
or less merit. Among such represented in Eugene
R. Musgrove's well-chosen anthology, "The White
Hills in Poetry," are George Waldo Browne, James
T. Fields, Charles James Fox, George Bancroft
Griffith, Edward Augustus Jenks, Fanny Runnells
Poole, and Celia Thaxter. The most notable singer
by far in this connection is, undoubtedly, Edna Dean
Proctor, who has made her native hills the theme of
numerous poems of high excellence.

Preeminently, however, the poet of the White
Hills is a native of the sister Commonwealth of

175

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Massachusetts, a poet whose inspiration came from
summer acquaintance with them, John Greenleaf
Whittier. He and his intimate friend and literary
associate, Lucy Larcom, were both ardent lovers of
the New Hampshire country and frequent sojourn-
ers among the Mountains or in the bordering lake-
land, and both have written much verse about this
beautiful region. But Whittier only, Mr. Musgrove
has pointed out, has given us a series of pictures of
this mountain land and has enriched American
poetry with exquisite descriptions of New Hamp-
shire scenery.

The Quaker poet's first poem having to do with
the region is one published under the title, "The
White Mountains," in his earliest book, "Legends
of New England in Prose and Verse," which ap-
peared at Hartford, Connecticut, in February, 1831.
This short piece of verse, which seems to have been
composed before the poet knew the Mountains by
visual experience, is concerned with the Indian
belief that Mount Washington was the abode of
powerful spirits, whose voices were heard in the
pauses of the tempests, and with the passing of
ancient conditions.^

Whittier's first recorded visit to the region he was
later to make one of his summer homes was for a
quite different purpose. Through his interest in the
anti-slavery cause and his literary activity in its
behalf, the poet had attracted the attention of that

^ With the title "Mount Agiochook" substituted for its original
one, the poem was printed in the author's complete works, but was
finally relegated to an append be.

176

THE POETS AND PAINTERS

most brilliant of early anti-slavery editors, Nathaniel
Peabody Rogers.^ One of the first letters of approval
and encouragement Whittier received after publish-
ing, in 1833, the pamphlet "Justice and Expediency,"
in favor of immediate emancipation, was from
Rogers, who then invited the young writer to visit
his mountain home on the banks of the Pemige-
wasset in Plymouth. Their personal acquaintance
was first made two years afterwards, when the in-
vitation was accepted by Whittier. He was accom-
panied on this journey by the eloquent English
reformer, George Thompson, who in response to
Garrison's invitation had come to this country to
deliver anti-slavery addresses and whom the poet
had been hiding from the mobs in the seclusion of
his East Haverhill home. "We drove up the beauti-
ful valley of the White Mountain tributary of the

^ Rogers, in 1838, gave up his law practice at Plymouth and left
his native valley to reside at Concord for the purpose of editing The
Herald of Freedom, an anti-slavery paper established a few years be-
fore. As a newspaper writer he had few, if any, equals in his day.
He used to write for the New York Tribune under the signature "The
Old Man of the Mountain." "His descriptions of natural scenery,"
says Whittier in his "portrait" of his friend, "glow with life. One
can almost see the sunset light flooding the Franconia Notch, and
glorifying the peaks of Moosehillock, and hear the murmur of the
west wind in the pines, and the light, liquid voice of Pemigewasset
sounding up from its rocky channel, through its green hem of maples,
while reading them." His last visit to his old home was in the autumn
of 1845. In a familiar letter to a friend he penned a beautiful descrip-
tion of his native town as seen in what was to be his farewell view of
it. His health, never robust, gradually failed for some time previous
to his death. Needing more repose and quiet than his duties as editor
permitted him to enjoy, he bought a small and pleasant farm in his
loved Pemigewasset Valley, in the hope that he might there recuper-
ate his wasted energies. But he was not destined to enjoy this asylum,
for his death occurred shortly afterward, in October, 1846. His
family, however, occupied it for some years.

177

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Merrimac," writes Whittier, "and, just as a glorious
sunset was steeping river, valley, and mountain in
its hues of heaven, were welcomed to the pleasant
home and family circle of our friend Rogers." With
these friends they spent "two delightful evenings."

Early in the forties, apparently, Whittier made a
journey through the heart of the Notch in a stage-
coach, which leisurely mode of traveling he enjoyed
greatly, and also ascended "old Agioochook." It
had as its literary fruit the prologue of "The Bridal
of Pennacook," the opening of which is a glorified
itinerary. This poem appeared in 1844.

The poet was again in the Mountain region in the
summer of 1849, sojourning there several weeks at
that time. Some years afterward he again visited
the Rogers family, this time for a week, before they
left their home near Plymouth for the West. This
was probably in 1853.

Three years later he published in The National
Era the poem "Mary Garvin," whose prologue, be-
ginning, "From the heart of Waumbek Methna,
from the lake that never fails," deals descriptively
with the Saco River, near the mouth of which the
scene of the poem is laid.

In the spring of 1865, Whittier came to Campton,
where his friends James T. and Annie Fields were
then making their place of summer sojourn, board-
ing at Selden C. Willey's farm, and there the poem
"Franconia from the Pemigewasset," constituting
the first of his "Mountain Pictures," was expanded
and modified from the first stanza composed at
Lovewell's Pond in Fryeburg, Maine.

178

THE POETS AND PAINTERS

Soon after the close of the Civil War, the poet of
freedom seems to have made his first trip to the
locality in the White Mountain region which was to
become his favorite mountain retreat and in which
to-day his name is chiefly commemorated geographi-
cally. The success of "Snow-Bound" had rendered
him not only pecuniarily independent and able to
afford many added comforts and luxuries, but also
had given him a firm place in the hearts of his coun-
trymen. The days of struggle and patient endurance
of adversity were over. In the summer of 1867, he
made a stay at the Bearcamp River House in West
Ossipee. This "quiet, old-fashioned inn, beautifully
located, neat as possible, large rooms, nice beds, and
good, wholesome table," was situated near the banks
of the picturesque stream from which it got its
name and only a few hundred yards from the railway
station. In early days the public house on this site
had been known as "Ames's Tavern," and after-
wards as "Banks's^Hotel," and the fact that among
its frequenters in the primitive days were Starr
King and the artists, George Inness, George L.
Brown, and Benjamin Champney, is ample testi-
mony to the satisfying qualities of the views, in
which Chocorua is the dominating object, and of the
environing scenes.

Amid such surroundings the inspiration came to
Whittier to write an idyl of New England farm life,
a companion summer piece to his winter idyl,
"Snow-Bound," and so here in part was composed
the charming poem "Among the Hills." His first
thought was to call this poem, which combines a

179

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

tender and romantic love-story with a faithful por-
trayal of rural scenes, "A Summer Idyl," but when
it appeared in its first form, in the Atlantic Monthly
for January, 1868, it was entitled "The Wife: an
Idyl of Bearcamp Water." Before the poem ap-
peared in the volume to which it gave the title early
in 1869, the prelude had been expanded and so
changed in tenor as to be a new poem and the out-
lines of the story filled out. This working-over and
"blossoming-out" took place during that summer.

For several summers and autumns from 1875 on,
Whittier spent a number of weeks at the Bearcamp
River House, enjoying greatly his sojourns there be-
cause of the modest comfort, the pleasant associa-
tions, and the beautiful view. Chocorua he regarded
as the most beautiful and striking of all the New
Hampshire hills, and the location of the hotel he
esteemed one of the most picturesque situations in
the State. Besides "Among the Hills," several
other poems, among them "Sunset on the Bear-
camp," and "Voyage of the Jettie," were written at
this, Whittier's "Wayside Inn," and celebrate the
beauties of the region. The hotel was sometimes
nearly filled with relatives and friends of the poet
and these reunions were occasions full of enjoyment
to him. He could not accompany his friends on their
mountain-climbs — he did not care to ascend moun-
tains for the prospect they afford — and on their
drives, but he liked greatly to hear the reports of
adventures brought to him by the younger members
of his party. ^ He enjoyed also being quiet and alone.

* The following anecdote, related by Mr. Pickard in Whittier-Land,

180

THE POETS AND PAINTERS

Rarely was a transient guest invited to join the
poet's circle, as he was usually under some constraint
in the presence of a stranger.

In the summer and autumn of 1875, Lucy Larcom
and he were engaged together here in the compila-
tion of "Songs of Three Centuries," but this work
"was not allowed to interfere seriously with the
main object of a summer outing, rest and recrea-
tion," says his biographer.

Five years later the hotel was burned down,
"much to my regret," he writes to Marshall P.
Hall in May, 1881, in the same letter expressing a
hope that another house will be built on its site.

In the summer of the year last named, Whittier
spent several weeks at Intervale with his cousins,
Joseph and Gertrude W. Cartland, who were his
summer companions the remaining twelve years of
his life. He much enjoyed the quiet, restful meadow

exhibits the poet's keen enjoyment of fun and his ability to unbend
even to jollity and to the production of verse written in a rollicking
vein. One day in September, 1876, a party of seven of Whittier's
friends climbed Chocorua under the guidance of the Knox brothers,
two young farmers and bear-hunters of West Ossipee, camping for the
night on the mountain near some bear-traps. The young ladies re-
ported to the poet the hearing of the growling of the bears in the
night and other blood-curdling incidents. Shortly afterward the
Knox brothers gave a husking-bee at their barn, at which Whittier
and the members of his party were present. Whittier wrote a poem,
entitled "How They Climbed Chocorua," for the occasion, and in-
duced Lucy Larcom to read it as the production of an unknown author.
These humorous stanzas, with their references to the incidents of the
excursion and their personal mentions of the climbers, were re-
ceived with great delight. The next evening Miss Larcom read to the
party gathered round the fireside at the inn a humorous poem, en-
titled "To the Unknown and Absent Author of 'How They Climbed
Chocorua,' " in which the poet was alleged to have been caught by
the coat-tails in one of the bear-traps on the mountain.

iSi

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

views and the noble distant mountain prospects of
this charming spot. He loved to watch the snow-
streaks on Mount Washington, which he once
expressed the wish he might see all covered with
snow as in winter. The beautiful pine woods near
the hotel became a favorite resort of the poet, where
he passed a part of nearly every day, often with a
group of friends in the unconventional social inter-
course he so highly prized.

Such are the outlines of the poet's connection
with the White Mountains. To-day the visitor to
the Ossipee region finds the northwest summit of
the Ossipee Range bearing, at Sweetser's suggestion,
the name of " Whittier Peak," or " Mount Whittier."
The railroad station of West Ossipee has recently
become Mount Whittier, while in the near vicinity
is a hamlet also named in the poet's honor.

The lifelong friendship of Lucy Larcom with
Whittier began in 1844,^ during his residence in
Lowell, where she was then employed in the mills
and had been brought into notice as one of the
leading contributors to the Lowell Offering, that
famous magazine which attracted so much atten-
tion as a successful literary venture by factory
operatives. Whittier assisted and encouraged her
in her literary work and she in turn assisted him
not only in compiling "Songs of Three Centuries,"
but in other editorial work.^ She became, after her

^ So Pickard, Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier; Daniel
Dulany Addison's Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary, states that
it was in 1843 that she first met Mr. Whittier.

* First in 1871 in the compilation of "Child Life: a Collection of
Poems."

182

THE POETS AND PAINTERS

•

return from the West in 1853, his sister Elizabeth's
dearest friend, and all his remaining life, and par-
ticularly after Elizabeth's death, the elder poet was
ever thoughtful for her welfare. Kindred souls as
they were, the two poets were much in each other's
society, and many letters passed between them.

Early in the sixties, — to be exact, in August,
1861, — Miss Larcom began to be a regular summer
sojourner among the hills of New Hampshire, a
practice which had as one result the writing of many
beautiful poems. Her usual place of resort at first
was Campton, where, like the Fieldses, she boarded
at Selden C. Willey's.^ There "Hills in Mist," "My
Mountain," "Valley Peak," and other poems were
composed. Other retreats of Miss Larcom in the
White Mountains, or the vicinity, were Ossipee
Park, West Ossipee, Sandwich, Berlin Falls, Beth-
lehem, Mount Moosilauke, Center Harbor, and
Bethel (in Maine) . Even a mere enumeration of some
others of her White Mountain poems, with mention
of the places and dates of their composition, not only
makes amply evident her wide and long acquaintance
with the region, but suggests her ardent love of it.
"Up the Androscoggin" was written at Berlin Falls
in 1878; "Asleep on the Summit," on Mount Wash-
ington, in August, 1877; "Clouds on Whiteface,"
at North Sandwich; "From the Hills," on Mount

^ In 1867, writing to Jean Ingelow, she says, "To me there is rest
and strength, and aspiration and exultation, among the mountains.
They are nearly a day's journey from us, — the White Mountains, —
but I will go, and get a glimpse and a breath of their glory, once a
year, always. ... I usually stop at a village on the banks of the Pemige-
wasset, a small silvery river that flows from the Notch Mountains. . . .
But I must not go on about the mountains, or I shall never stop."

183

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Moosilauke, 1891 ; " Garfield's Burial Day," ascend-
ing Mount Washington, September 26, 1881; and
"A Mountain Resurrection," at North Sandwich, in
1863. Other poems which owe their inspiration to
the monarch of the hills are, "In a Cloud-Rift,"
"Looking Down," and "The Summit-Flower."
"Mountaineer's Prayer" was written on the sum-
mit of Moosilauke, September 7, 1892, the day after
Whittier's death.

The hills gave Miss Larcom rest and the beauty
of the views with their suggestions gave her inspira-
tion for her work. Each year she tried to visit the
various points she especially loved. Bethel charmed
her with its majestic elms and its view of the An-
droscoggin and the distant mountains. At Russell's
Riverside Cottage, where she was ever welcome, she
frequently stayed, and on the ledge behind the house
there is a little glen, in which she used to sit and
read, known as "Miss Larcom's Retreat." ^ Bethle-
hem gave her relief from hay-fever, ^ and was al-
ways "the beautiful." From these places and from
Moosilauke, her favorite summit, she frequently
wrote charming letters to the Portland Transcript.

On the mountain just named parts of the last two
summers of her life, 1891 and 1892, were spent. It
was there that the news of Whittier's death came to

^ "On the Ledge," written in September, 1879, celebrates the
beauty of this "shelter and outlook."

* In October, 1885, she writes to her friend Mrs. Spalding, "I have
had my 'outing' at Bethlehem; I went there hardly able to sit up
during the journey, but gained strength at once, and am well now.
... I stayed there more than four weeks, and enjoyed it much. Mr.
Howells and family were at the next house, and I saw them several
times."

184

THE POETS AND PAINTERS

her. She was not long to survive her old friend and
another dear friend, Phillips Brooks, for in April,
1893, she passed away, a victim of heart disease.

Longfellow's acquaintance with the region of the
White Hills began early and, from a literary stand-
point, promisingly. Born in a city from which they
are in clear weather to be plainly seen, he became
interested in them and visited them as a young man,
but this acquaintance was not kept up. After he
became established as professor at Cambridge, at
any rate, he preferred the seashore to the Moun-
tains, maintaining for many years a summer home
at Nahant. Toward the close of his life, in 1880, he
made a visit to the region, staying at the Stag and
Hounds in West Campton. While there a journey
was made to Mad River, which bore fruit poetically
in the spirited lyric of this name, one of his last
poems, ^ and his best White Mountain poem.

Slight as is, taken altogether, his association with
this region, it has nevertheless a few points of inter-
est worth a brief chronicling.

As I have mentioned when dealing with the battle
of Lovewell's Pond, that fight inspired the first
printed poem, so far as is known, of the youthful
Longfellow. The four stanzas, with their echoes of
Moore and of Scott, appeared over the signature
"Henry" in the Poet's Corner of the Portland
Gazette, November 17, 1820, when the boy was
not yet fourteen years old. Five years later he re-
curred to the same theme, writing an ode for the

* It was written in January, 1882, and appeared in the Atlantic
Monthly for May of that year.

185

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

commemoration at Fryeburg of Lovewell's fight.
Another poem belonging to this year 1825, and
now relegated, like the two just referred to, to
an appendix of "Juvenile Poems" is "Jeckoyva," ^
which owes its conception to the Chocorua legend.
It has a version of the story of the chief's death for
its subject.

Yet another poem written in this his senior year
at Bowdoin relates to the Mountains. This is the
descriptive and didactic poem, "Sunrise on the
Hills," which, written in his room at college, em-
bodies reminiscently the moving sights and sounds
of nature and human life observed on the occasion
of a visit to the summit of Mount Kearsarge, near
North Conway. This last poem, with a number of
others written during his college life, the poet re-
tained in a group of "Earlier Poems" in his com-
plete works. Thus, "Sunrise on the Hills" and
"Mad River," of more than a half-century later,
represent the entire extent, so far as his own approval
goes, of this poet's permanent literary association
with the region.

Bryant, New England's greatest nature poet, paid
a visit to the White Mountains in the summer of
1847. No poems ensued from this his first, and
apparently also his last, exploration of these hills,
which he had before seen only from a distance. The

^ Jeckoyva is, of course, a variant of Chocorua. "Mount Jeck-
oyva," says the poet in an introductory note, "is near the White
Hills." The poem appeared in the United States Literary Gazette for
August I, 1825. To this semi-monthly periodical, established in 1824
and first edited by Theophilus Parsons, afterwards a distinguished
jurist, Longfellow was a regular contributor.

186

THE POETS AND PAINTERS

summer trip into New England, of which this excur-
sion to the Mountains was a part, was undertaken
at a time in his Hfe when the editor of the Evening
Post was busily engaged in the political discussions
of the day and consequently found almost no time
for writing verse. This circumstance doubtless ac-
counts in large measure for the failure of his muse
to be inspired by the grand and beautiful scenery
amidst which he found himself during his brief so-
journ in the White Hills.

He approached the Mountains by way of Augusta,
whither he had come from Portland. An ascent of
Mount Washington and a stay of a few days in the
Franconia Notch were the chief features of his visit.

Fortunately, his impressions of the Mountains
have been preserved for us by his biographer. As
the passage is less familiar than other descriptive
ones, we may well look for a moment with the poet's
eye.

The scenery of these mountains has not been sufficiently
praised [he wrote]. But for the glaciers, but for the peaks
white with perpetual snow, it would be scarcely worth
while to see Switzerland after seeing the White Moun-
tains. The depth of the valleys, the steepness of the
mountain-sides, the variety of aspect shown by their
summits, the deep gulfs of forest below, seamed with the
open courses of rivers, the vast extent of the mountain
region seen north and south of us, gleaming with many
lakes, filled me with surprise and astonishment. Imagine
the forests to be shorn from half the broad declivities —
imagine scattered habitations on the thick green turf and
foot-paths leading from one to the other, and herds and
flocks browsing, and you have Switzerland before you.
I admit, however, that these accessories add to the va-

187

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

riety and interest of the landscape, and perhaps heighten
the idea of its vastness.

I have been told, however, that the White Mountains
in autumn present an aspect more glorious than even the
splendors of the perpetual ice of the Alps. All this mighty
multitude of mountains, rising from valleys filled with
dense forests, have then put on their hues of gold and
scarlet, and, seen more distinctly on account of their
brightness of color, seem to tower higher in the clear
blue of the sky. At that season of the year they are little
visited, and only awaken the wonder of the occasional
traveller.

It is not necessary to ascend Mount Washington to
enjoy the finest views. Some of the lower peaks offer
grander though not so extensive ones; the height of the
main summit seems to diminish the size of the objects
beheld from it. The sense of solitude and immensity is,
however, most strongly felt on that great cone, over-
looking all the rest, and formed of loose rocks, which
seem as if broken into fragments by the power which
upheaved these ridges from the depths of the earth
below.

So many have been the landscape artists who have
made occasional or frequent sojourns for longer or
shorter periods in the White Mountains, and who
have plied the instruments of their profession to
good purpose there, that, if the records of their stays
in the region had been kept and a catalogue of the
pictures that were the outward and visible signs
of their communion with the natural beauty and
grandeur of their surroundings could be compiled, a
sizable volume would be required to contain such
material. But such a record, which might be styled
the "art history" of the White Mountains, cannot
be prepared or, at any rate, can be only very in-

i88

THE POETS AND PAINTERS

adequately set forth, for in most cases the artists*
visits to this region were but episodes in busy
careers. In many cases, indeed, the fact of such per-
sonal association with the Mountains is borne wit-
ness to solely by some picture which reproduces a
scene or prospect to which it owed its inspiration,
or, at most, by a few of such pictures. Often, again,
the only accessible record of such association that
apparently exists is the mere statement that such
and such an artist frequented a particular locality,
set down incidentally in a guide-book or in a maga-
zine article on the place.

As to the paintings themselves, they are so thor-
oughly and so widely distributed among the collec-
tions of individuals and of the smaller public gal-
leries, few being in the great galleries of the country,
that the preparation of a respectable, not to say ade-
quate, list of White Mountain paintings would be
well-nigh an impossibility.

A chronicle of the region would, however, be sadly
deficient without some brief record, or at least men-
tion, of the painters who have done so much to
spread abroad a knowledge of its scenic attractions.
Furthermore, so intimate, indeed, was the associa-
tion with the White Mountains of the earlier Ameri-
can landscape artists, who constitute our first really
native school, that they are sometimes called collec-
tively the "White Mountain School." More usually,
however, from the circumstance that so much of
their work depicts the river and mountain scenery of
eastern New York, they are known as the "Hudson
River School."

189

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Such, then, being the importance of the White
Mountains in American art, and such, as I have out-
lined, being the difficulties, especially for a layman,
in acquiring knowledge of the artists* personal con-
tact with the region and of the pictures that resulted
therefrom, I approach the treatment of the subject
with considerable hesitation. I shall have, therefore,
to content myself with setting down such informa-
tion, meager as it is, as I have been able to gather
from various sources, not with the thought that what
I shall present has any pretense to completeness or
adequacy, but with quite the contrary mental atti-
tude toward it, namely, one of apology for being
unable to do more than merely touch upon some of
the more readily accessible bits of information relat-
ing to the subject.

Mr. Crawford, in his "History," notes the visit of
a painter to the Mountains as early as July, 1824,
"who took some beautiful sketches of the hills and
likewise of the Notch," but we are not informed as
to his name.

Not long after this pioneer visit of an unnamed
artist, two of the earliest and most noted of American
landscapists, Thomas Doughty and Thomas Cole,
found their way thither, and they have had many
successors in discovering and depicting with the
brush the beauties of the region.

Of the connection with the Mountains of the
latter, who made his summer home chiefly in the
Catskills, and who is regarded as one of the fathers
of the Hudson River School, we are fortunate in
having some record, for his own account of his first

190

THE POETS AND PAINTERS

visit to the White Mountains has been preserved.
It was in the autumn of 1828, that with a friend,
Henry Cheeves Pratt, Cole explored the region,
making a tour which was to result in a number of
striking pictures. Early in October, they climbed
Chocorua, which early became and has remained the
favorite mountain of the painters, as it has been
also of the poets. This ascent was "both perilous
and difficult" on account of the windfalls, consisting
of prostrate tall pines and gnarled birches heaped to-
gether in wild confusion. But the artists felt them-
selves amply rewarded by the "mighty and sublime"
prospects which opened on their vision. "With all
its beauty the scene was," says Cole, "too extended
and map-like for the canvas." "It was not for
sketches," he continues, "that I ascended Chocorua,
but for thoughts; and for these this was truly the
region."

After remaining several hours on the peak, they
descended to the village, arriving after dark. On
October 6, the two footed it, with their baggage
on their backs, through the Crawford Notch. Cole
notes that the distance is twelve miles and that there
is not a house except the deserted Willey House, of
whose location he says, "It is impossible to give a
true picture of this desolate and savage spot." They
paused, however, long enough to make some
sketches before proceeding up the gorge.

Two days later. Cole went alone, Pratt having
left him, to Franconia "through the Breton woods
on the bank of the Ammonoosuck." From Fran-
conia he walked through the Franconia Notch, hav-

191

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

ing set off with the expectation of the coach's over-
taking him, but he reached the southern end of the
Notch some time before it arrived there. His de-
scription of the Notch and of his walli is well worth
giving, particularly noteworthy being his account of
the impression the Great Stone Face made upon
him: —

There is nothing of the desolate grandeur of the other
Notch. The elements do not seem to have chosen this for
a battle-ground, and the hoar mountains do not appear
wrinkled by recent convulsions. One of the two lakes,
you here meet with, is presided over by the Old Man of
the Mountains [sic], as the people about here call it. . . .
The perfect repose of these waters, and the unbroken
silence reigning through the whole region, made the scene
peculiarly impressive and sublime: indeed, there was an
awfulness in the deep solitude, pent up within the great
precipices, that was painful. While there was a pleasure
in the discovery, a childish fear came over me that drove
me away: the bold and horrid features, that bent their
severe expression upon me, were too dreadful to look upon
in my loneliness: I could not feel happy in their com-
munion, nor take them to my heart as my companions.
... In spite of a timid excitement, and the prospect of a
shower, I sketched several trees by the road-side. In the
course of my walk, I came to a bark-covered hut, in the
midst of burnt trees, with a swarm of unwashed, un-
combed, but healthy-looking children, who ran out to
stare with amazement at the passing stranger. I reached,
at length, a better-looking abode, where the horses of the
coach were to be exchanged, and awaited its arrival.
From the door I made a sketch of the mountains, to the
surprise and admiration of the people of the house, who
put me down for a surveyor making a map. The long-
looked-for coach at last came down, and gave me a
pleasant ride into Plymouth.

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The following winter, Cole produced at least two
spirited pictures of Chocorua, his "Autumn Scene —
Corway Peak" and his "The Death of Chocorua,"
the former of which is now in the gallery of the New
York Historical Society, and the latter of which be-
came widely known through the "very much ad-
mired" steel engraving of it by George W. Hatch.
During this winter or the following one, he painted
his "White Mountains," purchased for the Wads-
worth Athenaeum, Hartford, a "View near Conway,"
exhibited in 1830 at the Royal Academy in London,
and a "View from Mount Washington."

Cole was again in this region, we learn from a
letter, for several weeks in the summer of 1839.
Not only did he paint actual reproductions of White
Mountain scenes, but he used ideas and material
acquired here in pictures that were not localized
views. One of his most attractive paintings, "The
Hunter's Return," for instance, is a composition,
but one noble mountain in the background is copied
from a spur of the White Hills.

Besides being a painter of note, Cole not seldom
meditated the thankless Muse, and the White Moun-
tains were a source of inspiration in this phase of his
creative activity. During the year 1835, he found
leisure to compose a dramatic poem, in twelve parts,
called "The Spirits of the Wilderness," the scene of
which is laid among the Mountains. This work,
declared by his biographer to be "of singular
originality, and much poetic power and beauty,"
was, in the spring of 1837, rewritten and "prepared
in a measure for publication."

193

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Mr. Pratt also recorded his impressions of his trip
through the Notch, in his "View of the White
Mountains after the Late Slide," which was en-
graved by V. Balch for The Token, in 1828.

I have found almost no record of Doughty's
sketching among the Mountains. He must, how-
ever, have visited the Crawford Notch in or about
the early thirties, for an engraving by George B.
Ellis of a drawing by him of "The Silver Cascade"
was published in The Token for 1835, and an engrav-
ing, by F. J. Havell, of his painting of the same
waterfall appears in N. P. Willis's "American
Scenery."

One of the fathers of American landscape and
leaders of the Hudson River School, A. B. Durand,
who was also one of the original members of the
National Academy of Design, painted a number
of pleasing White Mountain pictures. In 1857,
he produced for Mr. R. L. Stuart the large work
"White Mountain Scenery, Franconia Notch," now
in the Stuart Room of the Galleries of the New York
Public Library. It is recorded that the purchaser
was so pleased with the picture that he made the
amount of the check given in payment for it larger
than he had agreed to pay. In the following year,
Durand sojourned for weeks in the summer in North
Conway and West Campton. "New Hampshire
Scenery" was painted for Mr. A. A. Low in that
year, and the same year Mr. Stuart purchased from
the artist the smaller canvas "Franconia, White
Mountains," also now in the New York Public Li-
brary. His "On the Pemigewassett " was purchased

194

THE POETS AND PAINTERS

by a citizen of Brooklyn. In 1876, he painted
"Sunset on Chocorua," which was purchased by a
Hoboken patron of art.

Another eminent landscapist who has connected
himself with the White Mountains is George Loring
Brown, known, from his skill as a copyist of Claude
Lorraine, as the "American Claude." After a long
residence abroad, he returned in i860 to his native
land and devoted himself in part to executing views
of American scenery. One of his places of sojourn
while sketching in the Mountains was, on the
authority of Mr. Sweetser, Wilson's farm, two miles
from Jackson, where noble and extended views are
to be had. His most noted White Mountain picture,
"The Crown of New England," was painted in 1861,
and gives the view of Mount Washington as seen
from the slope below the road, west of the old Mount
Adams House at Jefferson Highlands. It was pur-
chased by the Prince of Wales (Edward VII) during
his visit to the United States, and hangs in the
gallery of Windsor Castle.

One of our principal sources of information con-
cerning artists who frequented the White Moun-
tains in the early days is the "Sixty Years' Memo-
ries of Art and Artists" ^ of Benjamin Champney,
who, at his death at the age of ninety in December,
1907, was the oldest and most beloved of North
Conway's summer residents and who was the pio-
neer among the artists who have made the gran-
deur and beauty of that region's scenery known.

Mr. Champney first visited his future summer

* Published in 1900 at Woburn, Massachusetts, his winter home.

195

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

home in 1838, in company with "a young artist
friend," the imaginations of the two students having
been so "inflamed" by the study of a series of illus-
trations drawn by an English artist, W. H. Bartlett,
and engraved in London for N. P. Willis's "Ameri-
can Scenery," published there in 1838-39, that they
devoted their first sketching trip to a study of the
same scenery.

After some years of study in Europe, beginning
in 1 84 1, where he became intimate with other art
students who were to associate themselves in later
years with White Mountain scenes, and among
whom were A. B. Durand, J. W. Casilear, and J. F.
Kensett, Mr. Champney returned to America to
practice his profession of landscape artist. As the
result of an agreement with Kensett to go on a
sketching trip to the White Mountains, Champney
and Kensett went in the summer of 1850 to Frye-
burg. Casilear, having been sent for to join them,
did so, and the three friends for six weeks "reveled
in the beauty" of the Saco Valley. Having made a
reconnaissance of North Conway, they decided to
go there at once. They had interviewed Landlord
Thompson, of Kearsarge Tavern, who had agreed to
take them in "for the magnificent sum of $3.50 per
week with the choice of the best rooms in the
house," it being then the middle of August and there
being not a guest in town. "You won't like me,"
said Mr. Thompson, as reported by Champney.
"I'm a kind of crooked fellow, and you won't like
me, but you can come and try it." They did like it,
being made to feel at home and being supplied with

196

THE POETS AND PAINTERS

a generous table of good old-fashioned cooking, and
the landlord they liked also as they got acquainted
with him, ever ready as he was to enter into any
project for exploring the country and hunting out
new beauties. Delighted with the surrounding
scenery, they lingered in North Conway two months.
Late in the season they painted Mount Washington,
white with snow, from Sunset Hill. After his return
to New York, Kensett made a large painting of this
view, "The White Mountains and Valley of the
Saco, from Sunset Hill, North Conway," which be-
came very widely known, especially through an en-
graving made of it by James Smillie.

About the middle of October, Champney and the
others left North Conway, making a trip on foot
through the Crawford Notch and on to Franconia,
sketching as they went and being heartily wel-
comed and urged to come again another year by the
landlords of the two or three then deserted Moun-
tain houses.

Champney returned the next summer with a re-
inforcement of two Boston artists, Alfred Ordway
and B. G. Stone, and found a New York contin-
gent, headed by Casilear, already established at the
Kearsarge House. The other New Yorkers were
David Johnson,^ John Williamson, ^ and a nephew of
A. B. Durand, and they "made a jolly crowd," says
Champney.

Again, in 1852, Champney returned to North

^ Johnson painted a picture of "Echo Lake" (1867), and exhibited
at the Centennial a view of the "Old Man of the Mountain."

2 One of the most notable pictures of Williamson, who was of
Scottish birth, is "The Summit of Chocorua by Twilight."

197

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Conway, this time bringing with him Hamilton
Wilde. Other artists had preceded them thither, and
the little coterie nearly filled the dining-table in
Thompson's old house. Every year brought fresh
visitors to the hamlet, as news of its attractions
spread, until in 1853 and 1854 the meadows were
dotted with great numbers of white umbrellas.
Samuel Colman,^ a pupil of Durand, R. W. Hub-
bard,2 Sandford R. GifTord,^ and A. D. Shattuck,^ of
New York, settled themselves at an old farmhouse
situated near the Moat Mountain House and later
remodeled and occupied by Mr. George Wolcott.

After his wedding tour in 1853, Champney
brought his bride to the Kearsarge House. Wilde,
W. A. Gay,^ and other artists were there, and the
little hostelry was crowded and more popular than
ever. In the autumn of that year Champney bought
Lewis Eastman's old-fashioned house in the lower
part of the valley, and in the summer of 1854 the
artist was domiciled in it, verandas and dormer win-
dows being added and new rooms being finished the
next year. The carpenter-shop on the place was
transformed into a spacious studio with a top light.

* Colman's " Conway Valley " was bought by a citizen of Brooklyn.

* Hubbard was a pupil of Professor Morse and of Daniel Hunting-
ton. He painted "High Peak — North Conway," in 1871.

* " His painting of Echo Lake is a very successful attempt to
combine cloud, water, forest, and mountain scenery in a harmonious
whole." S. G. W. Benjamin in Our American Artists, series i. 1879.

* Shattuck, a native of New Hampshire and a brother-in-law of
Colman, painted an "Autumnal View of the Androscoggin, with the
White Mountains in the Distance," and a view of Mount Chocorua.

' Gay, a pupil of Robert W. Weir and of Tryon, painted various
pictures having to do with this region, including a "Mount Wash-
ington" in the Boston Athenaeum.

198

THE POETS AND PAINTERS

This building, which was to be so long occupied by
its owner for artistic uses, was formally dedicated to
such purposes in 1855 by a reunion of Champney's
friends and a speech by Deacon Greeley, of Boston.
Kensett,^ who was Champney's most intimate friend,
visited him just as the studio was completed, and
painted, Champney thinks, the first pictures made
there.

J. W. Casilear ^ has been already mentioned as
an associate of Champney and Kensett at North
Conway in the early days. Together these friends
explored and sketched along Artists* Brook, whose
laughing, bubbling waters, picturesque nooks, and
transparent pools make it one of North Conway's

* John Frederick Kensett was born in 1818 at Cheshire, Connecti-
cut, and died in 1872. He was one of the shining lights of the so-
called "Hudson River School" and painted many White Mountain
pictures, among them "Mount Washington, from North Conway"
(1850); "Sketch of Mount Washington " (1851), now in the Cor-
coran Gallery of Art, Washington; "Franconia Mountains" (1853);
"White Mountain Scenery" (1859), now in the New York Public
Library; "Glimpse of the White Mountains" (1867); and "New
Hampshire Scenery," an elaborate view of the White Mountains,,
which belongs to the Century Club, New York. Champney writes of
him: "Kensett was more to me than any other [of his school], for I
had known him so intimately, and had struggled with him through
want and difficulties abroad. . . . His brilliant studies brought back
from the Catskills and White Mountains were marvels of clever
handling and color. No one seemed able to give the sparkle of sun-
light through the depths of the forest, touching on mossy rocks and
shaggy tree-trunks, so well as he. ... I know that to-day his pictures
are considered old-fashioned, that they are wanting in solidity and
broad massing of forms, but that does not take away from them the
lovely feeling of color and crispy touch they possess."

* His "Scene in New Hampshire " was painted in 1877. Champney
thus characterizes his work: "His pictures are more delicate and re-
fined than either Cole's or Durand's, but not so vigorous. . . . There
is a poetic pastoral charm in all his work, pleasing to the eye, and
possessing beautiful qualities." He also painted Chocorua.

199

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

chief charms. The most noted of American land-
scapists, George Inness, was also for a time a fre-
quenter of North Conway, using as a studio "the
ugly little building," once the academy, which was
situated near the Kearsarge House and which was
torn down in 1887. Inness also sketched in the West
Ossipee region, having been, as has been noted, a
guest at one of the predecessors of Whittier's favor-
ite haunt, the Bearcamp River House.

Thomas Hill, famous as a painter of the Sierras
and the Yosemite, during his second residence in
New England, in the last of the sixties, was one of
the artist-colony at North Conway and painted at
this period the thrilling picture ^ called "White
Mountain Notch — Morning after the Willey Slide,"
an engraving of which forms the frontispiece of
Thompson's revised edition of " Willey's Incidents."

An artist connected in a melancholy way with
North Conway is James A. Suydam, whadied there
September 15, 1865. In company with Sandford R.
Gifford he was about to make a sketching tour of
the White Hills, whence they were to go to Lake
George. Suydam, not feeling very well, decided to

^ Benjamin thus describes it: "Mr. Hill has laid the scene of this
large and powerful painting there [in the Notch at the Willey House
location]. The top of the mountain is enveloped in a dense canopy of
dun, lowering clouds, and a shadow like the threat of doom broods
over the fated valley. It is long years since I saw that painting,
but the impression it left upon me I am sure could only have been
made by a work of real power, inspired by genuine imagination." Of
his facility, Champney thus writes: " In one afternoon of three hours
in the White Mountain forests, I have seen him produce a study,
12 X 20 in size, full of details and brilliant light. There is his greatest
strength, and his White Mountain wood studies have not been
excelled."

200

THE POETS AND PAINTERS

rest at North Conway while his companion went into
the Mountains to study. Gifford rejoined his friend
in time to be with him in his last hours. In Suydam's
death "American art met," says Daniel Huntington,
"with more than a common loss." His only White
Mountain picture, "Conway Meadows," was pur-
chased by a citizen of Washington.

Mention of Huntington reminds one that this
eminent portrait painter also painted Mountain
landscapes. His " Chocorua Peak, New Hampshire,"
dating from i860, was purchased in 1861 by Mrs.
R. L. Stuart, of New York, and now hangs in the
Stuart Room of the New York Public Library.

The late Homer Martin also visited and painted
in the Mountains in his early days. His "Madison
and Adams from Randolph Hill," depicting "two
snow-capped mountains rising into a cold cloudy
sky," was apparently produced in 1862. It was
given in I'Sgi to the Metropolitan Museum of
Art.

Mr. Champney, who passed so many summers
with keen delight in North Conway, and who has
described its beauties so enthusiastically, says that
at one time the village and the neighborhood of
Artists' Brook were almost as famous as Barbizon
and Fontainebleau after Millet, Rousseau, and
Diaz had set the fashion. Artists of repute from all
sections of the country came, but, he remarks,
"Fashions change, and fads and whims come along
to turn the current to the seashore, where the great-
est simplicity of form prevails." His own studio was
the resort of many from this country and even from

20I

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

foreign lands. Many of his Mountain canvases are
owned in and around Boston.

Albert Bierstadt, of Rocky Mountain fame, was a
visitor here both in his earlier and his later years. ^
His "On the Saco, New Hampshire," was painted
in 1886. S. L. Gerry was another frequenter of the
region. His best-known Mountain picture is his
"The Old Man of the Mountain."

Jackson, as has been said, was early discovered by
artists as a center of rare landscape beauties. Board-
man, Geary, Clark, Hoit, and Brackett are named
as the pioneers there, the first of whom came, as has
been previously noted, as early as 1847. Chester
Harding, the portrait painter, to whom we owe the
likeness of Abel Crawford, was also a visitor there.
G. S. Merrill long occupied as a studio a deserted
Free- Will Baptist church at the angle formed by the
junction of the Dundee Road with the Black Moun-
tain Road. In more recent times artists in great
numbers have summered in Jackson. One who
helped to a great degree to make known the beauties
and wonders of the White Hills, the late Frank H.
Shapleigh, of Boston, may be mentioned. For
fifteen years, beginning in 1877, he had a studio at
the Crawford House. Later, he built the quaint and
otherwise attractive cottage, "Maple Knoll," be-
hind the Jackson Falls House. Among his pictures
are views of "The Northern Peaks" and "Mount
Washington."

^ In 1869, according to Benjamin Osgood, the guide, Bierstadt was
a guest at the Glen House, and it was he who found Landlord
Thompson's body.

202

THE POETS AND PAINTERS

Campton and West Campton have attracted
many artists. Among those who frequented this
district in the early days are included Durand, Gay,
Gerry, T. Addison Richards, Griggs, Pone, and
Williams.

Church's Falls, on Sabba-Day Brook in Albany,
perpetuate the association of F. E. Church, who
painted them, with the Mountain region. The
Scottish-American artist William Hart was another
who has depicted Chocorua, while H. B. Brown, of
Portland, noted especially for his spirited reproduc-
tions of coast scenery, painted a striking view of the
Crawford Notch, looking up, which is familiar from
its reproduction in photogravure.

Another artist who deserves a mention in this
fragmentary chronicle of White Mountain art is
Godfrey N. Frankenstein, who was of German birth
and who died in Springfield, Ohio, in 1873. He
painted many sketches of the scenery of this region,
two of which, "Mount Washington, over Tucker-
man's Ravine" and "The Notch of the White
Mountains from Mount Crawford," are litho-
graphed in Oakes's "White Mountain Scenery." In
his honor his friend. Dr. Bemis, gave his name to
the imposing cliff just above Bemis Station on the
Maine Central Railroad.

THE LATER SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATIONS OF THE
MOUNTAINS

Accounts have been given in preceding chapters
of the visits to the Mountains of some of the eminent
scientific men of the early days and mention has been
made of the results of their explorations. During
later years, this region, so accessible to the earlier
settled part of the country and possessing so many
features of interest from the standpoint of science,
has, naturally, been the theater for field work of a
host of scientists and naturalists. Space can be taken
to record the names and explorations of only the
more noted of such observers and to summarize the
activities and results of some of the more system-
atic examinations of the natural phenomena of the
region.

A scientific event of the first years of the fifth
decade of the nineteenth century, which concerned
the Mountains to a considerable extent, was the
first geological survey of New Hampshire. An in-
ventory of the natural resources of the State, an
account of which sort was what passed at that period
for a geological survey, had been recommended for
New Hampshire by several governors, but without
success until Governor John Page in 1839 advocated
such an undertaking and the legislature of that year
passed an act providing for it.

204

LATER SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATIONS

Acting under the authorization of the legislature,
Governor Page appointed, as State Geologist to con-
duct the work. Dr. Charles T. Jackson, of Boston,
a chemist and mineralogist of repute, who became
world-famous later in connection with the discovery
of anaesthesia.

An annual appropriation of two thousand dollars
for three years was authorized in the act for carrying
out its provisions ; but, the laboratory work proving
more difficult and extensive than was anticipated,
additional appropriations were necessary from time
to time, bringing the total cost of the Survey up to
nine thousand dollars, exclusive of the expense of
publishing the reports.

Dr. Jackson, although he had already conducted
similar surveys of Nova Scotia and Rhode Island,
was one of the most primitive of State surveyors in
his methods. Trained abroad under Elie de Beau-
mont, he had adopted that scientist's erroneous
theories of mountain-building, which rendered his
geological work on the Mountain region largely
futile. Moreover, when we learn that Dr. Jackson
devoted but very little of his own time to the field
work and that it was carried on for the most part by
untrained and unpaid assistants, we are not sur-
prised to find that the Survey accomplished so little
of real scientific value.

The summers of three years, beginning with 1840,
were occupied in collecting minerals and soils, which
were analyzed in Dr. Jackson's laboratory in Bos-
ton during the winters following. Much of this field
work was done in the White Mountains.

205

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

This Survey, however, possesses for us another
than its scientific interest, and that lies in the per-
sonnel of the assistants. In the summer of the first
year, M. B. Williams and Josiah Dwight Whitney,
later the famous geologist and head of the Califor-
nia State Survey, were employed in the field work,
which closed for that year with a tour in August to
the White Mountains.

Williams was again in the field the following
summer. Whitney, who found the work most con-
genial, and who, then undecided as to his future
career, was counseled by his chief to adopt the
latter's profession, gained in the winter of 1840-41
his first professional success, an appointment to the
Survey as a paid assistant. His duties were to assist
Dr. Jackson in the latter's laboratory in Boston in
the analyses of the minerals collected the preceding
summer. This work lasted only through the winter,
and in the spring the future geologist ended his con-
nection with the Survey. In the published report of
the State Geologist, portions of which were Whit-
ney's and Williams's own composition, they state
that they two were the first of mankind to reach the
top of Mount Washington on horseback.^ The report
also contains seven full-paged lithographed plates of
New Hampshire scenery from drawings by Whitney,^
a number of which were of White Mountain views.

* As Abel Crawford is affirmed by his son, Ethan, to be "the first
man that ever rode a horse on the top of Mount Washington," he
was evidently the guide on this occasion. Dr. Jackson was also of the
party.

- I am indebted for information as to Whitney's connection with
the Survey to Edwin Tenney Brewster's Life and Letters oj Josiah
Dwight Whitney (1909).

206

LATER SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATIONS

In 1841, Edward Everett Hale was, at the instance
of his friend, William F. Channing, who had become
an assistant on the Survey, appointed a junior
member of it, and the two were in the field that
summer, as was Channing also the following year.
In September, Hale and Channing made a trip up
the South Branch of Israel's River, in search of large
sheets of mica alleged to have been found there.
They continued up over one or more of the Northern
Peaks and Washington and returned the next day
to the old Fabyan tavern. Dr. Hale thus recalls his
first ascent of Mount Washington, in "Tarry at
Home Travels": "The first time I stood at the Tip-
Top House ^ was at ten o'clock at night in the first
week of September, 1841, with a crowbar in my hand
as I pressed upon the door. It was after a tramp
which had lasted seventeen hours and had taken us
over Jefferson and through one or two thunder-
storms."

The advance in geological and mineralogical
knowledge after the middle of the nineteenth cen-
tury and the improvement in field and laboratory
methods in these sciences having rendered the results
of the earlier geological survey largely obsolete, the
State authorities in the sixties determined upon
undertaking a more thoroughgoing investigation of
the physical conditions and resources of the State.
They were further urged to this action by a number
of considerations which arose from the character of
the early Survey. The first inventory of the natural
resources of New Hampshire, made under the direc-
^ See pp. 229, 230.
207

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

tion of Dr. Charles T. Jackson, was conducted, as
has been intimated, in a very primitive manner, and
the barometrical and other observations were incom-
plete. More attention was paid to minerals and
their localities and to soils as affecting agriculture
than to structural geology, and so the reports deal
largely with mineralogical, metallurgical, and eco-
nomic descriptions and statements. Moreover, the
State authorities did not think it important to color
the geological map attached to the final report,
which last fact makes it hard to understand many
things that otherwise might have been evident.

From the reports and map, therefore, it is difficult
to deduce any very satisfactory notions of geological
structure. Again, Dr. Jackson, as has been said, held
erroneous theories as to mountain-formation, which
invalidated his conclusions as to the geological
structure of the State. Furthermore, the illustrative
collection of rocks and minerals deposited by Dr.
Jackson at Concord had been destroyed by fire.

A new survey was, on all these accounts, a pressing
need. Accordingly, at the June session of the legis-
lature of New Hampshire in 1868, a bill was passed
to provide for the geological and mineralogical sur-
vey of the State, which bill received the approval of
Governor Harriman on July 3.

The appointment as State Geologist of C. H.
Hitchcock, son and pupil of the eminent Professor
and President Edward Hitchcock,^ of Amherst Col-

* In 1841, President Hitchcock ascended Mount Washington from
the old Notch House, and wrote about the rocks in a paper upon
glacio-aqueous action in North America.

208

LATER SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATIONS

lege, and himself professor of geology at Dartmouth
College, was a natural and fitting one. Professor
Hitchcock's character, equipment, and experience —
he had been Assistant State Geologist of Vermont
and State Geologist of Maine — insured an accurate,
comprehensive, and otherwise adequate prosecution
of the work.

While it is not the province of this narrative to
give a history of the Survey, still so much of its
activity related to and centered about the White
Mountains that a summary of the explorations in
that region must necessarily embody an outline
of a large part of the entire field work.

The day, September 9, 1868, after he received
notice of his appointment. Professor Hitchcock,
although the season was almost too late to com-
mence work, started for Lisbon to begin the exami-
nation of the Ammonoosuc gold field. There was
time, naturally, for little more than a reconnais-
sance of that district for the purpose of laying out
future work.

J. H. Huntington, of Hanover, and George L.
Vose, of Paris, Maine, having been appointed as-
sistant geologists, the former was made principal
assistant, while to Mr. Vose was assigned the White
Mountain region as his special subject or definite
area to investigate. He was expected to pay espe-
cial attention to the topography, and, in addition
to the delineation of the geological structure, to
furnish the most accurate map of the region ever
drawn.

Field work for 1869 was begun in May on the
209

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Ammonoosuc gold field, which received more at-
tention than any other portion of the territory and
concerning which a comprehensive report, with a
colored geological map of the most interesting part
of the area, was printed in pamphlet form. This
map, with its accompanying descriptions, is of his-
torical importance as containing the germ of the
geologists' notions and opinions as to the structure
of all New England.

Mr. Vose spent a few weeks of this year among
the White Mountains, taking a large number of
observations for the purpose of fixing the exact
position of many of the high peaks and also mak-
ing observations upon the geology of the, region.
By this means the latitude and longitude of Passa-
conaway, the northern Kearsarge, Whiteface, and
Chocorua were ascertained. From Kearsarge and
Chocorua, he drew accurate sketches of all the
mountains as seen along the New Hampshire hori-
zon, using a six-inch theodolite for the purpose.
In August he resigned his position on the Survey.

During the winter of 1869-70, as narrated in full
in another place, Mr. Huntington carried out, with
Mr. A. F. Clough, the winter occupation of Moosi-
lauke. In May, 1870, Mr. Huntington made a trip
on foot to determine the relative altitude of the
passes along the principal White Mountain Range
between the Crawford House and Waterville, an
expedition which was attended with considerable
labor owing to the fact that much snow was still
remaining.

By this time in the progress of the Survey, the
210

LATER SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATIONS

geologists had begun to understand the structure of
the White Mountains, "which knowledge proved
to be the key to that of the rest of the State." This
field of research having been left vacant by the
resignation aforesaid, the State Geologist himself
assumed the duty of exploring the territory.

The area for investigation for 1870 included es-
pecially the region, about thirty miles long and
twelve or fifteen wide, bounded by Israel's, Moose,
Peabody, Ellis, and Saco Rivers. The laboriousness
of the work of exploration is plainly indicated when
it is stated that the area was nearly an unbroken
forest, traversed only by bridle paths and roads
used for the ascent of Mount Washington in summer.
The plan of campaign pursued was to visit system-
atically with the hammer and barometer every one
of the numerous peaks and valleys which make up
this tract. So numerous were the localities requir-
ing visitation that six members of the class of 1871
of Dartmouth College were invited to assist. J. H.
Huntington, Dr. Nathan Barrows, and E. Hitch-
cock, Jr., also furnished aid in this work. The Sur-
vey party lived among the mountains, in extempore
camps, until the explorations and observations had
been made. Animated by the desire to discover the
real geological structure of the region, the members
of the party did not rest until all the nearly inacces-
sible peaks and ravines had been explored. Often the
exertion necessary to procure a single specimen was
greater than that required to pass over Mount Wash-
ington on foot by the paths, involving, as it did,
traveling through primeval forest, full of under-

211

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

brush, fallen trees, and other obstacles. Many of
the results of the exploring work were thus. Pro-
fessor Hitchcock remarks, "acquired only through
infinite toil."

The first result of this laborious and painstaking
survey of the Mountain region was the construc-
tion by the State Geologist of a physical model ^ of
the area. This is about five feet in length, and is
on the scale of one hundred and forty rods to the
inch horizontally, and of one thousand feet to three
fourths of an inch vertically.

The White Mountain explorations of 1871 ^ in-
cluded a thorough examination of the area lying
between the Saco and Pemigewasset Rivers and
north of Sandwich. This work, which continued
uninterruptedly for a month beginning just after
the middle of June, was carried on with the assist-
ance of eleven members of the graduating class of
Dartmouth College, who proffered their services
and who labored cheerfully and effectively, all
contributing something of value. Two of them dis-
covered a new lake (Haystack Lake) on the north-
west side of Mount Garfield (then called "The Hay-
stack") ; two others found a still larger one upon the

^ After this had been exhibited in public, it was learned that a
plaster model of the White Mountains had been fashioned several
years before by Rev. Dr. Thomas Hill, formerly president of Har-
vard College. Dr. Hill's model was upon a much smaller scale, about
eighteen inches square, and it showed all the ridges and valleys from
Gorham to Conway and Littleton. It was built upon the basis of
Bond's map of 1853, and showed great familiarity with the structure
of the Mountains.

2 In the winter of 1870-71 occurred the first winter occupation
of Mount Washington, by Huntington and others, cis related else-
where.

212

LATER SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATIONS

east side of Mount Kinsman; others measured the
length of the Profile and explored the Devil's Den
on Mount Willard. Soon after the disbanding of
the first party, a new one was formed, some of the
members of which remained two months longer ex-
ploring the country as far south as Sandwich.

A still larger party than the first of the preceding
year was organized for work in 1872. It included
thirteen members of the class of 1872 of Dartmouth
College, and two members of the class of 1873. One
section of it was engaged in making a plane-table
survey of the southwest portion of the Mountain
area, for the purpose of perfecting the map. The
remainder of the party examined, under the guid-
ance of Mr. Huntington, the rocks along the Saco
Valley and in Albany, being occupied in this work
for a period of three weeks.

Although the exploration had been essentially
completed in 1872, Messrs. Hitchcock and Hunt-
ington visited a few points about the Mountains
in 1873 and later years for the sake of completing
their knowledge of them. In 1875, Professor Hitch-
cock made a special reexamination of the Saco Val-
ley, and in July of that year he made observations
in the Crawford Notch along the line of the new rail-
road, Professor J. D. Dana examining with him the
rocks in the neighborhood of the second cut from the
Crawford House. In the course of this field work two
flumes, Hitchcock and Butterwort, were discovered
on Mount Willard by Professor Hitchcock.

Such are in outline the main features of the work
of this Survey so far as it concerned the White

213

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Mountains. The results of this great State enter-
prise are embodied in the three monumental volumes
on the geology of New Hampshire,^ published by
the State of New Hampshire (1874-78), the first two
of which contain a vast amount of information con-
cerning the scientific aspects of the White Moun-
tains, with many illustrations, maps, and diagrams
relating to them.

It remains, before I am done with this topic of
the scientific exploration of the Mountains, to set
down briefly the facts and circumstances relating
to the activities of one or two other investigators
in this field than those whose work under State aus-
pices has just been described. ^

^ Volume I contains: "History of Explorations among the White
Mountains," by Warren Upham; "The Distribution of Insects in
New Hampshire," by William F. Flint; and "Scenery of Co6s
County," by J. H. Huntington. The geology of the White Mountain
district is given in volume 11 (1877). Volume iii contains little about
the Mountains. The maps include a large contour map issued in
sections and a colored geological map in sections.

* Among early geological explorers of this region who published
articles embodying the results of their observations are Oliver P.
Hubbard, M.D., Henry D. and William B. Rogers, and Professor J.
P. Lesley. Dr. Hubbard studied the geology and mineralogy of the
Mountains and published an outline of the results of his investiga-
tions in the American Journal of Science and Arts for April, 1838. In
the same journal for March, 1850, he printed the results of his study
of the condition of trap dikes as evidence of erosion. The Rogerses
explored the Notch in July, 1845, and published a joint article on the
geological age of the White Mountains in the American Journal of
Science and Arts for May, 1846. Professor Lesley visited the region
in 1849 and subsequent years, and in 1857 made a section along the
Grand Trunk Railway. In the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural
Sciences of Philadelphia for i860, he stated briefly the results of some
observations made in the White Mountains during that summer.
Among those who have dealt with the glacial phenomena are, besides
Agassiz, Professors C. H. Hitchcock, Alpheus S. Packard, and
Warren Uphara.

214

LATER SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATIONS

The beloved teacher, Louis Agassiz, made a jour-
ney here the first summer (1847) after his arrival in
America. At that time he "noticed unmistakable
evidences of the former existence of local glaciers,"
which, he says, "were the more clear and impres-
sive to me because I was then fresh from my inves-
tigation of the glaciers in Switzerland." Beyond the
mere statement, in a letter to Elie de Beaumont, of
the fact of his having seen some very distinct mo-
raines in some valleys of the White Mountains, he
at that time made no report upon the glacial phe-
nomena of the region, publishing nothing in the
way of a detailed account of the observations, be-
cause he did not then have time to study the diffi-
cult problem closely enough. Opportunity to revisit
the region for a more careful examination did not
present itself until twenty-three years later. As a
result of a prolonged stay among the Hills in the
summer of 1870, however, he was able to trace the
contact of the more limited phenomena of the local
glaciers, which succeeded the all-embracing winter
of the Glacial period, with the more widespread and
general features of the drift. In a paper, published
in the Proceedings of the Nineteenth Meeting of
the American Association for the Advancement of
Science, held in that year, were set forth the gen-
eral facts then ascertained, which were all that the
space admitted. He described especially the fine
moraines in Bethlehem and vicinity, which particu-
larly interested him, noting the various kinds, de-
fining their locations, and indicating the course
and extent of the glaciers which occupied the re-

215

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

gion.* Very fittingly, in honor of the great scientist,
his name has been bestowed upon the prominent
hill in that town, formerly known as "Peaked" or
"Picket Hill," and now visited annually by so many
persons for its magnificent panoramic view.^ He
is commemorated also elsewhere in the Mountains,
the striking rock formation on the Moosilauke Brook
in Woodstock, where the water of the stream rolls
through deep black basins hollowed out of the solid
granite, having been named the "Agassiz Basins"
shortly after his visit to the locality.

Agassiz's personal friend and scientific associate
of long standing, — they had been intimates from
boyhood and colleagues in Switzerland, — Arnold
Guyot, compelled to abandon his work in Europe
because of the political disturbances of 1848, fol-
lowed his friend to this country, which he was
destined, like his friend also, to make his place of
abode thereafter. Although Guyot finally settled at
Princeton, while Agassiz was attached to Harvard,
the two friends kept up their intercourse and shared
all their scientific interests.

The Princeton professor, who made geography his
specialty, began as early as 1849 a series of investi-
gations of the physical structure of the Appalachian
Mountain system and of measurements of its alti-
tudes from New Hampshire to Georgia. In that

^ What one mountain jehu remarked of Agassiz and his assistants,
after witnessing the apparently strange antics of the scientific observ-
ers, has happily been preserved. "They said they was 'naturals,' and
I should think they was!"

* A noble tribute to the great man is the poem of Charlotte Fiske
Bates (Madame Roget), entitled "Mount Agassiz." It is printed
in Musgrove's The White Hills in Poetry.

216

LATER SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATIONS

year he made the first of a series of four summer
excursions devoted to the barometric exploration of
the White Mountains, and he continued his work
until he had spent five years over New Hampshire,
the Green Mountains of Vermont, and the Adiron-
dacks and other elevated regions in the State of
New York. Among his companions, who constantly
made corresponding observations to his, were Mr.
Ernest Sandoz, who was with him in nearly all his
excursions, Mr. £mile Grand Pierre, who accom-
panied him during three summers, and Alexander
Agassiz, Edward Rutledge, and Herbert Torrey,
then young men, who gave him active assistance
in the White Mountains.

In 1 85 1, Professor Guyot measured Mount Wash-
ington by barometric observations, and obtained the
height of 6291 feet,^ only two feet under the now
accepted altitude, ascertained by Captain T. J.
Cram by spirit leveling in 1853. He continued his
explorations in the White Hills from time to time.
In 1857, he made ascents of Mounts Washington,
Willard, and Carrigain.^ The association of his name
with the region has been made perpetual by the
conferring of it upon one of the peaks of the Twin
Mountain Range.

Notable scientific work has been done in the
Mountains in the domain of entomology by Samuel

^ In his memoir "On the Appalachian Mountain System," pub-
lished in the American Journal of Scietice and Arts for March, 1861,
he changed his figures to 6288.

' The itinerary of his expedition of this year, with letters written
while en route, is given by S. Hastings Grant, one of his companions,
in Appalachia for June, 1907.

217

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

H. Scudder, a pupil of Agassiz and the first of the
vice-presidents of the Appalachian Mountain Club
and the first editor of Appalachia; by Mrs. Annie
Trumbull Slosson, noted also as a story- writer; and
by J. H. Emerton, the authority on spiders.

The explorations of the earlier botanists in these
happy hunting-grounds of the plant-lover have been
narrated. Additional information as to the scientific
aspects of the plants of the Mountains and as to the
plants of different localities has been furnished by
a number of later investigators. The volumes of
Appalachia contain many valuable articles and notes
on botanical matters, as well as on other scientific
phenomena of the region, by members of the Appa-
lachian Mountain Club who are scientists by pro-
fession or who find their recreation in the making
of observations or explorations as amateurs. The
literary naturalists, Bradford Torrey, Frank Bolles,
and Winthrop Packard, whose main interest is
ornithological, have also written about the flowers
and their haunts found in wandering afoot among
the Hills. The writers just mentioned have des-
canted pleasingly, even if sometimes too exclusively
for the general reader, upon the birds which make
their spring and summer sojourn here.

The story of an exploring feat, of the nature of a
satisfaction of curiosity rather than of scientific in-
quiry, may well find space here. This is the descent
to the Devil's Den, a dark-mouthed cave high up on
the sheer cliffs of the south side of Mount Willard,
where it is plainly seen from the Notch. This peril-
ous undertaking was twice accomplished during the

218

LATER SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATIONS

last century by daring explorers. There is a tradi-
tion that Abel Crawford visited it many years ago
and found the bottom bestrewn with bones and
other ghastly remains. Be that as it may, curiosity
was early aroused as to what this lofty hollow, in-
accessible by any way affording foothold, might con-
tain. According to Spaulding, the credit of first
visiting the place belongs to F. Leavitt, Esq., who,
by means of a rope let down from the overhanging
rock, succeeded in reaching the level of the cavern.
Finding, it is said, a collection of skulls and bones
of animals scattered about the entrance, the explorer
lost all desire to enter the dismal den, and, after
dangling but a short while at this perilous height,
gave the signal to be drawn up. "As the old Evil
One has such daily business with mortal affairs,"
remarks Mr. Spaulding, with quiet humor, "rather
than believe that to be his abode, it appears more
just to conclude that alone there the mountain eagle
finds a solitary home."

In 1870, as has been mentioned, the cavern was
explored by members of the Geological Survey party,
let down, by means of one hundred and twenty-five
feet of rope from the summit of the mountain.
"Our explorers," says Professor Hitchcock, "...
discovered nothing mysterious about this locality,
but would not advise visitors to explore it again
without better facilities for going and coming than
they enjoyed."

THE COMING OF THE RAILROADS — THEIR LATER
EXTENSIONS

As a glance at the map of the White Mountain
region will suggest, there is in this country probably
no other summer-resort area, and certainly no other
mountain district of anything like its extent, that
is to-day provided with such an abundance of rail-
road facilities, rendering it at once easy of access
and convenient for local travel. Indeed, this is so
much the case that it may be affirmed that, like
some other parts of New England, it is possibly
oversupplied with such means of transportation. In
these automobile days the railroad has ceased to
play so great a part as it once did as a carrier of
people to and through the Mountains, but in former
days it was an essential and very great element in
the growth, and, indeed, in the very existence, of the
region as a summer resort.

As a necessary preliminary, therefore, to an ac-
count of that development, as well as for its own in-
trinsic interest, a brief outline of the chief steps by
which the railroads approached the Mountains from
different points and of the building of the local ex-
tensions would seem to be pertinent at this point.

The first railroad to reach the region was the At-
lantic and St. Lawrence Railroad, which was pro-
jected to run from Portland, Maine, to Island Pond,

220

THE RAILROADS

Vermont, and which was chartered successively in
1845, 1847, and 1848, by the three States it was to
cross. Construction was begun July 4, 1846, and
was completed as far as Gorham, New Hampshire,
early in 1852. The entire line from Portland to the
western terminus in Vermont was opened in Janu-
ary of the following year. At the latter place this
railroad was to connect with the St. Lawrence and
Atlantic Railroad, a line from Montreal to that point
in Vermont, the two roads, with the interchanged
names, thereby forming a continuous route between
the two cities. The Canadian line was completed
and opened for business in July, 1853. On the even-
ing of the 1 8th of that month, the first train from
Montreal arrived in Portland, where it was received
with the ringing of bells, a salute of thirty-one guns,
and various other formal and informal manifesta-
tions of joy at the consummation of this great work.
About this time the amalgamation of a number of
Canadian lines into one Grand Trunk Railway was
effected, and to this system the Atlantic and St.
Lawrence Railroad was leased for 999 years on
August 8, 1853.

The route of the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Rail-
road, which is now known only by the general name
of the Grand Trunk, and which is the one that has
present interest for us, is, when approaching the
Mountains, up the beautiful valley of the Andros-
coggin River, through Shelburne and Gorham. It
thus passes to the north of the White Mountains,
and so has been superseded for the most part, as a
means of access to the region, by the railroads from

221

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

the south and another railroad from Portland reach-
ing directly the resorts among the Mountains. At
the time of the completion of this first railroad to
Gorham, there were only five public houses from
which the summit of Mount Washington could be
reached in a day, which statement will give the
reader, familiar with the accommodations of to-day,
some notion of the development of the region since
the coming of the railroads.

The advance of the railroads from the south was
a slow one, forty years elapsing from the time the
early railroads out of Boston were opened before a
traveler could reach the heart of the Mountains
from that city entirely by rail.

The Boston and Lowell Railroad was opened for
travel June 26, 1835. Three days before this opening
of the road to Lowell, the Nashua and Lowell Rail-
road Company obtained a charter to build a road
from the State line northwardly in the Merrimac
Valley. The line was opened to Nashua, December
23, 1838. The surveys for the next link, the Concord
Railroad, were made by Loammi Baldwin, Jr.,
William Gibbs McNeill, and George Washington
Whistler,^ the father of the artist, and the pioneer
passenger train ran into Concord ^ Tuesday evening,
September 6, 1842, a great gathering of rejoicing

^ Major Whistler went to Russia in 1842 to superintend the con-
struction of the railroad from St. Petersburg to Moscow, and died
in that country seven years later. William Gibbs McNeill was his
brother-in-law.

' A favorite route to New Hampshire from New York about 1850
was by steamer to Norwich, Connecticut, and thence to Concord via
the Norwich and Worcester Railroad, opened in 1840, the Nashua
and Worcester Raih-oad, and the Concord Railroad.

222

THE RAILROADS

people being on hand to welcome it. This was only
twelve years after the first steam railway, the Liver-
pool and Manchester, was built.

North of Concord two lines were soon under con-
struction, and in a little more than ten years Little-
ton was reached. Here, however, the advance was
halted for two decades.^

The Northern Railroad of New Hampshire started
from Concord, proceeded up the Merrimac to Frank-
lin, and then struck over to a point on the Connecti-
cut River near the mouth of its tributary, the White
River. It was opened to Lebanon in November, 1847,
and to White River Junction in the town of Hart-
ford, Vermont, in June, 1848. There it connected
with the Vermont Central Railroad (later the Cen-
tral Vermont) and with the Connecticut and Pas-
sumpsic Rivers Railroad, lines then under construc-
tion. With the latter, which was in operation to
Wells River as early as 1849, it formed a route much
used, though somewhat less direct, by travelers to
the Mountains in the early days as an alternative
to the one about to be mentioned. The Northern
Railroad became a part of the Boston and Maine
system in 1890.

The Boston, Concord, and Montreal Railroad,
the other line and the one which has more of interest
for us as that which eventually became a link in the
principal through route from Boston to the White
Mountain region, was chartered on December 27,

* A correspondent, " Pennacook," of the New York Herald, writing
from the Flume House, June 15, 1853, speaks of the approaching
opening of the railroad to Littleton, and adds, "No railroad should
ever be constructed farther into these mountains than Littleton."

223

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

1844. It was to start from Concord or Bow, and
was to extend to some point on the west bank of the
Connecticut River opposite Haverhill or to Little-
ton. Construction was immediately undertaken by
the enterprising and courageous people who lived
along its way, and on May 22, 1848, there was an
opening of the road to Sanbornton (now Tilton).
On this occasion the new engine, "Old Man of the
Mountain," and cars painted sky-blue, were deemed
peculiarly appropriate for a line whose future travel
would largely consist of traffic to and from the White
Mountains. Plymouth was reached in January,
1850, and Wells River, May 10, 1853. Late the
same year, in December, the White Mountains Rail-
road was opened to Littleton. Twenty years later,
this latter line became by purchase a part of the
Boston, Concord, and Montreal Railroad.

In 1856, when the "Boston, Concord, and Mon-
treal Railroad, which was peculiarly a New Hamp-
shire enterprise, was on the verge of bankruptcy,
John E. Lyon took charge of it. To his courage,
initiative, and persistency were due the extensions
built into the north country beyond Littleton
between 1869 and 1878.

This railroad-builder was, it may be mentioned
in passing, concerned in many other enterprises con-
nected with the development of the White Moun-
tains as a resort. Besides being associated with Mr.
Marsh in the Mount Washington Railway, he was
instrumental in the rebuilding of the Pemigewasset
House at Plymouth and in the building of the Fabyan
House and of the Summit House on Mount Wash-

224

THE RAILROADS

ington, and was one of the incorporators of the
Moosilauke Mountain Road Company.

The further extensions of the White Mountains
Railroad referred to were to Lancaster, to which
point the road was opened October 31, 1870; to
Groveton, reached on the national holiday two
years later; and to Fabyan by way of Wing Road,
to which terminus the road was opened July 4, 1874.
Two years afterwards, the railroad was extended
from Fabyan to the Base in time to be opened
early in July, and thus the stage service over the
turnpike from Fabyan to the Mount Washington
Railway was superseded. The Profile House and
Bethlehem were for some years longer accessible
only by stage, but in 1879 ^ narrow-gauge road was
opened to the former and in 188 1 to the latter. These
branch lines, which are operated only in the sum-
mer, remained narrow-gauge until 1897, when the
change to standard-gauge was completed.^

What these extensions meant to the development
of the region as a summer recreation ground and
tourist center will be at once evident to any present-
day frequenter of the White Mountains, when he
recalls that for more than a score of years Littleton
was the northern terminus of the White Mountains
Railroad, and that Bethlehem, the Profile House and
the Franconia Notch, the Crawford House and Notch,
and other places were accessible only by long and
tedious, and often otherwise unpleasant, stage rides.

* I am indebted to the Boston and Maine Railroad, and particu-
larly to Mr. G. E. Cummings, superintendent of the White Mountains
Division, for information as to the time of this change of gauge on the
Profile and Franconia Notch Railroad.

225

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

The openings of two more branch lines remain to
be chronicled. North Woodstock, now become a con-
siderable summer resort, was connected by rail with
Plymouth in 1883. Ten years later, a road twenty
miles long was opened to Berlin. This started at the
old terminus on Jefferson Meadow of the Whitefield
and Jefferson Railroad, opened in 1879, at a point
near to which starts the spur, opened in 1892, to the
Waumbek Hotel, and passed through Randolph
and Gorham.

All of these railroads in the Mountain region now
form a part of the Boston and Maine Railroad sys-
tem, which controls nearly all the railroads in the
Granite State.

The lines up the Connecticut River from Spring-
field, Massachusetts, which city was connected by
rail with Hartford, Connecticut, in 1844, were opened
at various times. The principal links in the northern
part of this the most direct route from New York
City to the White Mountains were the Connecticut
River Railroad, opened to South Vernon, January
I, 1849; the Vermont Valley Railroad, Brattleboro
to Bellows Falls, opened in 1851 ; the Sullivan County
Railroad, Bellows Falls to Windsor, opened in Feb-
ruary, 1849, and sold October i, 1880, to the Ver-
mont Valley Railroad; and the Connecticut and
Passumpsic Rivers Railroad, from White River
Junction on. All these lines were eventually leased
to the Boston and Maine.

Another important means of rendering the Moun-
tains accessible by rail was undertaken in the early
seventies in the construction of the Portland and

226

THE RAILROADS

Ogdensburg Railroad, so called, some one has face-
tiously remarked, because it started from Portland
and never reached Ogdensburg. To two brothers, cit-
izens of the State of Maine, belongs the credit for the
building of this railroad, which vies with the Mount
Washington Railway as a conception and achieve-
ment and in scenic interest. General Samuel J. An-
derson, of Portland, was the foremost promoter of
the road and its first president. "Being," says Mrs.
Mason in her article on Conway, "a gifted and per-
suasive speaker, it was easy for him to induce the
town of Conway to raise five per cent of its valuation
for the building of the road." John Farwell Anderson,
of South Windham, Maine, was the engineer. Main-
taining that the gorges of the Crawford Notch could
be bridged, he accomplished the feat after it had
been repeatedly declared impossible by other engi-
neers. The company was chartered in February,
1867, and in four and a half years the line reached
North Conway. It was opened to Fabyan in
August, 1875. Some idea of the difficulties and
expense of construction and operation may be gained
from the facts that of the total ascent of 1890 feet
from Portland to Crawford's, 1369 feet are included
in the thirty miles between North Conway and the
latter place, and that between Bemis and Craw-
ford's the rise is 116 feet to the mile for nine con-
secutive miles. Such structures on the right of way
as the Frankenstein Trestle ^ and the Willey Brook
Bridge are striking evidences of the skill and genius
of the engineer.

* The old trestle was replaced by a new steel one in 1895.
227

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Less than a year after the Portland and Ogdens-
burg was opened to North Conway, the Eastern
Railroad, now a part of the Boston and Maine,
reached Conway. To-day the rail connection be-
tween the two, which form together another through
route from Boston to the Mountains, is at Inter-
vale. In 1888, the former road fell into the hands of
the Maine Central and was renamed the Mountain
Division of that railroad. The following year the
line was extended from Fabyan to Scott's Mills
via the Twin Mountain House and Whitefield, thus
completing a route passing entirely through the
heart of the Mountains. A later extension to the
northward, from Quebec Junction to North Strat-
ford, opened in 1891, made the Maine Central a
means of access to the region from Canada.

THE HOTELS ON MOUNT WASHINGTON — THE CAR-
RIAGE ROAD, AND THE MOUNT WASHINGTON
RAILWAY — HOTELS AND SHELTERS ON OTHER
SUMMITS

The steps in two connected enterprises — one the
supplying of shelter for visitors to Mount Washing-
ton and the other the providing of means of making
the ascent for others than persons coming on foot or
on horseback — form perhaps the most interesting
series of events in White Mountain history. The
joint story covers a long period of time and is a record
worthy of the strong men who by their courage and
energy have made New Hampshire famous. I have
already told of the building of the earlier footpaths
and the bridle path and of the first shelter erected
on the Mountain. This latter, it will be recalled,
consisted of Ethan Allen Crawford's three stone
cabins, which, soon after their erection in 1823, were
abandoned. Mr. Crawford followed these with a
large tent, which he spread near a spring of water
not far from the Summit and which was provided
with a sheet-iron stove. Because, however, of the
violent storms and wind, this new shelter could not
be kept in place and soon wore out.

Soon after the bridle path was opened, a rude
wooden shelter of about a dozen feet square was built,

229

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

but its existence was short,* and it is not known
what became of it. This is the "Tip-Top House,"
that Dr. Edward Everett Hale tells of entering, in
September, 1841.

The first hotel on Mount Washington was built
in 1852, and owed its construction to the enterprise
of Nathan R. Perkins, of Jefferson, and Lucius M.
Rosebrook and Joseph S. Hall, both citizens of Lan-
caster. This difficult work was begun in May, and
on July 28 the hotel, the "Summit House," was
opened to the public.

All the lumber for the sheathing and roof had to
be carried upon horses from a sawmill near Jefferson
Highlands. A chain was hung over the horse's back
and one end of each board was run through a loop
at the end of the chain, two boards being carried
on each side of the horse. The drivers, D. S. Davis
and A. Judson Bedell, walked behind carrying the
farther end of the boards. Mr. Rosebrook, it is said,
carried the front door up the Mountain on his back
from the Glen House. Such were the obstacles that
were overcome by these energetic men.

This structure, which stood on the north side of
the peak, was built largely of rough stones blasted
from the Mountain and was firmly secured to its
rocky foundation by cement and large iron bolts.
Over the low, sloping gable roof passed four stout
cables. It was enlarged the following year, when
Mr. Perkins was in charge and a half-interest had

^ Colonel Charles Parsons, of St. Louis, who visited Mount
Washington in 1900 for the second time, remembered that this
shelter was in existence in 1844, when he walked up the Mountain.
■(From his "Reminiscences" in Among the Clouds.)

230

MOUNT WASHINGTON

been sold to Nathaniel Noyes and an associate, and
an upper story with a pitched roof was added. It
withstood the storms of winter for more than thirty
years, being used, after the building of the second
Summit House, as a dormitory for its employees
until 1884, when it was demolished.

The success of this undertaking led to the erec-
tion of a rival house, the famous Tip-Top House,
which was opened in August, 1853. Samuel Fitch
Spaulding, of Lancaster, was the builder, and his
associates in the project and in the management of
the hotel were his sons and a nephew, John Hub-
bard Spaulding, the author of "Historical Relics of
the White Mountains." It was built of rough stones,
similarly to the Summit House, measured eighty-
four by twenty-eight feet, and had originally a deck
roof, upon which the visitor might stand and thus
have an unobstructed view. A telescope was kept
there in pleasant weather. Competition between the
two hotels was keen the first common season, but in
1854 Mr. Perkins disposed of his interest in the Sum-
mit House to the Spauldings, who managed the two
houses for nine seasons. Mary B. Spaulding (Mrs.
Lucius Hartshorn), daughter of Samuel F. Spaulding,
managed the Tip-Top House for three seasons. In
a letter written a few years ago she gives a vivid
description of the difficulty of managing a hotel on
the Mountain at that day. Everything had to be
brought on horses' backs from the Glen House, and
fresh meat, potatoes, milk, and cream were absent
from the menu. Among the supplies kept on hand
were bacon, ham, tripe, tongue, eggs, and rice, and

231

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

pancakes, johnnycake, fried cakes, and varieties of
hot bread and biscuit were served. The number of
guests for dinner was very uncertain and could be
roughly estimated only from the number of visitors
at the foot of the Mountain and from the weather
conditions. Among her guests she names Jefferson
Davis, Charles Sumner, Horace Greeley, and
William H. Seward.

C. H. V. Cavis, engineer for the carriage road,
was for one year manager of the Tip-Top House.
In his day, according to Mrs. Cavis, in order to
estimate the number of guests for dinner, some one
went to what is known as Point Lookoff , overlooking
the Lakes of the Clouds, and counted the ponies
in the cavalcade coming along the bridle path from
Crawford's. Others came from the Glen and from
Fabyan's. Landlord Cavis kept some cows on the
plateau, since known as the "Cow Pasture," near
the seven-mile post of the carriage road.

The first woman to sleep in the house after its
opening in August, 1853, was a Mrs. Duhring, of
Philadelphia, who came up on horseback from the
Crawford House and walked down. Twenty-four
years later she revisited the Mountain.

From 1862 to 1872, the lessee of the Tip-Top
House and Summit House was Colonel John R.
Hitchcock, who was also the proprietor of the Alpine
House in Gorham. He paid a rent of two thousand
dollars a year after the first year. Colonel Hitch-
cock connected the two houses, and, after the com-
pletion of the carriage road, an upper story con-
taining seventeen little bedrooms was added to the

232

MOUNT WASHINGTON

Tip-Top House. Mrs. Atwood, the housekeeper of
the Alpine House, had charge of the Summit hotels,
visiting them twice a week in a specially constructed
light two-horse carriage. During the Hitchcock
regime, in which baked beans, brown bread, and
other simple dishes were chief features of the bill-
of-fare, the business, especially after the building
of the railway, far outgrew the accommodations.
After the building of the new Summit House, the Tip-
Top House was used by hotel and railway employees
for a few years. From 1877 to 1884, the printing
office of Among the Clouds was in the old hotel, its
front room being equipped for that purpose in the
former year. After that use of it ceased, the build-
ing, owing to dampness, fell somewhat into decay
and came to be visited only as a curiosity. In 1898,
an observatory was constructed at the western end
to afford a good place from which to watch the
sunsets.

But this ancient landmark was not destined to
remain a curiosity only. As the sole survivor of the
fire which devastated the Summit just before the
opening of the season of 1908, the venerable struc-
ture had necessarily to be restored to its original
purpose of a place of entertainment and shelter.
As such it continued to be used until the opening
of a new Summit House in 19 15.

The next structure to be built on the Summit
after the erection of the Tip-Top House was an
observatory. Built in 1854, by Timothy Estus,^ of

^ So Spaulding. Professor Hitchcock, in Mount Washington in
Winter, gives the builder's name as Timothy Eaton.

233

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Jefferson, it was a framework forty feet high sup-
ported by iron braces at the corners. It was pro-
vided with a sort of elevator operated by a crank
and gearing and capable of accommodating eight
persons at a time. This observatory, which cost
about six hundred dollars, was abandoned as a
complete failure after being used a part of the first
season. It stood until the summer of 1856, when it
was torn down.

No further buildings were erected on Mount
Washington until after the building of the carriage
road and of the railway, when the necessary struc-
tures for carrying on the operation of these means of
visiting the Summit were erected. Soon the increase
of business due to these agencies for making the
peak more accessible necessitated the provision of
greater accommodations for the shelter of visitors.
From time to time, also, buildings for various other
uses were added to the Summit settlement. The re-
cording of the history of the later hotel and of the
other structures referred to, however, properly fol-
lows the stories of the carriage road and the railway,
and will be set down in due course after the latter
have been related.

The construction of the first-named means of
access to the summit of Mount Washington is a
work which bears eloquent witness to the enterprise,
courage, and persistence of its projector and builders.
The road, which extends from the Pinkham Notch
Road, near the site of the Glen House, to the Sum-
mit, is eight miles long and makes an ascent of forty-
six hundred feet, the average grade being one foot in

234

MOUNT WASHINGTON

eight and the steepest, one foot in six. To General
David O. Macomber, of Middietown, Connecticut,
belongs the credit for originating this undertaking.
The Mount Washington Road Company was char-
tered July I, 1853, with a capital of fifty thousand
dollars. The company was organized at the Alpine
House, in Gorham, on August 31 of that year,
General Macomber being chosen president. The
road was surveyed by Engineers C. H. V. Cavis and
Ricker. Two incidents of the surveying period have
been preserved by John H. Spaulding. One is the
measurement of the height of the Mountain by
actual survey made by the engineers in 1854, who
arrived at 6284 feet as a result. The other incident
was the dining, on July 16 of that year, of President
Macomber, Engineer Cavis, and Mr. Spaulding in
the snow arch. It was then two hundred and sixty-
six feet long, eighty-four feet wide, and forty feet
high to the roof. Mr. Spaulding records that, during
the time spent in this somewhat rash action, icy
cold water constantly dripped down around them
and a heavy thundershower passed over them.

Construction was begun by Contractors Rich and
Myers in or about the year 1855,^ and within a
year two miles were completed and further con-
struction was under way. The section ending at
the Ledge just above the Halfway House, a total
distance of four miles from the beginning, was
finished in 1856. Then the pioneer company failed,
because of the great cost of construction. A new

^ Mr. Spaulding notes that in June, 1855, the road is "in rapid
progress towards completion."

235

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

company, the Mount Washington Summit Road
Company, was, however, incorporated two or three
years later, and this company finished the road in
1861. Joseph S. Hall, one of the builders of the
Tip-Top House, was the contractor for this work,
and John P. Rich, the first contractor, was the
superintendent. The road, which is splendidly
built and which winds up the Mountain in long
gradual lines of ascent, places where there are steep
grades being rendered safe by stone walls on the
lower side, was opened for travel on August 8, 1861.

The first passenger vehicle which arrived at the
Summit — an old-fashioned Concord stage-coach
with eight horses — was driven by George W. Lane,
for many years in charge of the Fabyan House
stables.^

The memory of Mr. Rich, who had so much to
do with the construction of the road and who died
in California in 1863, has been preserved by a
tablet set in a rock by the roadside near the Glen
and bearing a suitable inscription. Witness to the
excellence of the engineering and construction work
on the road, as well as of the care with which it has
been maintained, is borne by its use for now more
than fifty years and its well-preserved condition.

Striking as was this achievement in rendering the
top of New England's highest mountain more ac-

* Landlord Thompson, of the Glen House, drove to the Summit
in a light wagon with one horse, just before the road was completed,
thus beating his rival for the honor. Colonel Hitchcock. Two men
assisted in keeping the wagon right side up as he drove over the un-
completed last section of the road. Landlord Thompson was also in
the first coach driven up.

236

MOUNT WASHINGTON

cessible, it was soon to be surpassed in boldness of
conception and skill and successfulness of execution
by another undertaking directed to the same end.
I refer to the building of the Mount Washington
Railway, the first railway of its kind in the world.
The projector of this enterprise was Sylvester Marsh,
a native son of New Hampshire and a Yankee
genius. The idea that it was wholly practicable to
apply the principle of the cog rail to a mountain
railroad and the carrying out of the conception was
only one of this ingenious New Englander's services
to the world. Having gone West in the winter of
1833-34, when thirty years old, Mr. Marsh became
one of the founders of Chicago, prominent in the
promotion of every public enterprise there. He was
the originator of meat-packing in that city and the
inventor of many of the appliances used in that
process, especially those connected with the employ-
ment of steam. The dried-meal process was another
of his inventions.

When on a visit to his native State in 1852, he
one day made an ascent of Mount Washington with
a friend, the Reverend A. C. Thompson, of Roxbury.
It was while struggling up the Mountain, or perhaps
a little later, that the idea came to him that a rail-
way to the Summit was feasible and could be made
profitable. Very soon he set to work and invented
the mountain-climbing mechanism, and then with
characteristic energy and perseverance he fought
his project through to completion against much
opposition and ridicule. In 1858, he exhibited a
model of the line to the State Legislature and asked

237

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

for a charter to build steam railways up Mount
Washington and Mount Lafayette. The charter
was granted on June 25 of that year, one legislator,
it is said, suggesting the satirical amendment that
the gentleman should also receive permission to
build a railway to the moon. Pecuniary support for
so apparently ridiculous a proposal was difficult
to obtain, and before anything could be done the
breaking-out of the Civil War postponed action for
several years more. Finally a company was formed,
the necessary capital being furnished by the rail-
roads connecting the White Mountain region with
Boston and New York. At the outset, however,
Mr. Marsh had to rely chiefly on his own resources,
but little encouragement being received until an
engine was actually running over a part of the route.
Construction of the railway was at length begun in
May, 1866, nearly eight years after the granting of
the charter. In order to render its starting-point
accessible, a turnpike from Fabyan's to the Base
was begun in April of that same year.

As the railway is so important in the history of
mountain railways a brief description of its mechan-
ical features may not be out of order. The road is
of the type known as the "cog road," or the rack
and pinion railroad. The indispensable peculiarity
of the invention is the heavy central rail, which
consists of two parallel pieces of steel connected by
numerous strong cross-pins or bolts, into the spaces
between which the teeth of the cog wheels on the
locomotive play. As the driving-wheel revolves, the
engine ascends or descends, resting on the outer

238

MOUNT WASHINGTON

rails, which are of the ordinary pattern and which
are four feet seven inches apart.

The first locomotive, which was designed by Mr.
Marsh and was built by Campbell and Whittier, of
Boston, was used until entirely worn out. Exhibited
at the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893, it is now
in the Field Museum of Natural History. It had
a vertical boiler and no cab, and thus resembled a
hoisting engine in appearance. The present type of
locomotive was designed by Walter Aiken, ^ of Frank-
lin, New Hampshire, who was the man to work out
the practical details of Mr. Marsh's idea and who
supervised the construction of the road. The engine
is furnished with two pairs of cylinders and driving
gears, thus guaranteeing ample security in case of ac-
cident. The car is provided with similar cog wheels
to those on the engine and with brakes of its own,
insuring safety independent of the engine. There
are separate brakes on each axle of the car and an
additional safety device on both it and the engine
in the form of a toothed wheel and ratchet. This
latter mechanism affords the greatest protection
against accident, as it prevents the wheels of the
car or of the engine from turning backward. It is,
of course, raised during the descent, but it can be

^ From an article by Mr. Aiken in Among the Clouds for September
I, 1877, it appears that Herrick Aiken, of Franklin, about 1850
conceived the idea of ascending Mount Washington by means of a
cog railroad. He went so far as to build a model of a roadbed and
track with the cog rail and to make two ascents of the Mountain on
horseback for the purpose of determining the feasibility of the route,
etc.; but he was dissuaded from undertaking the project by promi-
nent railroad men whom he consulted and who thought it impracti-
cable and unlikely to be profitable.

239

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

dropped instantly into place in an emergency. The
car is pushed up the Mountain and descends behind
the locomotive, and is not fastened to it. The train
moves very slowly, so slowly, indeed, that a person
can easily, if necessary, step on or off while it is
under full headway. Seventy minutes are required
to make the trip up. The safety appliances, the
powerfully constructed locomotive, the moderate
speed, the constant inspection, and the experienced
men concerned in the operation of the road have
eliminated the element of danger from the trip. No
passenger has yet been injured in all the years since
the road's opening.

The route was surveyed and located by Colonel
Orville E. Freeman, of Lancaster, New Hampshire,
a son-in-law of the pioneer, Ethan Allen Crawford.
Very appropriately, the course of the railway is
substantially that of the latter's early path to the
Summit. The length of the road is about three and
one third miles, and the elevation overcome is about
three thousand seven hundred feet. The average
grade is one foot in four and the maximum thirteen
and one half inches in three feet, or one thousand
nine hundred and eighty feet to the mile. With
the exception of the railway up Mount Pilatus in
Switzerland, the Mount Washington Railway is the
steepest in the world of the type of which it is the
pioneer. The road is built on a wooden trestle all
the way except a short distance near the Base,
where the track lies on the surface of the ground.

But to return to its history. The first quarter of
a mile was finished in 1866, and a test was made

240

15- <u

•^. 't.

< 2

MOUNT WASHINGTON

which demonstrated the practicability of the inven-
tion. A half-mile more was completed in 1867, and
on August 14, 1868, the railway was opened to
Jacob's Ladder.^ Before work on it stopped that
year, construction was carried to the Lizzie Bourne
monument. The road was finished the following
year, being opened to the Summit for business in
July. The cost of construction and equipment was
$I39»500.

At the time of its completion, the nearest railroad
station was at Littleton, twenty-five miles distant.
Every piece of material for the construction of the
railway and the locomotive and cars, had. to be
hauled through the woods, it should be remembered,
by ox teams.

I have spoken of the beginning of the construc-
tion of the turnpike to the Base. This was completed
in 1869, and for many years afforded the only means
of access to the railway, passengers being brought
by stage over it from Fabyan's. It was owned for
some years by the Boston and Maine Railroad, but
has recently been turned over to the State.

A word more as to the railway's projector and
inventor. Leaving Chicago, he returned to live in
New Hampshire, settling at Littleton in 1864. He
passed the closing years of his life in Concord, where
he removed in 1879 and where he died in December,
1884, at the age of eighty-one, a public-spirited and
highly respected citizen. He was asked to build the

^ This name was transferred to the railroad from the path, having
been given to the steep crag at this place, many years before the
building of the railway.

241

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

railway up the Rigi in Switzerland, which is pat-
terned to some extent after the Mount Washington
Railway, but he declined.

During the latter 's construction, a Swiss engi-
neer^ visited the American railroad, and he was
allowed to take back with him drawings of the
machinery and track.

After the Swiss railroad was completed (1871),
Mr. Marsh said of it, "They have made a much
better road than mine. Mine was an experiment.
When proved to be a success, they went ahead with
confidence and built a permanent road."

A noteworthy incident of the first season of the
Mount Washington Railway was the visit of Presi-
dent Grant, whose first term had begun the pre-
ceding March. His trip up Mount Washington was
made in the course of a tour through the Mountains
that summer with Mrs. Grant and some of their
children. Another episode of this excursion has been

^ This was Mr. Nicholas Riggenbach, then superintendent of the
Central Swiss Railway, who took the first steam locomotive into
Switzerland in 1847, and who appears to have independently con-
ceived the idea of a new system of track and locomotives for the as-
cent of mountains. On August 12, 1863, he took out a patent for a
rack railway and a locomotive for operating the same, but nothing
further seems to have been done with the idea by him until after the
visit to America mentioned in the text. On his return he associated
himself with two others, got a concession, and built the road up the
Rigi. The rack rail designed by Riggenbach is a distinct improve-
ment upon that used by Marsh. Instead of a round tooth, it employs
a taper tooth, which experience has shown to be preferable, inas-
much as it not only insures safe locking of the gear at different
depths, but resists more efficiently the tendency of the gear-wheel
to climb the rack — a further security against derailment. Riggen-
bach's type of tooth, with modifications, is that now used on rack
railways. (From F. A. Talbot's Railway Wonders of the World.
1913-)

242

MOUNT WASHINGTON

preserved.^ The general, as is well known, was a
great lover of horses. One can imagine, therefore,
his keen enjoyment, as he sat on the box with
the driver, Edmund Cox, of a stage-coach which
traveled, drawn by six horses, from the Sinclair
House in Bethlehem to the Profile House, more
than eleven miles, in fifty-eight minutes.

Accidents on the carriage road, so strong are the
vehicles and horses used and so careful and reliable
the drivers employed, have been few. The first by
which any passengers were injured, and the only
serious one I have found recorded, occurred on July
3, 1880, about a mile below the Halfway House. A
company of excursionists from Michigan had been
visiting the Summit that day, and the last party of
them to descend, consisting of nine persons, were
thrown violently into the woods and on the rocks
by the overturning of the six-horse mountain wagon
in which they were riding. One woman was in-
stantly killed and several other occupants were
more or less injured. The husband of the dead
woman was riding at her side and escaped with a
few bruises.

It seems that the driver, one of the oldest and
most experienced on the road and one who had
himself uttered the warning, "There should be no
fooling, no chaffing, and no drinking on that road,"
had failed to practice what he preached, and, while
waiting for his party at the Summit, had indulged
in liquor. This lapse, most serious under the cir-

^ Recorded by Alice Bartlett Stevens in the Granite Monthly for
February, 1903.

243

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

cumstances, was discovered shortly after starting,
and the passengers thereupon left the wagon and
walked to the Halfway House, four miles down.
There, on being assured by one of the employees of
the Carriage Road Company that there was no
dangerous place below that point, and on his telling
them further that he thought it would be safe for
them to ride the remainder of the way with the same
driver, they resumed their seats, only to meet, a few
minutes later, in rounding a curve at too great a
speed, with the sad mishap that has been described.

As has been already stated, no passenger has ever
been even injured on the Railway. The only mishap
of any consequence, and a most peculiar one, oc-
curred about the middle of July, 1897, when a train
consisting of a locomotive, passenger car, and bag-
gage car was wrecked. A heavy gust of wind struck
the train, which was standing near the Summit,
with such force as to start it off down the line. It
was found that about a quarter of a mile down the
engine and baggage car had jumped the track, had
turned over and over while falling a hundred feet
or more into the gulf, and had become total wrecks.
The man sent out to investigate on a slide-board
reported that he saw nothing of the passenger car,
but it was later discovered that this had left the
track at a curve near Jacob's Ladder, had turned
over, and had been completely demolished. Fortu-
nately no one was on board.

Mention has just been made of the slide-board.
This interesting contrivance was invented to meet
the need of rapid transit for the workmen employed

244

MOUNT WASHINGTON

in track repairing and the like. By this means an
experienced rider can go from the Summit to the
Base in three minutes. The sHde-board is about
three feet long, rests lengthwise on the center rail,
and is grooved so as to slide on it. The braking
mechanism, by which the board is kept under such
perfect control that it can be stopped almost in-
stantly whenever necessary, is very simple. On
either side of the board is pivoted to it a handle,
to which is attached, near the pivot, a piece of
iron bent in a peculiar form so as to project under-
neath the rail. By pulling up the handle this piece
of iron is made to grip the flange of the rail very
tightly.

It was formerly the practice for the roadmaster
or his assistant to descend on a slide-board before
the noon train every day, going slowly enough to
make a careful inspection of the track. The death
of an employee in performing this hazardous act
a few years ago, which accident cost the Railway
Company several thousand dollars in damages and
made evident the liability to mishaps of this kind,
has caused the discontinuance of the use of this
dangerous means of conveyance.

A picturesque employment of the slide-boards in
former days was as a "newspaper train." This
novel enterprise was carried on in the early nineties,
when the coaching parades at Bethlehem and North
Conway were at their height, and there was thereby
created a great demand for the issues of Among the
Clouds, which contained accounts of the festivities.
So that readers in those towns might have copies of

245

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

the paper at their breakfast tables, some of the
skillful coasters used to transport the morning edi-
tion down the Mountain before daylight.

After the completion of the railway, steps had
immediately to be taken to remedy the woefully
inadequate provisions for feeding and sheltering vis-
itors, and, accordingly, in 1872, was begun the build-
ing of the second "Summit House," the famous
structure which for thirty-five summers entertained
so many people of various walks in life, — guides,
trampers, railroad officials, scientific and literary
men and women, clergymen, and just ordinary
persons, — and which had a wealth of associations
connected with it, and especially clustered about
its office stove. The undertaking was financed by
Walter Aiken, manager of the Mount Washington
Railway, whose tall, stalwart form and sterling
manhood is one of the memories of the early days,
and President John E. Lyon, of the Boston, Concord,
and Montreal Railroad, whose contributions to the
development of the Mountains have been already
mentioned. The hotel, which was completed early
in 1873 and opened in July of that year, was of plain
outward apppearance, but of the most rigid and solid
construction possible for a wooden building. The
difficulties of erecting so large a structure — it could
accommodate one hundred and fifty guests — on a
site where severe weather often prevails, are obvious
as well as are the necessities for strong construction
and for anchorage by bolts and cables. Two hundred
and fifty freight trains were required to carry up
the lumber, and the cost of the hotel, exclusive of

246

MOUNT WASHINGTON

the expense for freight (estimated at $10,000), was

$56,599.57.

The excellence of the construction is evidenced
by the fact that the solid frame withstood gales of
one hundred and eighty-six miles an hour by actual
record by the anemometer and very likely of higher
unrecorded rates when no instrument or observer
was there to tell the tale. Its cheerful office, with
its great stove, was a welcome place to many a
traveler arriving by railway, by carriage road, or by
trail. Many a day weather conditions were such
that visitors were marooned in the office during
their entire stay on the Summit and were devoutly
grateful for the hotel's hospitable shelter. Almost
every evening of the season found a group of trav-
elers whiling away the time enjoying the genial
warmth of the stove and exchanging experiences of
their mountain trips.

Notables who made longer or shorter stays there
at the various times, as recalled by the editor of
Among the Clouds, were Lucy Larcom, the poet;
William C. Prime, editor, traveler, author, and
angler; his sister-in-law, Annie Trumbull Slosson,
entomologist and author, who came year after year
for longer and longer sojourns and who latterly re-
garded the hotel as her home; the botanist, Edward
Faxon; the entomologist, J. H. Emerton; E. C. and
W. H. Pickering, the astronomers ; the naturalist and
author, Bradford Torrey ; and among the cloth. Rev.
Dr. W. R. Richards and Rev. Dr. Harry P. Nichols.

Day visitors of prominence were legion. Some
names of such, culled from the pages of Among the

247

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Clouds in 1877, are those of President Hayes ^ and
Mrs. Hayes, who, accompanied by WilHam M.
Evarts, Charles Devens, and D. M. Key, of the
Cabinet, made their visit to the Summit on August
20; the Reverend and Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher
on the same day; Vice-President Wheeler, on Au-
gust 29, and in September, Sir Lyon Playfair, the
eminent British statesman and scientist. Other
noted visitors whose names are found in the records
of later years were P. T. Barnum, General Joseph
Hooker, General McClellan, Lord Chief Justice
Coleridge, of England, who came on August 30,
1883, Phillips Brooks, Speaker Cannon, Lieutenant
Peary, and Sefior Romero, the Mexican Minister.
In 1880, the eminent Scottish professor, William
Garden Blaikie, spent "a night on Mount Washing-
ton," an account of which experience he gave in a
typically British article with this title, published in
Good Words in June, 1881. He went up by train and
walked down the carriage road. As there was a
cloud on top when he arrived, he walked down be-
low to see the view and the sunset. "Nothing could
be finer," he declared, than the dawn he wit-
nessed.

The versatile English writer and scientist of Ca-
nadian birth. Grant Allen, was another foreign
visitor to Mount Washington who deserves a pass-
ing mention. From his graphic and often facetious
account of his brief visit to the Mountains in 1886,
written for Longman's Magazine, we learn that he
made the ascent by train and that he was much
* This was President Hayes's fifth visit to the Summit.
248

MOUNT WASHINGTON

interested in the botany — his specialty — and the
gastronomy of the region.

The first proprietor of this new Summit House
was Captain John W. Dodge, of Hampton Falls,
New Hampshire, who also became postmaster by
Government appointment when the Mount Wash-
ington post-ofhce was established July i, 1874, ^^d
who died in June of the following year. For nine
seasons, a period ending with 1883, his widow, Har-
riet D. Dodge, successfully managed the house.
Charles G. Emmons had charge for the two following
seasons, and from 1886 to the end, the hotel was
leased to the Barron, Merrill, and Barron Company
by the railway company into whose hands, after the
deaths of Mr. Aiken and Mr. Lyon, their interest
passed. The Summit House was enlarged by the
addition of an ell in 1874 ^^^ extensive improve-
ments were made in 1895, 1901, and 1905.

From time to time, as need arose or circumstances
required, buildings for various uses were erected on
the Summit until a considerable summer settlement
had been created. Besides such essential structures
as the train shed, built in 1870 and subsequently
blown down in a winter gale and rebuilt,^ and the
stage office, erected in 1878 by the owners of the
carriage road for the accommodation of the agents
and drivers of the stage line and sometimes used
as sleeping quarters by trampers, several buildings
came into existence for special purposes, which

* A third train shed — the one burned — was built about 1890.
The second one, having become disused and dilapidated, was taken
down in 1904.

249

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

structures demand more attention than mere men-
tion, either because of their uses or because of their
associations.

When in May, 1871, the Government took up the
work of maintaining weather-bureau service on the
Summit, the observers, who were at that period
detailed for this duty the year round by the Signal
Service of the Army, were quartered in the old rail-
way station, but in 1874 ^ wooden building, one
and a half stories high, the so-called "Signal Sta-
tion," was erected for their use.

At the beginning of 1880, the buildings on the
Summit were the old Summit House, which, as has
been stated, was then used as a dormitory for the
hotel employees, the old Tip-Top House, the front
room of which then served as the printing-office of
Among the Clouds, the stage office, the train shed,
the Signal Station, and the Summit House. Two
more buildings were added to the group during the
years soon following, to stand with the others until
that fateful evening in June, 1908, when the results
of so many years* development were reduced in a
few hours to ashes and blackened ruins.

In the year first named the railway company
erected a strong wooden tower, twenty-seven feet
high and of pyramidal shape, on high ground near
the southwest corner of the Summit House. It
overlooked all the buildings and became a favor-
ite observatory. For several summers it was used
by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey
in the triangulation of the region. In 1892, the tower
was carried up another story and, during that season

250

SUMMIT HOUSE AND OBSERVATORY, MOUNT WASHINGTON
ABOUT 1S95

THh. NEW SLMMir HOUSE 1 )N MOUNT WASHINGTON
ERECTED AND OPENED IN 191J

MOUNT WASHINGTON

only, a powerful searchlight was operated on it.
Having fallen into decay and having become un-
safe, this, the second observatory built on the
Mountain, was pulled down in 1902.

Four years after the erection of the tower came
the last addition to the group of buildings. This
was a home for the Mountain newspaper, Among
the Clouds, which had outgrown its quarters in the
old Tip-Top House. In the autumn of 1884 was
built the compact and cozy little office so well known
to visitors for nearly twenty-five years. It contained
a fully equipped printing-plant, with a Hoe cylinder
press and a steam engine (superseded a short time
before the great fire by a seven horse-power gasoline
engine). Many a tourist here saw for the first time
a newspaper plant in operation.

The same year saw another change in the Moun-
tain buildings, for, as has been recorded before, the
old Summit House was that year taken down, a
wooden cottage being erected in its stead. Mention
having just been made of the printing-office of
Among the Clottds, and the establishment of that
newspaper belonging chronologically to the period
now under review, accounts of this unique jour-
nalistic enterprise and also of another similar un-
dertaking may perhaps be interjected at this
point.

The distinction of being the first and for many
years the only newspaper printed regularly on the
top of a mountain, and the further distinction of
being the oldest summer-resort newspaper in Amer-
ica, belong to Mount Washington's daily journal.

251

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

It was founded in 1877 by Mr. Henry M. Burt, of
Springfield, Massachusetts, who had been connected
with the Springfield Republican and various other
papers, among them the New England Homestead,
which he founded. In 1866, Mr. Burt published
"Burt's Guide to the Connecticut Valley and the
White Mountains," the preparation of which
brought him first to Mount Washington. While
spending a stormy day at the Summit House, in
1874, the thought of printing a newspaper on top of
the Mountain came to him, resulting in the starting
of Among the Clouds three years later, the first issue
appearing on July 18, 1877. This unique and daring
undertaking gained the admiration of all visitors,
and the paper with so peculiarly appropriate a
name soon filled a recognized position in White
Mountain life. For eight summers it was printed in
the old Tip-Top House. Thereafter until 1908, it was
published in its own building, the erection of which
in 1884 has been recorded. The genial editor, during
the twenty-two years in which he conducted the
paper, gained a host of personal friends among those
frequenting the White Mountains and those carry-
ing on business in the region. Since his death in
March, 1899, his son, Frank H. Burt, has been its
editor and publisher.

Before the great fire of 1908 deprived Among the
Clouds of its well-equipped and appropriately lo-
cated home, two editions were printed daily, the
principal one being issued in the early morning. At
I P.M. the noon edition, containing a list of the names
of visitors arriving by the morning train, was ready

252

MOUNT WASHINGTON

for purchase as a souvenir by the traveler before
the train departed on the downward trip.

Besides recording all events of interest relating
to Mount Washington, together with news of the
leading Mountain resorts, many articles of historical
and scientific value have appeared in its columns,
all of which contents have combined to make a
complete file of Among the Clouds at any time, and
now especially since the fire, a treasure indeed.

In view of the staggering blow that the paper re-
ceived in the loss of its home and equipment before
the opening of the season of 1908, it was thought
best to omit for that summer the daily edition,
which was done. Thus, for the first time in a gener-
ation the history of the summer's events had to go
untold. The enterprising editors, however, far from
being discouraged and from giving up all for lost
even that season, showed their quality by preparing
a "magazine number," containing a very complete
and interesting record of the fire by pen and cam-
era, and many facts and reminiscences concerning
Mount Washington.

The failure to rebuild the settlement upon the
Summit is responsible for Among the Clouds not
being able to regain its ancient and proper seat, but
publication was resumed on July 5, 19 10, and the
paper is now temporarily established at the Base.

The other journalistic enterprise referred to is
that of a newspaper long widely known among
Mountain visitors. The White Mountain Echo and
Tourists' Register, the founding of which is almost
contemporary with that of Among the Clouds. It

253

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

was in 1878, at Bethlehem, that The Echo was
started, the date of the first issue being July 13,
and it has continued to be published there since.
It is not, however, a local paper, but is devoted to
the interests of the entire White Mountain region.
Its founder and editor for twenty years, Mr. Mar-
kinfield Addey, had an interesting career. He was
an Englishman, who, after serving in the publish-
ing house of Chapman and Hall, had become a pub-
lisher on his own account. In 1857, when he was
thirty-nine years old, his eyesight failed and he re-
tired from business. The following year he came
to America, where his eyesight improved. Twenty
years later he founded The White Mountain Echo.
Having entirely lost his sight in 1898, he gave up
the editorship of The Echo, and returned to England,
settling at Louth, in Lincolnshire. There he lived
twelve years longer, dying November 18, 1910, at
the age of ninety- two. He was "a bright, cheerful
little man, of a very sanguine nature," always active
in promoting by his pen and his influence the good
of the Mountain region he had come to love so well.
He lived to know of the carrying-out of many of the
improvements he so earnestly and so long before
had advocated.

The only White Mountain summit other than
Mount Washington, upon which anything more
than a temporary shelter exists to-day, is Mount
Moosilauke. The beautiful Mount Kearsarge ^ of
the Bartlett-Conway region formerly bore upon its

* Now to be called, in accordance with a decision (1915) of the
United States Board of Geographic Names, "Mount Pequawket."

254

MOUNT WASHINGTON

top a small hotel, built, in 1848 or 1849,^ by Caleb
Frye, Nathaniel Frye, John C. Davis, and Moses
Chandler, which was kept open for several years
and then fell into disuse. Andrew Dinsmore bought
it in 1868 or 1869, put it in thorough repair, and re-
opened it. The weather-beaten old structure was
blown down in a tempest in November, 1883. Mr.
Dinsmore collected the fragments and rebuilt the
structure on a smaller scale. This has been aban-
doned of late years and is rapidly falling into decay.
It is now the property of the Appalachian Mountain
Club, the building and ten acres on the summit
having been given to the Club in 1902 by Mrs.
C. E. Clay, of Chatham, New Hampshire. A small
one-room house of logs and poles was built on Mount
Moriah by Colonel Hitchcock, of the Alpine House,
probably in 1854. A road up having been con-
structed under his auspices, that mountain for a
time rivaled Mount Washington in popularity. In
the sixties a rude house for the protection of climbers
stood on the crest of Mount Lafayette, but, except
for the low stone walls, it had disappeared by

1875.'

Moosilauke was first climbed by Chase Whitcher,
who, in 1773, when a boy of twenty, came from
Salisbury, Massachusetts, and settled in Warren,
devoting himself to hunting. On this occasion he
was following a moose. He is said to have thought

^ So Mrs. Mason. Sweetser says, "built in 1845."
* The substantial Peak House on Mount Chocorua, which was
built in the early nineties, was not located on the summit, but at
the base of the cone. This house was blown down on September 26,
1915-

255

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

the summit "a cold place." ^ Mrs. Daniel Patch,
the first white woman who ever stood upon this
summit, evidently had a different reception as to
weather from that given to Whitcher, for she thought
it a pleasant place, and, having brought her teapot
with her, made herself a cup of tea over a fire
kindled from bleached hackmatack boughs.

The Tip-Top House of Mount Moosilauke — it
was first called the "Prospect House" and is also
sometimes spoken of as the "Summit House" —
was originally a low and massive stone building,
erected in i860 by Darius Swain and James Clem-
ent. It stands on the south side of the crest or
north peak.

The house was opened on July 4, i860, with a
grand celebration, in which more than a thousand
people took part. Music was furnished by the New-

^ The first printed account of an ascent appeared in the American
Monthly Magazine for November, 1817, in an article on "The Altitude
of Moose-Hillock in New Hampshire, ascertained barometrically,"
by Alden Partridge, Captain of Engineers. Captain Partridge, who
was a graduate of West Point, founded in 1820 a military school at
Norwich, Vermont, which was incorporated in 1834 as Norwich
University. He was president of it until 1843. He appears twice in
the pages of the Crawford History. In the autumn of 1821, he came
to Mr. Crawford's with a number of cadets, and Mr. Crawford, being
unable on account of lameness to act as guide, Mr. Rosebrook, his
nearest neighbor, was sent for to pilot the party up Mount Wash-
ington. Again, on October 2, 1824, Captain Partridge came to
Crawford's with fifty-two cadets. Taking a part of them with him,
he went to " the camp" for the night, so that he might have the
next day for making some barometrical observations. The remainder
of the cadets, who overran the somewhat meager accommodations
of Crawford's house, — some sleeping in beds, some on the floor,
some in the barn, and some, for a time, even out-of-doors beside
the fence, — made the ascent the next day, meeting the captain and
his companions coming down. Captain Partridge computed the
height of Mount Washington to be 6234 feet.

256

SUMMIT OF MOUNT WASHINGTON IN 1854
Tip-Top House, Old Summit House, and First Observatory

TIP-TOP HOUSE ON MOUNT MOOSILAUKE

MOUNT WASHINGTON

bury brass band, and the citizens, a whole regiment
of them, marshaled by Colonel Stevens M. Dow,
marched and countermarched upon the mountain-
top. The Honorable Thomas J. Smith delivered a
patriotic oration, and the celebration concluded with
a performance by a company of real Indians, who
sang, danced, and sounded the war-whoop. Another
incident of the day was the driving of a large two-
horse pleasure wagon up the mountain by Daniel
Q. Clement.

William Little was the first landlord of the Pros-
pect House. Following him, Ezekiel A. Clement
kept it for one season, and afterwards James Clem-
ent was "mine host " for years and years. The open-
ing of the Prospect House stimulated several citizens
of Warren to begin the keeping of summer boarders.

An occurrence of the first season of the hotel was
the visit, on August 29, of Philip Hadley, ninety
years old, who walked all the way from his home in
Bradford, Vermont, to the top of the mountain.

The Moosilauke Mountain Road Company was
incorporated in June, 1870, by John E. Lyon,
Joseph A. Dodge, Daniel Q. Clement, Samuel B.
Page, David G. Marsh, G. F. Putnam, and James
Clement. The length of the road, which was im-
mediately put under construction, is four and a
third miles. The ascent is not difficult, and the road
is kept in good condition. It starts from Merrill's
Mountain House, at the base of the mountain, and
meets the long ridge a short distance north of the
south peak, and thence follows the ridge in a north-
erly direction.

257

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

After the completion of the carriage road, the
number of visitors to the summit was, naturally,
much increased. In consequence the house was
enlarged in 1872 by the addition of a wooden ell a
story and a half high, and in 1881 a wooden super-
structure was added to the original stone house, the
capacity being thus raised to from thirty-five to
fifty guests. The remoteness of Mount Moosilauke
from the centers of White Mountain summer life
and its position off the main routes of travel have
made its summit a place far less visited by fre-
quenters of the Mountains and tourists than it
would otherwise be and less than it merits for its
own beautiful configuration ^ and for the wonderful
views in all directions.

* "With one bold curve it [the ridge] sweeps away in air. . . .
There can be nothing finer than this curving crest," wrote the late
Colonel Higginson in 1880.

XII

some noteworthy white mountain
"characters"

A NAME sometimes given to the Summit of Mount
Washington in the early days was "Trinity Height,"
which must have been current before 1845, as it
occurs in the "Crawford History," published in that
year. It has also been handed down in connection
with a peculiar episode recorded by Mr. Spaulding.
In 1850, a man afflicted with religious mania re-
garded himself as having obtained by lawful title
ownership of the top of Mount Washington, and,
erecting gateways upon all the bridle paths, he
exacted one dollar as toll from every person who
ascended. He also issued in the papers of the day
a flaming proclamation, of which the following is
said to be a true copy : —

PROCLAMATION.

FOURTH OF JULY ON
THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

There will be a solemn congregation upon Trinity
Height, or Summit of Mount Washington, on the Fourth
Day of July, a.d. 1851, and ist year of the Theocracy, or
Jewish Christianity, to dedicate to the coming of the
Ancient of Days, in the glory of his Kingdom, and to the
marriage of the Lamb; and the literal organization in
this generation of the Christian or purple and royal De-

259

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

mocracy (let no man profane that name!), or the thousand
thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand of the
people of the Saints of the most high God of every nation
and Denomination into the greatness of God's kingdom
and dominion under the whole heavens ; and there will be
a contribution for this purpose from all who are willing, in
the beauty of holiness, from the dawn of that day.
John Coffin Nazro,

Israel of Jerusalem.

"The appointed fourth of July was," says Mr.
Spaulding in his book, "as dark and rainy as any,
perhaps, that ever shrouded Mount Washington in
wildly-flying clouds ; and Nazro, meeting with strong
opposition in toll-gathering, relinquished his temple-
building designs, and, throwing away his gate-keys
to the entrance of this mighty altar, retired to
United States service, where, perchance, he may be
now plotting the way to fortune among the clouds."

Years after the erection of the old Tip-Top House,
a wrinkled, tanned, thin-faced man, who signed,
"John C. Nazro, U.S.N.," was one day among the
crowd registered at the hotel. Chaplain Nazro
stated that the object of his visit was to collect the
rents from those who were trespassing upon his
rights. His friends, anticipating personal injury to
him if he pressed his claims, dissuaded him from
doing so. Being told by the occupiers of the houses
that they paid annual rent to David Pingree, of
Salem, Massachusetts, he took that name and
address, but nothing was ever heard further from
him.

It appears that Nazro's claim to the top of the
Mountain originated in a joke practiced upon him

260

WHITE MOUNTAIN CHARACTERS

by Thomas Crawford, with whom he sojourned at
the Notch House for some time. Mr. Crawford
proposed to give him, in exchange for the manu-
script of a history of the White Mountains, a good
title deed to the Summit of Mount Washington,
and, upon the manuscript being forthcoming, a writ-
ten agreement was entered into, Crawford little
thinking that any action would be taken in con-
nection with it. The deed was, however, duly reg-
istered in the Coos County Registry of Deeds at
Lancaster, and possession was then taken of the
property in the manner already related.

A peculiar character whom many people still re-
member was the "Man at the Pool," John Merrill.
In his time, indeed, he was as much an object of
interest as that Franconia-Notch attraction itself.
According to his own account he was born in Bristol,
New Hampshire, in 1816 or thereabouts. In the
course of his wanderings, he came to the Pool in
1853, and on this first visit he happened to meet
a party of forty sight-seers who wished to get near
to the fall. To accommodate them he set to work
and constructed a rude boat, which he lowered down
to the river by means of a rope. Thus, by chance he
found what was to be his summer vocation for many
years, as he was induced to return annually, and
thus became an institution at the Pool. He spent
his summers there until about 1887. His winters
he was accustomed to pass in Wisconsin, from which
place The White Mountain Echo last heard from him
in 1888, when he made a request that the paper
might be sent to him.

261

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

From the Pool he carried away annually enough
money to provide a comfortable living for the rest
of the year. Indeed, it is said that the gratuities
given him by tourists for paddling them over the
Pool and for expounding to them his cosmogony were
in the aggregate far from inconsiderable. While he
was undoubtedly an oddity, it is hinted that there
was method in his peculiarity, some of his notions
and characteristics being assumed for their value in
extracting money from visitors to this beauty spot.

Visitors to Bethlehem in the seventies and earlier
used to see or hear about the aged eccentric, Sir
Isaac Newton Gay, who celebrated his eighty-second
birthday there, July i6, 1878. Although born in
Old Ipswich, Massachusetts, he had at that time
lived eighty-one years in Bethlehem, his family
having been the seventh to arrive in the town. In
1855, he built a one-story loosely constructed building
in the beeches opposite the Maplewood Inn. Not
only was the man himself an oddity, but his "cha-
teau" as well. Its interior, his front garden, and
every nook and cranny in the vicinity of his domi-
cile formed together a curiosity-shop of accumulated
fragments. He followed the occupation of farming
all his life, and entirely lost one eye by an accident
which happened to him while working in the field.
"If I had n't been a born philosopher," he is said to
have remarked on one occasion, " I should have
been a subject for the lunatic asylum." Questioned
as to his peculiar name, he averred that it was given
to him by his mother, and declared that it "suits
me and I have always borne it."

262

WHITE MOUNTAIN CHARACTERS

There died near the end of April, 1912, the most
picturesque of latter-day White Mountain charac-
ters, "English Jack," known to thousands of vis-
itors to the region as the "Hermit of the White
Mountains" or the "Crawford Notch Hermit."
Jack spent his summers in an old shanty, which
became known as the "House that Jack Built,"
and which was situated, at no great distance from
the highway, in the woods above the Gate of the
Notch. His house — "ship" he preferred to call it
— was reached by paths from several directions,
signboards indicating the way thither. Here in a
low-ceilinged room Jack received his visitors. From
the sale of picture postcards of himself, of a booklet
containing what purports to be his life-story, told
in rhyme by James E. Mitchell, and of other souve-
nirs, he acquired a considerable revenue.

He usually had some trout in a small aquarium
just outside his door. Besides fish, it was commonly
reported that snakes were sometimes articles of
diet with him.^ Asked about this rather queer taste
attributed to him, he replied, "Well, they never
ketched me at it, anyhow." For a beverage other
than the cool sparkling water of the near-by brook
or spring. Jack brewed a kind of beer out of hops
and roots which grew near his hut, with which stim-
ulant he sometimes regaled his visitors.

This singular individual, whose real name was
John Alfred Vials (or Viles), was ninety years old
when he died.

1 Among the Clouds for July 25, 1877, tells of his eating half of an
uncooked striped snake, "with apparent relish." This was done in
the presence of a party of people from the Crawford House.

263

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

According to the "Story of Jack," he was born in
London and left an orphan at twelve, with one
pound in gold as his whole fortune and with the
sole ambition of going to sea. For days and days he
frequented the docks seeking an opportunity to ship
as cabin-boy, but in vain. Nobody would take him,
and at last, tired and homesick, he sat down to cry.
A five-year-old girl came toddling up and told him
not to cry, saying that she was looking for her
father's ship and that she was lost as well as he.
Hand in hand, Jack and little Mary walked along
the hot street, a sad pair. Mary suddenly saw her
father on top of a passing omnibus, but he did not
hear her call to him, so occupied was he in talking with
his sailor mate. With quickness of mind and action,
Jack pushed Mary through a door and ran after
the omnibus, which he caught and mounted, blurt-
ing out, "Your little girl is gone!"

At that the father at once started off with Jack
to find Mary, which they did to the father's and
little daughter's great joy. When Jack told his tale,
the grateful Bill Simmonds took the friendless lad
home with him, and he and his wife cared for him.
When Bill went to sea again, he got Jack a berth
as cabin-boy on his ship. After sailing together for
eight years in different ships. Bill and Jack, who
had by this time become an able seaman, shipped
in the good ship Nelson for the Indian Ocean. Jack,
Mary, and her mother had forebodings that all
would not be well on this voyage, but the men
laughed them off and joined the crew.

Nothing untoward happened until the ship was
264

WHITE MOUNTAIN CHARACTERS

in the Indian Ocean, when one Sunday afternoon
a terrible gale struck it. After running for hours
before the hurricane, the ship was wrecked upon a
small desert island. Jack, Bill, and eleven others
were all that were saved out of the crew of forty-
two. Water, fortunately, was found, but the only
food to be had, after a water-soaked cask of bread
was consumed, consisted of mussels, crabs, limpets,
snakes, and the like. Before the rainy season came
on, disease and death had reduced the company to
four. For nineteen months the four lived on what
they could pick up on the barren shore, and then
Bill succumbed, his dying wish being that Jack
would look after his wife and Mary and tell them
about his end.

A week or so after Bill's death, there came a
violent hurricane and when the storm had cleared
off a sail was seen. The shipwrecked men's signal
had been seen also, and the ship, an American one,
rescued them. Jack's two companions died before
they could reach home, and he alone of all the
Nelson's company returned alive to London. When
he had reported to the owners the fate of the ship,
Jack started in search of Mary and her mother.
After many days he learned that Bill's wife was
dead and that Mary had been taken to the work-
house. Jack at once took her out and placed her in
a school, paying her board for a year, and then took
ship on a vessel bound for Hongkong. All went well
with the sailor both on the outgoing and on the
return voyage. Immediately after the ship's arrival
at Liverpool, the anxious Jack took the train for

265

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

London. When, however, he reached the school, he
received the heart-crushing news that Mary had
died just a month before.

Eventually, and against his wish, Jack recovered
from the severe sickness caused by this blow to his
hope and love. He then joined the navy, with the
thought that death might overtake him in that
service, but although he fought in many skirmishes
and battles his life was spared through all. He tells
in the "Story" of fighting in Africa to free the
slaves, of going with Inglefield to search for Sir
John Franklin's crew in the frozen North, and of
serving through the Crimean War and in the Indian
Mutiny. After traveling land and sea for many
years. Jack left old England and came to America.
Drifting to the Crawford Notch to work on the rail-
road, he came to like the region so much that he
took up the life of a hermit there in the summer
months. He used to spend his winters hunting, trap-
ping, and making souvenirs to sell to his summer
visitors. Latterly, in the winter. Jack lived with a
family at Twin Mountain.

He was well read, it is said, in history and litera-
ture. He had spent much time and money in search-
ing through advertisements and otherwise for his
relatives, but, as he met with no success in this, he
came to the conclusion that they were all dead.
He had a kind heart. One way in which he mani-
fested this was by assisting orphans and other un-
fortunates among the Mountains.

XIII

CASUALTIES ON THE PRESIDENTIAL RANGE —

THE TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE OF DR. BALL

— SOME DESTRUCTIVE LANDSLIDES

In the summer months the ascent of Mount
Washington or the traversing of the Presidential
Range is, if ordinary prudence be exercised, at-
tended with only a trifling element of danger; just
enough, it may be thought, to give a little added
zest to the pleasures attending the excursion. The
trails, moreover, are now so well worn and marked
that guides are not needed. Indeed, if climbers
would refrain from tramping alone, there would be
almost no danger at all. A piece of recklessness on
the part of a climber, an accident, and the remote
chance of being overtaken by a storm are the causes
of any peril which may be attached to the trip.
The contingency of a cold and blinding storm above
the tree-line is, of course, much greater in the au-
tumn months than in the summer ; the winter ascent
is obviously hazardous as well as often extremely
arduous. However, no fatalities have as yet occurred
in the latter season, when the climb is not often at-
tempted by any but experienced mountaineers in
parties.

It was ascents made in October and September
that led to the earliest losses of life on the Moun-
tains. Furthermore, it was not until after the mid-
dle of the nineteenth century that Mount Washing-

267

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

ton and the other peaks of the Presidential Range
began to take their toll of human life. In view of
the great number of ascents made before that time
and of the circumstances that often the climbers
were inexperienced persons and that in many cases
untrodden and unmarked courses were passed over,
the early record of no lives lost is remarkable. Much
of the credit for the safety of such expeditions must
rightfully be given to Ethan Allen Crawford and
other guides of the pioneer days, to whom not a few
climbers owed their freedom from injury or from
a worse fate.

The first person to perish on the Mountains was
the victim of his own rashness and obstinacy.
Frederick Strickland, the eldest son of Sir George
Strickland, an eminent member of Parliament, came
to Thomas J. Crawford's Notch House one day in
the latter part of October, 1851. An heir to large
estates, a graduate of Cambridge University, and
a cultivated scholar, he was then about thirty-five
years of age. The next day after his arrival at the
hotel, he set out, in company with another English-
man^ and a guide, to ascend the mountains via the
Crawford Bridle Path. On the summit of Clinton
they encountered deep snow and a wintry wind,^

* So Mr. Willey, whose account is very circumstantial. The later
accounts say nothing of the other Englishman. Mr. Willey gives
the date of the ascent as October 19, and states that the body was
found on the second following day.

* Mr. Willey says, " When they reached Mount Pleasant, the guide
and the other Englishman, on account of the cold, and snow on the
mountain, proposed to return." The later accounts say the party
encountered a snowstorm. Mr. Spaulding, like Mr. Willey, says
nothing of a snowstorm.

268

CASUALTIES ON PRESIDENTIAL RANGE

under which conditions the experience of the guide
had taught him that it was imprudent to go on and
so he advised a return. Strickland, however, was
determined to proceed, and, delivering his horse
over to the guide, he persisted, in defiance of the
weather and the advice of the guide, in continuing
the ascent on foot and alone. The guide and the
other gentleman returned to Crawford's.

It had been the plan of Strickland to descend to
Fabyan's, so Mr. Crawford sent his baggage there,
with a message to the effect that its owner might
be expected to stay there that night. As the young
man did not put in an appearance, Landlord Fabyan
thought he had returned to the Notch House. The
next morning, Mr. Crawford, when passing, in-
quired for the Englishman, and when it was found
that he had been seen at neither inn, the proprietors
became alarmed and started in search of him. They
tracked him to the summit of Washington and
thence down the Ammonoosuc River, but found
that day only some of his clothes. On the following
day, they, with others, continued the search, and,
after some time, the party discovered his dead body
lying face downward in the stream. The unfortu-
nate man had evidently fallen exhausted over a
precipice.

It was nearly four years after the perishing of the
young Englishman, Strickland, before another death
was added to the record of fatalities on the Moun-
tains. This time the life lost was that of a young
woman, Miss Lizzie C. Bourne, of Kennebunk,
Maine, daughter of Edward E. Bourne, Judge of

269

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Probate of York County. But she can hardly be
called a victim of the Mountain's rigor, as her death
was mostly due to a physical weakness, to the
aggravation of which the difficulty of climbing the
final mile or two against a gale of wind contributed.
The chief element in the pathos of the occurrence
is the knowledge that she was so near shelter and
restoratives. The place of her succumbing being
near the railroad track and the Summit House, and
its proximate location being marked by a board
monument, the fact of her fate has thereby become
more widely known than that of any other person
who has perished on the Presidential Range.

The story has been often told. In company with
her uncle, George W. Bourne, and his daughter,
Lucy, she started from the Glen House about 2 p.m.
on September 14, 1855, the party's intention being
to pass the night on the Summit. They walked up
the carriage road as far as it was then built and left
the Halfway House at four o'clock to complete the
ascent by the path, which lay plain before them.
Mr. Myers, the occupant of the House, tried, on
account of the lateness of the day, to prevail upon
them to stay there overnight, but "they were de-
termined," he is reported to have said, "to go."
About five o'clock, two sons of Samuel F. Spaulding,
one of the proprietors of the Tip-Top House, met
them about two miles below the Summit. They
were then progressing well and evidently anticipat-
ing no trouble in finishing the climb. The weather
was clear, but a high wind was soon encountered,
against which they struggled until after dark. Then,

270

CASUALTIES ON PRESIDENTIAL RANGE

as Miss Lizzie showed signs of increasing exhaustion,
as they were entirely ignorant of the proximity of
the Summit, and as the darkness obscured the way
and a cloud hid the Summit House, it was deemed
impossible to proceed farther that night. So the
young women lay down in the path, and Mr.
Bourne, with great difficulty, succeeded in building
a rude stone wall to shelter them from the gale. So
far as his niece was concerned, however, his efforts
proved vain to save her, for about ten o'clock he
found her dead, the principal cause of her death
being some organic disease of the heart. Her com-
panions passed the night in safety, discovering at
daybreak the melancholy fact of their nearness to
the Summit. Miss Bourne, who was but twenty-
three years old,^ was buried in Hope Cemetery at
Kennebunk, where was set up a large monument,
which was intended, as its inscriptions testify, for
the top of Mount Washington, but whose erection
there was prevented by the temporary failure of the
projected road.

The year following the death of Miss Bourne was
marked by the Mountain's claiming of another
victim, and, as in the case of the young Englishman,
the fatality was due to the traveler's attempting the
ascent without companions. On August 7, 1856,
Benjamin Chandler, an elderly man of Wilmington,
Delaware, started up the path from the Glen late
in the afternoon, but was caught in a storm and

^ The former board monument on the mountain-side gave her age
as twenty; her age is given correctly on the present three-sided
wooden monument.

271

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

wandered from the trail. Two men who arrived at
the Tip-Top House that day, at dark or a little after,
reported passing an old gentleman halfway up and
remarked that he would hardly get up alone that
night. After making some inquiries, a guide started
out with a lantern, but when he had gone nearly
a mile, his light was put out by the wind. He then
returned, having got no answer to his shouts, and
the proprietor of the hotel concluded that the old
gentleman must have stopped for the night with
the road workmen camping at the Ledge. Search
was resumed the next morning, but, as it was in
vain, it was thought that the traveler might have
turned back and have left the Mountain. Late in
September, however, his son, David Chandler, came
in search of his father and offered a reward for his
recovery, and thus informed the people of the Moun-
tain region that he was still missing.

For nearly a year Mr. Chandler's fate was un-
known, although much time was spent in searching
for his remains. Finally, in July of the next year
after his disappearance, Ambrose Tower, of New
York, came across a skeleton about half a mile east
of the Summit. A gold watch, considerable money,
a railroad ticket, and other articles were found with
the skeleton, and there is no doubt of its being that
of the unfortunate Benjamin Chandler, who was
about seventy-five years old when he met his sad
fate. In his memory the neighboring ridge has since
been called Chandler Ridge.

Eighteen years after the death of Mr. Chandler,
Harry W. Hunter, twenty- two years old, a printer

272

CASUALTIES ON PRESIDENTIAL RANGE

of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, perished near the Craw-
ford Bridle Path about half a mile from the summit
of Mount Washington. Again the victim was a lone
climber. On September 3, 1874, he left the Willey
House in the early morning, after writing home that
he was about to start to make the ascent. He did
not appear at the Summit, and nothing was known
of his fate until July 14, 1880, when three Amherst
students who were climbing the Mountain saw what
looked to be the body of a man partly hidden under
an overhanging rock on the side of the cone. The
object proved to be the remains of the unfortunate
printer. Just how the young man met his death, of
course, can never be known. The weather records
for the day show that the weather was fair in its
early part, but that a high wind was blowing at the
time when he might have been on the portion of
the trail northward from Mount Clinton, and that
it rained from 3 to 9 p.m., at which latter time the
temperature fell to 30°. Such conditions are suffi-
cient to account for his fate. Very likely, exhausted
by his exertions and chilled by the cold rain, he
crawled into the crevice for such poor shelter as it
afforded and there succumbed to heart failure. The
place where his body was found is marked by a
board monument, grim reminder of the peril of an
unaccompanied trip over the Crawford Trail.

A peculiar accident, and one which furnishes a
warning against similar temptings of fate, was re-
sponsible for another untimely and unnecessary
death on the side of Mount Washington. On July
24, 1886, Sewall E. Faunce, a Boston boy, fifteen

273

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

years old, when climbing through Tuckerman*s Ra-
vine, rashly stepped under the snow arch, which fell
and killed him.

Eight years later, on July 2, there was a narrow
escape from a similar fatality, which might have
involved the loss of several or many lives. A party
of fifty members of the Appalachian Mountain Club,
which was holding a field meeting at the Summit,
were making an excursion through Tuckerman's
Ravine on that day. They had passed through
the snow arch and had barely emerged, when one
hundred feet of it fell, fortunately injuring none of
them, although fragments of the snow struck several.

In the cases of the five persons who had lost their
lives on the Range up to the time of the casualty
now to be related, the bodies had been immediately,
or, in one instance, eventually, recovered. That of
the sixth victim, however, has never been found,
and the circumstances and manner of his perishing
and the resting-place of his remains are solely mat-
ters of conjecture. On Sunday, August 24, 1890,
Ewald Weiss, a violinist of the Summit House
orchestra, set out alone to visit the summit of Mount
Adams. In fair weather the trail, as far as the base
of the cone of that mountain, is not difficult to
traverse or to follow ; nor is the distance great. How-
ever, a severe storm came up and some time during
it Weiss evidently met his death, as he was never
seen afterward. That, bewildered by the storm, he
wandered from the path and went or fell down into
one of the ravines and there perished, or that one
of the large jagged rocks with which the cone of

274

CASUALTIES ON PRESIDENTIAL RANGE

Adams is largely covered rolled from its place and
crushed him, concealing his body from view, are
two plausible guesses which have been made as to
the mystery of his fate. In July, 1891, after two
young men had reported finding, on the precipitous
eastern face of the so-called Mount John Quincy
Adams, a watch which was at first identified at the
Summit House as that of Weiss, Professor J. Rayner
Edmands and Charles E. Lowe, the well-known
guide, started from the Ravine House to make a
search for the remains or for traces of Weiss. At
this time they found footprints which made them
conclude that the violinist intended to reach Mount
Madison, which discovery opened the whole of that
peak as a hunting-ground for the unfortunate man's
remains. Professor Edmands conjectured that
Weiss may have fallen over an amphitheater of
cliffs forming a branch of the Great Gulf.^

It was ten years after the mysterious death of the
violinist Weiss before the death-toll of the Presi-
dential Range received any further accessions. Then
came the most unexpected and striking, so far, of
the tragedies of climbing in the White Mountains,
the double fatality which is constituted by the
deaths of Curtis and Ormsbee on the Crawford
Trail. Occurring at the time of year it did, it made
a profound impression upon visitors to the Moun-
tains in that season and in the following years, be-
cause of the demonstration the casualty afforded of
the possibility, even in summer, of peril from weather

* From a letter of Professor Edmands to The White Mountain
Echo, published in the issue of that paper for August i, 1891.

275

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

so violent as to be too much for even the most
athletic and hardy to cope with successfully.

William B. Curtis/ of New York, a noted Ameri-
can amateur athlete, known to many friends as
"Father Bill" Curtis, started, in company with
Allan Ormsbee, of Brooklyn, also famous for his
athletic prowess, to go up the Crawford Path on
Saturday afternoon, June 30, 1900. It was their
intention to join the members of the Appalachian
Mountain Club, who had gone up by train that day,
at the Summit House, where the Club was about to
hold a field meeting. A storm was threatening, but
as Curtis knew the trail well, the thought of harm
was not seriously entertained. During the ascent,
however, one of the most furious storms ^ ever
known in the summer season broke upon them.
Rain and hail, which changed to sleet and snow,
were accompanied by a gale of nearly one hundred
miles an hour.

* Mr. Curtis, who was at the time of his death sixty-three years
old, was the founder of the Fresh Air Club of New York and one of
the founders of the New York Athletic Club. He took up mountain-
climbing late in life and was accustomed to climb alone and in all
sorts of weather, thinly clad.

Mr. Ormsbee, who was in his twenty-ninth year, was a member
of the Crescent Athletic Club of Brooklyn and of the Fresh Air Club.

* During this, "the storm of a century," which raged for sixty
hours, more than forty panes of glass were broken in the Summit
House. The temperature fell from 48° on Friday to 25° on Saturday
morning, before the storm. Rev. Dr. Harry P. Nichols and his son,
Donaldson, came up by the Montalban Ridge in this same storm
and had a hard struggle to reach the Summit. They arrived at the
open Boott Spur at n a.m. on Saturday, and by alternate rushings
and crouchings they succeeded in crossing Bigelow's Lawn in two
hours. On the cone the sleet was bitter and the rocks crusted with
ice. Every one hundred steps required a pause behind some shelter-
ing rock to recover breath and normal heart action.

276

CASUALTIES ON PRESIDENTIAL RANGE

All day Sunday the Club members were confined
absolutely in the hotel, their minds filled with anx-
ious forebodings as to the fate of the two trampers,
whom they were powerless to aid in any way. When
the terrible storm at length ended on Monday, and
fair weather permitted a search to be made for the
two men, the body of Curtis was found about noon,
by Louis F. Cutter, lying on the path about two
miles down, in the vicinity of the Lakes of the
Clouds. Ormsbee's body was found late in the after-
noon, by Professor Herschel C. Parker, within five
minutes' walk of the Signal Station, at a point off
the path, which he had reached after climbing, by
efforts almost superhuman, over the icy rocks.

The two men were seen at 1.30 p.m. on the fatal
Saturday, when they were on the south side of
Mount Pleasant, by James C. Harvey, a workman
from the Crawford House, who, with a companion,
was engaged in cutting out growth on the path.
He started after them and shouted, but did not
succeed in overtaking or in stopping them. They
signed the Appalachian Mountain Club roll in the
cylinder on Mount Pleasant, giving the date and
this note as to the weather: *'Rain clouds and wind
sixty miles — Cold." They were last seen alive by
two Bartlett men, Charles Allen and Walter Parker,
who had been employed by a camping party in the
woods south of Mount Washington, and who, when
on their way down, met Curtis and Ormsbee north
of Mount Pleasant. Neither of the climbers made
any reply to a warning to turn back.

The probable course of events may be inferred to
277

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

be this: Mr. Curtis doubtless fell on the ice-coated
rocks, for he had received a blow on the head suf-
ficient to render him senseless. Ormsbee, failing to
restore him, hastened, after providing such tem-
porary shelter as he could for his companion, toward
the Summit, which he knew was the nearest point
where aid could be secured. There, two miles away,
were many sturdy mountaineers.

If this hypothesis is correct, Curtis must have
regained consciousness after Ormsbee had left him,
and have endeavored to struggle on, for his body
was found some distance beyond the place, under
the lee of the larger of the Monroe summits, where
evidence was found of an attempt to make a rude
shelter.

Or, to give another supposition, when resting at
this temporary refuge and taking counsel as to what
course to pursue, they may have decided that there
was no hope of survival unless they kept in motion,
and so may have continued on from there, Curtis's
fall occurring not long afterward on the spot where
his body lay, and Ormsbee having then pushed on
to get assistance. Or, again, Curtis may have been
a few steps behind his companion and have fallen
without the latter's knowledge in the thick fog and
perhaps darkness.

However that may be, the pitiless storm and
mountain were too much also for Ormsbee. Along
the remaining portion of the trail he must often have
fallen and so have severely injured himself, for his
body was covered with cuts and bruises. Even
after encountering such mishaps, although he must

278

CASUALTIES ON PRESIDENTIAL RANGE

have realized that the struggle to save his own life
and that of his friend was probably hopeless, the
heroic man did not immediately give up. His lac-
erated hands showed that he must have dragged
himself for some distance over the jagged rocks be-
fore death overtook him.

The spot where Curtis's body was found is con-
spicuously marked by a pile of stones surmounted
with a wooden cross and by a bronze memorial
tablet fastened to the adjacent rock, and bearing
this inscription: "On this spot William B. Curtis
perished in the great storm of June 30, 1900. Placed
by Fresh Air Club of New York." Fifteen hundred
and eighty feet farther up the trail the Appalachian
Mountain Club built the next summer a wooden
shelter ^ where trampers may take refuge from the
storms which sometimes sweep over the exposed
southern trail, with the idea of minimizing the dan-
ger of such fatalities as have just been narrated.

The place where the stout-hearted Ormsbee's
body was found is also marked by a wooden cross
and a bronze tablet provided by the Fresh Air Club.

The latest fatality in the White Mountain region,
which occurred in 1912, is in some respects the most
singular of all. It is unlike all the other casualties
in that the unfortunate man was not a pleasure-
seeking tramper, in that he got off the dangerous
upper mountain tract alive, and in that he was seen
after he had reached the valley district by several
persons, and yet was finally lost.

John M. Keenan, eighteen years of age, of Charles-
* Moved in 19 15 about half a mile farther north.
279

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

town, Massachusetts, was a new member of a party
of engineers, who for two summers had been survey-
ing the right of way for a proposed scenic railway
up Mount Washington. Keenan arrived at the sur-
veyors' camp at the Base of the Mountain on Fri-
day, September 13, and the next day began his work
as rear flagman. His duties for the next few days
kept him near the Base, but on Wednesday, the
1 8th, he went to the Summit with a party of expe-
rienced engineers. After reaching the Summit the
surveyors descended the cone to a point below the
Ormsbee monument and in the direction of the
Lakes of the Clouds. The chief gave instructions
and placed his men in various positions, Keenan
being told, as a man unfamiliar with the ground, to
remain at his station until he was signaled to come
up to the Summit, or, if it clouded up, to stay there
until they came for him.

Although the sky was overcast and the wind on
the top was blowing more than fifty miles an hour,
the Mountain was free from clouds the early part
of the forenoon. The surveyors had not been long
separated, when a heavy cloud, in which objects
could scarcely be seen ten feet away, enveloped the
Mountain. Coming to the conclusion, after a little
while, that conditions were not likely to improve,
but rather appeared to be getting worse, the chief
decided to go back to get Keenan and to go then
up to the Tip-Top House. On reaching the position
where Keenan had been stationed, they found that,
contrary to orders, he had left. This was at 10 a.m.
The party searched in that vicinity until noon with-^

280

CASUALTIES ON PRESIDENTIAL RANGE

out success, and then went to the Summit, whither
it was thought the lost man might have gone.
Finding that he was not there, and learning on
telephoning to the Base that he had not arrived at
that point by the afternoon train, as was thought
possible, the alarmed men took up the search again
and continued it, but in vain, until nearly dark,
when they had to desist on peril of losing their own
lives.

When the surveyors arrived at the Base that
night and told the story of Keenan's disappearance,
word was at once sent to the various Mountain
centers to be on the lookout for the missing man.
The bell on the Summit was kept ringing all night,
while at the Base the steam whistle was blown at
intervals.

Thursday a large party, composed of the survey-
ors and others, made a fruitless search of the entire
cone of Mount Washington in dense clouds. The
search was continued Friday under dangerous
weather conditions, as the clouds had not lifted
and the fall in temperature had caused the rocks to
become coated with ice. That night word was re-
ceived from the Honorable George H. Turner, of
Bethlehem, who with Dr. Gile, of Hanover, had
been out making a tour of inspection of State roads
on that day, that between 11.30 a.m. and 12 m.
they had passed a man who answered the descrip-
tion of Keenan, at a point on the Pinkham Notch
Road about two miles below the Glen House. The
man was standing beside the road and appeared
almost demented. As the automobile passed, he

281

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

waved his arms and pointed toward Mount Wash-
ington, but did not speak. Unfortunately, Mr.
Turner did not know until he reached Fabyan that
a man had been lost.

This information made it evident that Keenan
had succeeded in getting off the Mountain. How
he accomplished this will never be known. He
naturally at the outset traveled with the wind,
which course would take him into Tuckerman's
Ravine. Down the precipice he must have managed
to slip, slide, crawl, and fall, evidently arriving at
the Pinkham Notch Road in sound physical condi-
tion, a remarkable outcome under the circumstances.

The searching party, which was spending the night
on the Summit, was communicated with, and told
to go at daybreak to the Glen House and start a
search from there. Several experienced guides had
in the mean time been hired by the railway company
and they also were ordered to the Glen. When the
party arrived at its new field of search. Fire Warden
Briggs was found at his camp and inquiry was made
of him as to whether he had seen anything of the
lost young man. It was then learned that the fire
warden had met a man answering Keenan's descrip-
tion on Friday morning, when coming down a lonely
log road near the point where Mr. Turner passed
him. From what the stranger said there is no doubt
that he was Keenan. His mental condition was evi-
dent from his rambling and somewhat unintelligible
talk, in the course of which he said he was looking
for the Keenan farm. Briggs at the time had not
.learned of any one having been lost. Knowing that

282

CASUALTIES ON PRESIDENTIAL RANGE

there was no such farm in that region, he did not
credit this and some others of the man's statements.

After being brought down to the State road and
being shown the way to the Glen House, Keenan
bade Briggs good-bye and started about ii a.m. in
that direction. Briggs then went to his camp, and,
being accustomed to meet strange-looking persons
in that locality during the summer, he gave no
further thought to the man he had seen until the
searching party visited his camp.

During the disagreeable weather which continued
through Saturday, the searchers covered carefully
the ground between the Darby Field and the Glen
House, but without avail. Sunday the 22d, the first
clear day after Keenan was lost, they were joined
by fully one hundred voluntary searchers from Gor-
ham and other places in the Mountains, and, al-
though every foot of ground on both sides of the
road for more than a mile was gone over and other
ground was covered and Milliken's Pond drained,
no trace of Keenan was found. His father, Lawrence
J. Keenan, came on from Boston and was with the
searchers all day Sunday, returning to his home
that night satisfied that a thorough search had been
made and that there was no chance of finding his
boy alive. Search was discontinued on Monday,
except by the experienced guides and a few of the
surveyors, who went again over the territory.

In the mean time it was rumored that a man by
the name of Lightfoot, who was following Mr.
Turner in an automobile, had picked up a man
thought to be Keenan. This story, which was at

283

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

first contradicted and thought to be false, turned out
to be true, and, when its details became known, it
threw a new light on the mystery. Lightfoot, a
chauffeur of Bethlehem, was carrying the highway
officials' baggage in his own car behind them. About
noon, and about half a mile beyond the Glen House
toward Jackson, he was stopped by a young man
who asked him for a ride and got into the vehicle.
Although Lightfoot knew that a surveyor had been
lost on the Mountain, he did not until later, after
seeing Keenan's picture in a Boston paper, connect
the coatless and evidently demented passenger with
the missing man.

The chauffeur carried Keenan about two miles,
and at his request let him out at the deserted lumber
camps near the Darby Field, not looking, in the hard
rain, to see just where he went after getting out.
When this story was told a few days later, another
searching party was organized and the territory
where the poor fellow was last seen was covered,
but without success. The most likely supposition
as to what became of him is that he wandered in his
dazed, helpless way up some of the old log roads
and through the thick woods toward Mount Wash-
ington, until, exhausted from hunger and exertion,
he sank down.^

The record of having endured probably the most
terrible of experiences, and certainly the most pro-
longed of all encounters, with the fury of the Moun-

^ I am indebted for my account of this casualty to Reginald H.
Buckler's very full and comprehensive account published in the issues
of Among the Clouds for July 15, 16, and 17, 1913.

284

CASUALTIES ON PRESIDENTIAL RANGE

tain weather in the history of White Mountain
climbing, and of having, in spite of unexampled
hardship and great agony, survived to tell the tale,
belongs to Dr. B. L. Ball, a Boston physician. His
almost miraculous escape from death under the con-
ditions he met with was due in part to his medical
training, which made him know the fatal conse-
quences of permitting himself to go to sleep, and in
part to the fortunate chance, as it turned out, that
it was raining when he began his ascent and also
when he continued it on the second day from the
Camp House, which circumstance caused him to
take his umbrella.

Dr. Ball had been an extensive traveler, having
visited only a short time before this adventure the
Philippine Islands and Java, where he had success-
fully achieved on the third trial the difficult ascent
of the cone of the Marapee. He had crossed the
Bernese Alps, wading much of the way in deep snow,
and had, against the protestations of guides, per-
sisted in climbing a snowy peak near the Bains de
Leuk, also in Switzerland. So he was an experienced
mountaineer, thus well prepared for coping with
any conditions he was likely to meet with in climb-
ing Mount Washington.

Dr. Ball had intended to make his excursion to
the White Mountains as early as midsummer of
1854, when he had just returned from Europe, as
he "was desirous of comparing some of the finest
American scenery" with that he had just seen
abroad. But his engagements prevented, and the
summer of 1855 was also occupied, much of the

285

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

time with the preparation and publication of his
''Rambles in Eastern Asia," so that it was the mid-
dle of October before he was free to carry out his
design.

He had regarded October as too late, thinking
that the autumnal scenery must have lost much of
its attractiveness and that the weather would be
too cool on the Mountains, but friends had told
him that he would probably be repaid for the jour-
ney even as late as the first of November. Added
to this encouragement was the inducement that
two former traveling companions in the Philippine
Islands had started about the middle of October to
visit the White Mountains and Niagara Falls to
take sketches and would be at the Mountains at
the end of a week, where he had partly arranged
to meet them. While he was awaiting a prospect of
pleasant weather, the 23d of October arrived, prom-
ising to be the beginning of a period of such weather.
The previous evening in making a call at a friend's
house, he met and conversed with the Reverend
T. Starr King, whose description of the grandeur
and beauty of the scenery, and expression of a wish
to view the Mountains in autumn and in winter,
gave him an additional motive for visiting them at
this season.

Dr. Ball then resolved to go, his intention being
to make an expeditious trip and to return on the
third day. The engagements of his friend, Dr. A. B.
Hall, who had expressed a desire to accompany him,
preventing that gentleman's leaving for two or three
days. Dr. Ball determined to go alone. When at

286

CASUALTIES ON PRESIDENTIAL RANGE

length his mind was made up to attempt the excur-
sion, he, by making haste, reached the railroad sta-
tion just in time for the train for Portland. Arriving
at that city a little after dark, he was disappointed
to find that there was no train for Gorham that
night. When he arose the next morning, a greater
disappointment was his, for it was raining hard and
bid fair to continue stormy. Had he obeyed his
first impulse, he would have returned to Boston, but
the second thought that it might possibly clear in
a few hours, and that if he should get but a glimpse
of the Mountains he would return better satisfied
with his trip, made him resolve to proceed to Gor-
ham, where he arrived about ii a.m. Inquiring of
the train conductor as to the location of the Moun-
tains, and being told that he would not be able to
see them in such weather short of the Glen House,
he decided to go thither. So engaging a horse, he
set off on horseback, with his valise in front of him
and his umbrella up to protect him from the rain.
On arriving at the hotel he found a dense fog pre-
vailing. It had been his intention to stop there but
a half-hour and then to return, but, after inquiring
for his two friends who, he was informed, had not
been there, he engaged in conversation with the land-
lord, Mr. Thompson. The latter in the course of
their conversation told him of the carriage road then
under construction, of the Camp House and Ledge,
four miles up, and of the bridle path to the Summit.
This information caused Dr. Ball to change his
mind about his length of stay and to form the pur-
pose of walking up the road a distance, perhaps as

287

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

far as the Camp House, which design, in spite of
Mr. Thompson's discouraging declaration that there
would be nothing to see and his warning against at-
tempting to go to the Summit, he immediately put
into execution. Although it was raining hard, he
felt stimulated by the cool, invigorating air and so
continued his walk, to find himself in less than two
hours at the end of the road and at the foot- of the
Ledge. Here a less determined man would have
been satisfied to stop, particularly under the weather
conditions then prevailing, but the doctor concluded
he would go to the top of the Ledge, and accordingly,
he clambered up there, "without much difficulty."
Perceiving higher land beyond, he started for it, but
progress became very slow and fatiguing, with a
chilling wind blowing, the rain freezing upon him,
and his feet breaking through the crust of snow at
every step. So after about an hour's traveling, he
turned to retrace his steps. In the gathering dark-
ness, he ran down and managed after much diffi-
culty eventually to reach the Camp House, where,
arriving encased in ice and thoroughly chilled, he
was hospitably received by its occupants, J. D.
Myers and two others, everything in the way of
restorative measures that kindness and experience
could suggest being done for the unexpected guest.
Accepting an invitation to remain until the next
day, he passed a comfortable, but sleepless, night.
Little did he think, when he awakened in the
morning, of what was before him, of the terrible
experiences his persistency was to bring upon him
that day and the two following, and of the suffering

288

CASUALTIES ON PRESIDENTIAL RANGE

and even agony he was to be subjected to for weeks
and months afterward. When he walked out to view
the prospect, the weather had softened, and al-
though clouds hung over the Mountain, there was
little rain, and they seemed likely to break away.
The bridle path was pointed out to him, and, as it
was then free from snow, he formed the project of
making a short trip over the Ledge and perhaps of
going on to the Summit, persuading himself to this
course chiefly by reflecting that he was already half-
way up and that a convenient opportunity might
not present itself another season.

Despite the warnings conveyed in the not alto-
gether encouraging remark of Mr. Myers as to the
inadvisability of attempting such a trip at such a
time and in his recital of the circumstances of the
then recent death of Miss Bourne, Dr. Ball deter-
mined to go, and so, after an almost untasted break-
fast, started out, shod with his host's "much too
large," but stout, thick boots, provided with a cane
presented to him by the same kind-hearted man,
and protected from the sprinkle by the providential
umbrella.

At first he made good progress, and with little
fatigue he reached the top of the Ledge, where, how-
ever, the view was, owing to the fog, of but very
limited extent, only the Camp House and its im-
mediate surroundings being visible. Soon, as he
went on, the path became no longer discernible,
losing itself so gradually that its termination could
not be detected. Pressing on, following the rise of
land and passing what he calls the "first mountain,"

289

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

the way became more difficult and fatiguing, his
feet breaking through the crust and being often
difficult to extricate. His natural determination and
the lure of an occasional breaking-away of the clouds
made him continue on, when the greater consump-
tion of time than anticipated and the increasing
difficulty counseled abandoning the project. "Be-
tween the second and third mountains," the air
grew disagreeably cold, the rain changed to sleet
and soon to fast-falling snow, and the wind increased.
Pressing forward, he at length, after many wander-
ings from his course, reached "the summit of the
third mountain." There he was at a loss what direc-
tion to take, but, believing that he was three-fourths
of the way up, and having been told that he would
find provisions, materials for fire, and clothes and
bedding for the night at one of the two houses on
the Summit, on he resolved to go.

In spite of the piercing cold and the violent wind,
which made the storm difficult to face, and the
clouds of snow, which rendered it impossible to see
more than a very short distance, this man of indom-
itable will and amazing hopefulness, lured by the
thought that he was within half or three-quarters
of a mile of comfortable shelter and the possibility
that the storm might in a short time be over, went
on with renewed energy. He walked as fast as his
partly benumbed legs would permit, buffeting the
cold storm. Many times the wind threw him to the
ground, but, although his face became covered with
ice, a row of icicles two inches long depended from
his cap, and his eyelashes were filled with icy globules,

290

CASUALTIES ON PRESIDENTIAL RANGE

and although he began to think the condition of
affairs had become somewhat desperate, he resolved,
believing that he was on the "fourth mountain,"
to try for the Summit House.

After an hour's painful exertion against a storm
which, instead of abating, appeared to increase, and
in which he could advance only by plunging forward
by aid of his cane in the intervals of the gusts, he
arrived upon a piece of comparatively level ground,
which he took to be the summit of Mount Washing-
ton. His self-congratulation upon his supposed suc-
cess was damped by the condition that now con-
fronted him, for, if the storm had seemed violent
elsewhere, in this exposed place it had a fury that
was indescribable. '*If ten hurricanes had been in
deadly strife with each other, it could have been
no worse," he says. His freezing hands and be-
numbed limbs and the increasing laboriousness of
respiration admonished him that he must find the
Summit House if he would live. So he groped on
with the greatest difficulty in the whirling snow,
seeking the desired shelter, blown along or pros-
trated by turns by the powerful wind, and aware
that he was becoming frozen.

Twice he went in the direction of darker shades
which he thought might be the hotel, only to find
on reaching the objects that they were piles of
rocks, in one case evidently a landmark or a monu-
ment. Unwilling to give up, although coming to
think that the mountain he was on might not be
the Summit, he persevered for a while longer in his
search, but in vain. Seating himself in the slight

291

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

shelter of a rock, to consider the best course to
pursue, he remained there until he became aware
that he was as if riveted to the ground and that a
delightful drowsiness was stealing over him. Know-
ing that he must rouse himself, he raised himself with
considerable effort, and, reluctant even then to
abandon his project, made one more trial, which
ended as had his other exertions. This time he
found that the land descended in every direction
and, knowing that he could not hold out much
longer, he finally decided to make his way back.
It was then, as he judged, about the middle of the
afternoon, so delay was dangerous and some degree
of haste was demanded.

At first, in retracing his course he tried to find
his footprints in order to follow them back, but they
were irregular and at times partly obliterated or
lost altogether, so that much time was consumed
in searching for them. Finding his strength rapidly
failing from the cold, he believed it more prudent
to abandon search entirely, and, guided only by the
fall of the land, to undertake the descent. The furi-
ous wind enveloped him in snow, he was compelled to
gasp and hold on to the rocks for minutes at a time,
and frequently a sudden gust threw him down,
causing him to receive many bruises from the
hidden stones.

Before he had proceeded far, he came upon a
stake standing a few inches above the snow. Ad-
vancing he saw others and noticed that they were
at regular distances. They were surveyors' marks
for the contemplated road to the Summit ; and when

292

CASUALTIES ON PRESIDENTIAL RANGE

the doctor realized what they were, he at first
had the thought of trying to follow them up to the
goal of his desire, but various considerations, such
as the possibility of their not extending all the
way, his condition, and the lateness of the day, de-
cided him to go downward only. So on he went as
best he could, and at length a patch of thick,
stunted brushwood appeared before him, indicating
that he had reached the line of vegetation. Here he
soon could discover no more stakes, and to his con-
sternation observed that night was fast coming on.
Being in doubt what course to pursue and knowing
nothing as to where he was, he continued downward
for some little time against many obstacles, until the
gathering darkness made it evident that he should
have to pass the night out on the Mountain. Per-
ceiving that he was fast freezing and knowing
that his own exertions were all he had to depend
upon, he looked around for shelter, but in vain.
Finally, stopping on a flat rock, and casting his eyes
about, he saw a small recess between it and a low
patch of firs. Then he found a use for the umbrella,
for opening it over him, and below the firs, he util-
ized it as a shelter, fortunately finding a strong root
at hand in the snow, to which he managed, with
great difficulty on account of the numbness of his
hands, to fasten the handle by means of a small cord.
After a short rest, he set to work, with all his re-
maining strength, pulling up the tough bushes by the
roots and piling them upon the umbrella to protect
it from the wind. The sides of his camp he made
tight with crusts of snow and tops of fir trees. At-

293

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

tempts to build a fire were unsuccessful because of
the dampness of the wood and the force of the storm.
In this frail shelter the doctor passed the night —
the longest of his life, he pronounces it. Knowing
too well the fatal consequence of indulging in even
a few minutes' sleep, and feeling that, with his stiff
and frozen feet and the freezing chill of his body,
he might be soon overpowered, Dr. Ball exerted
himself to his utmost to keep awake. By taking con-
strained positions, now leaning on one elbow, then
on the other, now changing from side to side, now
taking a forward position, then a backward one,
now extending at full length and now drawn up, he
succeeded in preventing sleep. During the whole
night the storm swept down the mountain-side, with
such violence that he feared many times it would
carry away the umbrella and leave him exposed to
certain death.

But no such disaster happened, and at length
morning — it was Friday, October 26 — dawned.
The snow had ceased falling, but the keen wind still
blew hard and clouds obscured the sun and shut
out all the view below him, while above the air was
clear. It seemed to him, so numb was he, that he
had become a part of the Mountain itself, but
arousing himself and exercising to restore warmth
and animation to his feet, he contrived with the aid
of his cane to ascend to the line where vegetation
ceases, to reconnoiter. But nothing to guide him
could be seen, clouds being above him and below.
Searching diligently for the stakes, he was unable
to find them beyond this place, and so was disap-

294

CASUALTIES ON PRESIDENTIAL RANGE

pointed of any guidance they might furnish him.
It was difficult to determine on what course of action
to pursue. He had no wish to go toward the sup-
posed Mount Washington, — the mountain, he
learned afterward, was Mount Jefferson, — which
was on the right. Reasoning that if he made a cir-
cuit of the Mountain he should somewhere cross his
track of ascent, which he might follow down, he
started off toward the left. The ground was covered
with snow to the depth of eight or ten inches, and he
could travel but slowly on account of his weakness
and various difficulties in the way. At nearly every
step his feet broke through the crust, and he several
times had to make considerable detours to avoid
obstacles. Vainly he tried to quench his burning
thirst with ice, which he broke from the rocks.

He traveled for about two hours toward a place
which showed some appearance of a path, and
about noon, as he judged, he arrived near it, but
to his disappointment, he could discover nothing
that looked like an outlet.

Discouraging as it was, there was no other course
but to retrace his steps. It had taken him four hours
to reach where he now was, and, knowing that it
would take at least as much time to return, he
walked along as fast as the nature of the way and
the clumsiness of his frozen feet would permit. As
he approached the place of the previous night's
shelter, the clouds cleared away so that he could
see below, but nothing was visible but forests and
another range of mountains beyond them. Hearing
a clinking noise he looked around and saw upon the

295

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

top of the bluff two men, apparently standing to-
gether. Thinking now that help was at hand, he
hallooed repeatedly. But his voice died away on the
wind, and, discerning no movement in them, he at
last concluded that they might be rocks with shapes
like men, and, although he did not give up trying
to attract their attention, he continued on. It was
impossible for him to reach them. The men — for
men they were and not rocks — were two guides
who had been sent out to look for Dr. Ball by Land-
lord Thompson, of the Glen House. They found
the doctor's tracks and followed them to within half
a mile of his place of shelter, but night coming on,
they despaired of finding him and returned home.
Probably on account of the high wind no sound of
his voice reached them.

Arriving near the place where he had spent the
painful previous night. Dr. Ball observed that the
sun was sinking, and, as the clouds gathered around
closer and thicker and the cold was intense and
piercing, and as, moreover, in his weakened condi-
tion he could do nothing in the way of searching
for an outlet farther on to the right, he was soon
forced to the melancholy conclusion that he must
pass another night on the Mountain. Failing, after
about half an hour's search, to find a more com-
fortable place in which to stay, he, with some diffi-
culty in the storm and darkness, made his way to
the sheltering rock and fastened his umbrella in the
same place as before, endeavoring, but with not
much success, to close it in more securely than it
had been the night before.

296

CASUALTIES ON PRESIDENTIAL RANGE

The second night passed much like the first. It
stormed and snowed all night, the snow drifted in
a good deal, and the wind came in violent gusts,
threatening to destroy at times his only shelter. His
sufferings from thirst were almost intolerable, his
throat and stomach feeling as if they were scorched.
The crusts of frozen snow alleviated his distress
only while he was swallowing them. His respiration
became short, his lungs apparently becoming in-
capable of inflating to more than about half their
natural capacity, he continually experienced a se-
vere pain in his left side, his pulse was accelerated,
but much reduced in force, labored, and very inter-
mittent, and his entire muscular system was affected
with uncontrollable shaking. Sleep was warded off
by keeping the mind active by a multiplicity of
thoughts and by taking constrained positions as
on the night before. He would have given way, he
feared, had he made the effort only to keep awake,
with no other exercise of the mind than thinking of
the cold.

The long night was over at last and the breaking
of dawn gladdened the heart of the sufferer. On
looking off, after a while, he saw through the dry
brush a building several miles away in the valley
below on the other side of a large forest. He was
somewhat perplexed as to the identity of the house,
although he knew of no other house very near the
Mountain, his confusion being due to his mistaking
Mount Jefferson for Mount Washington, which
latter is not visible from the place where he was.

When he realized that the building was not a
297

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

product of his imagination, he crawled forth to the
front of the rock to reconnoiter, supporting himself
on it and stamping his feet to restore animation to
them. After about two hours he was able to walk,
and then with painful steps he ascended to the tract
above the brush to get a clear view to aid him in
determining the course to be pursued. Deeming it
unwise to take a straight line down the Mountain
and through the forests to the Glen House, because
of the obstacles and the chances of losing his way,
he decided that he ought to encircle the Mountain
in the opposite direction from that of the previous
day, and, accordingly, he started off in that direc-
tion, hobbling along in his enfeebled condition, his
mind supported by the hope that each step was
bringing him nearer the outlet.

Toward the middle of the day he halted upon an
elevated fiat rock to look about and lay out a course
as free as possible from impediments. Before, how-
ever, he could adopt his plan of taking a range, if
possible, a hundred feet higher up the Mountain, as
he was about to move on, to his "joy and astonish-
ment," he saw a party of men just coming into view
around the angle of the bluff. They appeared to
be looking for some object in the snow. Without
any thought that they were searching for him. Dr.
Ball shouted to them, whereupon they all stopped
short and looked at him with manifest amaze-
ment. Soon Mr. Hall, one of the proprietors of the
Summit House and the leader, recovering somewhat
from his surprise, came forward and then stopped
and put several questions to the doctor. From his

298

CASUALTIES ON PRESIDENTIAL RANGE

manner of asking them and receiving the answers
was made evident his wonder, for it seemed as if he
could not bring himself to believe that the answerer
was actually the man who had left the Glen House
Wednesday afternoon. Mr. Hall's companions, all
experienced guides, gathered around and looked at
Dr. Ball, too astonished to speak. The party had
followed his tracks, but, losing them in the brush,
they were endeavoring to rediscover them by ex-
tending their line, when they heard his shout.

So parched and dry was Dr. Ball's mouth and
throat that he could not swallow food. Unfortu-
nately, his rescuers had provided nothing to drink,
so he was unable to obtain any relief from his
thirst until they had gone some distance on their
return, when two swallows of water were obtained
from a rock which had a small hollow at the top.
Now that the doctor had not to rely upon himself,
his strength was less and he could not walk so firmly
as before. Throwing his arms around the necks of
two of the party, he walked on, with this assistance,
between them. After a while they came to the
regular path and then they descended the Ledge to
the Camp House, where Mr. Myers welcomed the
doctor as one from the dead. The distance to the
place where he was found was about a mile and a
half and from his encampment about two miles.
On Dr. Ball's remarking that he believed he would
have reached the Camp House alone, as he was at
last on the right course, Mr. Hall expressed a differ-
ent opinion and called his attention to the clouds
which had gathered and had shut in the view.

299

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Here the doctor's feet were examined and, being
found still frozen, were plunged into cold water
from melted snow and ice to remove the frost.
After being somewhat rested, he was placed upon a
horse, which, for many years accustomed to the
Mountains, carried him very steadily, guardedly
stepping around or over stones, stumps, and other
obstacles, for a mile and a half over the new road.
When they came to the finished part of the road,
Mr. Thompson, who had arranged with the party
to be informed, by means of signal flags, when Dr.
Ball's body should be found, and who had watched
the men with a telescope as they advanced over the
Mountain and returned, met them with his horses
and carriage. Welcoming the doctor "back alive,"
Mr. Thompson observed, "You have been through
what no other person has, or probably will again,
in a thousand years."

The sufferer, having been transferred to the car-
riage and covered with blankets, which protected
him from the cold and the rain, arrived at the Glen
House about five o'clock in the afternoon, progress
being necessarily slow because of his sensitive body.
Welcome, indeed, to him was the substantial hotel,
and even more grateful, if possible, to him were the
sympathetic faces and solicitous words of the in-
mates.

Here, under the kind ministrations of the women
of the household, he was made as comfortable as he
could be. A physician from Gorham was in attend-
ance on the patient, and the latter's brother. Dr. S.
Ball, of Boston, came to look after him. For a few

300

CASUALTIES ON PRESIDENTIAL RANGE

days his sufferings were comparatively light. There
was general prostration of his system, with some
fever, an insatiable thirst, and frequent violent
tremblings of the body, due to chills. His feet and
hands were as if dead and were discolored to black-
ness, distorted by swelling, and covered with water-
blisters. Above the injuries the pain was severe,
and at times, when cramp set in, excruciating.

After having remained about a week at the Glen
House, the doctor was sufficiently recovered to be
driven to Gorham, riding very comfortably on a sofa
placed in a carriage, whence the train was taken to
Boston. There, under the care and treatment of
his brother, Dr. S. Ball, and Dr. H. Barnes, after
remaining for twelve weeks in a very helpless condi-
tion, his general health was quite restored, and his
injured members were by the 1st of March, 1856,
again usable to a moderate degree.

Such is the record of this remarkable case of sixty
hours' exposure on the Mountains.^ Mr. Hall truly
remarked in a letter to the doctor's brother, "There
is nothing in the history of the White Mountains to
compare with this case of your brother ; and I am very
sure its parallel will not be known in time to come."

By a curious irony of fate, this man, who survived
the cold snowstorm and freezing wind of the White
Mountains and endured such bitter sufferings from
frost, died, four years later, at the age of thirty-nine,
in Chiriqui, Panama.

To a chapter dealing with casualties may perhaps

* My account of Dr. Ball's experience is drawn from his own book,
Three Days on the White Mountains, published in 1856.

301

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

appropriately be added a brief record of some note-
worthy convulsions of Nature, which altered, for a
time at least, the appearance of the Mountain land-
scape, and which in one case since the famous dis-
aster of 1826 resulted in the loss of human life.
Landslides of greater or less magnitude have always
been frequent occurrences in the White Mountains.
Torrential rains acting upon the loose thin soil of
the upper portions of the slopes, or upon the sur-
faces of high areas denuded of trees by fire, are usu-
ally responsible for these natural phenomena. In
the prehistoric days they were, as has been noted,
one of the causes of the Indians' dread of the loftier
summits, the aborigines attributing the noise which
attended the slides to the supposed superior beings
with which their superstition peopled the higher re-
gions. In historical times several slides have occurred
which are memorable for their extent or for the dam-
age they have done. The most noted of all is, of
course, the Willey Slide of 1826, which has been re-
corded in an earlier chapter.

In the autumn of 1869, exceptionally heavy rains
were experienced in the White Mountain region and
in consequence a number of disastrous avalanches
occurred. On October 4, there was a landslide on
Carter Dome, by which the mountain was stripped
to its bed ledges for a distance of nearly a mile on
its north and west sides. An indirect result of the
storm which caused this slide was the death of
Mr. Thompson, proprietor of the Glen House, who,
as has been told elsewhere, when attempting to
avert the destruction of his mill was swept away by

302

CASUALTIES ON PRESIDENTIAL RANGE

the torrent of water and debris which rushed down
the narrow glen of the Peabody River.

At this time a slide of immense magnitude dev-
astated a vast area on Tripyramid, that mysterious
triple-crowned mountain in the Waterville region.
The denuded area has a length of two and a half
miles and varies in width from thirty feet at the
upper extremity, which is but two hundred feet
below the top of the peak, to more than a thousand
feet at the lower end, where the accumulated debris
spreads over the meadows.

Again, in 1885, Tripyramid was the scene of
slides greater than that of 1869. They occurred
about the middle of August after several hard rains.
In both cases, owing to the wilderness nature of the
region, the slides were attended with no loss of life
or property.

A striking freak of Nature, which formerly added
to the interest of that great scenic feature at the
southern entrance of the Franconia Notch, the
famous Flume, was the suspension of a huge boulder
between the walls of the narrowing upper part of
the canyon. There it was held, doubtless for cen-
turies, tightly gripped by the opposing cliffs, mid-
way between the rim and the floor of the chasm,
and under it thousands of visitors passed with no
thought of the possibility of its ever being dislodged.
The enormous rock was, however, swept away on
June 20, 1883, when an avalanche, caused by heavy
rains on the peaks above, crashed down through the
Flume. As compensation for the carrying away of
the boulder, the landslide lengthened and deepened

303

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

the gorge and added to its attractions two new
waterfalls, one of them the very beautiful cascade
at its head.

On July 10, 1885, the great slide took place on
Cherry Mountain, descending the Owl's Head peak
on the north side. Itsd6bris — broken trees, mud,
rocks, and earth — was carried to the foot of the
mountain, making a two-mile track of devastation,
and was mostly deposited on the farm of Oscar
Stanley, where it wrecked the house, killed several
cattle, and mortally injured Donald Walker, one of
the farmhands. For years the vast scar of this slide,
known as the "Stanley Slide," was plainly visible
from Jefferson, but of late years it has become over-
grown again and so is now much less conspicuous.

XIV

WINTER ASCENTS OF MOUNT WASHINGTON — THE
WINTER OCCUPATION OF MOUNT MOOSILAUKE
AND OF MOUNT WASHINGTON — THE U.S. SIG-
NAL SERVICE ON MOUNT WASHINGTON

The winter ascent of Mount Washington, a feat
now, in these mountaineering days, rather fre-
quently accomplished by hardy members of the
Appalachian Mountain Club, by sturdy collegians
of the Dartmouth Outing Club, and by a few others,
is an excursion of considerable difficulty and not a
little danger. It often gives opportunity for some
real Alpine mountaineering,^ and thus offers the
nearest approach in the Eastern United States to
such mountain-climbing as is undertaken in the
summer in the playground of Europe and in the
Canadian Rockies.

The first ascent in winter was not made for pleas-
ure, as are all of the ascents of the present time and
as were many of those achieved in the past, but in
the performance of a duty. Lucius Hartshorn, of
Lancaster, son-in-law of Samuel F. Spaulding, one
of the proprietors of the Tip-Top House, was a

^ That the climbing of "the crown of New England" in winter is
regarded as in the same category with and as comparable with the
most strenuous mountaineering exploits, is borne witness to by the
fact of the inclusion of an article on " Mount Washington in Winter,"
by Edward L. Wilson, in the volume on Mountain Climbing in "The
Out-of-Door Library," in which volume the companion articles have
to do with the Alps, and Mounts ^tna, Ararat, and St. Elias.

305

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

deputy sheriff of Coos County, and as such was
employed by his father-in-law, in the winter of 1858,
to go up the Mountain and make an attachment of
property at the Summit, in connection with liti-
gation as to the title. The noted guide, Benjamin
F. Osgood, of the Glen House, who died in Decem-
ber, 1907, at the age of seventy-eight, was Mr.
Hartshorn's companion in this first scaling of Mount
Washington in winter, which was done on the 7th
of December in the first-named year. Their course
was up the carriage road to the Halfway House and
thence over the crust to the top. Mr. Osgood, who
had piloted many distinguished men through the
Mountains in the old Concord coaches or on horse-
back over the Mountain trails, and who had a large
fund of reminiscences of the early days, used often
to tell of his thrilling experience on this historic
occasion.

Some of the details of their stay on the Summit
and of the descent are given in a contemporary issue
of the Cods Republican. On arriving, they immedi-
ately took measures to enter one of the houses,
which, as these were covered with snow, was a work
requiring time. Unable to force an entrance at the
doors, they finally got in through a window, on
which the frost was a foot and a half in thickness.
The interior of the hotel was like a tomb, the walls
and all the furniture being draped with some four
inches of frost, while the air was extremely biting,
and the darkness was such that a lamp was neces-
sary to enable them to distinguish objects. As de-
lay was dangerous in the extreme, the two men, the

306

':' .0'i

THE SUMMITS IN WINTER

legal duty having been performed, prepared to re-
turn. Upon emerging, they saw to the southwest a
cloud, which was coming on toward them with
alarming swiftness and which rapidly increased in
volume. Knowing that to be caught in this frost
cloud would probably be fatal, they hurried on and
just managed to reach the woods, at the base of the
Ledge, when it enfolded them. So icy and penetrat-
ing was it that to have encountered it on the unpro-
tected part of the Mountain would have been to
have perished in its enveloping pall. The intrepid
pair reached the Glen in safety, where they received
a hearty welcome from their anxious friends.

Another noteworthy winter ascent was accom-
plished on February lo-ii, 1862, by John H.
Spaulding, Chapin C. Brooks, and Franklin White,
a photographer, all of Lancaster, who spent two
days and nights in the old Summit House.

From a graphic account of the visit, written by
Mr. Spaulding, we learn that they started from the
Glen House at eight o'clock in the evening on the
loth in bright moonlight with ample packs and pro-
visions. Walking slowly up the carriage road on
snowshoes in the still night, they arrived at the
Ledge after midnight. In this first portion of the
ascent, the glittering crust, the tree-shadows across
their path, and the white, winding road and con-
trasting evergreen thickets all combined to form a
most beautiful scene, while at the place of rest a
weird picture was presented to them, formed by the
ruins of the great barn built the previous season, and
by the fire-scathed trees, standing in bold relief in

307

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

the moonlight, with the glittering Ledge itself and
the dark old shanty in the background. Kindling a
fire at the shelter, they drowsed until daybreak on
an old straw bed laid on a snowdrift. At sunrise they
began the onward march, without snowshoes, ad-
vancing by cutting steps in the ice. At five miles
up, a wide ice-field was encountered, necessitating
the cutting of deep steps, and at about six miles, a
deep drift impeded their progress and prevented
them from following the road. Here lunch was
taken, and they found the thermometer to register
in a rising wind 27° above zero. Storm-clouds over
toward Mount Carter warned them to hasten on,
which they did as rapidly as circumstances would
permit. As they approached the top, they were en-
wrapped in a heavy black cloud, which froze upon
them. On arriving at the Summit, the hardy climb-
ers found the two houses covered with glittering ice
and with curious frost feathers standing out on the
northerly side. Walking up a drift, they broke away
the ice from the south gable-end window of the
Summit House, and, taking out the window, entered
the attic. As soon as possible a stove was brought
up from a lower room, some wood secured from the
Tip-Top House, and a fire kindled. This done, the
doughty trio, after further fortifying themselves by
piling up a barricade of mattresses around the stove,
passed a fairly comfortable night. But their stay
had to be prolonged beyond its intended duration
of a single night, for in the morning they found
themselves in the midst of a fierce snowstorm, and
on that account they were compelled to endure, as

308

THE SUMMITS IN WINTER

it turned out, a siege, the storm driving by their
enforced habitation for thirty-six hours. Some idea
of the Arctic conditions within the hotel may be
gained from the facts that snow and ice lay piled all
about from three inches to five feet deep, that the
furniture was set in feathery white casings, and that
snow-wreaths and icicles were everywhere on the
walls and roof. Most magnificent scenes that beggar
all description were witnessed; the sun was seen to
set in a vast "snow-bank," and a hundred glittering
peaks were beheld in the moonlight. A return to
the Glen in another thick snowstorm completed a
trip with which they afterwards felt "perfectly
satisfied."

These two winter ascents are all that are on record
previous to the winter of 1870-71, during which, as
will be related farther on, ascents were numerous.

Before recording any more of these alpine experi-
ences, however, the steps which brought about the
establishment of a meteorological station on New
England's highest summit, including especially the
winter occupations of Moosilauke and Washington,
demand notice. The two expeditions just mentioned,
the stories of which are now to be narrated, not only
demonstrated the possibility of human beings suc-
cessfully braving the frost and storms of the Arctic
winter of the summit of Mount Washington and
enduring the inconveniences and privations incident
to winter life in such a place, but also showed the
feasibility of making and recording weather obser-
vations under such circumstances.

The project of a winter stay on Mount Washing-
309

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

ton was a long-cherished one in the minds of J. H.
Huntington and C. H. Hitchcock, graduates of
Amherst and associates on the geological surveys of
Vermont and New Hampshire.

The former, whose acquaintance with the White
Mountains dated back to 1856 and 1857, first raised
the question of the possibility of such an undertak-
ing while accompanying an expedition, along Lake
Champlain, of a survey party led by the latter in
1858.^ At the same time he expressed a willingness
to make the experiment. After Mr. Huntington had
tried in vain to secure the pecuniary support of the
Smithsonian Institution by appealing to Professor
Joseph Henry, who declined to undertake the enter-
prise at that time on account of the many obstacles
in the way, and after Professor Hitchcock, who vis-
ited the White Mountains for the first time later in
that year, had also made an unsuccessful appeal to
the same source, the project had to be abandoned.
It was revived ten years later, when Professor
Hitchcock was appointed State Geologist, and Mr.
Huntington, recalling the old conversations about
spending a winter on Mount Washington, applied
for and received the appointment of an assistant on
the geological survey.

Application for the use of the Tip-Top House for
scientific purposes during the winter of 1869-70

* In 1859, Jonathan Merrill, a then recent graduate of Dartmouth
College, conceived the idea of spending a winter on Mount Washing-
ton. He received the encouragement of Professor Henry, of the
Smithsonian Institution, and was given permission to occupy one of
the houses; but an unexpected snowstorm delayed some of his prep-
arations, and this and other considerations compelled him to abandon
the adventure.

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THE SUMMITS IN WINTER

failed to secure the consent of the lessee, Colonel
Hitchcock, of the Alpine House, a fortunate refusal
for the applicants, as it proved, for Professor Hitch-
cock having, in a conversation with William Little,
of Manchester, made known to that gentleman his
disappointment at not being able to secure quarters
on Mount Washington, unexpectedly and to his
great delight received from him the offer of the use
without charge of the house on Mount Moosilauke.
This proffer being communicated to Mr. Hunting-
ton, he accepted it without a moment's hesitation,
so eager was he to spend a winter at such a height.

Supplies were carried to the summit of the Benton
mountain and preparations were made to begin
Arctic housekeeping the latter part of December.
Huntington's expected companion having been com-
pelled, in consequence of being offered an advan-
tageous situation in Georgia, to give up his plan of
spending the winter in a far different climate, the
vacant position of fellow observer was filled by A. F.
Clough, of Warren, a photographer by profession
and a great lover of Nature. The experiences of this
sojourn on Moosilauke proved not only valuable in
and for themselves, but also as preliminary to the
stay on the higher mountain the following winter.
From a scientific standpoint, moreover, the stay here
proved of great interest. Indeed, it is affirmed that
so unusual were a number of the meteorological
phenomena observed here that in some respects
those of Mount Washington did not equal them.

The first attempt to ascend the mountain for the
purpose of carrying up wood and other supplies and

311

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

of fitting up a room in the house failed because of a
high wind with driving snow, which forced the men
back by its fierceness and made the bridle path im-
passable with huge drifts. A lame, frost-bitten, and
discouraged group of men ate their evening meal at
the foot of the mountain, the only cheerful and hope-
ful person being James Clement, the pioneer of this
mountain. The next day, November 24, 1869, being
clear and bright and everything seeming propitious,
another attempt to reach the summit was made, and
this one was crowned with success. Two fine days
and one cloudy one were experienced, in which
period of time the preparatory work was completed.
Provisions were not taken up until late in December,
when they were transported on two large hand-sleds
drawn by a horse. A furious storm arose the night
of that expedition, making venturing out extremely
hazardous; but, having no fodder for the horse, the
descent had to be made the following day in intense
cold and in a wind so fierce that the men could not
keep their footing and were several times nearly
blown over the crest of the ridge. On the last day of
December, Messrs. Huntington and Clough ascended
the mountain for their winter stay.

In a chapter of the book "Mount Washington in
Winter," Mr. Huntington tells in a most interesting
way the story of the sojourn on this perhaps finest of
New England viewpoints. Many were the grand
and beautiful scenes beheld by the two observers
from this outlook, over the snow-covered country
in the various atmospheric conditions experienced,
the summits of Mounts Washington, Lafayette, and

312

THE SUMMITS IN WINTER

the others, sublime in their canopy of snow, often
glittering in the bright sunlight above the clouds, or
presenting ashy pale or dark, forbidding aspects
under the shadows of the clouds, or being suffused
with rosy light at sunset. Hardly had the two men
got settled in their new quarters, when, on the 2d of
January, they were visited by a terrific storm, which
changed from snow at daylight to sleet and then to
rain, and which continued with unabated violence
until 9 P.M., after which hour there were lulls, mid-
night finding it considerably diminished in fury. At
eight in the morning the velocity of the wind was
seventy miles, and at twelve noon, when the storm
had become "a perfect tempest," Mr. Clough, deter-
mined to know the exact rate, succeeded, by clinging
to the rocks, in placing himself where he could expose
the anemometer and not be blown away himself,
and found the velocity to be ninety-seven and a half
miles an hour, the greatest ever recorded up to that
time.

Amid Arctic conditions and surroundings such as
might be expected on so high and exposed a place,
about two months were passed. When the last of
February arrived, the weather being extremely cold
and the winds violent and their supply of wood being
nearly exhausted, it was deemed advisable to de-
scend. This action was attended with much peril in
a wind blowing seventy miles an hour and in a tem-
perature of zero or lower, but was accomplished
safely, in spite of the facts that on the highest part
of the ridge, Huntington, as he tells us, was fre-
quently blown from the ridge, and that the sled was

313

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

blown out of Clough's hold and its standards broken
on a projecting rock. Compelled by this mishap
to go back some distance to secure another sled,
Clough, after a severe struggle in which he was
almost overwhelmed several times, eventually man-
aged to achieve his purpose, and, when the reload-
ing, no easy task under such conditions, had been
effected, the travelers soon succeeded in reaching
the protection of the woods.

This stay on Moosilauke having demonstrated
the possibility of living on a mountain-top in the
winter and having fed the desire for the winter occu-
pation of the loftier summit, early in 1870, Messrs.
Hitchcock and Huntington began to contrive ways
and means to this end. Renewed application for the
Tip-Top House being refused in April, negotiations
for the use of the engine-house or station that the
Mount Washington Railway Company was intend-
ing to erect on the Summit were opened with the
president, Mr. Marsh, by letter and interviews,
and eventually the desired permission was obtained,
although the building was not completed.

Efforts to obtain the necessary funds from State
and National authorities,^ scientific bodies, and indi-
viduals were unavailing. The Government would

* Probably the first attempt to establish a scientific observatory
on Mount Washington was made in 1853 by D. O. Macomber, presi-
dent of the Carriage Road Company. A circular was issued, setting
forth the importance of such an enterprise and arguments in favor
of erecting a permanent building on the top of Mount Washington
for scientific purposes. A petition to Congress, dated December I,*
1853, asking for an appropriation of $50,000 and offering on the part
of the road company to build an observatory for the use of the
Government was presented, but nothing came of the project. .

THE SUMMITS IN WINTER

not sanction any special arrangement to furnish any
newspaper exclusively with weather reports (in re-
turn for pecuniary support, which one New York
journal offered on this condition), and it seemed
probable that the undertaking would have to be
abandoned when assistance came from an unex-
pected quarter. In July, Mr. Durgin, of the Sinclair
House in Bethlehem, informed Professor Hitchcock
that a relative by marriage, S. A. Nelson, of George-
town, Massachusetts, was very much interested in
the meteorology of Mount Washington and would
like to join the expedition. Mr. Nelson proposed, in
case he should be permitted to be one of the party,
to devote himself to raising funds, which, after the
formal invitation extended had been accepted by
him, he set about doing. Beginning in September,
he succeeded in obtaining, by late December, when
he joined the party on the Mountain, more than
eight hundred dollars.

The Chief Signal Officer, General A. B. Myer,
offered in September to furnish insulated telegraph
wire sufficient to connect the Summit with the Base,
which, together with the necessary instruments, was
duly received the following month. In November,
he informed Professor Hitchcock that he would de-
tail for duty with the expedition an expert operator
and observer, with a complete set of meteorological
instruments, and requested that one weather report
might be forwarded to him daily by telegraph, to be
bulletined along with those from other stations and
to be furnished to the principal daily journals.

Many other obstacles, more especially such as
315

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

were connected with the purchase and transporta-
tion of supplies, the preparation of the building for
occupancy, and the procuring of additional funds,
were eventually overcome, with the generous help of
the railway company and with the assistance of ad-
ditional subscribers secured as the result of a new
appeal.

The members of the expedition as finally organ-
ized were: C. H. Hitchcock, State Geologist, with
office at Hanover, connected by telegraph with the
Summit; J. H. Huntington, in charge of the ob-
servatory; S. A. Nelson, observer; A. F. Clough,
of Warren, and H. A. Kimball, of Concord, New
Hampshire, photographers, the former the original
artist of the expedition and the latter one who ap-
plied for and received permission to join the party;
and Sergeant Theodore Smith, observer and telegra-
pher for the Signal Service.

The evening of October 8, Mr. Huntington and a
carpenter from Berlin Falls ascended, finding that
Professor Hitchcock and several other men on
pleasure bent had preceded them to the Summit for
a brief visit. From the loth to the 22d, the two
former worked at fitting up the room, laying the
telegraph wire, and making other necessary prepa-
rations. At length, everything being ready, Mr.
Huntington promptly climbed the Mountain at the
time appointed, November 12, and on the 13th
began to take and record daily meteorological
observations.

The dauntless Huntington^ remained there alone

* The deep and narrow chasm, "less a ravine than a gulf," to the

316

OBSERVER, SUMMIT OF MOUNT WASHING'ION
ABOUT 1S75

THE SUMMIT HOUSE IN WINTER, ABOUT 1875

THE SUMMITS IN WINTER

until November 30, when the two photographers,
accompanied by Charles B. Cheney, of Orford, and
C. F. Bracy, of Warren, arrived after a most thrilling
experience in a wind of seventy miles an hour and a
temperature down to zero or below. In this ascent
Mr. Kimball became so extremely exhausted that
his reason tottered and he became indifferent to his
fate, and he would have perished had it not been for
heroic measures to save him used by Messrs. Clough
and Cheney. At the foot of Jacob's Ladder the men
became separated, three of the party leaving the
railroad track, while the other, Mr. Bracy, remained
on it. The latter, after a narrow escape from death
by falling through the trestle to the gorge beneath,
reached the Summit about seven o'clock. The others,
failing to get any answer from him in the roar of the
tempest, made their way slowly by repeated short
advances after brief rests in a prostrate position.
Three hours or more of this ascent were made in the
darkness of a moonless night, and it took half an
hour's time to make the thirty rods from the Lizzie
Bourne monument to the observatory. The inci-
dents of this perilous adventure in such tempestuous
weather, and under such other conditions as have
been noted, rendered the experience unforgettable
by its participants and make the account of it,

north of Tuckerman's Ravine, was named "Huntington's Ravine"
in his honor, by his companions in this expedition. Professor Hunt-
ington was an indefatigable explorer of the White Hills. Sweetser,
whose guide-book explorations were made in 1875, says of him: "To
the last-named [Professor J. H. Huntington] the public owes all the
best features of this White Mountain Guide-Book, since he accom-
panied and practically directed the most arduous surveys and pio-
neering expedition of the Guide parties."

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

as narrated in detail in "Mount Washington in
Winter," impressive to the imagination of the
reader.

Sergeant Smith arrived on December 4, and on the
2 1 St of that month Professor Hitchcock and Messrs.
Nelson, L. B. Newell, Eben Thompson, and F.
Woodbridge came up, making the party complete,
with some visitors.

Mr. Nelson and Sergeant Smith spent the entire
winter on the Mountain, Professor Huntington most
of it, and Messrs. Clough and Kimball a part of it.
Professor Hitchcock joined his associates at the
Summit from time to time, his last stay being from
April 26 to May i.

Visitors were fairly numerous and ever welcome.
Some of them have been already named. L. L.
Holden,^ "Ranger" of the Boston Journal, visited
the Summit twice, once in February with another
newspaper man, P. B. Cogswell, of the Concord Daily
Monitor, and Mr. Clough as companions, and again
from April 29 to May 9, his companions this time
in the ascent being Professor Huntington, who had
been down for a day or two to fulfill a lecture engage-
ment, and Eben Thompson, of Dartmouth College,
a previous visitor. Other visitors were Messrs.
Walter and Charles L. Aiken, George C. Procter,
and Michael ("Mike") Mularvey (of Marshfield)
in February; the late Benjamin W. Kilburn, of
Littleton, one of the pioneers in the art of stereo-

^ Mr. Holden's description of his ascent in February and his
account of his ascent, experiences during his stay, and descent in
the spring are printed in Mount Washington in Winter.

318

THE SUMMITS IN WINTER

graphic photography, Edward L. Wilson, editor of
the Philadelphia Photographer, whose article on
"Mount Washington in Winter" has been men-
tioned, and "Mike" on March i and 2; Dr. Rogers
and Mr. Nutter, of Lancaster, in March; Messrs.
Clough and Cheney again, in April. ^ Seventy as-
cents in all were made that winter by the indefati-
gable Professor Huntington and others.

The winter passed very pleasantly. There was
much to do in keeping the telegraph line open and
repairing breaks, in making the meteorological ob-
servations, in housekeeping, in maintaining a com-
fortable or at least livable degree of warmth within
the house, in taking photographs, in writing reports,
etc., and in various other duties.

The lowest temperature experienced was 59° below
zero at three a.m. on Sunday, Februarys. The
mean temperature for January 22 was -28.5°, and
for February 4 was -35°. All day and all night of
the former date the wind raged, at times blowing in
gusts of every direction and of high velocity. With
two fires maintained at red heat all night, two of the
party sitting up for that purpose (there was little
sleep for anybody), the room was cold.

Saturday, February 4, was a strenuous day, as
besides the intense cold the wind was very high,
some of the gusts before morning undoubtedly at-
taining a velocity of one hundred miles an hour.

^ This ascent, the most difficult one of the winter, was made on
the 5th, in a furious snowstorm, the temperature being nearly zero
and the wind at one time blowing more than eighty miles an hour.
The men succeeded in it only because of their superior powers of
endurance.

319

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

The house rocked and trembled and groaned,
movable articles were continually on the move, —
books, for example, repeatedly dropping from the
shelves. In ''sawing off " a piece of salt pork, which
operation was like "cutting into a block of gypsum,"
Mr. Nelson was out only five minutes, but froze his
fingers. The butter for the Sunday morning break-
fast had to be cut, with a chisel and hammer, from
the tubs, which stood in the outer room.

The highest wind velocity recorded was ninety-
two miles an hour at seven o'clock in the evening of
December 15, 1870, when the most severe storm of
all that they experienced raged. After that hour it
was not safe to venture out with the anemometer,
for the wind kept increasing, reaching, it was esti-
mated, at its highest a velocity from one hundred
and ten to one hundred and twenty miles. During
this storm so great was the force of the wind that
three-inch planks bolted across the opening in the
shed where the train enters were pressed in four or
more inches and the whole building had an unpleas-
ant vibratory motion.

On many days the high winds and stormy condi-
tions confined the observers to the house; observa-
tions were often taken under great difficulties and
at considerable peril on this account; and many a
night sleep was well-nigh impossible on account of
the roaring of the wind, the creaking and groaning
and oscillation of the building, and the noise due to
the driving of particles of ice by the wind against it.
Repairing the telegraph line, a frequent necessity,
gave occasion for some arduous and often dangerous

320

THE SUMMITS IN WINTER

trips down the railway, and many times other trips
were taken which entailed severe exposure.

Altogether, the "expedition" was a most notable
one, not only for its scientific importance, but also
for its human interest as demonstrating what severe
conditions of winter cold and wind and storm human
beings can successfully endure for a prolonged
period. I have devoted so much space to it not only
because of this intrinsic interest, but because of the
attention it attracted at the time and of its historical
importance.^ From time to time there appeared in
the newspapers references to the occupation of the
summit of Mount Washington, expressing the opin-
ions of various writers, either upon the facts reported
or upon the general prospects of the adventure.
Many regarded the project as idiotic, lunatic, or
perfectly chimerical, and the participants in it as a
party of maniacs.

True to the American tendency to burlesque,
many of the articles about the expedition were of a
facetious character, one writer even preparing what
purported to be an official report of the expedition,
with a burlesque journal of ' * each day's proceedings."

Convinced that Mount Washington was a desir-
able place for a weather station, the feasibility and
value of winter observations on it and from it hav-
ing been by this expedition amply demonstrated,

* All of the information here summarized, and much more, is con-
tained in that most entertaining, instructive, and otherwise inter-
esting volume, Mount Washington in Winter, prepared by all the
members of this remarkable expedition as their "official report" to
those friends who furnished the means for establishing and main-
taining this Arctic observatory.

321

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

the United States Signal Service, immediately upon
the departure of the voluntary observers, took up,
on May 13, 1871, the work of carrying on meteoro-
logical observations, and thereafter maintained the
station continuously until the autumn of 1887 and
in summer for five years more. During this period
an immense amount of valuable data as to the
weather conditions of this point was obtained and
recorded.

Great were the hardships endured by these serv-
ants of the Government and thrilling were some of
the incidents of this service on a mountain-top. At
four in the morning one day in January, 1877,^ the
wind reached the velocity, never equaled elsewhere,
of one hundred and eighty-six miles an hour. In this
gale was blown down the engine-shed, used by the
winter party of 1870-71, and by the Government
observers until the erection of the Signal Station in
1874, ^^^ the board walk leading from the hotel to
the Signal Station was demolished, the boards being
carried as if they were straws and scattered far and
wide in wild confusion over the top and sides of the
Mountain.

This almost inconceivable velocity was equaled at
least once subsequently and a rate of one hundred
and eighty miles an hour was attained several times.
In February, 1886, in one of the greatest storms ever

^ I get this date from Drake, The Heart of the White Mountains.
The author tells, in chapters vil and viii of his "Second Journey,"
of his ascent and descent by the carriage road and stay on the Summit
in May, 1877, when he saw the boards scattered about and was in-
formed that the engine-house had been blown down in the January
gale. Private Doyle's story, as narrated farther on, is given in this
source.

322

THE SUMMITS IN WINTER

known, the mercury dropped to 51° below zero and
the wind lashed the Summit with a fury which
threatened to sweep it clear of the works of man.
One building was torn down, some of its constituent
parts being flung violently against the stanch little
Signal Station, which, fortunately, was so protected
by a tough thick coating of frost feathers that its
doors, windows, and roof escaped. During this gale,
when a rate of one hundred and eighty-four miles
was recorded, the anemometer itself was carried
away from its bearings.

Private Doyle, who was on duty in the station at
the time of the great storm of January, 1877, has
related his recollections of it. Anticipating, from the
aspect of the heavens in the afternoon preceding the
gale, when the clouds spread for miles around — an
ocean of frozen vapor — and became, late in the day,
so dense as to reflect the colors of the spectrum, that
some great atmospheric disturbance was impending,
the observers made everything snug for a storm. By
nine in the evening, the wind had increased to one
hundred miles an hour, with heavy sleet, making
outside observations unsafe. At midnight, the veloc-
ity of the storm was one hundred and twenty miles
and the thermometer registered - 24°. Within the
house, with the stove red, it was hard to get the
temperature above freezing, and water froze within
three feet of the fire. The uproar was deafening. At
one o'clock, the wind rose to one hundred and fifty
miles, raising the carpet a foot from the floor, and
dashing all the loose ice on top of the Mountain
against the building in one continuous volley. Not

323

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

long after came a crash of glass. With the greatest
difficulty the two men, working in the dark, suc-
ceeded in closing the storm-shutters from the inside.
Hardly had they done this, when a heavy gust burst
them open again, apparently as easily as if they had
not been fastened at all. After a hard tussle, they
again secured the windows by nailing a cleat to the
floor and using a board as a lever. ** Even then," said
Private Doyle, "it was all we could do to force the
shutters back into place. But we did it. We had to
do it." The remainder of the night was spent in an
anxious and alarmed state of mind, as was but nat-
ural when they did not know but that at any mo-
ment the building would be carried over into Tucker-
man's Ravine and they swept into eternity with it.
Doyle and his companion took the precaution to
wrap themselves up in blankets and quilts, tied
tightly around them with ropes, to which were fas-
tened bars of iron. But these desperate measures to
afford a possible chance of safety in case the station
succumbed to the gale proved unnecessary, for the
stout little building, anchored to the rocks by cables,
successfully weathered this gale and all others.

Many similar experiences were encountered by
these observers and others. Sometimes the frost
feathers so obscured the windows that lights were
required in the daytime; at other times the wind
tore so through the building that the lamps could
not burn.

On account of the dreadful solitude of this remote
and lonesome place and for fear of accidents, the
Government always maintained at least two men in

324

THE SUMMITS IN WINTER

the station and sometimes there were three or four,
including a cook, and a cat and a dog.^ Their duties
were multifarious and their time was fully occupied.
Seven observations had to be made daily, the record-
ing-sheet of the anemometer had to be changed at
noon, and three of the seven observations had to be
forwarded in cipher to the Boston Station. There
was much routine office work, including the receiv-
ing and sending of letters, and the filling of blank
forms with statistics. The battery and wire of the
telegraph outfit demanded much attention, and the
making of repairs, often involving the risk of the
observers' lives in storm and cold in searching for
and mending a break, was no inconsiderable part of
their work. The stock of food supplies was replen-
ished in September, the "refrigerator" (the top
story of the station) being stocked with meat and
poultry already frozen. The water supply came from
the frost feathers, a stock of which was always kept
on hand, and an icy cold drink of which could always
be found on the stove, unless the cook failed of his
duty.

The personnel of the station was changed fre-
quently. Sergeant Smith, who was detailed to
accompany the voluntary expedition, was relieved,
toward the end of May, 1871, by Sergeant M. L.

* Many visitors to the Summit in former days were acquainted
with the beautiful St. Bernard dog, " Medford," whose graceful form
and pleasing traits made him a favorite with all. Brought to the
Mountain when he was a few months old, " Medford " spent his sum-
mers at the Summit House and his winters at the Signal Station with
the weather observers, whom he often accompanied on their trips
down the Mountain for the mail. One of the best-known dogs in the
country in his lifetime, he was often inquired for after his death.

325

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Hearne. The saddest and most harrowing experi-
ence of any observer befell this gentleman. On
February 26, 1872, his assistant, William Stevens,
died of paralysis. For a day and two nights, Ser-
geant Hearne was alone with the dead body, as no
one could come up on account of the hurricane and
cold. " I look years older," he wrote, "than when it
occurred." When aid came, a rude coffin and sled
were made and a solemn procession of men moved
slowly down the mountain-side over the snow with
the mortal remains of the unfortunate observer.

Sergeant O. S. M. Cone, who spent one summer
and winter only (1877-78) at the station, when re-
lieved because of sickness, improvised a sled with a
kind of safety brake and attempted with his com-
panion, D. C. Murphy, and with his trunk, to coast
down the track. When about halfway down, the
brake gave way and the sled and its passengers were
hurled from a high trestle. Almost miraculously
they escaped death. Cone, however, being seriously
injured.

A melancholy interest attaches to the connection
of one observer with the station, in view of his sad
fate a few years after his service here. Sergeant W. S.
Jewell, who was in charge from 1878 to 1880, was
given this detail at his own request, that he might
fit himself for service in the Arctic regions. A mem-
ber of the ill-fated Greely expedition, he was the
first of that unhappy company to succumb, perish-
ing from starvation in April, 1884.

Naturally, during the winters that the Summit
was occupied, ascents were numerous, as the hardy

326

THE SUMMITS IN WINTER

climbers knew that there was a warm welcome and
a comfortable shejter at the end of their climb. The
numerous ones made during the first winter of occu-
pation have been already mentioned. Several diffi-
cult or perilous ones are recorded by Edward L.
Wilson as participated in by him. Mention has
already been made of his ascent with B. W. Kilburn
in March, 1871.^ Photography was the principal
object of these gentlemen, who together made five
visits to the Summit in winter.

In the 1 87 1 ascent, the travelers followed in the
main the course of the railroad track, and all went
well until long after the tree-line was passed, al-
though they had found walking on snowshoes, with
seventy-five pounds of photographic paraphernalia
(the "wet" process was all that was then known)
and other baggage to carry, warm work. Soon after
they had passed the halfway point on the railway,
they entered a cloud and were assailed by a cold
northeast sleet-storm, in which they could not see a
yard ahead. Suddenly the wind became more vio-
lent and erratic so that they could not stand alone.
Joined arm in arm, they advanced sidewise with the
greatest difficulty up the steepest part of the climb
in the darkness, passing Jacob's Ladder, for which
they looked as a landmark to guide them, without
seeing it. They floundered on, confused and bewil-

1 Mr. Kilburn kept a camera and photographic apparatus at the
Summit for seven years from 1871 and came up every winter, wit-
nessing some terrible storms and having some severe experiences in
taking his famous winter views. He once saved Sergeant Hearne's
life, when the latter was overcome at Jacob's Ladder, by carrying
the observer bodily up the remaining one and a half miles of icy
track.

327

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

dered by the storm, for some time as best they could,
and at length suddenly came upon the engine-shed,
where they were made welcome by Messrs. Nelson
and Smith. ^

The fifth and last ascent of the two photographers
was made March 2, 1886. This time there was no
heavy baggage to carry, as the "dry" processes of
photography had been invented. They were met
before they reached the tree-line by " Medford " and
two members of the Signal Service, to whom they
had telegraphed their start from the Base. Leaving
their snowshoes at the tree-line, they made their way
first on the rock and crust, which were so discourag-
ingly wet and slippery that they left them for the
cog rail. This proving too dangerously icy, as a last
resort they betook themselves to the cross- ties, on
which there were a few inches of new snow. Over
this hard road they succeeded in reaching the Sum-
mit. At times it required desperate effort to hold
their own against the wind, and on Jacob's Ladder
they were forced to resort to "all-fours," and more
than once to lie flat and hold firmly to the sleepers
until a gust had spent its strength. "Taken alto-
gether," Mr. Wilson declares, "this was the most
difficult ascent we made."

A most perilous ascent, which nearly cost the
climber his life, is narrated by the writer just quoted.
It was performed by Sergeant William Line, who
served on Mount Washington three years (1874-77),
and occurred on November 23, 1875. The day was

^ This ascent and others are pleasantly described by Mr. Wilson
in the volume Mountain Climbing (1897).

328

THE SUMMITS IN WINTER

unpromising, and against his better judgment he
left Fabyan at about 9 a.m., with the mail for the
Summit. All went well as far as the foot of Jacob's
Ladder, which point was reached at one o'clock,
after two hours of hard work from the Base. There
the snow was several feet deep, and the gusts began
to increase in force and frequency, so that he could
advance only by a few steps in the lulls, being com-
pelled to lie flat in the intervals of high wind. Once
his body was blown up against the cross-ties of the
railroad and held there for some time. At length he
succeeded in approaching the Gulf Station-House,
which it seemed for a time impossible to reach, as he
could not stand in such a wind, or even breathe
facing it. Finally, by lying down and, feet first,
backing up the drift near the building, and by falling
down the other side of the drift, he gained the house.
After several futile attempts to continue his ascent,
he returned to the building to pass the night. Here
he found to his consternation that he had lost his
match-box, and that his life depended upon his being
able to light a single damp match which he had in
his vest-pocket. Luckily he was successful in ignit-
ing it. In the morning he resumed his way and was
making good progress, when, near the Summit, he
met his exceedingly anxious companion, Mr. King,
coming down the Mountain in search of him. Hardly
had they arrived when they heard voices, and soon
Mr. Kilburn and two other men appeared coming
up out of the fog. The photographer had been in-
formed by telegraph about midnight that the ob-
server was lost and had immediately started from

329

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Littleton to go in search of him, requesting the others
to join him.

Professor Huntington, who made many ascents,
some of them dangerous, during his winter stay on
the Mountain in 1870-71, made what is recorded as
the most perilous one, late in November, 1873, when
the thermometer stood at 17° below zero and the
velocity of the wind was seventy-two miles an hour.

Place aux dames/ The first women to climb Mount
Washington in winter were — worthy offspring of a
noble sire ! — two daughters of the pioneer, Ethan
Allen Crawford. Mrs. Orville E. Freeman, of Lan-
caster, New Hampshire, and Mrs. Charles Durgin,
of Andover, New Hampshire, in company with their
brother William H. Crawford, of Jefferson, and their
nephew Ethan Allen Crawford, of Jefferson High-
lands, accomplished the feat on a mild afternoon in
January, 1874, walking up the railroad track and
spending the night in the Signal Station. At the out-
set they did not anticipate going to the top, but,
finding progress not so very difficult, they kept on.
They made the entire distance in three hours. Mrs.
Freeman described the trip as "glorious fun" and
expressed the hope that all her women friends might
enjoy the pleasure of making it in winter. The win-
ter ascent was not again, however, made by a woman
until Dr. Mary R. Lakeman, of Salem, Massachu-
setts, achieved it with a party of Appalachians, who
walked up from the Glen House by the carriage road
in February, 1902.

LATER HOTELS

I HAVE already set down, in a previous chapter
devoted to the subject, such facts as I have been
able to gather regarding the early hotels of the White
Mountain region, bringing the chronicles of hotel-
keeping there down to 1870, or thereabouts. In the
seventies the building of the extensions of the already
existing railroads and of an entirely new main line
to the Mountains, the Portland and Ogdensburg,
greatly stimulated travel thither, thousands of sum-
mer visitors coming where hundreds came before.
As a necessary consequence of this increase of travel,
an era of hotel construction and enlargement began,
to continue for a period of thirty years, or until the
advent of the motor age, with its changed conditions
of summer recreation, put an end to the old order of
things in summer resorts and especially to hotel
development along the old lines. During this period
of thirty years or so from 1870 on, there came into
existence, then, many hotels and boarding-houses.
These, by reason of the attractiveness of their loca-
tion, the excellence of their cuisines, and the general
high degree of comfort and convenience provided,
have done much to draw visitors to the region and
to increase and to spread far and wide that high
repute of White Mountain hospitality which the
older hotels had created by the excellence of their
accommodations.

331

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Of these places of entertainment some are still
taking care of patrons as satisfactorily as ever with-
out increased room, but many more have been either
largely rebuilt or succeeded by more capacious and
elegant houses on the same sites, while yet others
have succumbed to the fire fiend and have never
been rebuilt. Space can be taken to narrate the
history of only a few of the more important of these
establishments.

Systematic attempts at the development of Beth-
lehem as a summer resort began toward the close of
the Civil War. In 1859, the Sinclair, now the leading
hotel of Bethlehem village, was a small two-story
and a half gable-roof house — a "well-kept stage
tavern with a few rooms for boarders." As business
increased, additions had to be made from time to
time and the older portions of the structure had to
be modernized. Thus, the huge and commodious
hostelry of to-day has developed by successive in-
crements and alterations.

In 1863, the Honorable Henry Howard, of Provi-
dence, Rhode Island, who was afterward governor
of that State, was visiting the region with a party,
and, the coach in which he was coming down Mount
Agassiz being overturned and most of its occupants
severely injured, several weeks were necessarily
spent in Bethlehem until the injured ones recovered
sufficiently to go to their homes. During this stay
Governor Howard spied out the land and was greatly
impressed with the healthfulness and attractiveness
of the village's location. Becoming convinced that
Bethlehem had great possibilities as a summer re-

332

LATER HOTELS

sort, he made extensive purchases of land there, and
showed his faith in the opinions he had formed as
to the future of the place by selling building-lots on
credit and by lending money to those who were dis-
posed to go into the summer-hotel business.

When it was discovered that, in addition to its
unusual general healthfulness, Bethlehem afforded
speedy relief to visitors who were afflicted with hay-
fever, a new element was added, for many people, to
the charms of the place. The adoption of Bethlehem
as the headquarters of the American Hay- Fever Asso-
ciation has made the fame of the village nation-wide.

Since the time of Governor Howard's activity in
promoting the development of Bethlehem, houses
for the care of summer boarders, who have become
the town's chief, and indeed almost its only, source
of revenue, have multiplied until they are counted
by the score. The people of the town were, it is said,
somewhat slow to appreciate their opportunity, but
when, at length, the destiny of the place became
evident to them, they were very willing to hasten its
development, and provision was made for a water
supply, sewer system, and other adjuncts necessary
to make the village an attractive place of residence.
The spirit of enterprise has ever since characterized
the town and no steps have been left untaken to
attract summer visitors. Bethlehem's frequenters
number annually m^ny thousands. In August and
September, in the height of the hay-fever season,
the village is the place of sojourn of many victims of
this distressing malady, who return year after year,
thus constituting a permanent clientele for the hotels

333

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

and boarding-houses, and there are also staying in
the village many other people, who enjoy the won-
derful air, the coolness, the fine views, and the pleas-
ant life of this highest of New Hampshire villages.

Another man whose name has become indissolu-
bly connected with Bethlehem was Isaac S. Cruft, a
Boston merchant, who came to the village in 1871.
His business sagacity made him realize the sound-
ness of Governor Howard's belief as to the possibili-
ties there and led him to acquire a large tract of land
for summer-resort purposes. This property, known
as the "Maplewood Farm," is situated about a mile
east of the center of Bethlehem at the point on the
highway to Fabyan where the Whitefield road joins
it. The comfortable farmhouse then standing on
this sightly location was remodeled and opened as
a hotel. The new resort immediately sprang into
favor. In 1876, Mr. Cruft erected on the site an
elegant and spacious hotel, the celebrated Maple-
wood. Its magnificent distant view of the Presiden-
tial Range and the excellence of its appointments
soon caused the hotel to grow into high favor, neces-
sitating the building, in 1878, of a large addition.
Maplewood, which has its own railroad station and
post-office, a group of cottages, a large and attrac-
tive casino and spacious grounds, and which pro-
vides every comfort and luxury that can be thought
of and facilities for all kinds of indoor and outdoor
diversion, has long been a fashionable resort and has
ever ranked among the foremost of the great Moun-
tain hotels.

The Twin Mountain House, located in the Am-
334

LATER HOTELS

monoosuc Valley five miles west of Fabyan, with
stations on the Boston and Maine and Maine Cen-
tral Railroads, was built in 1869-70. It was at first
a small house, — only a cottage, — but by additions
and changes it soon became a capacious hostelry,
now one of the landmarks of the Mountains. Its
first proprietor was Asa Barron, whose son, the late
Colonel Oscar G. Barron, was brought here, a boy
of nineteen, in 1869. For two years, Oscar Barron
was associated with C. H. Merrill, who was the man-
ager of the hotel; but in 1872, Mr. Merrill went to
the Crawford House, where he remained until the
close of the season of 1907, and young Barron be-
came the manager. During the next six years the
Twin Mountain House developed, under the land-
lordship of Colonel Barron and his father, until it
became famous, its cuisine and its social life being
"justly celebrated." It was also highly reputed as a
hay-fever refuge. These were the days of its glory.
Henry Ward Beecher returned year after year.
President Grant was a visitor, and many distin-
guished persons of the literary and social world en-
joyed the hospitality of the Barrons. The prestige
then acquired still lingers about the old house. In
1878, Asa Barron leased the Fabyan House, and
four years later the noted hotel firm of Barron,
Merrill, and Barron was formed, which association
has been continued ever since. The Twin Mountain
House has remained under the proprietorship of the
company of this name, which also conducts the
Fabyan House, the Crawford House, and the hotel
on the summit of Mount Washington.

335

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Mention has just been made of the Fabyan House.
As the building of that famous hotel in the Ammo-
noosuc Valley follows in time that of the Twin
Mountain House, the narration of its origin and
subsequent history may well come here. After the
burning of Horace Fabyan's Mount Washington
House, in the spring of 1853, there arose a legal con-
troversy over the ownership of the land constituting
the original hotel site of the Mountains, which pre-
vented the immediate rebuilding of the hotel. Dur-
ing the autumn of 1858, the stables, which the pre-
vious fire had spared, were struck by lightning and
destroyed. The legal difficulties must have dragged
along, for the traveler through the Ammonoosuc
Valley, between Crawford's and Bethlehem or
Franconia in the fifties and sixties, saw only ruins
at the Giant's Grave and found the White Mountain
House, about a mile farther on, the only house of
entertainment in this vicinity.

At length, a stock company, called the Mount
Washington Hotel Company, and composed of
Messrs. Hartshorn, Walcott, and Sylvester Marsh,
was chartered, and, in 1872, work was begun on a
new hotel at the Giant's Grave, which mound was
at that time removed to obtain a level site.^ This,
the present hotel, called the "Fabyan House" in
honor of the proprietor of the previous hotel here,
was opened to guests in 1873. After the opening of
the White Mountains Railroad to this point in 1874
and after the completion of the Portland and Ogdens-
burg from the east as far as here in the following
* Sweetser characterized this as "a needless act of vandalism."

336

LATER HOTELS

year, this location, as the place of changing cars in
the journey through the Mountains and as the
starting-point for the trip up Mount Washington,
soon became the busiest of White Mountain railway
centers, which it has remained to this day.

The first landlord of the Fabyan House was John
Lindsey, one of the old-time stage-drivers of this
region. He, with his partner, Mr. French, remained
in charge until 1878, when, as has been already
noted, the hotel was leased by Asa Barron, of the
Twin Mountain House, who with his son, Oscar,
left the latter that year and came here. Then began
Colonel Oscar G. Barron's famous connection with
the Fabyan House, which lasted for thirty-five years.
To his genial hospitality and thorough knowledge of
hotel-keeping the Fabyan House chiefly owes the
popularity which has characterized it through all
these years.

Colonel Barron's warm-hearted personality en-
deared him to all who in any way came in contact
with him. His services to the town of Carroll and
to the White Mountains in general, as by his efforts
to further and upbuild the summer-resort business
and by his advocacy of the bill for making the
Crawford Notch a State reservation, made his death
in January, 1913, a heavy blow to the White Moun-
tain community.

Another well-known and popular hostelry in this
locality is the Mount Pleasant House, a half-mile
east of the Fabyan House, which, as erected in 1876
by John T. G. Leavitt, was a very different-looking
structure from the one the traveler sees to-day. In

337

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

1 88 1, Joseph Stickney became interested in it and
rebuilt it. Abbott L. Fabyan, son of Horace, man-
aged it for ten years for Barron, Merrill, and Barron,
to whom it was leased. In 1895, it was transformed
into virtually a new establishment, the present large
and comfortable hotel, which achieved a high repu-
tation under the skillful management of the firm of
Anderson and Price.

The story of the Glen House, the celebrated hotel
on the east side of the Presidential Range in the
valley of the Peabody River, has been brought down
elsewhere to the death by drowning, in 1869, of its
first landlord, Mr. Thompson. Two years later, the
hotel passed to the control of Charles R. Milliken
and his brother, Weston F. Milliken. These enter-
prising business men believed that increased patron-
age would follow efforts to provide accommodations
superior to those travelers had been putting up with,
and in their hands the house took a new start and
developed into a first-class hotel. This type of man-
agement, combined with the advantageous location
of the Glen House, far from the noise and bustle of
railways and villages, and commanding one of the
grandest views in the Mountains, soon put it in the
front rank of popular favor. An era of prosperity
set in, during which addition after addition was
made to the old structure until it became an aggre-
gation of buildings. This increase of business and
favor continued unbroken until the autumn of 1884
arrived. The last guests had gone and the house was
being closed on October i for the season, when it
was suddenly discovered to be on fire. The fire,

338

THE FIRST GLEN HOUSE

V ^t

Vtv,"* ?3V"^rft -

J - 1

^'M^.;^4'^sag|g,s;saaiifei''j,m<jU,iB

;;^.:^v:*v:'Z?

THE SECOND GLEN HOUSE, 1885-1893

LATER HOTELS

fanned by a strong northeaster, spread with great
rapidity. Soon all was a mass of flames, and in two
hours what had constituted a good-sized village in
itself was but a heap of ashes.

The destruction of this hotel, in which so many
thousands had been entertained, was a heavy blow,
not only to the proprietors, but to the traveling
public. Without a hotel the region was at once
thrown back into its primitive solitude, and, more-
over, an important link in the chain of Mountain
tours was broken. It was a public misfortune.

Although the pecuniary loss the complete destruc-
tion of the Glen House involved was a serious one,
its proprietors were not disheartened, but immedi-
ately took steps toward the building of a new hotel
on the same site. The old building was, as has been
indicated, a growth, and was in no sense a modern
structure. It was decided to erect in its place a
homogeneous building, attractive in its architecture
and characterized by simple elegance and solid com-
fort in its appointments. The architect chosen,
F. H. Fassett, planned a house in the English cot-
tage style. It was nearly three hundred feet long,
was three stories in height above the basement, and
was provided with a veranda of about four hundred
and fifty feet in length. Within, both the public
rooms and the private rooms were pleasing in their
appearance and commodious, while their furniture
and fittings were in good taste and often luxurious.

The design was so far carried into effect that a
new hotel was opened to the public for the season of
1885. It was, however, not fully consummated until

339

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

the season of 1887, when the huge and attractive
structure, with its accommodations for five hundred
guests, stood complete, as if risen, phoenixlike, from
the ashes of the old. The new Glen House immedi-
ately sprang into high favor with the Mountain
sojourners of the well-to-do variety and was soon
enjoying a large patronage. But, alas! the years of
its existence were to be few. It would almost seem
as if there were a curse upon this site similar to that
which tradition had attached to the Giant's Grave
location on the other side of the Range, for on Sun-
day evening, July 16, 1893, this magnificent struc-
ture caught fire from some unknown cause and in a
few hours the site was again desolate. This disaster,
by which a property of about a quarter of a million
dollars was either destroyed or, by the destruction
of the means of accommodating visitors, rendered
largely valueless, was an overwhelming one to the
proprietors and to the locality itself. The Glen
House has not so far been rebuilt. The stables re-
main, and in them are kept the horses and wagons
for the ascent of Mount Washington by the carriage
road. The business of carrying passengers up and
down the Mountain, conducted here, has kept the
Glen from being abandoned. Of recent years the
building which was used as the servants' quarters
of the hotel, and which escaped the fire, accommo-
dates a few guests, usually those of the pedestrian
class or persons of similar simple tastes, under the
name of the Glen House.

The new house of 1885-93 had too brief an exist-
ence to acquire much in the way of a tradition, but

340

LATER HOTELS

about its famous predecessor of 1852-84 gathered
many happy memories. Many noted persons visited
it either as regular guests or as transients who had
come to make the stage trip to the summit of Mount
Washington. One famous habitu6 of the old house
has his memory perpetuated in a roadside spring
not far away. He, "Josh Billings," was a great trout
fisherman, and in the seventies he used to practice
his favorite diversion upon the streams in this vicin-
ity, even penetrating, in his quest for the speckled
beauties, into the lower sections of the Great Gulf.
Those who visited the Glen House in those days
often saw him, "deep-eyed and hirsutely aureoled,
and talking much of trout in language which, even
in its spoken form, reveals how preciously distinct,
subtle, and blessed its orthography must be."

The history of the hotels in the Franconia Notch
has been already brought down to the year 1872,
when the present Flume House was built. The next
event in this locality, the building of the Profile and
Franconia Notch Railroad, has also been recorded.
The scenic beauties and natural curiosities of the
district have always attracted many visitors, and
hotels of the highest rank have been maintained
there to minister to the wants of permanent and
transient guests. The great hotel, the Profile House,
at the northern entrance of the Notch, particularly,
is one of the famous summer-resort hotels of America.
The hotel and the group of cottages, with the rail-
road station, the stables, etc., constitute a little
world in themselves. The fine appointments, the
cuisine, the opportunities for amusements of various

341

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

kinds, the social life, and other features of the Pro-
file House have always secured for it a liberal patron-
age of refined and cultured people, many of whom
have made the settlement their summer home for
many years. In 1898, a stock company was formed
to hold the Franconia Notch property. Business
having increased and the famous old hotel having
come to be regarded as inadequate, the erection of
a new hotel was decided upon by the owners. Ac-
cordingly, in the autumn of 1905, the old house was
torn down, and on July i, 1906, the New Profile
House, a caravanserai of luxurious appointments,
was opened to the public.

So numerous were the houses of entertainment
that date from the period of which I am writing
that it would take considerable space merely to
name them. I shall tarry but to give the principal
facts concerning a few others at important places
before closing this record of the Mountain hotels
with an account of the building of the great Mount
Washington Hotel at Bretton Woods.

The Sunset Hill House at Sugar Hill was built in
1879 and the Deer Park at North Woodstock was
opened in 1887. The now celebrated Waumbek
Hotel at Jefferson was the result of a remodeling
completed in 1889, the plain but substantial house
built thirty years before being thereby transformed
into the commodious and elegant structure of to-day.
A popular hotel of to-day which represents an inter-
esting development is the Mountain View House
at Whitefield, which, beginning from a farmhouse,
where a passing traveler obtained shelter in 1866,

342

LATER HOTELS

has become by successive additions, the last opened
in 191 2, a large and attractive house. In Septem-
ber, 1898, the Willey Hotel, which Horace Fabyan
had built in the Notch many years before, was,
with its companion building, the historic old Willey
House, burned to the ground.

It remains now only to relate the circumstances
of the most considerable hotel-building enterprise
ever undertaken in the White Mountains, that of the
erection of the Mount Washington. This particular
undertaking differed in conception from most similar
projects of recent years in that the hotel was erected
on a site that had never before been occupied. It is
said that the original builders of the Mount Pleasant
saw the advantages of the location and entertained
a vague idea of sometime building there. Nothing
at any rate came of the plan, however, until the
late Joseph Stickney, of New York, a capitalist of
New Hampshire birth, who, as we have seen, had
become owner of the Mount Pleasant House early
in the eighties, entered upon the development of
the project and carried it through to a successful
conclusion. As the result of this gentleman's enter-
prise and command of large means, one of the most
magnificent summer hotels in the world stands
about a mile from Fabyan upon a little plateau
seventy or eighty feet above the Ammonoosuc
River, with its eastern outlook toward Mount Wash-
ington and the Presidential Range. The architect
was Charles Ailing Gifford, of New York, and the
style of the architecture is of the Spanish Renais-
sance. The general shape is that of a capital letter

343

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Y, and prominent features are two octagonal towers,
five stories in height, between which is the main
portion of the structure. The foundation is of
granite, the blocks where exposed being left in a
rough finish, and the superstructure is of wood,
covered with light-colored cement, laid upon a steel
network, the whole building being as nearly fireproof
as possible. The kitchen is in a detached building.
The interior of the hotel is fitted with every conven-
ience, comfort, and luxury that experience can sug-
gest and the liberal expenditure of money provide.
Active work was begun on the hotel in June, 1901,
and construction was carried rapidly forward, so
that the hotel was opened to the public July 28,
1902. The company owning this hotel and the
Mount Pleasant also owns an extensive tract of
land, much of it virgin forest, around the hotels.
Roads, bridle paths, and trails have been built in
this area, the immediate grounds of the Mount
Washington have been elaborately laid out, and
every facility for outdoor games and amusements
has been provided. In the summer the Mount
Washington and its appurtenances constitute a city
in themselves, so far as completeness of equipment
and of provision for every possible demand of guests
is concerned.

XVI

EARLY TRAILS AND PATH-BUILDERS — THE

APPALACHIAN MOUNTAIN CLUB AND ITS

WORK IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

The building of the first paths to the summit of
Mount Washington by the Crawfords, as well as
that of the bridle path thither from the Glen House,
has been already mentioned. Probably the first path
made on the Northern Peaks was the Stillings Path,
which, starting from the Randolph- Jefferson High-
way in Jefferson Highlands, extended for nine
miles to a point about a mile from the Castellated
Ridge, whence Mount Washington could be reached
over the slopes of Jefferson and Clay. It was this
path that was used in carrying up the lumber for
the Summit House of Rosebrook and Perkins, and
so it is known to have been in existence as early as
1852. In i860 or 1861, a partial trail over the peaks
to Mount Washington, some sections of which are
still in existence, was made by Gordon the guide.
It was in 1875 that the first path up Mount Adams,
which is the oldest of those now maintained on the
Northern Peaks, was constructed by William G.
Nowell, a very active trail-builder in later years, and
Charles E. Lowe, a guide long favorably known to
visitors to that region, and from 1895 to his death
in 1907 proprietor of the Mount Crescent House
at Randolph. Until 1880, Lowe's Path, as it was

345

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

named, was maintained as a toll-path. It is now an
Appalachian Mountain Club path. In 1876, Pro-
fessor J. Rayner Edmands had Mr. Lowe cut a
branch path through King's Ravine, and in the
same year Mr. No well built the first camp on the
Northern Peaks.

An early path up Mount Washington from the
south was completed in 1845 by Nathaniel T. P.
Davis, proprietor of the Mount Crawford House.
About sixteen miles long, it leaves the Saco meadows
near the present Bemis Station, passes up between
Mounts Crawford and Resolution, ascends the
Giant's Stairs on the southwest side, runs along the
Montalban Ridge to Boott Spur, and finally crosses
Bigelow's Lawn to the Crawford Path. Much of
the course of the Davis Path being not particularly
interesting and its length being so great, it did not
become popular, and so it was abandoned in 1853
and was for many years actually obliterated for all
but a very small portion of the way. Professor
Huntington, however, ascended by it in 1871, and
W. H. Pickering and W. S. Fenollosa followed its
route in the main or where possible, in an excursion
to Mount Washington via Mounts Crawford, Reso-
lution, Davis, and Isolation in 1880. In August
and September, 1910, under the direction of Warren
W. Hart, Councillor of Improvements of the Appa-
lachian Mountain Club in that year, this ancient
path was reopened.

A path-builder whose name became early con-
nected with the Glen side of the Mountain, and is
permanently associated with Tuckerman's Ravine,

346

TRAILS AND PATH-BUILDERS

is the late Major Curtis B. Raymond, of Boston, for
many years an explorer and ardent lover of the
Mountains. Major Raymond first visited the Ra-
vine in 1854. In 1879, he opened the well-known
Raymond Path, which leaves the carriage road two
miles up the Mountain and ascends by easy grades
to the snow arch. This was in the main an old route,
that of the bridle path which was cut by Landlord
Thompson, of the Glen House, but which had in
course of time become more or less obstructed by
falling trees. From the Raymond Path a side path
diverges to the celebrated Raymond Cataract, while
the Appalachian Mountain Club Crystal Cascade
Path, also opened in 1879, joins it a quarter of a
mile or so below Hermit Lake. In 1891, Major
Raymond improved his path, and, after his death in
February, 1893, his widow maintained the path for
some years. It was reopened in 1904 and is now an
A.M.C. path. These two paths with the trail from
the snow arch to the Summit, laid out by F. H.
Burt and others in 1881 and now maintained by the
Club, constitute a continuous route through Tucker-
man's Ravine to the summit of Mount Washington.
Benjamin F. Osgood, for many years head porter
of the Glen House and noted as a guide, has been
already mentioned in the latter and other connec-
tions. He was also something of a path-builder, for
in 1878 he opened a path to Mount Madison from
a point near the Glen House, and in 1881 built a
path from Osgood's Falls on the Mount Madison
path to Spaulding's Lake, or just beyond it, at the
head of the Great Gulf. The Osgood Path fell into

347

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

disuse after the burning of the Glen House, but was
reopened in 1904. In 1907, the Appalachian Moun-
tain Club relocated its lower end and adopted it as
an official path.

The founding of the Appalachian Mountain Club
in 1876 marks the beginning of a new epoch in the
exploration, study, and pleasure use of the White
Mountains, for, although the Club has "taken all
outdoors for its field," it is to this region that the
major part of its attention has been directed. In-
deed, the White Mountains may be regarded as
peculiarly an A.M. C. preserve.

Three years before this important event, what is
believed to be the first organization of the sort ever
attempted in America was formed in the White
Mountain Club of Portland, Maine. Its object was,
however, amusement rather than exploration and
scientific study. It had been by members of this
then future club that Carrigain was early visited
(only Professor Guyot and party had previously
been there). Professor George L. Vose and Mr.
G. F. Morse, with J. O. Cobb for a guide, accom-
plishing this difficult climb on September 20-21,
1869.

On August 29-31, 1873, a second ascent of this
mountain was made, this time by a party of six
men from Portland or its vicinity, with two local
men hired as guides. This is known in the White
Mountain Club annals as "the famous Carrigain
party," and, indeed, the expedition was a memorable
one because of an action taken during it. The first
day was spent — because the guides knew nothing

348

TRAILS AND PATH-BUILDERS

of the country — in futile wandering over the worst
kind of obstructions. The men were without water,
and so, when, in the late afternoon, they came
again upon Carrigain Brook, which they had crossed
early in the day, they camped for the night. There
and then the White Mountain Club was founded.
The next day the ascent of the mountain was
achieved by the new club.

The beginnings of the Appalachian Mountain
Club were on this wise. The project of forming an
organization " for the advancement of the interests
of those who visit the mountains of New England
and adjacent regions, whether for the purpose of
scientific research or summer recreation," had been
for some time a subject of discussion among scien-
tists and others residing in or near Boston who were
mountain-lovers. The suggestion of such a club
must date back many years. At length definite
action looking toward its realization was taken. The
initiative came from Professor E. C. Pickering, who,
on January i, 1876, issued fifty cards of invitation
to a meeting, at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology in Boston, "of those interested in moun-
tain exploration." Professor Charles E. Fay was
chairman of this first meeting, held on January 8.
After three preliminary meetings, the first regular
meeting was held on February 9, when a permanent
organization was formed, the original number of
members being thirty-nine. Professor Pickering, to
whom unquestionably belongs the honor of found-
ing the Club, was naturally chosen as its first presi-
dent.

349

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

As the interest in the Club grew and the scope
of its activities became enlarged and more defined,
it was soon evident that it would be advisable for
it to have a legal standing, and so early in 1878 a
corporation was formed to enable the Club to hold
and defend a legal title to any property of which it
might become possessed. The number of incor-
porators was one hundred and fifty, the same name
was retained, and the objects of the Club were set
forth as "to explore the mountains of New England
and the adjacent regions, both for scientific and
artistic purposes; and, in general, to cultivate an
interest in geographical studies." The first meeting
of the corporation was held on March 13, 1878; at
the eighth corporate meeting, on January 8, 1879,
a resolution was passed dissolving the "voluntary,
unincorporated association heretofore known by the
name of the Appalachian Mountain Club."

When one comes to pass in review the activities
of the Club in the White Mountains during the
years since its founding and to record its services in
the exploration of the region and in the promotion of
the pleasure of visitors, and especially of those who
are fond of mountaineering, one must declare at the
outset that time would fail him to tell of a tithe of
the Club's doings and benefactions. In the way of
commendation of the organization's work, it may
be said that all who love to follow a trail up and
over the Mountains, and to live in the open, owe
to the Appalachian Mountain Club an ever-increas-
ing debt for its contributions to the opportunities
and facilities for their enjoyment of the White

350

THE MOUNT PLEASANT TRAIL

A. M. C. HUTS ON MOUNT MADISON

TRAILS AND PATH-BUILDERS

Mountains, and will, one and all, wish to utter a
fervent "Amen" to Dr. Hale's simple benediction,
"Blessings on the Appalachian Club."

One will have to be content also with little more
than a mere enumeration of some of the more im-
portant of the Club's explorations, path-building
and other constructive undertakings, and other ac-
tivities.

It is the custom of the Club to hold one general
field meeting in the summer of each year. Most of
these gatherings have been held in the White Moun-
tains, a goodly number of them, the first in 1886, at
the Summit House on Mount Washington. Other
places of meeting have been the Crawford House,
the Profile House, North Conway,^ Jefferson, Jack-
son, Bethlehem, and North Woodstock.

A winter excursion is now a feature of the Club
year. The earliest of these was made in 1882, in
the first days of February. Jackson was the head-
quarters on this occasion, when a ride through the
Notch to Fabyan was taken.

The first important building work ever under-
taken by the Club is the provision for shelter on the
Northern Peaks, in the form of a stone cabin or hut
at the Madison Spring, which is located on the
south flank of Mount Madison in the depression
between that peak and Mount Adams. The advis-
ability and feasibility of having a place of refuge at
this point having been demonstrated, construction
was begun in August, 1888, the masons going into

^ The first field meeting, that of 1876, was held there, ascents being
made of Kearsarge and Willard-

351

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

camp on the 21st and finishing the walls in about
three weeks. Then ensued a prolonged spell of ex-
traordinarily stormy weather, and it was with the
greatest difficulty that the roof was got on and the
hut made tight for the winter. As originally con-
structed, the building's inside dimensions were six-
teen and one half by twelve and one quarter feet,
and it was seven feet high at the eaves and eleven
at the ridge of the roof. The walls are about two feet
thick and are constructed of flat stones carefully
fitted and pointed inside and outside with Portland
cement. The plans were furnished by J. F. Eaton
and the original cost was about eight hundred dol-
lars. The work of construction was completed in
1889. In 1906, the hut was enlarged by the building
of a compartment for women. Still further provision
for the comfort and convenience of pedestrians was
made by the erection of a second building in 191 1,
which was opened for use in 191 2. This "hut" con-
tains two rooms, one a living-room for the caretaker
and the other a kitchen and dining-room in which
to prepare and serve meals to the guests.

Continuing its policy of promoting the interests
of those vacationists who prefer to tramp, and es-
pecially of improving existing facilities for their
convenience and protection while on an extended
trip, the Club, in 1914, replaced with a stone hut
its log cabin in the Carter Notch, which building
had served as a shelter in that region for ten years,
but which had proved unsatisfactory in location and
in several other ways. For this new camp in this
deep wild cleft in the Carter-Moriah Range, which

352

TRAILS AND PATH-BUILDERS

lies east of the Presidential Range, a better situation
than that of the old cabin was chosen. The latter
was close under the western slope of Carter Dome,
but the new structure is in an open place beside the
southern one of the two beautiful tarns in the mid-
dle of the Notch and commands a pleasant outlook
down the Wildcat Valley toward Jackson. This, the
third of the Club's stone huts, has accommodations
for thirty-six persons, with separate heated rooms
for men and women.

The most recent building enterprise of the Club
is the Lakes of the Clouds Hut, which was con-
structed in the early summer of 1915 and opened to
the use of the mountain-climbing fraternity in Au-
gust. It is located on a little terrace on the Mount
Monroe side of the larger of the two lakelets from
which it gets its name, faces the south, from which
direction the bridle path approaches it, and, al-
though not situated directly on the path, is only a
few rods from it. In planning the kind of structure
to be erected at this situation, which, unlike those
of the other A.M.C. huts, is in a place from which
it is a long, and in violent weather a dangerous, way
to the protecting timber of lower levels, it was
thought advisable to depart somewhat from the
type of hut previously built and to construct one
in which the tramper — who, if caught at this point
in a storm, must perforce wait it out there — would
be able to pass a more comfortable time than is
possible in the older kind of hut, with its low walls
and few and narrow windows. So the new hut was
provided with somewhat higher stone walls, — it is

353

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

not, like the first Madison Hut, built into the side
of the mountain, — and, as a special constructive
feature, with several large plate-glass windows,
consisting not, however, of single panes, but of
large lights set in steel frames. In the lighter and
otherwise more attractive interior thus made pos-
sible, a person imprisoned during a driving tempest
would have a rather pleasant experience, being able
not only to stay there in comparative comfort, but
also to watch the antics of the storm; while in
clear weather, if it happened to be too cool or too
windy to remain outside with pleasure, a sojourner
at this camp would find it far from disagreeable
to sit within and view the prospect down the Am-
monoosuc ravine and away to the distance. Accom-
modations, not luxurious but comfortable, are
provided for twelve women and twenty-four men.

A new convenience for mountain-climbers, intro-
duced in 191 5, was the establishment of wireless
telegraph service at the Madison, Lakes of the
Clouds, and Carter Notch Huts, radio outfits being
installed at each, so that thereby intending visitors
might be enabled to reserve accommodations from
hut to hut or from the world below by telephoning
to the Madison Hut.

Other shelters of a less permanent character have
been built by the Club in various parts of the Moun-
tains, as, near Hermit Lake in Tuckerman's Ravine,
on the Crawford Path,^ and on Mount Liberty in

^ The shelter on this trail was built in 1901, as has been stated in
connection with the recital of the story of the perishing of Curtis and
Ormsbee. In 1915, on the erection of the Lakes of the Clouds Hut,

354

A. M. C. HUT ON MOUNT MONROE

MOUNT MONROE HUT INTERIOR

TRAILS AND PATH-BUILDERS

the Franconia Range ; and it is one of the ambitions
of this benevolent organization to establish a chain
of huts and camps throughout the Mountains as one
of its agencies for achieving its purpose of cultivat-
ing the tramping habit and the love of woods and
mountains.

On the Northern Peaks are a number of privately
built camps, such as the Log Cabin, constructed by
William G. Nowell in 1890, and the Cascade and
Perch Camps, built in 1892-93 by the late Professor
Edmands, of Harvard Observatory, a member of
the Appalachian Club, who at his own expense con-
structed also many miles of paths on the Presiden-
tial Range, including the Gulfside Trail, the Ran-
dolph Path, the Israel Ridge Path, the Edmands
Path from between Mounts Franklin and Pleasant
down the side of the latter, and the Westside Trail.

These paths and many others are now maintained
by the Club. Not a few have been newly constructed
and a number of older ones have been reopened.
The work of path-making was almost immediately
taken up by the Club after its organization and has
since been a very important feature of its work. In
1876 and afterward, Lowe's Path up Mount Adams
was improved, and in that and the following year,
the Jackson-Carter Notch Path, another Club path,
was built by Jonathan G. Davis. A Club path to
Tuckerman's Ravine from the Crystal Cascade was,
as we have seen, opened in 1879. In 1878 and 1894,
paths were opened along Snyder Brook on the side

it was removed to a point, about half a mile farther north, where the
Boott Spur Trail meets the Crawford Path.

355

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

of Mount Madison, sections of which paths were
incorporated in the graded Valley Way from Appa-
lachia Station to the Madison Hut, a path built by
Professor Edmands in 1895-97. Iri 1882, a trail was
built by the Club over the Twin Mountain Range.
The Air Line Path up Durand Ridge to Mount
Adams was built as to its lower part by Messrs. W. H.
Peek, E. B. Cook, and L. M. Watson, in 1883-84,
and in the latter year a trail to the Castellated Ridge
on Mount Jefferson was made under the direction of
William G. Nowell. The old Fabyan (originally
Crawford) Path to Mount Pleasant was reopened
by the Club in 1886, but, being little used, it soon
became overgrown again. ^ A path up Mount Gar-
field^ in the Franconia Range was opened in 1897.
The Boott Spur Trail, which utilizes a mile of the old
Davis Trail before it joins the Crawford Trail, dates
from 1900. Six years later, the Glen Boulder Trail
was opened to the summit of Mount Washington.

Club paths are now to be found over the entire
Mountain region. There are, for instance, trails up
Mount Moosilauke and a path ascending the Fran-
conia Range from the south through the Flume.
The Club is now devoting its attention to the per-
fecting of an organic system of main through-route
paths, by which it will be possible to traverse nearly
all the principal ranges and valleys from end to end
and to cross from one valley to another.

^ In 1900, this path was again reopened, this time by Mr. Anderson,
of the Mount Pleasant House, and Professor Edmands, who had it
cleared and improved. A new road was made then to the foot of the
mountain.

* So named in 1881, at the suggestion of Frances E. Willard.

356

TRAILS AND PATH-BUILDERS

Reservations are owned by the Club in various
parts of the Mountains, notably at North Wood-
stock, Appalachia, Shelburne, the Glen Ellis Falls,
and the Crystal Cascade.

Another undertaking of the Club is the mainte-
nance on most of the less-frequented summits of
copper cylinders containing paper and pencil, for
recording ascents and the names of the climbers.
This was a systemization of a matter hitherto left to
individual initiative and only sporadically attended
to. As it may be of some interest to the reader to
have set before him the circumstances connected
with the previous attempts of this nature alluded to,
a brief narration of them may therefore be pardon-
ably interjected here.

Mention was made in the early pages of this
chronicle of one or two cases in which visitors to the
top of Mount Washington left on the Summit a
record of their achievement in mountaineering.^ In
1824, Ethan Allen Crawford attempted to make
provision for those who wished to leave their names,
carrying up a thin piece of sheet lead, eight or ten
feet in length and seven inches wide, which was put
round a roller he made for the purpose. He also
made an iron pencil for use on the lead, by which
means he thought visitors could much more quickly
and easily register their names "than they could
carve them with a chisel and hammer on a rock."
The party of vandals from Jackson, already spoken
of as carrying off the brass plate placed on the

* See the accounts of the expeditions of Belknap's party (p. 31);
of Brazer and Dawson (p. 84) ; and of Dr. Bigelow (p. 37).

357

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Mountain in 1818, also took away at the same time
(1825) Mr. Crawford's sheet of lead, which is said
to have been run into musket balls.

The next placing of a register on a White Moun-
tain summit is credited to the famous guide, Benja-
min F. Osgood, who on August 12, 1854, placed a
roll, probably in a bottle, on Mount Adams. By
1866, it contained twelve names, it is said, and ten
years later twenty. Lastly, L. L. Holden, of the
Boston Journal^ in his account, in " Mount Washing-
ton in Winter," of the excursion of Mr. Nelson and
himself to Mount Adams on the 6th of May, 1871,
tells of their inscribing their names ''upon an old
sardine box which had evidently served as a sort of
visitors' register for nearly a dozen years."

The Appalachian Mountain Club took up this
matter of providing means for registration of ascents
in the first summer of its existence, William G.
Nowell placing a Club bottle on the summit of
Mount Adams on July 22, 1876, as the roll placed
in this receptacle records. On August 23 of the next
year, the bottle was replaced by an A.M. C. cylinder.
The successive rolls on Mount Adams are in good
order and form a continuous, or nearly continuous,
record. Their history is marked, however, by one
noteworthy occurrence, for in June, 1894, the cylin-
der was struck by lightning and destroyed. It was
promptly replaced. On the new roll of that year, it
is recorded that a small party suffered to some extent
from the shock of that stroke. The year 1876 appears
to be the date that Mount Madison first received a
register.

358

TRAILS AND PATH-BUILDERS

The last of the Club's activities I shall mention in
this fragmentary and, considering the merit of its
achievements, far from commensurate, account of
them, is one of the most important. This is its
means of disseminating among its members and to
the world in general the information, scientific and
other, acquired by explorations, the reports of the
various departments of the Club work, and the like.
The Club's journal, Appalachia, was established
immediately after the Club's founding in 1876, and
the first number appeared in June of that year. The
idea of publishing papers by members of the Club
in an official periodical was conceived by the ento-
mologist, Samuel H. Scudder, the Club's first vice-
president and second president. He determined the
form and character of the magazine, gave it its
euphonious and now widely known name, and was
its first editor. As a large part of the contents of the
journal relates to the White Mountains, the volumes
constitute a scientific and topographical record of
them of inestimable value.

XVII

THE GREAT FIRE ON MOUNT WASHINGTON —
OTHER RECENT EVENTS OF INTEREST

Aside from the establishment of the White Moun-
tain National Forest, to be dealt with in the next
chapter, the most notable event in recent White
Mountain history is an occurrence which has already
been several times mentioned incidentally, the great
fire of the night of Thursday, June i8, 1908, by
which the active portion of the settlement on New
England's highest point was in a few hours wiped
out and the Summit thrown back to the primitive
conditions of half a century before. This most dis-
astrous conflagration not only was a serious set-
back to the business interests concerned, — a repa-
rable injury, — but, by its removal of a number of
ancient landmarks about which were clustered mem-
ories and associations of many a sort, it occasioned
a sentimental loss which cannot be recovered. For
it was with genuine sorrow that the news of the fire
came to thousands throughout this country and in
distant lands, and particularly was the destruction
of the hotel lamented by those who as permanent
summer guests had enjoyed the hospitality and
shelter of the Summit House, and by those whose
occupations were in connection with the enterprises
conducted on the Summit.

Many had been the pleasant gatherings around
the office stove enjoyed by the little Summit colony

360

FIRE ON MOUNT WASHINGTON

or "family," as they called themselves. To them,
such was their attachment to their summer home,
the passing of the old structure was like the loss
if a dear human friend. Wrote Annie Trumbull
olosson, a regular sojourner at the Summit: "I
know . . . that no new hostelry . . . will ever be to
us, the little band of habitues, of annual dwellers
therein, of devoted pilgrims seeking each summer a
loved shrine, just the same as the dear old Summit
House. Of late years it had been my home, my
homiest home. . . . Dear old house! I loved every
timber, every clapboard of it."

As a spectacle the fire, involving so many build-
ings situated at such an elevation, and occurring, as
it did, in the early evening of a clear day, was natu-
rally a brilliant and far viewable one. As in addition
to these circumstances the fire was early discovered
and the news of it soon communicated to the Moun-
tain towns and villages, many inhabitants of the
localities from which Mount Washington is visible
were enabled to witness this unforgettable sight and
even to watch the conflagration's progress.

There is a dramatic element, too, in the time of
year of the fire's occurrence, for it was while prepa-
rations were going actively forward for the summer.
For several days previous to that calamitous Thurs-
day, the railway men had been employed during the
day in putting things in readiness. The section of
track along the platform had just been recon-
structed, the following Sunday the manager and
other employees of the hotel were due to arrive, and
the opening was set for the 29th.

361

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

On the fateful day, work had been done under the
direction of Superintendent John Home in making
the Summit House habitable for the summer. Be-
tween 4.30 and 5 P.M. the employees' train left for
the Base, but before its departure a party of young
people from Berlin arrived, who had come over the
Range from the Madison Hut and were intending to
pass the night in the stage office. Everything was
apparently right when the railway employees de-
parted.

It had been a beautiful day, and there was a bril-
liant sunset. After the sun had gone down, the light
still lingered on the peaks, as it was nearly the long-
est day of the year. No one thought of any disaster
being about to happen. The railway men had set-
tled themselves for a quiet evening's rest; others
were enjoying the beauty of the evening sky.

It was at the Fabyan House, probably, that the
first discovery of the fire from below was made. A
number of persons connected with the hotel, or
staying there, as they came out from supper caught
sight of a glow on the Summit House. The book-
keeper of the hotel, who first saw it, called to his
friends to come to see the "pretty sight." One of
the latter, the clerk, soon detected a suspicious
flickering of the light and so hurriedly summoned
Colonel Barron, who was at the cottage, by tele-
phone. At first the latter thought it was the reflec-
tion of the sunlight, but soon an outburst of flame
revealed the light's true nature, and an alarm was
at once telephoned to the Base, where, such is the
station's position in relation to the Summit, no sign

362

FIRE ON MOUNT WASHINGTON

of the fire had been discovered. Immediately a
train was made ready and a force of employees under
Superintendent Home started for the Summit. Not
until the Gulf Tank was reached were the flames
visible from the train. As the top was approached,
it could be seen that the hotel was already a mass of
flames and that it would be impossible to run the
train to the platform. So a stop was made a short
distance below the water tank, and the remainder of
the way was made on foot. When the men arrived,
the roof of the Summit House had already gone, the
fire was working its way to the cottage, the stage
office had fallen in, the home of Among the Clouds
was ablaze, and the train-shed had been completely
destroyed. The walk leading to the Tip-Top House
was at once cut away, as the fire had begun to creep
along it, but this precaution proved unnecessary, as
the high wind kept the flames from traveling farther
in that direction. Soon the Signal Station caught
from the fire in the ruins of the train-shed, and the
crest of the peak was an unbroken line of flame.
Nothing could be done to stay the work of destruc-
tion, and the powerless men could only watch the
progress of the flames and think of what it meant.
When the fire was seen at the Glen House, the
housekeeper immediately telephoned to the office at
Gorham of the E. Libby & Sons Company, the firm
which controls the carriage road, and to the Halfway
House. The superintendent of the road, George C.
Baird, at once prepared to start for the Summit in a
wagon. Before he left, four boys of the Berlin party
arrived, having hurried down to give the alarm.

363

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Near the five-mile post the remainder of the party
were met, one of whom, a teacher, said the flames
had first been seen breaking from a window in the
corner of the hotel nearest the printing-office. Some
of them had entered to try to put out the fire, but it
had gained such headway that they were unsuccess-
ful. They also tried to telephone, not knowing that
the telephone had been disconnected. Superintend-
ent Baird reached the Summit in time to see the fire
at its height.

Before midnight the fire had burned itself out and
the Crown of New England was covered with a deso-
late heap of embers and ashes, charred timbers, and
ruined metal work, the Tip-Top House alone of all
the Summit buildings being left to watch over this
sad scene of devastation.

The buildings destroyed have been already named.
Besides the Tip-Top House, the flames also spared
the two stables, a few hundred feet below the Sum-
mit. The high wind was the means of saving the
upper stable, as the gusts blew off the blazing pieces
of wood which fell on the roof of that building before
they had time to do more than scorch the shingles.

The destruction of all but one of the buildings
made a great alteration in the sky-line of the top of
Mount Washington as seen from below, restoring it
nearly to the appearance it had about 1855. The
tall chimney of the hotel, however, which remained
standing for some time, stood out like a monument
and was a striking object from all the country round.

Plans for rebuilding the hotel were at once talked
of, and it was at first thought that by extraordinary

364

THE FIRE ON MOUNT WASHINGTON AS SKEN FROM CORHAM

FIRE ON MOUNT WASHINGTON

efforts a new hotel might be ready for use by the
first of August. When, however, it was remembered
that it took two years to build the destroyed hotel
and two hundred and fifty trains to carry up the
material, and that on account of the exposed position
and the uncertain weather conditions work on the
mountain-top was both difficult and dangerous, it
was seen that reconstruction would have to proceed
slowly.

Meanwhile, the only thing to do was to restore
the Tip-Top House to its original use as a hotel, and,
accordingly, steps were at once taken to that end.
The railway ties and supporting timbers, which had
been burned, and the rails, which had been twisted
out of shape, were replaced by almost superhuman
efforts as soon as the 29th day of June, so that the
first regular passenger train made its trip on that
day, according to schedule. The repairs on the Tip-
Top House were also hastened along. The old parti-
tions, floors, and sheathing were taken out and re-
placed by new material, the windows were again
exposed to daylight, and the observatory room at
the back was fitted up as a kitchen. Soon the old
house, unused as a hotel for an interval of thirty-five
years, was, under the conduct of the staff of the
Summit House, entertaining visitors in the plain but
cheerful and comfortable manner of a half-century
before.

And such were the conditions of hospitality that
obtained on Mount Washington for seven years
after the fire ; for, although plans were made for the
early erection of a new wooden hotel on the Summit,

365

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

and, on the 27th of July, 1910, the cornerstone was
laid and work begun on the foundation of a building
on the Summit House site, no new building crowned
Mount Washington until the summer of 191 5.

The foundation just mentioned was completed,
but further work was not carried on, as the adoption
of more elaborate plans, which provided for the
erection of a massive Summit House of stone, con-
crete, steel, and glass, whose center should be on
the very apex of the peak, and for the building of
a scenic electric railway, twenty miles long, up
Mount Washington, were about that time decided
upon by the railroads interested. But the depression
in business in New England and the failure of the
project for combining the two principal railroads of
this section into one system prevented the consum-
mation of the plans, and the undertaking, which, on
any such scale as here outlined, would seem to have
been, even under the most favorable conditions, a
chimerical one, was abandoned. The surveys, how-
ever, were made and the lines of the proposed build-
ing staked out. The survey, also, of the railroad,
which was laid out to circle the Mountain several
times in ascending it, was begun on July 4, 191 1, and
was completed in October, 1912.^

^ The roadbed was to be constructed of rock and the grade was to
be uniformly six per cent. The cost was estimated to be upwards of
a million dollars, and the time required for construction about two
years. The route starts at the Base Station, goes up Mount Jefferson
to the very edge of the Castellated Ridge, crosses the west slopes of
Jefferson and Clay, and winds around the cone of Mount Washington
two and a half times, passing close to the head wall of Tuckerman's
Ravine, Boott Spur, and the Lakes of the Clouds. The necessary per-
mission for building the road and appurtenances was granted to the

366

OTHER EVENTS OF INTEREST

The year 191 5 was rendered a memorable year in
the annals of Mount Washington by two events,
the construction and opening of a new Summit hotel
and the occurrence of another fire, by which an
ancient landmark was for the most part destroyed.

After the abandonment of the project, just out-
lined, of building a scenic railway up the Mountain
and a very costly hotel on the Summit, nothing was
done for a year or so about constructing a new
house there. But the idea of having some kind of
shelter for visitors more commodious and comfort-
able than was furnished by the old Tip-Top House
was not given up by the persons most concerned in
the matter, the officials of the Concord and Mont-
real Railroad Company, which controls the Mount
Washington Railway. At length it was decided to
build a modest structure, using the accumulated
profits of the little road to pay for it, and plans
for a new building on this basis were completed
in the autumn of 19 14.

As most of the people who come to the Summit
remain but a few hours, it was thought advisable in
designing the interior to adapt it to serve principally
as a station and restaurant, but the provision of
comfortable accommodations for those visitors who
desire to spend a night in order to witness the im-
pressive sunset and sunrise, or who wish to remain
for a longer time, was by no means disregarded.

Last summer saw the materialization of these

Concord and Montreal Railroad by the New Hampshire Board of
Public Service Commissioners in July, 1912. One result of the survey
is the most accurate map ever made of Washington, Clay, and
Jefferson.

367

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

plans, and Mount Washington is now again crowned
with a Summit House, and one equal in appoint-
ments and in comfort to any mountain-top hotel in
the world. The new house, which is one hundred and
sixty-eight feet long, thirty-eight feet wide, and
one and one-half stories in height, is constructed of
wood, has its outside walls shingled, and rests upon
the foundation already mentioned as having been
completed some years ago upon the site of its pred-
ecessor. The building was framed at Lisbon during
the winter and the frame was hauled to the Base
in the early spring. Work was commenced on the
Summit on May lo, about twenty men, who boarded
in the Tip-Top House, being employed. Although
the workmen had to contend in May with snow,
frost, terrific winds, clouds, and rain, which rendered
it impossible to work at all on some days, and with
more or less bad weather later, good progress was
made and the hotel was completed in time to be
opened about a month before the close of the
season.

To avoid having to resort to the usual practice of
anchoring the building to the Mountain with stout
chains in order to hold it on its foundation, the sills
of this substantial structure are sunk in the solid
concrete and then secured with heavy iron bolts,
each post is fastened to the sills with wrought-iron
straps, and the second half-story is similarly bound
to the first-floor plates.

The main floor is given up mostly to the office,
restaurant, and other public rooms, while the guest-
rooms and employees' rooms are on the floor above.

368

OTHER EVENTS OF INTEREST

The hotel is heated with steam, lighted with elec-
tricity, and supplied with water from the Lakes of
the Clouds, which ts pumped from the Base into
a large tank located on the highest point of the
Summit.

The opening of the new house took place on
August 21, in the presence of prominent railroad
officials, various members of the Appalachian Moun-
tain Club, many residents of the Mountain towns,
and others. Among the special features of this cele-
bration, which was such an event as Mount Wash-
ington had never seen before, was a flag-raising, a
dinner, an address on "The Old Times and the
New," by Rev. Dr. Harry P. Nichols, to whom was
given the honor of being the first to register, and
an illumination by means of rockets of many colors
and red lights, for which latter railroad fusees were
used. This display, which began at 9 p.m. and lasted
for half an hour, was given a spectacular finish by
the descent of the railroad in three minutes by the
veteran roadmaster Patrick Camden on a slide-
board, carrying gleaming red lights. He was fol-
lowed by the train similarly illuminated, and the
final note was struck by the firing of a dynamite
salute at the Glen House. Unfortunately, clouds
prevented the illumination of the Summit being
seen at distant points, and the success of the idea of
lighting up various Mountain peaks with bonfires
in honor of the event.

The New Summit House had been opened but a
week, when Mount Washington was the scene of
another spectacular event, the burning of the famous

369

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

old Tip-Top House, which very nearly involved its
sister building in its own fate. Providentially, the
wind during the fire was from the northeast and so
carried the flames directly away from the new build-
ing, which otherwise would not have been spared.

The blaze was discovered at seven o'clock on
Sunday morning, August 29, and in an hour's time
the roof and other woodwork were entirely con-
sumed, and only the stone walls, which did not
crumble at all, were left standing. The fire, which
is supposed to have been caused by a defective
chimney, was fed by quantities of paint and oil
stored in the building, and spread so rapidly that
the occupants, a cook and four carpenters employed
on the Summit House, were not able to save many
of their belongings. The only object connected
with the building that was saved was the old
weather-beaten sign over the door, which was res-
cued from the burning structure by a grandson of
John H. Spaulding, one of the builders and early
landlords of the ancient hotel.

The fire was visible for miles around, and ap-
peared so large that when first seen at the various
resorts among the Mountains, many feared that
the new house was burning. The news soon spread
that it was the old Tip-Top House that was on fire,
and so thousands of people witnessed from afar the
spectacular passing of one of the most famous land-
marks in New England. The destruction of the old
house so soon after its mission was fulfilled, of afford-
ing a shelter to visitors during a period when it was
so much needed, added the last touch of pathos to

370

OTHER EVENTS OF INTEREST

the history of this venerable monument of early
enterprise. But the Tip-Top House is not to remain
a ruin or to disappear from the landscape, for it is
the announced intention of the railway company to
restore it so far as possible to its former appearance
by rebuilding the wooden roof on the old walls.

The chronicle of events relating to Mount Wash-
ington would be incomplete without some mention
of the famous "Climbs to the Clouds" of a few
years since. The rapid progress in the development
of the automobile about the beginning of the twen-
tieth century and the successful construction of
powerful steam and gasoline vehicles stimulated
manufacturers and owners to test the hill-climbing
capabilities of the new mechanical means of trans-
portation. Naturally the attention of enthusiastic
motorists was drawn to the Mount Washington
Carriage Road as furnishing the most difificult piece
of hill-climbing in the East and thus the finest pos-
sible test of the quality of a machine in this respect,
and also the opportunity for making records in a
new and exciting form of sport.

Permission having been obtained to make use of
the road in this way, Mr. and Mrs. F. O. Stanley,
of Newton, Massachusetts, made on August 31, 1899,
the first ascent by automobile, the machine being
a steam one. The first officially timed ascent of the
Mountain by automobile was made on August 25,
1903, when the trip took one hour and forty-six
minutes. The following year, on July 11 and 12, the
first automobile climbing contest was held. Harry
S. Harkness made a record of 24 minutes, 37f

371

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

seconds, and F. E. Stanley one of 28 minutes, 19I
seconds.

These records were surpassed in the second
"Climb to the Clouds," which took place on July
17 and 18, 1905. In this contest the best time was
made by W. M. Hilliard, 20 minutes, 58 1 seconds.
Bert Holland in a steam car made the ascent in 22
minutes, I7| seconds.^ The climb has been made
on a motor cycle in 20 minutes, 59^ seconds, Stanley
T. Kellogg achieving the feat.

A distinguished visitor to the summit of Mount
Washington in 1907 was Ambassador James Bryce,
who, accompanied by Mrs. Bryce, Rev. Dr. Harry
P. Nichols, and a few others, walked up the Craw-
ford Bridle Path late in the season. Mr. Bryce (as
he was then), who is an enthusiastic mountaineer
and a former president of the English Alpine Club,
enjoyed greatly the walks and climbs in the neigh-
borhood of Intervale, where the summer home of
the British Embassy was established that year. The
unfavorable weather he was so unfortunate as to
experience on the Summit did not spoil the enjoy-
ment of the visit for the genial British gentleman,
whose delightful personality is most pleasantly re-
membered by all who were privileged to meet him
at that time.

Much interest has been taken in late years in
Lost River, a small stream in the Kinsman Notch.
About seven miles west of North Woodstock, this

^ A related automobile feat may be noted here. This is the record
climb of Tug-of-War Hill (so-called), the steep ascent from the south
to the Gate of the Notch, which was achieved in July, 1906, in the
time of 2 minutes and 48 seconds.

LOST RIVER

OTHER EVENTS OF INTEREST

mountain brook passes for a distance of about half
a mile through a remarkable series of glacial caverns,
which is the third great curiosity in the Franconia
Mountain region, the Profile and the Flume being
the other two. In these dark and gloomy caves,
which are from forty to seventy-five feet deep, the
water of this mountain brook disappears from sight
and at times from sound. This unique natural
wonder, which far surpasses the Flume in its sur-
prises and its massive rock structure, was discovered
about 1855 by R. C. Jackman, of North Woodstock.
About 1875, when he returned to live in North
Woodstock after an absence of some fifteen years,
he cut a footpath to the caves, and for a number of
years he acted as a guide to this and other scenic
attractions of the region. Fortunately, in 1912, the
Society for the Protection of New Hampshire
Forests acquired a forest reservation of one hun-
dred and forty-eight acres surrounding and includ-
ing the caves, the owners generously offering to
give the land if the Society would buy the standing
timber on the tract. A legacy and gifts enabled the
Society to accept the offer, the sum required being
about seven thousand dollars. Further gifts have
made it possible to provide bridges, ladders, and
trails to render the caverns accessible, and to build
a comfortable shelter for the use of visitors.

Two important highways built in the early years
of the present century should receive at least a
brief mention because of interesting circumstances
connected with them. One is the John Anderson
Memorial Road, named in honor of the senior mem-

373

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

ber of the noted former hotel firm of Anderson and
Price, of Bretton Woods. Mr. Anderson, who was
the son of General Samuel J. Anderson, of Portland
and Ogdensburg Railway fame, did much for the
White Mountains.

The road came into existence in this way. Desir-
ing to find a way from Bretton Woods to the Fran-
conia Notch which would be shorter than the exist-
ing road via Bethlehem and Franconia Village, and
which would avoid the long climbs on that route,
Mr. Anderson, with a party from Bretton Woods, in
the autumn of 1902, explored the region lying be-
tween that locality and the Franconia Notch. The
route for a road was surveyed by R. T. Gile in
November of that year, and a final location was
made by him in the summer of the next year. In
the autumn of 1903, a bridle path was constructed
under the supervision of the State Engineer and
opened. In July, 1905, the State began the work
of developing the bridle path into a highway, which
was constructed that summer and autumn. After
Mr. Anderson's death, which occurred at Ormond,
Florida, in February, 191 1, his name was fittingly
attached to this new State Road, which runs from
near Twin Mountain to the Profile Golf Links.

The other highway, the Jefferson Notch Road, be-
sides being one of convenience, is because of its
location one of the grandest drives in the State.
Rising, as it does, to an elevation of three thousand
and eleven feet, it commands magnificent views.
When the construction of this road was agitated,
the New Hampshire Legislature appropriated six

374

OTHER EVENTS OF INTEREST

thousand dollars for the purpose, on condition that
the additional expense should be defrayed by pri-
vate subscription. Toward the needed amount
several hotel companies, the Boston and Maine
Railroad Company, and the citizens of Jefferson
Highlands contributed forty-five hundred dollars.

The southern division, to which the State High-
way Commissioners have given the name Mount
Clinton Road, as much of its course lies along the
slope of that mountain, was built by Contractor
Thomas Trudeau, of Pierce Bridge, and was opened
November 8, 1901. The Commissioners, Messrs.
John Anderson, C. H. Merrill, and E. A. Crawford
(the third of the name), were, however, unable to
find contractors willing to undertake the task of
constructing the northern or Jefferson division. Mr.
Crawford then came to the rescue and personally
constructed the road. In carrying the project
through to a successful conclusion, he had to meet
many difficulties, which included bad weather, con-
struction through forest and rock and over the crest
of a ridge, the holding together of a force of sturdy
mountain men, and the pledging of his own credit
for the funds required in the prosecution of the work.

The first trip over the road was made on August
9, 1902, when Mr. Crawford drove a three-seated
buckboard, drawn by two horses and containing six
other persons, from the Base Station of the Mount
Washington Railway to his house in Jefferson High-
lands, The formal opening was held on Tuesday,
September 9, 1902, when Mr. Crawford drove over
the road in an eight-horse wagon, in which were

375

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Governor Chester B. Jordan and his councillors.
At the summit of the road the party was met by a
cavalcade from Bretton Woods. After an exchange
of bugle salutes, a dismounting, a handshaking, and
general congratulation, the horsemen escorted the
governor's party to the Mount Washington Hotel,
then recently opened, where luncheon was had.
Among the party at the opening was the venerable
Stephen M. Crawford, son of Ethan Allen Crawford,
the pioneer.

This road, so auspiciously opened, was nearly de-
stroyed by the tremendous downpour of June ii
and 12, 1903, but it was repaired and in July, 1904,
reopened.

Of late years the Jefferson division has been usable
only for horses by fording, as the bridges over two
streams had not been replaced. After the Legislature
of 1 9 14 had failed to make an appropriation for
reopening the road so as to make it passable by auto-
mobiles, the Bretton Woods Company and a promi-
nent summer resident of Jefferson Highlands jointly
undertook to rebuild the road at their own expense.
In 19 1 5, it was advertised to be open, but the fre-
quent rains of that summer rendered it rather unsafe
or at any rate difficult to travel over.

XVIII

THE LUMBER INDUSTRY IN THE WHITE MOUN-
TAINS — THE PERIL OF THE FORESTS — THE
WHITE MOUNTAIN NATIONAL FOREST — OTHER
RESERVATIONS

But one other important event, and that one
which is still in process, remains to be recorded be-
fore this chronicle shall be completed by having been
brought down to this present. The event referred
to is the creation and increment of the White Moun-
tain National Forest.

In order to arrive at a proper understanding of
the circumstances which gradually made evident the
necessity for action of this sort, it is essential to
review briefly the history of lumbering in this region
and to give also some facts relating to the local
effects of the reckless cutting of the trees practiced
by settlers and lumbermen, and, further, some in-
formation regarding the destructive effects here and
there in the Mountains of that other menace to the
life of the forest, the forest fire. When this shall
have been done, I shall rehearse as briefly as I may
the steps in the rather prolonged process which
proved necessary to bring about the desired action
in respect to the White Mountain forest on the part
of the Federal Government, and shall conclude with
some brief statements as to the other reservations in
the region.

377

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

From the first settlement of the region of northern
New Hampshire, lumbering has been a leading in-
dustry there. In the earlier settled towns along the
coast there was from the beginning a demand for
building material and ship timber, and so the set-
tlers in the river valleys among the Mountains soon
recognized the commercial value of the veteran
white pines. Moreover, the forests were regarded as
more or less of an obstruction to agriculture and as
therefore to be removed as soon and as rapidly as
possible. The histories of the early days of various
towns bear witness to the beginning and develop-
ment of the lumber industry. An account of Shel-
burne in 1800 speaks of the prodigal use of the best
trees for the frames of houses and for the making
of shingles, baskets, chair bottoms, ox bows, etc.,
all the rest of the timber cleared, it is stated, being
piled and burned on the spot; and the record goes
on to say : "Logging was always a standard industry,
and the timber holds out like the widow's meal and
oil. All the pines went first; nothing else was fit
for building purposes in those. days." The "Craw-
ford History," in recording the chief facts regarding
the settlement and growth of Conway touches upon
the activity of the early inhabitants of that town in
this direction: "They soon began the lumber busi-
ness by floating logs and masts down the Saco to
its mouth, where they received bread stuff and other
necessaries of life in exchange."

By the middle of the last century the industry
had become well established as one of the region's
principal ones. It is stated that the white pine was

378

LUMBER INDUSTRY AND FORESTS

then still abundant, although vast quantities of it
had already been sent to the market, the largest and
best of such trees being used for the masts of vessels.^
Berlin, now become, because of its neighboring for-
ests and its water power, such an important indus-
trial center, even then had three large sawmills
employing each about fifty men, besides several
small ones. The value of the lumber product in New
Hampshire multiplied nine times in the last half of
the nineteenth century and nearly doubled in the
decade 1 890-1 900.

So vast, however, were formerly the forests in the
valleys and on the lower slopes of the Mountains
themselves that the supply of timber seemed inex-
haustible, and as, therefore, no thought of a possible
future scarcity ever entered the minds of the early
lumbermen, no care, naturally, was taken by them
in cutting off the trees.

But an important discovery in connection with
one of the leading manufacturing industries of New
England was destined to affect very greatly the for-
ests of the northern region, not only as to quantity
but also as to kind. Until about 1870 nearly all
paper was made from rags. Since that time, in the
making of many cheaper grades of paper, and espe-
cially that used for newspapers, wood fibers have
been almost entirely substituted for rags, the fibers

^ In colonial days it was specially stipulated in the royal grants
that white and other pine trees, "fit for masting our royal navy,"
were to be carefully preserved for that use, the cutting for any other
purpose of any tree marked with the broad arrow being, under British
law, a felony punishable by a heavy fine and involving also forfeiture
of the rights of the grantee, his heirs and assigns.

379

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

being transformed into paper pulp by mechanical
and chemical processes. What this change has meant
for the White Mountain forests, with their abun-
dance of spruce, the chief tree used for the purpose
of making paper pulp, may be gathered from the
statement that during the decade between 1890 and
1900 the growth of the paper and wood-pulp indus-
try in New Hampshire exceeded that made in any
other State, the value of the product increasing from
$1,282,022 in 1889 to $7,244,733 in 1899. This in-
crease was well maintained in the next census period,
the value of the product rising in 1909 to $13,994,251,
an increase of ninety-three per cent over that of
1899.

Other wood industries also materially affect the
forests of northern New Hampshire. These are the
production of rough bobbins, in which various spe-
cies of birch, the sugar maple, and the beech are
used; the manufacture of shoe-pegs, utilizing the
paper and the yellow birch ; the crutch industry, in
which the wood of the yellow and the paper birch
and of the sugar maple is employed ; and the manu-
facture of excelsior, spools, rakes, chairs, veneering,
ladder rounds, etc.

The statistical and other information just given
will furnish some indication of what has been the
effect of human industry in wood on forest condi-
tions in this region. Before considering, however,
the results of this great industrial development, as
shown in the forests themselves, let us turn our
attention to the other agency imperiling the tree-
life of the region.

380

LUMBER INDUSTRY AND FORESTS

Forest fires of greater or less extent and severity-
have been an accompaniment of lumbering and land-
clearing from settlement days. But the introduction
of the steam railroad as a common carrier and as an
adjunct of the logging industry, and the increase in
the number of persons who resort to the woods for
pleasure, have in more recent times greatly increased
the number and the danger of such fires, and have
operated to render the fire question one of the first
importance to forest maintenance. Many of the
fires that occur run over logged land, but often con-
siderable areas of virgin forest are destroyed by this
agency.

The White Mountain region has, fortunately, not
been visited by such catastrophic fires as have oc-
curred in some other regions, but, nevertheless, a
number of destructive ones have devastated large
areas. One in the Zealand Valley, in 1888, starting,
as is supposed, from a burning match dropped by a
smoker, ran over twelve thousand acres which had
been lumbered for spruce saw timber, destroying
the remaining small spruce and the hardwood on
the tract, together with about two million board
feet of saw logs.

Much more extensive and destructive fires oc-
curred in the spring of 1903, burning over more than
a tenth of the total White Mountain area and entail-
ing a loss at the time, to say nothing of the future,
estimated conservatively at more than two hundred
thousand dollars. About ten thousand acres of this
was in a part of the Zealand Valley which escaped
the fire of 1888. About eighteen thousand acres

381

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

were burned over in the townships of Kilkenny and
Berlin in the region to the north of the Pliny and
Crescent Ranges and in the vicinity of the Pilot
Range. Another large tract devastated in that year
was in the upper part of the Wild River Valley in
the Carter Range region. The Twin Mountain
Range and the lower slopes of Mounts Garfield and
Lafayette suffered greatly from a fire, in August,
1907, which lasted several days and burned over
about thirty-five thousand acres, mostly of land
that had been cut over. Much timber was thereby
consumed and the forest growth retarded for thirty
years.

As to the causes of forest fires, it may be confi-
dently affirmed that the most prolific one is the rail-
road locomotive, and it is probable that the great
fires of 1903 in the Mountains may be ascribed to
this cause. As bearing on this point may be recorded
the fact that a division superintendent in the White
Mountain region had in his office, on September 12
of that year, five hundred and fifty-four separate
reports of fires causing greater or less damage to
neighboring property during that year.

In view of the danger from fire, by far the most
serious one affecting the White Mountains as a sum-
mer resort, as the very existence of the region as
such depends directly upon the protection of the
forests from this destroyer of landscape beauty, the
Forest Service of the National Government recom-
mended, some ten years ago, the adoption of legis-
lation for the organization of an adequate fire serv-
ice by the State of New Hampshire. Happily, it

382

LUMBER INDUSTRY AND FORESTS

can be recorded that the State adopted the recom-
mendation and now has one of the best fire systems
in the United States, under the direction of a State
Forester and with fire wardens and deputy wardens
in every town. In bringing about this fortunate
condition the Society for the Protection of New
Hampshire Forests has played a most important
part, as it has also in initiating and promoting many
other movements affecting the forests of the White
Mountain region.

Let us return now to a consideration of the lum-
bering industry and its effects on the White Moun-
tain forests. By their careless methods of cutting,
the early settlers and lumbermen removed large
portions of the virgin forest in the valleys and on
the lower slopes, which were easy of access, and by
their selection for lumber purposes of the valuable
conifers, — the spruce, the white pine, the hemlock,
and the balsam, of which the primeval forests were
mostly composed, — they brought about a great
change in the character of the forests, the hard-
woods, through being present in mixture with the
original conifers, and thus causing the growth that
came up after lumbering to be of their kind, coming
to be in great preponderance. So comparatively
small, however, was the ratio, of the amount of tim-
ber cut to the vast amount of forest in the region,
and so considerable, even though slow, was the re-
production, especially of hardwoods, on the cut-
over land and on land originally cleared for pasture
and agricultural purposes but subsequently aban-
doned as unprofitable, that no apprehension of the

383

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Mountains being some time in the future denuded
of their forest covering came into the minds of lovers
of the region in the eadier period of its use and
growth as a summer vacation land.

Let me briefly set down also some economic facts
and conditions which have operated adversely to
the welfare of the forests. Down to 1867 the State of
New Hampshire owned the greater part of the White
Mountain region. The policy of the State being,
however, to dispose of its public lands as fast as
possible, large tracts were in consequence sold for
almost nothing. In the year just named, Governor
Harriman, acting in pursuance of this policy, was
induced to part with this domain for the paltry sum
of twenty-six thousand dollars. A most unfortunate
sale for the State this proved to be in the light of
future circumstances. Had the region remained in
the possession of the Commonwealth there would
have been saved much expense and time, and much
anxiety and effort also, in connection with the im-
portant matter of the preservation of the district's
forests and of its beauty, which is in such large
measure dependent upon them.

The new owners of this rich domain, so lightly
parted with, were speculators, who cut off as rap-
idly as they could the mature timber in order to pay
the taxes and to obtain as much profit as possible.
At length the increasing scarcity of spruce lumber
and the tariff on building materials impelled the
owners, who for the most part had remained the
same persons as had originally bought the land, to
cut the trees below the line of their maturity. These

384

LUMBER INDUSTRY AND FORESTS

considerations urging to destructive cutting were
strongly reinforced by the further inducement aris-
ing from the demands of the wood-pulp industry,
which operated to cause some owners to cut down
the spruce, poplar, and birch trees to mere saplings,
and others to clear off the trees entirely, especially
in places, such as the higher slopes, where logging is
difficult. In the former case a quarter of a century
or more is required to restore the forest; in the lat-
ter, often fires ran over the denuded area, consum-
ing not only all vegetation, but also destroying the
humus and other organic matter in the soil and thus
causing the land to be lost to forest production. In
the vicinity of Whitefield, Berlin, and Gorham the
forests were so cut off by about 1890 as to lay waste
the country, while in the Zealand Valley reckless
lumbering and destructive fires had produced at
that period a condition of extreme desolation over a
large tract. The aim of the lumbermen in these well-
known instances of destructive cutting was evidently
to wrest the last dollar from the land, the pecuniary
side of the forests being naturally that on which they
chiefly regarded them. In process of time every val-
uable timber area was either bought by the large
lumber and paper companies, or, when still held by
the original owners, was subject to contracts which
called for the cutting of the trees under certain
conditions of stumpage.

Such being the state of affairs toward the begin-
ning of the last decade of the nineteenth century,
persons interested in the White Mountains as a
summer resort and in the preservation of the region's

385

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

natural beauties for the use and enjoyment of the
people, watching the progress of the injudicious and
often ruinous lumbering operations, began to be
alarmed for the future of the region and to agitate
for a change of policy. In the first number (Feb-
ruary 29, 1888) of Garden and Forest, a quondam
weekly periodical conducted by Professor Charles
Sprague Sargent, the historian Parkman had a brief
article in which he made a plea for the preservation
of the forests of the White Mountains on the ground
of their importance as elements of the scenery that
attracts so many summer visitors. He averred that
the Mountains owe three fourths of their charm to
their primeval forests and prophesied that if they
are robbed of their forests they will become, like
some parts of the Pyrenees, without interest because
stripped bare. If proper cutting is practiced, he
declared, this unfortunate result will be avoided and
also some droughts and freshets saved. Later in the
same year the editor advocated the purchase of all
the forest region by the State or by the railroads,
and stated that, unless one of these plans or some
other looking to the permanent safety of the forests
is adopted, the region and its usefulness would be
ruined. In the Atlantic Monthly for February, 1893,
Julius H. Ward, author of "The White Mountains"
(1890), published a more extended article with the
title, "White Mountain Forests in Peril." In this
he sounded the note of warning very strongly, tell-
ing of the wasteful and destructive lumbering, —
"unwise and barbarous," he characterized it, —
giving a number of typical instances of the results of

386

LUMBER INDUSTRY AND FORESTS

such cutting, and asserting that a few lumbermen
have it in their power "to spoil the whole White
Mountain region for a period of fifty years, to dry
up the east branch of the Pemigewasset, to reduce
the Merrimac to the size of a brook in summer, and
to bring about a desolation like that which surrounds
Jerusalem in the Holy Land." The protection and
preservation of these forests should be regarded as a
national problem, he declared, the White Mountains
with their forests being "worth infinitely more for
the purpose of a great national park than for the
temporary supply of lumber which they furnish to
the market." He suggested that if the one or two
large owners should adopt the regulation, already
followed by one company, of cutting no tree below
twelve inches at the butt, they would practically
settle the whole matter. His idea was that the State
through a forest commission should purchase from
the owners of woodland in certain regions an agree-
ment that they would not cut trees below a certain
size.

Other writers took up the advocacy of measures
to preserve the White Mountain forests, and, aided
by the establishment of a scientific forestry pro-
gramme by the National Government and the pop-
ular interest taken in the subject of conservation,
an agitation in favor of a forest reservation in the
region was started, which eventually became nation-
wide and which was destined after many vexatious
delays to reach fruition.

In the first year (1901) of its organization the
Society for the Protection of New Hampshire For-

387

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

ests advocated and engaged actively in work for this
object, and during the whole course of the move-
ment it has taken a prominent part in furthering it.
In 1902, a meeting, called by the Reverend Edward
Everett Hale, was held at Intervale, for the purpose
of opening a campaign for a national White Moun-
tain Forest Reserve. Dr. Hale worked early and late
for this end and it is a matter of regret that his death
came before his faith became a reality.

Early in the following year the Legislature of
New Hampshire passed a bill, approved January 10,
favoring the proposal to establish a White Moun-
tain reserve and giving the State's consent to the
acquisition by purchase, gift, or condemnation
according to law, of such lands as in the opinion of
the Federal Government may be needed for the
purpose. At the same session also was passed a reso-
lution authorizing and directing the State Forestry
Commission to procure a general examination of the
forest lands of the White Mountains by employees
of the Bureau of Forestry in the Department of
Agriculture at Washington, the expense not to ex-
ceed five thousand dollars and the report of the
investigators to be laid before the next session of the
General Court. The examination thus provided for
was begun in May of that year and was carried on
during the summer months. The printed report,^
with its maps and plates, is a comprehensive and

^ To this report, entitled "Forest Conditions of Northern New
Hampshire," which was prepared by Alfred K. Chittenden, an assist-
ant forest inspector, and which was published by the Bureau of For-
estry of the United States Department of Agriculture in 1905, I am
much indebted.

388

LUMBER INDUSTRY AND FORESTS

illuminating survey of the forest conditions of north-
ern New Hampshire at that time, and their causes.
It embodied a number of recommendations, most of
which have since been adopted and put into effect.
It was suggested, by some of the opponents of the
proposal to have the National Government purchase
forest lands in the White Mountains, that the State
of New Hampshire should herself acquire for a State
Reservation these lands that she had once practically
given away. But it was soon realized that it was
impossible for that small and comparatively poor
State to follow the lead of large and wealthy States
such as New York, Pennsylvania, and Michigan,
and, moreover. New Hampshire would have to take
over a proportionately much larger area than these
States had done. An alternative suggestion was then
made, which was that the New England States
should combine to make the desired purchase, it
being argued that the rivers that rise within the
White Mountain region contribute largely to the
prosperity of all the New England States save one,
and that New Hampshire ought not to be expected
to burden herself with debt for the benefit of her
neighbors. This solution of the problem was not,
however, seriously regarded as a feasible one, inas-
much as the neighboring States could not be ex-
pected to buy lands outside their own borders for
the creation of a forest reserve over which they
could have no control, and inasmuch as, further-
more, concerted action for such an object on the
part of so many legislatures would be well-nigh an
impossibility.

389

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

It was soon patent, therefore, to friends of the
project of creating a White Mountain reserve that it
could be brought about only through acquisition of
the region by the National Government, and, ac-
cordingly, a vigorous movement was begun looking
toward the consummation of such a result. After
years of agitation, carried on in Congress and out of
it by favorably disposed legislators, societies, news-
papers, and individuals, in all parts of the East,
against tremendous opposition on the part of poli-
ticians and others, success was at length achieved, a
striking instance of the effect of public opinion when
widespread and persistent.

Space cannot be taken to do more than outline
the successive steps in Congress from the initiation
of the project there until the legislation was consum-
mated.^ On November ii, 1903, Senator Hoar, of
Massachusetts, presented to the Senate resolutions
of the General Court of his State in favor of enacting
national legislation to protect the forests of the
White Mountains. On the loth of the following
month, Senator Gallinger, of New Hampshire, in-
troduced a bill calling for the appropriation of not
more than five million dollars, one million to be
immediately available, to enable the Secretary of
Agriculture to purchase land suited to the purpose
of a national forest reserve in the White Mountains,
in total extent not to exceed one million acres. This
bill was referred to the Committee on Forest Reser-

^ I am indebted, for information as to the course of congressional
action down to the end of the Sixtieth Congress (March 3, 1909), to
an article, "The Fight for the Appalachian Forests," by Edwin A.
Start, in Conservation for May, 1909.

LUMBER INDUSTRY AND FORESTS

vations and the Protection of Game, to which Sen-
ator Gallinger had, as a member of the Republican
Committee on Committees, procured the assign-
ment of his colleague, Senator Burnham. A bill
was introduced in the House, also, by Representa-
tive Currier, of New Hampshire. The Senate Com-
mittee to which the Gallinger bill had been referred
reported favorably upon it, Senator Burnham's re-
port, which was the first official notice of the North-
ern project, discussing clearly all phases of the mat-
ter and demonstrating strongly the importance,
commercial and other, of protecting the forests.
The Fifty-eighth Congress passed into history with-
out taking any action on the bills, and new ones were
promptly introduced in the Fifty-ninth Congress.

So strong, however, was the opposition in Con-
gress to this largely New England matter, which
was regarded by many legislators as a sentimental
project without economic basis, that it was soon
evident to friends of the measure that it could be
carried only through combination with the earlier
and related Southern one for creating a national
forest reservation in the Southern Appalachians,
which would thus enlist a much wider support.

Accordingly, a bill uniting the two projects, which
had been prepared by a committee appointed by the
American Forestry Association at its annual meeting
in January, 1906, to be offered as a substitute for the
separate measures, and which had been accepted by
all interested, was immediately laid before the Sen-
ate Committee on Forest Reservations and the Pro-
tection of Game. This union bill, which called for an

391

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

initial appropriation of three million dollars, was
promptly reported to the Senate by that committee
in lieu of the two bills already introduced.

The only accomplishment in this direction, how-
ever, of the Fifty-ninth Congress, which ended
March 2, 1907, was the passage of a bill appropriat-
ing twenty-five thousand dollars for the survey of
the two regions by the Department of Agriculture.
This investigation was conducted during that sum-
mer by the Forest Service, and a valuable report,
recommending the purchase of five million acres in
the Southern Appalachians and six hundred thou-
sand acres in the White Mountains, was made by
the Secretary of Agriculture to the Sixtieth Con-
gress.

When new bills were introduced in the first session
of the Sixtieth Congress in both Senate and House,
it was evident that there was a great and growing
support behind the project, and this fact caused the
opposition in the House to stiffen and to take an-
other than the economical tack. A very strong case
for the measure was presented at a hearing before
the House Committee on Agriculture in January,
1908, but the adverse majority in the committee was
not to be overcome without further struggle. The
constitutionality of a bill looking to the purchase by
the National Government of lands within a State
for forest reserves had early been questioned in the
House, and it was now decided to refer this aspect
of the matter to the House Judiciary Committee,
which action was taken in February. Finally, late in
April, that tribunal gravely reported that it was its

392

LUMBER INDUSTRY AND FORESTS

decision that the Federal Government had no power
to acquire lands within a State solely for forest
reserves, but could purchase such lands only to
protect the navigability of rivers, thus resting the
validity of all such measures upon the Interstate
Commerce Clause of the Constitution. The pending
bills, not being thus limited in purpose, were de-
clared to be unconstitutional. The Senate bill was
then modified to meet this opinion, and in its new
form was passed by the Senate in the closing days
of the session. When received in the House, it was
referred to the Committee on Agriculture, to the
majority of which it still proved unacceptable.

Thus a bill for national forest reserves in the
Southern Appalachians and in the White Mountains
had already passed the Senate a number of times
before the opening of the second session of the
Sixtieth Congress, in December, 1908, but had not
been as yet permitted to come before the House.
At length, to meet the objections to the Senate bill
of the House Committee on Agriculture, on the
score of its unconstitutionality, a substitute for the
Senate bill which would be acceptable to a majority
of the committee, and which, it was hoped, would
pass the House, was prepared by Representatives
Weeks, of- Massachusetts, and Lever, of South Caro-
lina, with the assistance of Representative Currier,
of New Hampshire. This new bill, which was ac-
cepted by the committee and reported to the House
in January, 1909, was fittingly given the name of
Representative (now Senator) John W. Weeks, a
native of Lancaster, New Hampshire, who worked

393

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

indefatigably in and out of the House to promote
the project of a White Mountain reserve, and who,
fortunately, had been appointed to the Committee
on Agriculture by Speaker Cannon, in deference to
the clamor which arose when the Speaker appointed
Representative Scott, of Kansas, an opponent of the
project, as chairman, instead of Henry, of Connec-
ticut, the ranking member. To overcome the ob-
jection to the appropriation of money mainly for
the benefit of certain sections and to draw the teeth
of Representatives who were bitterly opposed to the
project, the bill was made absolutely general in its
terms. It provided for the appropriation for the
current year of one million dollars and for each
fiscal year thereafter of a sum not to exceed two
million dollars "for use in the examination, survey,
and acquirement of lands located on the headwaters
of navigable streams or those which are being or
may be developed for navigable purposes," until this
provision should expire by limitation. No locality
was mentioned, and the bill therefore applied to the
whole United States; but, as the headwaters of the
rivers of the West were already largely protected, it
was understood that the first purchases were to be
made in the White Mountains and Southern Appa-
lachians and the bill was regarded as a bill relating
to these regions.

Into the Weeks Bill were incorporated provisions
from the Scott Bill ^ (one fathered by the chairman

* The Scott Bill passed the House and was referred in the Senate
to the Committee on Commerce, by which it was pigeonholed. It was
in no way acceptable to the friends of practical Appalachian forest
legislation.

394

LUMBER INDUSTRY AND FORESTS

of the House Committee on Agriculture and de-
signed to sidetrack the measure) permitting States
to combine for the purpose of conserving the forests
and the water supply and appropriating one hundred
thousand dollars to enable the Secretary of Agri-
culture to cooperate with any State or group of
States in this object.

In this form the bill looking to the protection of
the White Mountain forests eventually passed the
House on March i, 1909, by a close vote, but it
failed of consideration in the Senate in the closing
days of the session. This killed the bill so far as
that Congress was concerned.

In the Sixty-first Congress, the Weeks Bill again
passed the House, June 24, 1910, the day before the
close of the second session. Finally, in February,
191 1, during the third session of this Congress, the
bill passed the Senate and became a law when
President Taft signed it on March i.^

By the Weeks Act, a new doctrine in government
was asserted, in that Congress decreed that the
nation had an interest in the headwaters of navi-
gable streams and might properly spend public
money in the acquisition and protection of water-
sheds. Evidently suspicious, however, that there
was opportunity for fraud. Congress had insured
efficiency and honesty in the administration of the

^ The act, as it went on the statute book, appropriated one million
dollars for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1910, and a sum not exceed-
ing two million dollars for each fiscal year thereafter, the provisions
appropriating these sums expiring by limitation on June 30, 1915.
The first one million dollars was never appropriated because the limit
of time specified for its use expired before the bill became a law.

395

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

law by a number of checks, which, while doubtless
necessary, were not conducive to speedy action.
The work of considering and passing upon lands
recommended for purchase and of fixing the prices
was entrusted by the act to a commission, to be
known as the National Forest Reservation Com-
mission, and to consist of three Cabinet officers, two
members of the Senate, and two members of the
House.

At its first meeting the Commission decided to
spend the entire appropriation in the White Moun-
tains and the Southern Appalachians. During the
four months between the passage of the bill and
the end of the fiscal year, the United States Forest
Service got quickly to work, secured offers of land
amounting to about seventy-five thousand acres,
and completed the examination of thirty-seven
thousand acres. The Geological Survey, whose re-
port that the control of the lands offered will pro-
mote or protect the navigation of streams upon
whose watersheds they are was by the act a nec-
essary preliminary, made no report on the White
Mountain lands until the following year. About
thirty thousand acres were purchased in the South,
but the greater part of the two million dollars ap-
propriated for the fiscal year ending June 30, 191 1,
reverted, because unused, to the United States
Treasury. To remedy this loss and to prevent a re-
currence, an amendment to the Weeks Act was in-
troduced in the House by Representative Weeks and
in the Senate by Senator Gallinger, reappropriating
the three million dollars not used, but intended for

396

LUMBER INDUSTRY AND FORESTS

use in the original bill and making the whole sum
available until used. This amendment was accepted
in part by Congress, the remainder of the allotments
being rendered available until used.

At length, the Geological Survey having early in
1 912 rendered a favorable report upon the desira-
bility of acquiring certain White Mountain forest
lands that had been offered, for the regulation and
protection of the streams having their source in
that region, the first purchase under the law was
authorized June 16 of that year, when 30,365 acres,
mostly on the northern slopes of the Presidential
Range, were accepted.

Since this beginning of a national forest was made,
the process of acquiring lands in the White Moun-
tains has gone on, although more slowly than some
of its advocates approve, to be sure, because of the
difficulty of establishing titles and because of the
extortionate prices demanded by some owners. By
the middle of 1914, the area purchased amounted
to 138,572 acres and included some seven thousand
acres in the Moosilauke region, more than sixteen
thousand acres on the north slopes of Mounts Gar-
field and Hale, thirty-one thousand acres on the
northern Presidential Range and the Dartmouth
Range, some four thousand acres in the Wild River
Valley, and more than four thousand acres on
Wildcat, Spruce, and Iron Mountains. To the great
delight of lovers of the White Mountains it was an-
nounced, early in September, 1914, that the Gov-
ernment and the owners of Mount Washington had
come to an agreement on the purchase price for it,

397

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

that the foresters were satisfied with the terms,
and that the National Forest Reservation Commis-
sion had approved the purchase and had at the
same time sanctioned the acquisition of four other
tracts. The purchase of these areas, aggregating
85,592 acres, was consummated later in the year and
the Government holdings were thereby increased
to 224,164 acres, acquired at a cost of $1,600,147.50.
This is about one third of the acreage, 698,086,
originally laid out for purchase.

The tract on the Presidential Range includes all
of the great central peak itself, with its flanks and
spurs, and six other peaks as well, Clay, Jefferson,
and Adams of the northern group, and Monroe,
Franklin, and Pleasant of the southern. Nor is this
all, for included in this purchase is also that long
southerly ridge, the Montalban, which extends for
eight miles from Boott Spur down to the lower end
of the Crawford Notch at Bartlett. This purchase
of 33,970 acres is by far the most important one yet
made by the Government for the White Mountain
National Forest, both from a sentimental and from
an economic standpoint, as it comprises the grandest
part of the Mountain scenery and contains very
considerable areas of virgin forest and the fountain-
heads of the Connecticut, Androscoggin, and Saco
Rivers.

Of the four other tracts alluded to, one is even
larger than the area on the Presidential Range just
spoken of, for it comprises 45,170 acres. This hold-
ing covers the sides of two distinct mountain ranges
in the towns of Bartlett and Albany. The other

398

THE WHITE MOUNTAIN NATIONAL FOREST

The complete reservation as planned by the National Forest
Reservation Commission, consisting of about 698,000 acres, is
shown by the shaded boundary-line. The territory acquired to
date (1916), amounting to about 272,000 acres, is indicated by
the full shading. The upper part of Crawford Notch is a State
Forest Reservation.

LUMBER INDUSTRY AND FORESTS

three include 5615 acres on the side of Mount White-
face in the Sandwich Range, and two small areas,
one of 710 acres on the lower slopes of Mount
Parker in the Montalban Ridge and the other of 127
acres along the Oliverian Brook in the town of
Benton, near the western boundary of the purchase
area.

During 1915, further and substantial progress was
made in the acquisition under the Weeks Act of
tracts of land for addition to the White Mountain
National Forest domain, the total area and cost
being brought up at the end of the year, in round
numbers, to 272,000 acres and $1,800,000, respec-
tively. One tract purchased includes some twenty-
three thousand acres in the Franconia Notch, ex-
tending south from the land previously acquired at
Eagle Cliff to a point beyond the lumber village of
Johnson and containing portions of Mounts La-
fayette, Liberty, and Flume on the east and Mounts
Pemigewasset, Kinsman, Jackson, and Cannon on
the west. Another region acquired is the entire
watershed of the Zealand River, between the Twin
Mountain and Rosebrook Ranges. The most im-
portant acquisition, however, was the last one of
the year, which comprises all of the Bean Grant, a
large area adjoining the Crawford House property
and lying east and northeast of it. Included in its
confines are portions of Mounts Webster, Clinton,
Jackson, and Pleasant, of the Presidential Range,
whose many streams feed two of New England's
principal rivers, the Saco and the Connecticut,
while on the lower slopes of the latter three moun-

399

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

tains stands some of the finest primeval spruce and
fir forest yet remaining in the whole section. On
the south this tract borders the New Hampshire
State Forest in the Crawford Notch, on the west its
boundary follows the State Road from Crawford's
along toward the Jefferson Notch and the valley of
Israel's River, while on the north the area joins the
earlier purchases on Mount Washington and the
Northern Peaks. At the close of the year some
other tracts had been examined for purchase, but
had not been acquired.^

Thus, as the matter now stands, somewhat more
than one third of the official purchase area has been
acquired, and an excellent beginning has been made
in a great conservation project. As, however, the
appropriations under the Weeks Law (of which, as
we have seen, about three million dollars, of the
original eleven million dollars provided for, did not
become available) ceased with the fiscal year ending
June 30, 1915, it will be necessary, for the carrying
to completion of the undertaking, that Congress
should make further appropriations. It is strongly
held, by those organizations and individuals that
have been all these years deeply interested in the
inception and progress of this Government enter-

^ It is a pleasure to make acknowledgment of my indebtedness for
information about National Forest acquisitions, etc., to Mr. Allen
Chamberlain, whose interesting articles on White Mountain National
Forest and on Appalachian Mountain Club subjects have been espe-
cially helpful to me in both connections; to Mr. J, St. J. Benedict,
Supervisor, United States Forest Service, and to Mr. Philip W. Ayres,
Forester of the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests,
who, both in his official capacity and by his own personal interest
and activity, has done so much for the cause of which he is the official
representative.

400

LUMBER INDUSTRY AND FORESTS

prise, that it is of the highest importance that the
programme of purchases so well begun should be
continued without interruption, as otherwise a great
economic loss to the Government will result, not
only from the failure to acquire valuable timber
lands and to protect further the mountain water-
sheds, but from the failure to utilize the existing
machinery created for the work of acquisition and
the intimate knowledge of conditions now possessed
by the force of experts that has been trained.

The Secretary of Agriculture was, accordingly,
memorialized by a group of interested organiza-
tions, North and South, and he has recommended
the continuation of the appropriations. With his ap-
proval and that of the Forest Reservation Commis-
sion, Congress has been asked to appropriate for the
purpose of carrying out the purposes mentioned in
the Weeks Act the sum of two million dollars for
each of the fiscal years ending on the 30th day of
June, 1917, 1918, 1919, 1920, and 1921.

The State of New Hampshire has done its part.
Besides the enabling legislation with reference to the
Federal' Government's acquisition of lands within
the State and the establishment of the splendid
forest-fire protection system already mentioned, the
State Legislature, acting under the stimulus of agi-
tation started by that voluntary organization which
has done so much for the forestry interests of the
State, the Society for the Protection of New Hamp-
shire Forests, passed in 191 1 a bill for the purchase
of the Crawford Notch, which was in danger of dis-
figurement from logging operations. The Society

401

?* ■

\ THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

proposed the purchase and invited the cooperation
of commercial bodies, clubs, and individuals in
furthering the project. The Appalachian Mountain
Club, many women's clubs, the Boston Chamber of
Commerce, and a number of newspapers were among
those actively interested in it.

Finding that definite information was a necessary
preliminary to legislative action, the Society carried
through, at an expense of seven hundred dollars, a
careful examination and survey of the Notch, and
prepared a report embodying an account of the
kind, amount, location, quality, and value of the
timber, with maps and estimates.

The bill, as originally introduced, called for an
appropriation of one hundred thousand dollars, but
it was amended by the House so as to make the
appropriation indefinite by empowering the gover-
nor and council to issue bonds for a sum sufficient
to acquire the Notch. Through a failure to engross
the amendment, the bill was signed by the governor
without it. Discovering after the legislature had
adjourned that the bill was defective, the governor
requested a review of it by the supreme court of the
State and by the attorney-general, which resulted
in a decision that, although the State was without
power to issUe bonds in the premises, it might, under
the right of eminent domain, take any lands in the
Crawford Notch that it could pay for from current
funds not otherwise appropriated. Under this un-
fortunate circumstance the State was unable to buy
the whole of the Notch, but it did purchase in 19 12
the upper and more picturesque part, extending six

402

LUMBER INDUSTRY AND FORESTS

miles south from the Crawford House, at a cost of
sixty-two thousand dollars. Much credit is due to
Governor Bass and his council for carrying through
the matter of purchase, despite the defective bill.

By way of conclusion to this account of the his-
tory of the National and State Reservation projects
in the White Mountains, it may be well to bring
together and summarize the information relating to
such areas which have been set aside for the use and
enjoyment of the people in this region, as they ex-
isted at the end of the year 19 15. The National
Forest then covered 272,000 acres. The State For-
estry Commission held some six thousand acres in
the Crawford Notch, three hundred acres on Bart-
lett Mountain, one hundred and thirty acres above
Livermore Falls in Campton, and forty acres in the
town of Conway, including the Cathedral and White
Horse Ledges, presented by citizens to the State.
The Society for the Protection of New Hampshire
Forests owned one hundred and forty-eight acres
in the Lost River region and some twenty acres in
Tam worth, consisting of forested roadside strips
known as the ''Chocorua Pines." The Appalachian
Mountain Club had many holdings, including the
following: one acre at the Madison Spring on Mount
Madison, thirty-six acres along Snyder Brook in
Randolph, thirty-seven acres at the Lead Mine
Bridge in Shelburne, the Joseph Story Fay Reserva-
tion of one hundred and fifty acres in Woodstock
and Lincoln, ten acres on the summit of South
Baldface Mountain and ten acres on the summit of
Mount Kearsarge (Pequawket), both in the town of

403

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Chatham, twenty-eight acres at the Glen Ellis Falls,
and twenty-eight acres at the Crystal Cascade, both
in the Pinkham Notch region. All honor to those
organizations and individuals to whose advocacy
and persistent activity this happy condition of
things is due !

XIX

THE CHANGES IN THE CHARACTER OF WHITE

MOUNTAIN TRAVEL AND BUSINESS IN

RECENT YEARS

The advent of the automobile, with its almost
immediate leap into general use for touring, greatly
to the regret of many, including some landlords, has
largely transformed in character the summer hotel
and tourist business in the White Mountains, as
well as elsewhere. While the volume of travel has
increased, the majority of the visitors to the region
are now of the transient variety, making in most
cases but a fleeting stay at any one place and con-
sisting largely of those who are "doing" the Moun-
tains in their "motor-car." Many of these make
only a rapid passage through the region on some of
the main lines of travel, such as that from Plymouth
through the Franconia Notch to Bretton Woods,
and thence on through the Crawford Notch, pausing
not much longer at various favored stopping-places
than the time required to consume one of the hos-
telry's famous meals, or at most to spend a night.
As a result, some of the capacious and luxurious
houses of entertainment at strategic points on the
approved and well-advertised automobile routes are
now doing a highly profitable business in catering to
the wants of patrons of this sort. Some tourists
make their headquarters at a central point and from

405

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

there tour in their machines to the various points of
interest about the Mountains, but, even in these
cases, the length of sojourn is usually comparatively
short. On the other hand, resorts not on these
favored routes have suffered in the amount of their
patronage on account of this change in the purpose
of the summer visitors, not only because they fail to
receive their share of these migratory sojourners, but
because some of their old-time permanent clientele
are now numbered among that class. The railroads
serving the region also have suffered a considerable
loss in the volume of passenger traffic, owing to this
change from the use of public to that of private
conveyances, which is somewhat of a reversion in
type of travel to the conditions of pre-railroad days.
While, as has been intimated, there are many real
lovers of the Mountains who regret the passing of
the old order, with its simplicity and restfulness,
and its more leisurely ways of seeing the country,
by walks or delightful drives after two, four, or more
horses in the old-fashioned mountain-wagons of a
bygone day, there are others who feel differently
about it. Writes Ralph D. Paine in Scribner's Maga-
zine, in describing the pleasures of automobiling in
the White Hills: —

In other days many of the finest views of this beautiful
region were denied the visitor unless he tramped it with a
pack on his back. Now the hillsides have been blasted and
the gullies filled to make it no more than a flight of a few
hours from the Franconia gateway, across the mountains
and out through Crawford Notch to the highway that
leads southward through North Conway and Intervale.

406

CHANGES IN TRAVEL AND BUSINESS

Gone is the old simplicity and quiet summer life of
Fabyan's and Bethlehem and Crawford's, when the same
guests returned year after year for the same placid exist-
ence, the young people at tennis and walking tours, their
elders gossiping in rocking-chairs along the hospitable
piazzas. Nor is it to regret the passing of the old order of
things. Where one pilgrim discovered the White Moun-
tains then, a hundred enjoy them now. The region has
ceased to be a New England monopoly and is a national
possession. At Bretton Woods and its vast hotel seventy
per cent of last summer's [1912's] guests were motorists.

Whatever may be thought of this opinion in gen-
eral, and while it is a cause of gratification that many
more people are enabled to enjoy the Mountains,
even though they may gain only fleeting glimpses of
their beauties, it must be said that the statement in
the first sentence of the quotation is almost as true
to-day as "in other days." For, owing to the physi-
cal character of the country, "many of the finest
views" are still and must be ever reserved for him
who knows the real "joys of the road," the pedes-
trian with or without the pack on his back. Nature
has forever established as impassable to vehicles
many routes of the region and has placed many of
its chief attractions in spots inaccessible to any but
the foot traveler. So the saunterer who keeps off the
beaten track may still enjoy to the utmost the de-
lights of the woods, the ravines, and the trails. He
will always hold in fee simple the right to enjoy not
only very many of the most charming and of the
grandest prospects, as has been said, but numbers
also of the special wonders and beauties of various
localities.

407

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

It may well be that when this often mad rush to
get somewhere and this desire to "do" the White
Mountains as a part of a motor tour shall have spent
their novel force, a reaction will set in, and the old-
time placid sojourn in a particular resort — there
are still many people who cling to the milder form
of summer pleasure — will be again in fashion. In
any case, there is room enough for both classes of
visitors and each type may, if it will but seek it, find
a place to its liking.

Another change in White Mountain business
which has arisen in late years and which deserves
notice in this concluding chapter is the development
of the region as a winter resort. In earlier days few
urban residents other than hardy members of the
Appalachian Mountain Club ever thought of ven-
turing, let alone actually going, into the White Hills
for a winter pleasure trip. In those bygone days at
that season the Mountains were almost as deserted
and solitary as the Himalayas themselves, and even
the aforesaid pioneers in what was destined to be
an epoch-making movement in vacationing were
regarded as overenthusiastic for outdoor life, if not
more or less foolhardy, in betaking themselves in
winter to this land of ice and snow, where they might
be at the mercy of blizzards, avalanches, and other
terrors, real or supposed, of winter life in high alti-
tudes. So the Appalachians not only had a monop-
oly of winter pastiming there, but were often hard
put to it to find accommodations other than those
furnished by the Club shelters. Gradually, how-
ever, the number of the "snowshoe section" of the

408

CHANGES IN TRAVEL AND BUSINESS

Club increased, the newspapers and magazines
began to take knowledge of these romantic excur-
sions to the snow-covered solitudes of the Granite
State, and at length the railroad companies, needing
only the pioneer work of a widely known outdoor
organization to build upon, took up the matter of
providing facilities for such expeditions in a system-
atic way, and the winter vacation in the north
country became an accomplished fact. Meanwhile,
a few of the more enterprising proprietors of White
Mountain summer hotels discerned the drift of
things and tried the experiment of keeping open in
winter also. The new idea that a winter vacation
could be enjoyed, with the comforts of a modern
hotel, in cold New England as well as in warm
Florida or California, immediately found favor
with the public ; and now, where a decade or so ago,
there were but three or four hostelries prepared to
entertain winter guests and few sojourners at that
season in the White Hills, there are a dozen or
more hotels catering to the demands of this class of
patrons, who are numbered by the hundreds.

THE END

INDEX

Abbott, Thomas, 159.

Abnaki, group of Indians, 2.

Abnakis, at St. Francis, 9.

Academy of Arts and Sciences,
American, 32.

Adams, Mount, named, 78; Phil-
lips Brooks on, 135; first path,

' 345; Air Line Path, 356; provi-
sions for records on, 358.

Adams, Mount John Quincy, 275.

Adams, town. See Jackson, 59.

Addey, Markinfiield, 254.

Addison, Daniel Dulany, 182.

Agamenticus, Mount, 5.

Agassiz, Alexander, 217.

Agassiz, Louis, his explorations,
215; Mount Agassiz, 216: Ag-
assiz Basins, 216; poem on, 216.

Agassiz, Mount, named, 216;
coach overturned, 332.

Agassiz Basins, 216.

Agiocochook or Agiochook, xxix;
legend of origin, 13.

Aiken, Charles L., 318.

Aiken, Herrick, 239.

Aiken, James, 64.

Aiken, Walter, and the Mount
Washington Railway, 239; sec-
ond Summit House, 246; on
Mount Washington in winter,
318.

Air Line Path, 356.

Albany, town, dying of cattle in,
13; forest purchase in, 398.

"Album" of landlord, 107, 146.

Alden, Reverend Timothy, xxx.

Aldrich, Eva M., 169.

Algonquin family of Indians, 2.

Allen, Dr. A. V. G., 137.

Allen, Charles, 277.

Allen, David, 96.

Allen, Grant, 248.

Alpine House (Gorham), 170.

"Ambitious Guest, The," 86, 116.

American Foresters, Society of,

its Bibliography, xiv.
American Forestry Association,

391.
American Hay-Fever Association,

333-
American Philosophical Society,

29.
Ames, Moses, 40.
Ames's Tavern, 179.
Amherst, General Jeffrey, 54.
Amherst College, 120, 208, 310;

students find Harry Hunter's

body, 273.
Ammonoosuc gold field, 209, 210.
Among the Clouds, xiii, xv; housed

in old Tip-Top House, 233;

"newspaper train," 245; office

built, 251; history, 251-53.
"Among the Hills," 179.
Anasagunticooks, the, 2.
Anchors, made at Tamworth Iron

Works, 69.
Anderson, John, 338, 356, 373,

, 374. 375.

Anderson, John Farwell, 227.

Anderson, General Samuel J., 227.

Anderson and Price, 338.

Androscoggin, the, xxxi.

Aneda, 19.

Appalachia, founded, 359; first
editor, 218, 359.

Appalachian Mountain Club, the.
Guide, xiii; summit of Mount
Kearsarge given to, 255; and
snow arch, 274; shelter on
Crawford Path, 279, 354; win-
ter ascents, 305; and various
paths, 346, 347, 348; founded,
348, 349; incorporated and vol-
untary association dissolved,
350; its work and activities,
350-57. 358, 359; advocates
Crawford Notch purchase, 402;

411

INDEX

its reservations, 403, 404; win-
ter expeditions, 408.

Applebee, Zebedee, 58.

Apthorp. See Littleton.

Arosagunticooks, the, 2.

Art history of White Mountains,
188.

Artists' Brook, 199.

Ascents, registration of, 31, 37,

84. 357. 358.

Aspinquid, St., 5.

Asquamchemauke, 48.

Atkinson, Theodore, 52.

Atlantic and St. Lawrence Rail-
road, 220, 221.

Atwood, Mrs., 233.

Auger, screw-, first, 69.

Austin, the Misses, 79.

Automobiles, on Mount Washing-
ton, 371, 372; on Tug-of-War
Hill, 372; 405-08.

Avery, James, 57.

Ayres, Philip W., 400.

Baedeker, Karl, xiii.
Baird, George C., 363, 364.
Baker, Captain, of Newbury, his

expedition against Pemigewas-

set Indians, 48.
Bakers River, 48.
Balaam, the Indian, 8.
Baldwin, Loammi, jr., 222.
Ball, Dr. B. L., 285-301.
Ball, Dr. S., 300, 301.
Ballard, Rev. Edward, as to

meaning of Agiocochook, xxx.
Ballou, 2d, Dr. Hosea, 128;

quoted as to hotels existing in

1845, 165.
Banks's Hotel, 179.
Barker, John, at Notch (Willey)

House, 92, 93.
Barnes, Dr. H., 301.
Barnum, P. T., 248.
Barron, Asa, 335, 337.
Barron, Colonel Oscar G., 335,

337; and Mount Washington

fire, 362.
Barron, Merrill, and Barron

(Company), and Summit

House, 249; firm formed, 335;
, Mount Pleasant House, 338.

Barrows, Dr. Nathan, 211.

Barstow, George, 6.

Bartlett, early citizens, 52; set-
tled, 60; forest purchase in,
398.

Bartlett, , collegian, 28.

Bartlett, W. H., 196.

Base of Mount Washington, the,
railroad extended to, 225; turn-
pike to, 238, 241; Among the
Clouds at, 253.

Bass, Governor Robert P., 403.

Bates, Charlotte Fiske, 216.

Bean, David, 67,

Bean Grant, 399.

Bearcamp River House, Whittier
first comes to, 179; frequents,
180; burned, i8i.

Beaumont, £lie de, 205, 215.

Beaver Meadow, 140.

Beckett, S. B., 120, 121.

Bedell, A. Judson, 230.

Beecher, Henry Ward, his con-
nection with White Mountains,
127, 131-33. 335; at Crawford
House, 131, 163; on Mount
Washington, 248.

Beede, Daniel, 67.

Belknap, Jeremy, his History of
New Hampshire, xxv; quoted,
XXV, xxvii; Agiocochook, xxix;
quoted, 2, 3; map, 10, 31 ; Great
Carbuncle, 15; records ex-
plorations, 24, 25; quoted, 25;
on Crawford Notch, 25; tour of
White Mountains, 27 ff. ; unable
to climb Mount Washington,
30; battle of Lovewell's Pond,
44, 45; motive for visiting
Mountains, 154.

Bellows, John, 170.

Bemis, Dr. Samuel A., his con-
nection with White Mountains,
137. 138; and G. N. Franken-
stein, 203.

Bemis station, 55, 73, 346.

Benedict, J. St. J., 400.

Benjamin, S. G. W., on S. R.
Gifford's painting, 198; on
Thomas Hill's painting, 200.

Bent, Allen H., quoted, ix; his
bibliography, ix, xiv.

412

INDEX

Berlin, N.H., granted, 59; Lucy
Larcom at, 183; railroad
reaches, 226; sawmills at, 379;
forest fire, 382; destructive
lumbering, 385.

Berlin Falls. See Berlin.

Bernard, Sir Francis, 58.

Bethel, Maine, Indian raid, 65;
Lucy Larcom at, 183, 184.

Bethlehem, President Dwight
visits, 35; granted and settled,
60; President Dwight on, 6i;
early history, 61 ; Harriet Mar-
tineau quoted on, 146; first
taverns, 161 ; Lucy Larcom at,
184; William Dean Howells at,
184; Agassiz describes mo-
raines at, 215; railroad to, 225;
General Grant at, 243; coach-
ing parades, 245; White Moun-
tain Echo, 254; Sir Isaac New-
ton Gay, 262; development of
as a resort, 332-34.

Bierstadt, Albert, 202.

Bigelow, Dr. Jacob, 31; explores
White Mountains, 35, 36; his
account of the Mountains, 37.

Bigelow's Lawn, 37.

"Billings, Josh," 341.

Black flies, Josselyn on, 24.

Blaikie, William Garden, 248.

Blanchard, Joseph, 48.

Boardman, artist, 202.

Bolles, Frank, natural history,
218; summer home, 69.

Bond, Professor G. P., map, 19,
212.

Boott, Dr. Francis, with Dr. Big-
elow, 36; explores the Moun-
tains again, 37.

Boott Spur, 22, 31, 36, 37.

Boott Spur Trail, 356.

Boston, England, 20.

Boston and Lowell Railroad, 222.

Boston and Maine Railroad, 223,
225, 226, 228, 241, 375.

Boston Athenaeum, 198.

Boston, Concord and Montreal

. Railroad reaches Plymouth, 50;
leased to the Boston and Low-
ell, 50 ; early history, 223,
224.

Botany and botanical explora-
tions, 32, 33, 35, 37, 38, 108,
121, 124, 147, 218.

Boulder in Flume, 303.

Bourne, George W., 270, 271.

Bourne, Lizzie C., 269h-7i.

Bourne, Lucy, 270, 271.

Bouton, Nathaniel, 6.

Bowditch, Dr. Nathaniel, 33.

Brackett, Adino N., 77, 78.

Brackett, W. M., 202.

Bracy, C. F., 317.

Brass plate placed on Mt. Wash-
ington, 84.

Brazer, John, 83.

Bremer, Fredrika, her visit to
the White Mountains, 148, 149.

Bretton Woods, xxviii, 63, 140,

191. 337. 343. 344-

Brewster, Edwin Tenney, 206.

Bridge, W. F., 102.

Bridle path, Crawford, made, 77.
See Crawford Path.

Bridle path, Fabyan, made, 78.
See also Fabyan Path.

Briggs, Fire Warden, 282, 283.

British Embassy at Intervale,
372.

"Briton's Woods." See Bretton
Woods.

Brooks, Chapin C, 307-09.

Brooks, Rev. Frederick, 136.

Brooks, Luke, loi.

Brooks, Phillips, his connection
with the White Mountains,
127. 133-37; on Mount Wash-
ington, 248.

Brooks, William G., 134.

Brown, George Loring, at West
Campton, 66; at West Ossipee,
179; at Jackson and Jefferson
Highlands, 195; his most noted
White Mountain picture, 195.

Brown, George T., 168.

Brown, H. B., 203.

Browne, George Waldo, 175.

Bryant, William Cullen, his con^
nection with the Mountains,
186-88; impressions of,
quoted, 187-88.

Bryce, Ambassador James, 372.

Buckler, Reginald H., 284.

413

INDEX

Bucknam, Edward, 57/

Burnham, Denison R., 173.

Burnham, Senator Heiiry E., 391.

Burns, Major, 60.

Burt, Frank H., his chronology,
xiii; his Mount Washington,
xiii; his Among the White
Mountains, cited, 55; editor of

' Among the Clouds, 252 ; lays out
path from snow arch to Sum-
mit, 347.

Burt, Henry M., 252.

Burt, Joseph, 61.

Butterwort Flume, 213.

Cabot, Sebastian, map, 18.

Camden, Patrick, 369.

Camp, Ethan Allen Crawford's,

destroyed, 98.
Campbell, friend of Chocorua, 11,

12.
Campbell and Whittier, 239.
Campton, grant and settlement,

65, 66; Whittier at, 178;

Fieldses at, 178, 183; Lucy Lar-

com at, 183; artists at, 66, 203.
Campton Village, 66.
Cannon, Speaker Joseph G., 248,

394-

Cannon, Mount, 102, 104.

Carriage road on Mount Wash-
ington, 234-36; 243.

Carrigain, Mount, 18; Guyot as-
cends, 217; ascent by Vose and
Morse, 348; by White Moun-
tain Club, 348, 349.

Carrigain, Philip, map, xxxii, 18;
secretary of state, xxxii, 19;
ascends Mount Washington,
78; Mount Lafayette on his
map, 106.,

Carroll, 63.

Carter Dome, 302, 353.

Carter Notch Hut, 352, 353.

Cartland, Gertrude W., 181.

Cartland, Joseph, 181.

Cascade Camp, 355.

Casilear, J. W., 196, 197, 199.

Casola, 103,

Castellated Ridge, 356.

Caswell, Captain Nathan, 57.

Caswell, Apthorp, 57.

Cavis, C. H. v., 232, 235.

Center Sandwich, 68.

Central Vermont Railroad, 223.

Century Club, 199.

Chamberlain, Allen, 400.

Champlain, Samuel de, 19.

Champney, Benjamin, at West
Ossipee, 179; life and work at
North Conway, 195-99.

Chandler, Benjamin, 271, 272.

Chandler, Moses, 255.

Chandler Ridge, 272.

Charlestown, N.H., 54.

Chatauque, 159.

Cheney, Charles B., 317, 319.

Cherry Mountain, 26; slide, 304.

Child, Lydia Maria, Chocorua's
Curse, II, 12.

Chisholm's Guide-Book, xiii.

Chiswick. See Littleton, 61.

Chittenden, Alfred K., 388.

Choate, Jonathan, 68.

Choate, Rufus, 158.

Chocorua, chieftain, 4, 10; legend
of, II, 12; Longfellow's poem,
12, 186; other poems, 12.

Chocorua, mountain, 10, 67, 179;
Whittier's opinion of, 180;
Whittier's and Lucy Larcom's
humorous poems on climbing,
181; Thomas Cole and, 191,
193; A. B. Durand, 195; John
Williamson, 197; A. D. Shat-
tuck, 198; J. W. Casilear, 199;
Daniel Huntington, 201; Wil-
liam Hart, 203; in second geo-
logical survey, 210; Peak
House, 255.

Chocorua, village, 68.

Chocorua Lake, 69.

Chocorua Pines, 403.

Christall hill or hills. See Crystal
hill.

"Christus Judex," 103.

Church, F. E., 203.

Church's Falls, 203.

Civil War, 66, 68.

Clark, artist, 202.

Clay, Mrs. C. E., 255.

Clay, Mount, named, 37.

Clement, Daniel Q., 257.

Clement, Ezekiel A., 257.

414

INDEX

Clement, James, 256, 257, 312,

Cleveland, Grover, at Tamworth,
69.

Cliff House, 159.

" Climbs to the Clouds," 371, 372.

Clough, A. F., winter on Mount
Moosilauke, 210, 311-14; win-
ter on Mount Washington, 316,
318, 319-

Coast and Geodetic Survey, U.S.,
250.

Cobb, J. O., 348.

Coffin, Ira, 168.

Cogswell, P. B., 318.

Coke, E. T., quoted, 81; his visit
to the Mountains, 143-45.

Cold weather in June, 76.

Cole, Thomas, painting of death
of Chocorua, 11, 193; at Jack-
son, 172; connection with
Mountains, 190-93.

Colebrook, 70.

Coleridge, Lord Chief Justice,
248.

Colman, Samuel, 198.

Concord, State capital, 61; first
railroad train, 222.

Concord. See Lisbon.

Concord Railroad, 222.

Concord and Montreal Railroad,

367.

Cone, Sergeant O. S. M., 326.

Connecticut, the, xxxi, 399.

Connecticut and Passumpsic
Rivers Railroad, 223, 226.

Connecticut River Railroad, 226.

Conrad, Justus, on Woodstock,
63; on discovery of the Profile
and the Flume, 102.

Conway, Henry Seymour, 50.

Conway, Indian remains, 3; Bel-
knap's party at, 29; Bigelow's
party at, 37; settled, 50; origin
of name, 50; history, 50^.;
hotels at, 159 ff.; and Portland
and Ogdensburg Railroad, 227;
Eastern Railroad reaches, 228;
lumbering at, 378. See also
North Conway.

Conway Corner, 159.

Cook, E. B., 356.

Cooper, Rev. Charles D., 134.

Cooper, J. M., 55.

Coos, Upper, 64; Rosebrook in,
70.

Coosucs, the, 2.

Copp, Benjamin, 59.

Copp, Joshua, 64.

Corcoran Gallery of Art, 199.

Courthouse, first, at Plymouth,
49.

"Cow Pasture," 232.

Cox, Edmund, 243.

Cram, Captain T. J., ascertains
height of Mount Washington,
217.

Crandall, Governor, 9.

Crawford, Abel, lives in Nash and
Sawyer's Location, 72; moves
to Hart's Location, 72, 73;
keeps inn there, 73, 158; acts as
guide, 83, 84, 206; character-
ized, 84; makes first horseback
ascent of Mount Washington,
84, 206; vigorous old age, 85;
death, 85; and Samuel Willey,
Jr., 91; effect of storm on his
property, 97; portrait, 202.

Crawford, Ethan Allen, autobiog-
raphy, xiv; on story of Nancy,
56; cares for grandfather and
inherits latter's property, 75;
physique, 75; burial place, 75;
soldier, 76; instance of his
strength, 76; Louisville, New
York, 76; comes to grandfath-
er's, 76, 77; house burned, 77,
157; first path, 77; guide, 77 jf-;
builds shorter path, 78; stone
cabins, 79, 229; tent, 229; en-
larges house, 79, 157; again, 80,
157; annoyed by neighboring
landlord, 80, 165; leaves Moun-
tains and moves to Guildhall,
82, 163; returns to Mountains,
82, 166; dies, 83; age, 83; epi-
taph, 83; Willey disaster, 87;
date of Willey House, 89;
storm of August (1826), 92;
searcher at Willey House, 95;
effect of storm on his property,
98; guides Western travelers,
99; accounts of visitors, 107;
Chancellor Kent, 107; and bo-

415

INDEX

tanist, io8; Hawthorne at his
house, 115, 116; Emerson there,
119; Harriet Martineau and,
145; carries mail, 160; builds
Notch House, 162; notice of
painter, 190; makes provision
for records of ascents, 357.

Crawford, E. A., 3d, 330, 375.

Crawford, Lucy Howe, her His-
tory of the White Mountains,
xiii, 74; cares for Eleazar Rose-
brook in his last illness, 75;
burial place, 83.

Crawford, Stephen M., 376.

Crawford, Thomas J., makes
bridle path, 77; keeps Notch
House, 85, 162; builds road up
Mount Willard, 85; guides
Western travelers, 99, 100;
names Mount Willard?, 113;
builds first Crawford House,
162; and Nazro, 261; and
Frederick Strickland, 268, 269.

Crawford, William H., 330.

Crawford family, in White Moun-
tain history, 70; work in devel-
oping Mountain travel, 155,
156.

Crawford House, Beecherat, 131;
first one built, 162; burned,

, 163; present one built, 163.

Crawford Notch, known to In-
dians, 25; made known to colo-
nists, 25, 26; road, 25, 26, 27;
turnpike, 27, 73; President
Dwight, 34, 35; Colonel Whip-
ple, 52; Rogers's Rangers, 54;
Nancy, 55, 56; name, 75; Wil-
ley disaster, 85; turnpike de-
stroyed and rebuilt, 97; Profes-
sor Silliman, 108, 109; Haw-
thorne, 1 15, 1 16; E. A. Kendall,
139; Henry Tudor, 141; E. T.
Coke, 144; traffic through, 156;
Thomas Cole, 191; Thomas
Doughty, 194; Benjamin
Champney, 197; H. B. Brown,
203; explorations, 213; railroad
through, 227; State reserve,
401-03.

Crawford Notch Hermit, 263.

Crawford Notch Reserve, 401-03.

Crawford Path, built, 77; made
bridle path, 77; shelter, 279,

354.
Cruft, Isaac S., 334.
Crystal Cascade Path, 347, 355.
Crystal hill or hills, xxv, 19, 20.
Cummings, G. E., 225.
Currier, Representative Frank

Dm 391. 393-
Curtis, William B., 275-79.
Cushman, Nathaniel, 62.
Cutler, Reverend Dr. Manasseh,

first visit and results, 28, 31, 32;

second visit, 33; motive, 154.
Cutler's River, 31.
Cutter, Louis F., 277.

Dalton, town, 57.

Dalton, Honorable Tristram, 57.

Dana, Professor J. D., 213.

Danas, the, 47.

Danforth, Rev. Samuel, Almanac,

20.
Darby Field, the, 283, 284.
Dartmouth (Jefferson), 29, 31, 52.
Dartmouth College, 105, 209,

211, 212, 213.
Dartmouth Outing Club, 305.
Davis, D. S., 230.
Davis, Jefferson, 232.
Davis, John C, 255.
Davis, Jonathan G., 355.
Davis, Nathaniel T. P., keeps

Mount Crawford House, 73,

158; loses property, 137.
Davis Path, 346.
Dawson, George, 83.
Deer Park Hotel, 342.
Deluge tradition, 14.
Demerit, Eli, 62.
Demerit, John, 62.
Dennison, Noyes S., 77.
Devens, Charles, 248.
Devil's Den, on Mount Willard,

described, 218; explored by

Dartmouth men, 213, 219; by

F. Leavitt, 219.
Dinsmore, Andrew, 255.
Dodge, Harriet D., 249.
Dodge, Captain John W., 249.
Dodge, Joseph A., 257.
Dog, the Willey, 92.

416

INDEX

Dolfinato, Nicolo del, map, i8.

Doughty, Thomas, 190, 194.

Douglass, William, quoted, xxvi.

Dover, N.H., Indian attack on, 9.

Dow, Colonel Stevens M., 257.

Downes, William Howe, ix.

Doyle, Private, 323, 324. ^

Drake, Samuel Adams, his Heart
of the White Mountains, xii;

[ quoted on name of Mountains,
xxvi; on Agiocochook, xxix; on
Wautnbekketmethna, xxx; as to
train-shed and Private Doyle's
experiences, 322.

Dry River, 15, 22.

Duhring, Mrs., 232.

Dunstable (Nashua), 42, 43, 46.

Durand, A. B., at West Camp-
ton, 66, 203; at Jackson, 172;
connection with White Moun-
tains, 194, 195, 196.

Durand, John, 63.

Durand, town. See Randolph,

Durgin, Mr., proprietor of Sinclair
House, 315.

Durgin, Mrs. Charles, 330.

Dwight, Theodore, Jr., on Craw-
ford Notch road, 27; tour to
Mountains, no; notices of
them, no, in; ascent of
Mount Washington, 112.

Dwight, President Timothy
(1752-18 1 7), his Travels in New
England and New York, xi; on
visibility of Mount Washing-
ton, 19; his journeys to the
White Mountains, 33, 34, 35;
to Lake Winnepesaukee, 34;
quoted as to Bethlehem, 61;
on the character and achieve-
ments of Eleazar Rosebrook,
74; his name for Mount La-
fayette, 106; motive for visit-
ing Mountains, 154.

East Branch House, 158.
Eastern Railroad, 228.
Eastman, Amos, captured, 49.
Eastman, Daniel, 159.
Eastman, Lewis, 198.
Eastman, Mrs. M. E., 159.
Eastman, Moses, 161.

Eastman, Richard, 78.

Eastman, William, 68.

Eaton, J. F., 352.

Echo Lake, David Johnson's pic-
ture, 197; Sanford R. Gilford's
picture, 198.

Eamands, Professor J. Rayner,
searches for remains of Weiss,
275; King's Ravine Path, 346;
builds camps and trails, 355;
builds Valley Way, 356; opens
Mount Pleasant Path, 356.

Edward VH, 195.

Eliot, John, and Passaconaway,
6, 8; and Wonnalancet, 9.

Ellis, George B., 194.

Ellis, George E., 36.

Ellis River, 31.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, his con-
nection with the White Moun-
tains, 118-20; on Thoreau's
injury, 124.

Emerton, J. H., scientific work,
218; on Mount Washington,
247.

Emery, , settler, 60.

Emmons, Charles G., 249.

English Jack, 263-66.

Estus, Timothy, 233.

Evans, Captain, builds road
through Crawford Notch, 25;
ascends Mount Washington
twice, 25, 120; guides Belknap's
party, 29, 31.

Evans, David, 40.

Evans, John, 40.

Evarts, William M., 248.

Everett, Edward, 158.

Fabyan, Abbott L., 338.

Fabyan, Horace, makes bridle
path, 78; comes to White
Mountains, 82, 163; repairs old
Willey House and builds new
one, 164; keeps Conway House,
164; keeps Mount Washington
House, 164; his tin horn, 164;
remodels hotel, 165; and Fred-
erick Strickland, 269; hotel
called after, 336.

Fabyan, White Mountains Rail-
road reaches, 225; Portland and

417

INDEX

Ogdensburg Railroad reaches,
227; Maine Central Railroad
extended from, 228; connected
with Base by turnpike, 238,
241.

Fabyan House, 336, 337; Mount
Washington fire discovered at,
362.

Fabyan Path, 78, 356,

Fairfield. See Woodstock.

Fall of a Thousand Streams, 121.

Fassett, F. H., 339.

Faunce, Sewall E., 273, 274.

Faxon, Edward, 247.

Fay, Professor Charles E., 349.

Fenollosa, W. S., 346.

Ferrin's Pond, loi.

Field, Darby, and Crystal Hills,
xxv; nationality of, 20; resi-
dence of, 20; explores Moun-
tains, 20; ascends Mount
Washington, 20, 21 ; account of
riches found, 22.

Field, General Martin, 103.

Field meetings of Appalachian
Mountain Club, 351.

Field Museum of Natural His-
tory, 239.

Fields, Annie, 66, 178.

Fields, James T., 66, 175, 178.

Fires, 47, 77, 157, 163, 165, 171,
172, 173, 174, 181, 336, 338,
339. 340, 360-64, 369, 370.

Fisher, Dr. Joshua, 28, 30.

FHnt, William F., 214.

Flume, the, Justus Conrad on
discovery of, 102; discovery of,
105; Harry Hibbard describes,
105, 106; Harriet Martineau
visits, 146; boulder carried
away, 303.

Flume House, Hon. Amelia Ma-
tilda Murray at, 151; early
history, 167; burned, 168;
present one erected, 168, 341.

Forest fires, 381-83.

Foster, Daniel, 50, 52.

Foster, John, map, 18.

Fox, Charles James, poem on
Chocorua, 12; poetry, 175.

Fox, Daniel, 60.

Fox family, Campton, 66.

Franconia, • settlement and his-
tory, 58.

"Franconia Mountain Notch,"
poem, 105.

Franconia Notch, road destroyed
in 1826, 97; road building, loi;
earliest printed description,
106; Hawthorne, ii5;Thoreau,
122; Parkman, 126; Starr King,
130; E. T. Coke, 145; Harriet
Martineau, 146; Sir Charles
Lyell, 148; Fredrika Bremer,
148; Bryant, 187; Thomas Cole,
191-92; hotels, 166-69, 34i~42;
National Forest purchases in,

399-
Franconia Range, shelter, 354;
path, 356; forests acquired,

397. 399.

Frankenstein, G. N., 38; pictures,
203.

Frankenstein CliflF, 15, 38, 203.

Frankenstein Trestle, 38, 227.

Franklin, Mount, named, 78.

Freeman, Colonel Orville E., 240.

Freeman, Mrs. Orville E., 330.

French, Mr., landlord of Fabyan
House, 337.

Fresh Air Club, 276, 279,

Frothingham, Richard, quoted,
128, 129, 130.

Frye, Caleb, 255.

Frye, Chaplain Jonathan, 46.

Frye, General Joseph, 39, 51.

Frye, Joseph, Jr., 40.

Frye, Nathaniel, 40.

Frye, Nathaniel (fl. 1848), 255.

Fryeburg, Maine, Indian remains,
3; Indian village, 3; early his-
tory, 39^.; fire, 47; and Con-
way, 51, 52; settlers flee to, 65;
Whittier, 178; Lovewell's Fight
commemorated, 186.

Gallinger, Senator Jacob H., 390,

391, 396.
Garfield, Mount, lake, 212; path,

356; named, 356; fire, 382.
Gate of the Notch, 35, 89, 263,

372.
Gay, Sir Isaac Newton, 262.
Gay, W. A., 66, 198, 203.

418

INDEX

Geary, artist, 202.

Geological Survey of New Hamp-
shire, first, 204-08; second,
208-14.

Geological Survey, U.S., 396, 397.

Geology, xxiii, 147, 204-15.

"Geology of New Hampshire,
The," 214.

Gerry, S. L., 66, 202, 203.

"Giant of the Hills," 75.

Giant's Grave, tradition con-
nected with, 14; first hotel at,
73; burned, 77; second, 77, 79,
80; echo at, 164; leveled, 336.

Gibb, J. L., 162, 163, 167.

Gibson, W. Hamilton, his illus-
trations, xii.

Gifford, Charles Ailing, 343.

Gifford, Sandford R., 198, 200,201.

Gile, Dr., of Hanover, 281.

Gile, R. T., 374.

Gilead, Maine, Indian raid, 65.

Gilman, Samuel, Jr., 67.

Glen, the, hotels in, 170-71,
338-40.

Glen Boulder Trail, 356.

Glen Ellis Falls, 30, 357, 404.

Glen Ellis House, 172.

Glen House, first one built, 170;
J. M. Thompson, proprietor,
171; Millikens, 171, 338; Dr.
Ball at, 287, 300, 301; era of
prosperity, 338; burned, 338,
339; second one opened, 339;
completed, 340; burned, 340;
stables, 340; present house,
340; "Josh Billings" at first
house, 341 ; Mount Washington
fire discovered at, 363; salute at
opening of new Summit House,
369.

Glines, Israel, 53.

Glines, John, 53.

Goffe, Colonel, 52.

Gookin, General, 8.

Gordon trail, 345.

Gorges, Thomas, 22, 120.

Gorham, Maine, 25.

Gorham, N.H., 65; Starr King at,
130; hotels at, 169, 170; rail-
road reaches, 22 1 ; present Bos-
ton and Maine railroad, 226.

Grand Pierre, Emile, 217.

Grand Trunk Railway, 221.

Grant, S. Hastings, 217.

Grant, General Ulysses S., visits
Mount Washington, 242; coach
ride, 243; Twin Mountain
House, 335.

Gray, Asa, memoir of Oakes, 37;
accompanies Professor Tuck-
erman, 121; and Honorable
Amelia Matilda Murray, 150.

Gray, Francis C, 36.

Gray's Inn, 172, 173.

Great Carbuncle, legend of, 15,
116.

Great Gulf, crossed by Dr. Rob-
bins, 108; path into, 347.

"Great Stone Face, The," 103,
116, 117, 149.

Greeley, Deacon, of Boston, 199,

Greeley, Horace, 232.

Greene, Benjamin D., 108.

Greenleaf, Abbie Burnham (Mrs.
C. H.), 169, 173.

Greenleaf, Colonel C. H., 166,
167.

Griffith, George Bancroft, 175.

Griggs, artist, 66, 203.

Groveton, railroad reaches, 225.

Guernsey, Mrs. Jessie, 105.

Guernsey farm, 106.

Guildhall, Vermont, Rosebrooks
at, 72; birthplace of Ethan
Allen Crawford, 75; Crawford
lives at, 82.

Gunthwaite. See Lisbon.

Guyot, Arnold, explores the
Mountains, 216, 217.

Guyot, Mount, 217.

Gyles, John, quoted, xxix.

Hadley, Philip, 257.

Hale, Edward Everett, member
of first geological survey, 207;
at house on Mount Washing-
ton, 207, 230; Appalachian
Mountain Club, 351; and
national forest, 388.

Halfway House, on carriage road,
235, 243, 244.

Hall, Dr. A. B., 286.

Hall, Dr. Edward Hagaman, 17.

419

INDEX

Hall, Joseph S., in Tuckerman's
Ravine, 121; builds first Sum-
mit House, 230; contractor on
carriage road, 236; and Dr.
Ball, .298, 299, 301.

Hall, Judge Obed, inn, 93, 158;
characterized, 158.

Hanover, 35, 209, 316.

Harding, Chester, 202.

"Hark Hill," 65.

Harkness, Harry S., 371.

Harriman, Governor, 208, 384.

Harriman, Mr., settler, 60.

Hart, Warren W., on Darby
Field, 20; reopens Davis Path,

346.
Hart, William, 203.
Hart's Location, 73, 76.
Hartshorn, Lucius, 305-07.
Hartshorn, Mrs. Lucius, 231.
Harvard College, 39.
Harvey, James C, 277.
Hatch, George W., engraving, 11,

193.

Havell, F. J., 194.

Haverhill, N.H., 71.

Haverhill and Franconia Iron
Works, The, 59.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, his Great
Carbuncle, 15; Ambitious Guest,
86; Great Stone Face, 103; his
relation to the White Moun-
tains, ii3Jf.; his visits, 114,
115, 117; death, 114, 118, 174;
on the early inns, 157.

Hayes, Mount, 134.

Hayes, President Rutherford B.,
248.

Haystack, Great, 106.

Haystack Lake, 212.

Hazard, Ebenezer, 28, 30.

Heard, Mr., 28.

Hearne, Sergeant M. L., 326, 327.

Henry, Professor Joseph, 310.

Hermit Lake, 121.

Hermit of the White Mountains,
263.

Hibbard, Harry, poet, 105.

Higginson, Colonel Thomas
Wentworth, 258.

Hill, Henry, 89, 158.

Hill, Thomas, painter, 200.

Hill, Rev. Dr. Thomas, president
of Harvard College, 212.

Hill, W. P., 164.

Hilliard, W. M., 372.

Hitchcock, Charles H., on per-
manency of the Profile, 105; as
to name of Mounts Webster
and Willard, 113; appointed
State Geologist, 208; conducts
second geological survey, 209-
14; on Devil's Den, 219; and
winter occupation of Mount
Washington, 2,10 ff.

Hitchcock, President Edward,
208.

Hitchcock, E., Jr., 211.

Hitchcock, Colonel John R., hotel
proprietor, 170; lessee of old
Tip-Top and Summit Houses,
232; house on Mount Moriah,
255; and winter occupation of
Mount Washington, 311, 314.

Hitchcock Flume, 213.

Hoar, Senator George F., 390. j

Hobart, Captain James, 48.

Hoit, A. G., 202.

Hoit, Benjamin, 66.

Holden, L. L. ("Ranger"), 318,
358.

Holland, Bert, 372.

Holland, Samuel, map, 18, 60.

Holmes, Christopher, 65.

Holyoke, Mount, 144.

Hooker, General Joseph, 248.

Home, Superintendent John, 362,
363.

Hotels, first at "Giant's Grave,"
built, 73, 157; burned, 77, 157;
second, 77, 79, 80; early, 154-
74; later, 331-44-

House that Jack Built, 263.

Howard, Governor Henry, 332,

334-
Howells, William Dean, 47, 184.

Hubbard, , collegian, 28.

Hubbard, Oliver P., M.D., 214.
Hubbard, R. W., 198.
Hubbard, William, his History of

New England, xxv; Indian

Wars, 6, 18.
Hudson River School of artists,

189, 190, 194, 199.

420

INDEX

Humboldt, Alexander von,
quoted, x.

Hunter, legend of, and church of
St. Francis, 54.

Hunter, Harry W., 272, 273.

Huntington, Daniel, 201.

Huntington, J. H., assistant on
second geological survey, 209-
13; winter on Mount Moosi-
lauke, 210, 311-14; "Scenery of
Coos County," 214; winter
on Mount Washington, 3i6jf.;
his winter ascents, 316, 318,
319. 330; ascends by Davis
Path, 346.

Huntington's Ravine, 317.

Hutchinson, Thomas, 58.

Indian Island, 3.

Indian remains, I, 2, 3, 48, 52,
64.

Indians of the White Mountam
region, I, 2; their fear of the
mountain summits, 13, 21; ac-
company Darby Field, 20, 21;
Col. Whipple's adventure with,
53; Mrs. Rosebrook's adven-
ture with, 72.

Ingelow, Jean, 183.

Inness, George, at West Ossipee,
179, 200; at North Conway,
200.

Intervale, Whittier at, 181; junc-
tion point, 228; British Em-
bassy at, 372; forest reserva-
tion meeting, 388.

Iron Mountain House, 171.

Iron works in Franconia, 58, 59;
in Tamworth, 68.

Irving, Washington, visits White
Mountains, 142, 143.

Island Pond, Vermont, 220, 221.

Israel's River, 53, 54,

Jackman, Richard, 68,

Jackman, Royal C, 373.

Jackson, 29, 31; settlement, 59;
becomes a summer resort, 171;
hotels at, 171-73; artists at,
171, 202; first winter meeting of
Appalachian Mountain Club,
351-

Jackson, Dr. Charles T., and first
Geological Survey of New
Hampshire, 205-07, 208.

Jackson, Mount, named, 37.

Jackson-Carter Notch Path, 355.

Jackson Falls House, 171.

Jacob's Ladder, 241, 244.

James, Professor William, 69.

Jefferson, 29, 35; settlement and
history, 52 Jf.

JefTerson, Mount, named, 78;
Phillips Brooks, 135; Edward
Everett Hale, 207; Dr. Ball,

295. 297.

Jefferson, President Thomas, loi.

Jefferson Highlands, 195, 375,
376.

Jefferson Notch Road, 374-76.

Jenkins, an English trader, mur-
dered, 6.

Jenks, Edward Augustus, 175.

Jewell, Sergeant W. S., 326.

Jillson, Stephen, 63.

Jilly, Paul, 60.

John Anderson Memorial Road,

373. 374-
John's River, 53.
Johnson, David, 197.
Jordan, Governor Chester B.,

376.
Joseph Story Fay Reservation,

403-
Josselyn, John, New England s
Rarities Discovered, xxvi, xxvii;
Account of Two Voyages to New
England, 14; explores Moun-
tains, 23; description, 23, 24.

Kan Ran Vugarty, xxxi.

Kancamagus, Indian sachem, 9,
10.

Kearsarge, Mount, 186, 210;
houses on, 254, 255.

Kearsarge House, built, 160.

Kearsarge Tavern, 159, 160, 196,
197, 198.

Keenan, John M., 279-84.

Keenan, Lawrence J., 283.

Kellogg, Stanley T., 372.

Kendall, Edward Augustus, his
Travels, xxvii, 139; his discus-
sion of the name White Moun-

421

INDEX

tains, XXV, xxvi; quoted as to
Willey House, 89; his tour of
the Mountains, 139; on place
names, 140.

Kennebec, river, 19.

Kensett, J. F., 196, 197, 199.

Kent, Chancellor James, 107,

Kent, Judge William, 107.

Key, D. M., 248.

Kilburn, Benjamin W., 318, 327,
328, 329.

Kilkenny, 382.

Kimball, H. A., 316-18.

King, Reverend Thomas Starr,
his The White Hills, xi; quoted
as to Indian legend, 3; Love-
well's Pond, 47 ; stature of Ethan
Allen Crawford, 75; Mount
Monadnock, 120; Professor
Tuckerman, 121; his connec-
tion with the White Mountains,
127, 128-31; his book pub-
lished, 130; Richard Frothing-
ham on the book, 130; at West
Ossipee, 179; and Dr. Ball, 286.

King Philip's War, 5, 9.

King's Ravine, 130; path, 346.

Kinsman, Mount, 213.

Knight, Captain Artemas, 58.

Knight's Tavern, 166.

Lafayette, Mount, named, 106;
early ascents, 106; Thoreau
ascends, 124; railroad charter,
238; house on, 255; fire, 382.

Lafayette House, Harriet Mar-
tineau at, 146; Fredrika Bre-
mer at, 149; J. L. Gibb, 162;
built, 167; acquired by Richard
Taft, 168.

Lakeman, Dr. Mary R., 330.

Lakes of the Clouds Hut, 353, 354.

Lancaster, N.H., settlement, 56,
57; railroad reaches, 225.

Landslides, 92, 94, 100, 302-04.

Lane, George W., 236.

Langdon, Reverend Samuel, 63.

Lanman, Charles, 166.

Larcom, Lucy, at Campton, 66;
at Center Sandwich, 68; and
Whittier, 176; assists Whittier,
181, 182; Whittier befriends.

182; her connection with the
White Mountains, 183-85; on
Mount Washington, 247.

Latrobe, Charles Joseph, visit to
White Mountains, 141-43.

Laurentian Mountains, xxix.

Lead plate, left on Mount Wash-
ington, 31.

Leavitt, F., 219.

Leavitt, John T. G., 337.

Lebanon, N.H., 223.

Ledge, the, on east side of Mount
Washington, 235; Dr. Ball at,
288, 289, 299.

Lesley, Professor J. P., 214.

Lever, Representative Asbury P.,
393-

Levett, Christopher, his Voyage
into New England, xxv; his
mention of the Mountains,
xxiii; sees Passaconaway, 5;
voyage to New England, 19;
quoted, 19.

Lewis, Samuel, map, xxiv.

Libby, E., & Sons Company, 363.

Lightfoot, chauffeur, 283, 284.

Lindsey, John, 337.

Line, Sergeant William, 328, 329.

Lisbon, iron ore, 58 ; granted and
settled, 61, 62; discovery of
gold in, 62; Ammonoosuc gold
field, 209, 210.

Little, Reverend Daniel, 27, 28.

Little, Henry, 108.

Little, Colonel Moses, 57.

Little, William, his History of
Warren, quoted from, 6; pub-
lished, 64; landlord of Prospect
House, 257; and winter occupa-
tion of Mount Moosilauke, 311.

Littleton, settlement, 57; railroad
reaches, 223, 224.

Lloyd Hills, 60.

Log Cabin, the, 355.

Lok, Michael, map, 18.

Lonesome Lake, 102.

Longfellow, Henry W., poem on
Chocorua, 12, 186; poems on
battle of Lovewell's Pond, 46,
185, 186; in White Mountains,
114; association with Moun-
tains, 185-86.

422

INDEX

•• Lord's Hill," 60.

Lost River, 372, 373.

Lovewell, Captain John, his ex-
peditions against the Indians,
43; battle at Lovewell's Pond,
44, 45; death, 45.

Lovewell's Pond, battle, 42, 44-
46; ballad, 46; Daniel Webster,
47; Whittier, 178; Longfellow's
poems, 185, 186.

Low, A. A., 194.

Lowe, Charles E., searches for
remains of Weiss, 275; builds
Lowe's Path, 345, 346.

Lowe's King's Ravine Path, 346.

Lowe's Path, 3^5, 346; Appala-
chian Mountam Club, 355.

Lower Bartlett, 159.

Lumbering, 378-79.

Lyell, Sir Charles, his visit to the
White Mountains, 146-48.

Lyon, John E., Boston, Concord,
and Montreal Railroad, 224;
second Summit House, 246;
Moosilauke Mountain Road
Company, 257.

McClellan, General George B.,

102, 248.
McMillan, Colonel Andrew, 159.
McMillan House, 159.
McNeill, William Gibbs, 222.
McNorton, James, 63.
Macomber, General David O.,

235. 314-

Mad River, 185.

Madison, Mount, named, 78;
Phillips Brooks on, 135; Osgood
Path, 347; huts, 351, 352; reg-
ister placed, 358.

Madison Hut, built, 351, 352;
enlarged, 352; second hut, 352.

Maine Central Railroad, 227, 228.

Man at the Pool, 261,

Maplewood Farm, 334.

Maplewood Hotel, 334.

Maps, 18-19, 208, 209, 210, 214,

367-
March, Colonel, 41.
Marsh, David G., 257.
Marsh, Sylvester, his services,

237 ; conceives idea of mountain

railway, 237; invents mechan-
ism, 237; applies for a charter,
239; begins construction, 239;
designs first locomotive, 239;
later life, 241; quoted as to
Rigi railway, 242; gives per-
mission for use of train shed in
winter, 314; and Fabyan House,
336.

Martin, Homer, 201.

Martineau, Harriet, her visit to
the White Mountains, 145-46;
as to building of Lafayette
House, 167.

Mason, Mrs. Ellen McRoberts,
50, 159, 227, 255.

Massachusetts, and Passacona-
way, 6, 8; bounty for Indian
scalps, 12, 41, 42; punitive
measures against Indians, 41;
and White Mountain Reserve,

390-
Massachusetts Historical Society,

Collections, xxx, 28.
Mayne, Edward, Robert, and

Thomas, 59.
Mayne, Sir William, 59.
Maynesborough. See Berlin.
Medford (dog), 325, 328.
Mellen, Grenville, 84, 158.
Memphremagog, Lake, 54.
Mercator, Gerhard, map, 18.
Merrill, C. H., 335, 375.
Merrill, G. S., 202.
Merrill, John, 261, 262.
Merrill, Jonathan, 310.
Merrill's Mountain House, 257.
Merrimac, the, xxxi, 2.
Metropolitan Museum of Art,

201.
Milliken, Charles R., 338.
Milliken, Weston F. 338.
Mills, John, 64.
Mitchell, James E., 263.
Model of White Mountain region,

212.
Monadnock (Colebrook), 71.
Monadnock, Mount, and Emer-
son, 120.
Monroe, Mount, named, 78.
Montalban Ridge, 276, 346, 398,

399-

423

INDEX

Monument at Willey site, rock,
86; board, 89, 95; Rosebrook,
73; Crawford, 83.

Moody, Josiah, 60.

Moose Hillock or Moosehillock.
See Moosilauke.

Moosilauke, Mount, as view-
point, 64; E. A. Kendall on
name, 140; Lucy Larcom, 184;
first climbed, 255; Tip-Top
House, 256, 258; account of
ascent by Captain Partridge,
256; winter occupation of, 311-
14; forests acquired, 397.

Moosilauke Mountain Road
Company, 257.

Morey, George W., 138.

Moriah, Mount, 255.

Morris, Honorable Corbyn, 58.

Morristown. See Franconia.

Morse, G. F., 348.

Motor cycle, 372.

Moulton, Jonathan, 68.

Mounds, Indian, 3.

Mount Clinton Road, 375.

Mount Crawford House, built,
73, 88, 89; later history, 158.

Mount Lafayette House, north of
Profile House, 169.

Mount Lafayette House, south of
Profile House, 168, 169.

Mount Madison House, 170.

Mount Pleasant House, 337, 338.

Mount Pleasant Path, 356.

Mount Washington Carriage
Road, 234-36; accident on, 243.

Mount Washington Hotel (Bret-
ton Woods), 343-44, 376.

Mount Washington Hotel Com-
pany (Fabyan House), 336.

Mount Washington House (at
Fabyan), Horace Fabyan keeps,
164; remodeled, 165; burned,
163, 165, 336; stables de-
stroyed, 336.

Mount Washington Railway,
John E. Lyon and, 224; history,
237-42; empty train wrecked,
244; slide-boards, 244-46.

Mount Washington River, 15, 22,

Mount Washington Road Com-
pany, 235.

Mount Washington Summit Road
Company, 236.

Mount Whittier. See West
Ossipee.

Mountain Coliseum, 121.

Mountain View House (White-
field), 342.

Mularvey, Michael, 318, 319.

Murphy, D. C, 326.

Murray, Honorable Amelia Ma-
tilda, her visit to the White
Mountains, 150-52.

Musgrove, Eugene R., his an-
thology, 175; on Whittier as
poet of the Mountains, 176.

Myer, General A. B., 315.

Myers, J. D., contractor on car-
riage road, 235; and Bourne
party, 270; and Dr. Ball, 288,
289, 299.

Nails, machine-made, first, 69.

Nancy, story of, 55, 56; Mount,
55; her surname, 55.

Nancy's Bridge, 55.

Nancy's Brook, 55.

Nash, Timothy, discovers Craw-
ford Notch, 26.

Nash and Sawyer's Location, 26,
70.

Nashua and Lowell Railroad, 222.

Nashua and Worcester Railroad,
222.

National Forest, 388-401.

National Forest Reservation
Commission, composition, 396;
action in 19 14, 398; approves
further appropriations, 401.

Nazro, John Coffin, 259-61.

Nelson, S. A., raises fund for
winter occupation of Mount
Washington, 315; a member of
party, 316; stay on Mountain,
318, 320.

New Hampshire, separate colony,
42; poets, 175; first geological
survey, 204-08; second, 208-
14; railroads, 222-28; lumber-
ing and other wood industries,
378-80; forest fire protection,
382, 383; ownership of forests,
384; and national forest, 388-

424

INDEX

89; Crawford Notch purchase,
401-03.

New Hampshire Forestry Com-
mission, 403.

New Hampshire Forests, Society
for the Protection of, acquires
Lost River tract, 373; work for
fire protection, 383; advocates
forest reservation, 387, 388;
400; Crawford Notch Reserve,
401 ; its reservations, 403.

New Hampshire Iron Factory
Company, 58.

New Madbury, 59.

New River, 32.

New York Historical Society
Gallery, 193.

New York Public Library Galler-
ies, 194, 199, 201.

Newell, L. B., 318.

"Newspaper train" on Mount
Washington Railway, 245.

Nichols, Rev. Dr. Harry P., visi-
tor to Mount Washington, 247;
ascent on June 30, 1900, 276; at
opening of present Summit
House, 369; accompanies Am-
bassador Bryce, 372.

Nickerson, David, 96.

North Conway, settled, 52; Du-
rand at, 194; Champney and,
195-99; various artists at, 196
ff.; Portland and Ogdensburg
Railroad reaches, 227; coach-
ing parades, 245; first field
meetmg of Appalachian Moun-
tain Club, 351.

North Stratford, 228.

North Woodstock, reiilroad
reaches, 226.

Northern Peaks, named, 78;
Phillips Brooks, 134; Edward
Everett Hale, 207; first paths,
345; first camp, 346; Madison
Hut, 351; private camps, 355;
forests, 397, 398.

Northern Railroad of New Hamp)-
shire, 223,

Northumberland, 71.

Norumbega, 18.

Norwich, and Worcester Railroad,

Notch House (near Gate of
Notch), 85, 122, 126, 129; ori-
gin, 161; built, 162; Thomas J.
Crawford keeps, 162; repair^
and burned, 163.

Notch House (Willey House).
See Willey House.

Notch Mountain, 1 13.

Nowell, William G., Lowe's Path,
345; builds first camp, 346; Log
Cabin, 355; trail to Castellated
Ridge, 356; puts A. M. C. reg-
ister on Mount Adams, 358.

Noyes, Nathaniel, 231.

Number Four (fort), 54.

Nuttall, Thomas, 108.

Nutter, Mr., of Lancaster, 319.

Oakes, William, his Scenery of the
White Mountains, xi, 38; Cut-
ler's collection, 32; botanical
explorations, 37, 38; memoir.
37; collects plants, 108; Mount
Webster, 113; Sir Charles
Lyell, 147; Flume House, 167.

Oakes Gulf, 38.

Observatory, first, 233, 234;
second, 250, 251.

"Old Man of the Mountain."
See Profile.

"Old Man of the Mountain,"
railroad engine, 224.

Ordway, Alfred, 197.

Ormsbee, Allan, 275-79.

Osgood, Benjamin, innkeeper, 159.

Osgood, Benjamin F., Bierstadt,
202; winter ascent of Mount
Washington, 306-07; builds
paths, 247; places a roll for
records on Mount Adams, 358.

Osgood, Samuel, 40.

Osgood Path, 347, 348.

Osgoods, the, 47.

Ossipee, town, Indian remains, 3.

Ossipee Pond or Lake, 44, 69.

Ossipee Range, 68, 129, 182.

Ossipees, Indian sub-tribe, 2.

Oxford Hotel, at Fryeburg,
burned, 47.

Packard, Alpheus S., 214.
Packard, Winthrop, 218.

425

INDEX

Page, David, 400.

Page, Captain David, 57.

Page, Jeremiah, 67.

Page, John, 64.

Page, Governor John, 204, 205.

Page, Samuel B., 257.

Paine, Ralph D., quoted, 406-07.

Parker, Herschel C., 277.

Parker, Walter, 277.

Parker, Lieutenant Zachariah, 48.

Parkman, Francis, in White
Mountains, 124-27; exploit at
Willey slide, 127; on preserva-
tion of forests, 386.

Parsons, Colonel Charles, 230.

Parsons, Thomas, W., 87.

Partridge, Captain Alden, 256.

Pascataquack, 20.

Passaconaway, chieftain, 4-8.

Passaconaway, mountain, 67,
210.

Patch, Mrs. Daniel, 256.

Patch, Joseph, 64.

Path, first up Mount Washing-
ton, 77; second, 78.

"Patriarch of the Mountains,"

73, 84.
Paugus, Indian sachem, 45.
Pawtucket Falls, 6.
Peak House (Mount Chocorua),

255-

Peaked Hill. See Agassiz, Mount.

Pearson, Samuel A., 77.

Peary, Lieutenant (now Admiral)
R. E., 248.

Peck, Dr. W. D., 33, 37.

Peek, W. H., 356.

Peeling. See Woodstock.

Pegwagget. See Pequawket.

Pemigewasset House, 118, 173,
174.

Pemigewasset River, 48, 387.

Pemigewassets, the, retire to
Canada, 49; home, 64,

Pendexter, , moves into Wil-
ley House, 100.

Pendexter, Honorable John, 158.

Pendexter Mansion, 158.

"Pennacook," quoted, 223.

Pennacooks, the, 2, 4, 5, 9, 10.

Pequawket, Indian village, 3, 40,
42,43-

Pequawket, Mount, 254. See
Kearsarge, Mount.

Pequawket House, 159.

Pequawkets, the, 2, 11, 12, 41.

Perch Camp, 355.

Perkins, Nathan R., 230, 231.

Philbrick, David, 68.

Photography on Mount Washing-
ton, 327, 328.

Pickard, Samuel T., 180, 182.

Pickering, Dr. Charles, 38.

Pickering, E. C, on Mount
Washington, 247; founder and
first president of Appalachian
Mountain Club, 349.

Pickering, W. H., 247; on Davis
Path, 346.

Picket Hill. See Agassiz, Mount.

Pierce, Franklin, 117, 118, 158.

Pigwackets. See Pequawkets.

Pingree, David, 260.

Pinkham, Captain Joseph, 59.

Pinkham Notch, 59.

Piscataqua, river, 5, 20.

Pitman Hall, 159.

Plato, a colored man, 65.

Playfair, Sir Lyon, 248.

Pleasant, Mount, named, 78;
sHdes on, 100.

Plummer, Joseph, 161.

Plymouth, President Dwight, 34;
settled, 48; history, 49, 50;
hotels at, 173, 174; railroad
reaches, 224.

"Plymouth buck gloves," 50.

Pone, artist, 203.

Pool, the, Man at, 261.

Poole, Fanny Runnells, 175.

Poor, Peter, 65.

Portland, Maine, 19, 34, 47; the
Atlantic and St. Lawrence
Railroad, 220, 221; connected
with Montreal by rail, 221;
Portland and Ogdensburg Rail-
road, 227.

Portland and Ogdensburg Rail-
road, 227, 228; effect on travel,
331 ; completed to Fabyan, 336.

Portsmouth, N.H., 17.

Potter, Chandler E., his History
of Manchester, quoted from, 7,
9, 10.

426

INDEX

Potter, Bishop Henry C, 136.

Pourtales, Count de, 142.

Pratt, Henry Cheeves, 191, 194.

Prescott, John, 67.

Presidential Range, xxiii, xxix;
chief peak named, 32, 33; other
peaks named, 78; traversed by
Dr. Robbins, 108; casualties
on, 267-84; Dr. Ball, 284-301;
paths on 345-56; forests ac-
quired, 397, 398, 399.

Prime, Dr. William C, on the
discovery of the Profile, 101,
102; his camp at Lonesome
Lake, 102; description of the
Profile, 104; on Richard Taft,
167; and Mount Lafayette
House, 169; on Mount Wash-
ington, 247.

Prince of Wales (Edward VH) , 195.

Procter, George C, 318.

Proctor, Edna Dean, uses Agio-
chook, XXX ; her poetry, 175.

Profile, Mount, 104.

Profile, the, discovery of, loi,
102; existence made known,
103; Dr. Prime describes, 104;
measurements of, 105, 213;
Professor C. H. Hitchcock on
its permanency, 105; Haw-
thorne's story, 116; E. T. Coke
on, 145; Fredrika Bremer on,
149; Hon. Amelia Matilda
Murray, 151; Thomas Cole on,
192; David Johnson's picture,
197; S. L. Gerry's picture, 202.

Profile and Franconia Notch
Railroad, 225.

Profile House, Hon. Amelia Ma-
tilda Murray at, 151 ; built and
opened, 168; enlarged, 168;
first cottage at, 168; railroad to,
225; General Grant at, 243;
character of hotel, 341; torn
down, 342; New Profile House
built and opened, 342.

Profile Lake, loi, 104, 151.

Prospect House. See Tip-Top
House on Mount Moosilauke.

Pursh, Frederick, "Flora of
North America," 33. ^

Putnam, G. F., 257.

Quebec Junction, 228.
Quinebequy, 19.

Railway, up Mount Washington,
237-42; scenic, 366.

Randolph, settlement, 63; rail-
road, 226.

" Ranger." See Holden, L. L.

Ranney, Mrs. V. G., poem on
Chocorua, 12.

Raymond, Major Curtis B., 347.

Raymond Path, 347.

Records of ascent, 31, 37, 84;
history of provision for, 357-
58.

Red Hill (in Moultonborough),
President Dwight ascends, 34;
Professor SiUiman, 108; Tho-
reau, 123; Starr King, 129; Har-
riet Martineau, 145; Hon.
Amelia Matilda Murray, 151;
location and view, 151.

Reservations, Appalachian Moun-
tain Club, 357; 403-04.

Revolutionary War, 53, 57, 63,
66, 67; Rosebrook in, 71, 72.

Riant, John, 62.

Ribero, map, 18.

Rich, John P., 235, 236.

Richards, Reverend Charles A. L.,

133. 136, 137-
Richards, T. Addison, at West

Campton, 66, 203.
Richards, Rev. Dr. W. R., 247.
Ricker, engineer on Mount Wash-
ington carriage road, 235.
Ricker, Mrs. L. J., 160.
Riggenbach, Nicholas, 242.
Rigi railway in Switzerland, 242.
Rindge, Captain, 65.
Ripley, Henry Wheelock, 130.
Riverside Cottage, 184.
Road through Crawford Notch,

25, 26, 27, 87.
Robbins, Dr. J. W., 108.
Rogers, Henry D., 214.
Rogers, Nathaniel Peabody, 177,

178.
Rogers, Major Robert, quoted,

xxvi; attack on St. Francis and

return journey, 53, 54.
Rogers, William B., 214.

427

INDEX

Rogers, Dr., of Lancaster, 319.

Romero, Senor, 248.

Rosebrook, Eleazar, settles in
Nash and Sawyer's Location,
70, 72; Colebrook, 70; incidents
of liife there, 71 ; in Revolution-
ary army, 71, 72; builds first
inn, 73, 157; life, undertakings,
and death, 73; epitaph, 73;
President Dwight on, 74; burial
place, 75; inn, 88; President
Dwight at his house, 34, 35;
Dr. Shattuk, 35.

Rosebrook, Hannah, character
and courage, 71; Northumber-
land, 71; adventure with Indi-
ans, 72; death, 73; burial
place, 75.

Rosebrook, Lucius M., 230.

Rosebrook, William, 89.

Rosebrook, the guide, xxviii.

Rosebrook, , builds White

Mountain House, 166.

Rosebrook family, 70, 166.

Rosebrook House, 166.

Roth, Professor Edward, 103.

Rumney, 65.

Russell's Riverside Cottage, 184.

Rutledge, Edward, 217.

Saco, the, source, xxxi, 20, 140;
Great Carbuncle, 15, 16, 399.

Saco, town, 40.

Saco Pond, 44.

Sagadahoc, truce of, 9.

St. Francis, Indian town in Can-
ada, 9, II, 46; attacked by
Rogers's Rangers, 53, 54.

St. Lawrence and Atlantic Rail-
road, 221.

Sandoz, Ernest, 217.

Sandwich, North, 183, 184.

Sandwich, town, settlement and
history, 67; Lucy Larcom, 183.

Sandwich Addition, 67.

Sandwich Dome, 67.

Sandwich Range, 10, 66, 68.

Sanford, 40.

Sargent, Professor Charles
Sprague, 386.

Sawyer, Benjamin, partner of
Nash, 26.

Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe, as to

name Agiocochook, xxix; as to

Waumbek, xxxi.
Scott, Representative Charles F.,

394-
Scott Bill, 394-95.
Scott's Mills, 228.
Scudder, Horace E., 69.
Scudder, Samuel H., scientific

work, 218; first editor of Appa-

lachia, 218, 359.
Searle, Jesse, 58.
Seward, William H., 232.
Shapleigh, Frank H., 202.
Shattuck, A. D., 198.
Shattuk, Dr. George, quoted on

Crawford Notch turnpike, 27;

explores White Mountains, 35.
Shaw, Chief Justice Lemuel, 36.
Shelburne, settlement, 65; Indian

raid, 65; lumbering, 378.
Shelters on the Mountains, 351-

55.

Shepard, Forrest, 106.

Signal Service, U.S., 250; 322-26.

Signal station, built, 250, 322.

Sigourney, Mrs. L. H., 86.

Silliman, Professor Benjamin,
103, 106; describes and ex-
plores the Crawford Notch,
108, 109; ascends Mount
Washington, 109; Willey Slide,
127.

Silver Cascade, 35, 194.

Silver image of St. Francis, 54.

Sinclair, John G., 161.

Sinclair, Richard, 67.

Sinclair House, Greneral Grant at,
243; development, 332.

Singrawack, 53.

Slade, Daniel D., accompanies
Parkman, 126; quoted, 127.

Slide-board, 244-46; 369.

Slides. See Landslides.

Slosson, Annie Trumbull, scien-
tific work, 218; and Mount
Lafayette House, 169; on
Mount Washington, 247; her
attachment to Summit House,
361.

Smillie, James, 197.

Smith, James, 169.

428

INDEX

Smith, Nathaniel, first settler in

Fryeburg, 40.
Smith, Sergeant Theodore, 316,

318, 325-
Smith, Honorable Thomas J.,

257-

Snow, Nathaniel, 60.

Snow arch in Tuckerman's Ra-
vine, men dine in, 235; Sewall
E. Faunce, 273, 274; party of
Appalachians, 274.

Snyder Brook paths, 355.

Society for the Protection of New
Hampshire Forests. See New
Hampshire Forests, Society for
the Protection of.

Sokokis, the, 2, 3.

Soltaire, 86.

Sparhawk, Mr., 106.

Spaulding, John H., his Historical
Relics of the White Mountains,
xiii; quoted, 13, 56; on Devil's
Den, 219; in management of
Tip-Top House, 231; and car-
riage road, 235; on Nazro, 259,
260; winter ascent of Mount
Washington, 307-09.

Spaulding, Mary B. (Mrs. Lucius
Hartshorn), 231.

Spaulding, Samuel Fitch, 231,

Spencer, Hobart, 66.

Spencer, Jared, 65.

Spencer, Joseph, 66.

Spooner, Thomas Jeflferson, 161.

"Spotted fever," 76.

Sprague, Isaac, 38.

Stag and Hounds, the, 66, 185.

Stage office on Mount Washing-
ton, 249.

Stalbird, Granny, 56.

Stanley, F. E., 372.

Stanley, F. O., 371.

Stanley, Oscar, 304.

Stanley Slide, 304.

Starbird, Granny, 56.

Stark, John, captured by Indians,
49.

Stark, William, escapes from In-
dians, 49; grantee of Bartlett,
60.

Starr King, Mount, 130.

Start, Edwin A., 390. _. ^

Stearns, E. S., History of Ply-
mouth, 50.

Stevens, Alice Bartlett, 243.

Stevens, William, 326.

Stickney, Joseph, Mount Pleas-
ant House, 338; builds Mount
Washington Hotel, 343.

Stille, Professor C. J., 136.

Stillings Path, 345.

Stinson, David, lulled, 49.

Stinson Lake, 49.

Stockbridge, Helen E., compiler
of bibliography, xiv.

Stockwell, Emmons, 57.

Stone, B. G., 197.

Stone cabins on Mount Washing-
ton, 79, 229.

Storm of August, 1826, 91 #.

Story, Judge Joseph, 172.

"Story of Jack," 263, 264.

Strickland, Frederick, 268, 269.

Strong, Rev. George Augustus,
133. 136, 137.

Stuart, Charles J., 77, 78.

Stuart, R. L., 194.

Stuart, Mrs. R. L., 201.

Sugar Hill, 61, 342.

Sullivan County Railroad, 226.

Summit House, first one built,
230 ; used as an employees' dor-
mitory, 231; taken down, 231,
251; second, built and opened,
246, 247; cost, etc., 247; en-
larged and improved, 249;
storm of June 30, 1900, 276;
Appalachian Mountain Club
field meetings, 276, 351 ; corner-
stone for new one laid, 366;
large one planned, 366; present
one built and opened, 367-
69.

Summit House on Mount Moosi-
lauke. See Tip-Top House.

Sumner, Charles, and Fredrika
Bremer, 149; on Mount Wash-
ington, 232.

Sunset Hill House, 342.

Surprise, Mount, 134.

Survey for scenic railway and
Summit House, 366.

Suydam, James A., 200.

Swain, Darius, 256.

429

INDEX

Sweetser, M. F., preparer of
Chisholm's Guide-Book, xiii;
his Handbook (Osgood's or
Ticknor's White Mountains),
xiii; historical material in lat-
ter, xiii; on St. Aspinquid, 5;
opinion of Mount Chocorua,
10; his narration of the Cho-
corua legend, lo-ii; corrects
error as to Cutler's River, 32;
on name of Conway, 50; as to
house on Mount Kearsarge,
255; on Professor Huntington,
317; on leveling of Giant's
Grave, 336; on "Josh Billings,"

341.

Swindell, Jim, 55.

"Switzerland of America," origin
of application to White Moun-
tains, xxxii.

Taft, Richard, 167, 168.

Taft, President William Howard,
395.

Talbot, F, A., 242.

Tamworth, 11, 68, 69.

Tamworth Iron Works, 68.

Taylor family, Campton, 66.

Tent on Mount Washington,
229.

Thaxter, Celia, 175.

"Things as They Are," same as
"Summer Tours," ill.

Thompson, Eben, 318.

Thompson, Dr. Ebenezer, 62.

Thompson, Rev. Frederick, his
reissue of Willey's Incidents,
xiv, 200.

Thompson, George, 177.

Thompson, J. M., buys first Glen
House, 171; drowned, 171, 302,
338; body found, 202; first per-
son to drive up Mount Wash-
ington, 236; and Dr. Ball, 287,
288, 296, 300; bridle path, 171,
347.

Thompson, Samuel W., tavern at
North Conway, 159; carries the
mail, 160; builds Kearsarge
House, 160; present hotel com-
pleted, 161; Champney and
other artists and, 196.

Thoreau, Henry D., visits to
White Mountains, 122-24; in-
jured in Tuckerman's Ravine,
124.

Thorn Mountain House, 172.

Thornton, 66.

Ticknor, William Davis, 117.

Tip-Top House, the old, opened,
231; upper story added, 232;
used by employees, 233; office
oi Among the Clouds, 233, 252;
disused, 233; used again as
hotel, 233, 365; escapes fire of
1908, 364; burned, 369-71.

Tip-Top House (so-called) on
Mount Washington in 1840,
207, 229, 230.

Tip-Top House on Mount Moosi-
lauke, 256, 257, 258.

Token, The, an annual, 11.

Torrey, Bradford, natural his-
tory, 218; on Mount Washing-
ton, 247.

Torrey, Herbert, 217.

Tower, Ambrose, 272.

Train sheds on Mount Washing-
ton, 249, 322.

Trinity Height, 259.

Tripyramid, Mount, 303.

Trollope, Anthony, his visit to
the White Mountains, 152-53;
opinion of the scenery, etc.,

153-
Trollope, Mrs. Frances, 141.
Trudeau, Thomas, 375.
True, Mr., settler, 65.
Trumbull, Dr. J. Hammond, on

meaning of Aglocochook, xxx.
Tucker, Nathaniel, 36.
Tuckerman, Professor Edward,

32, 33; explores the White

Mountains, 120; his botanical

work, 121; his tastes, 121.
Tuckerman's Ravine, 22, 31;

name, etc., 120; Thoreau in,

123; paths, 347.
Tudor, Henry, tour of White

Mountains, 140, 141.
Tug-of-War Hill, 372.
Turner, Honorable George H.,

281, 282.
Turner family, Bethlehem, 161.

430

INDEX

Turnpike, tenth New Hamp-
shire, 27, 73, 87; partly de-
stroyed, 97.

Turnpike from Fabyan's to the
Base, begun, 238; completed,
241.

Tweed, Professor Benjamin F.,
129.

Twin Mountain House, Beecher
at, 132, 133; history, 334, 335.

Twin Mountain Range, Mount
Guyot, 217; trail, 356; fire, 382.

Twin Mountain Trail, 356.

Tyler, Mr., proprietor of Profile
House, 168.

Tyng, Colonel, 42, 46.

Upham, Warren, 214.
Upper Bartlett, 60, 158.

Valley Way, 356.

Vermont Central Railroad, 223.

Vermont Valley Railroad, 226.

Verrazano, sees White Moun-
tains, 17.

Vials or Viles, John Alfred, 263.

Vines, Richard, 22, 120.

Viseu, bishop of, map, 18.

Vose, George L., on second geo-
logical survey, 209, 210; ascent
of Mount Carrigain, 348.

Wadsworth Athenaeum, 193.

Wahwa, 45.

Walker, Donald, 304.

Ward, Julius H., his The White
Mountains, xii; "White Moun-
tain Forests in Peril," 386, 387.

Warren, Jonas, 60.

Warren, Admiral Sir Peter, 64.

Warren, town, settlement, 64;
summer boarders, 257.

Washington, Mount, Passacona-
way legend, 4; visibility of, 19;
ascended by Darby Field, 20,
21; by Josselyn, 23; by a rang-
ing company, 24; by Captain
Evans (twice), 25; by Bel-
knap's party, 30; height esti-
mated by Dr. Cutler, 32; re-
ceives its name, 32, 33; Dr.
Cutler ascends again, 33; height

as computed by Dr. Bowditch,
33; ascended by Dr. Shattuk,
35; by Dr. Jacob Bigelow and
party, 36; height computed by
Dr. Bigelow's party, 36; first
path, 77; bridle path, 77; Ethan
Allen Crawford guides people,
77 Jf.; ascended by Adino N.
Brackett, John W. Weeks,
Phihp Carrigain, and others,
77, 78; height computed by
Brackett and others, 78; short-
er path built, 78; the Misses
Austin ascend, 79; first shelters
built, 79, 229; first horseback
ascent, 84, 85; Grenville Mellen
ascends, 84; Western travelers'
experience during storm of
August, 1826, 99, 100; Profes-
sor Silliman ascends, 109; Haw-
thorne ascends, 115; Professor
Tuckerman and, 121; Thoreau
ascends, 122, 123; Parkman as-
cends, 126; Starr King ascends,
129; Phillips Brooks at, 136;
Latrobe and Irving, 142 ; E. T.
Coke, 144; Anthony Trollope,
152; J. M. Thompson's path,
171; Lucy Larcom, 183, 184;
Bryant, 187; Edward Everett
Hale, 207, 230; President
Hitchcock, 208; height meas-
ured by Guyot, 217; ascer-
tained by Captain T. J. Cram,
217; railroad reaches Base, 225;
E. A. Crawford's tent, 229;
hotels on, 230-33; first and sec-
ond visits of Colonel Charles
Parsons, 230; carriage road,
234-36; height measured by
Engineers Cavis and Ricker,
235 ; railway, 237-42 ; President
Grant visits, 242 ; fatal accident
on carriage road, 243; empty
train wrecked, 244; use of slide-
boards, 244-46; building of
second Summit House, 246,
247; notables on, 232, 247, 248;
post-office established, 249;
stage office built, 249; signal
station built, 250; second ob-
servatory, 250; Among the

431

INDEX

Clouds office, 251; old Summit
House taken down, 251 ; Among
the Clouds, 251-53; Captain
Alden Partridge, 256; Trinity
Height, 259; J. C. Nazro, 259-
61; casualties, 267^.; Dr. Ball,
287^.; winter ascents, 305-09,
327-30; winter occupation,
309-21; U.S. Signal Service,
322-26; low temperatures re-
corded, 319; velocity of wind,
320, 322, 323; train-shed blown
down, 322; William Stevens
dies on, 326; Sergeant Cone in-
jured, 326; winter ascents by
women, 330; Stillings Path,
345; Gordon Path, 345; Davis
Path, 346; Tuckerman's Ra-
vine Path, 347; records of as-
cents, 357; great fire, 360-64;
cornerstone of a new Summit
House laid, 366; plans for sce-
nic railway and large Summit
House, 366; present Summit
House, 367-69; "Climbs to the
Clouds," 371, 372 ; Ambassador
Bryce at, 372; acquired for
National Forest, 397, 398.

Washington House (Conway) ,159.

Waterville, 210.

Watson, L. M., 356.

Waumbek, the name, xxxi.

Waumbek Hotel, railroad to, 226;
history, 342.

Waumbekketmethna, xxx.

Webster, Daniel, teaches at Frye-
burg, 47; plea at Plymouth, 49-
50; visits Ethan Allen Craw-
ford's and ascends Mount
Washington, 112; name given
to mountain, 113; Great Stone
Face, 116; at Mount Crawford
House, 158; at Jackson, 172.

Webster, Colonel David, 173.

Webster, John, 68.

Webster, Colonel William, 173.

Webster Tavern at Plymouth,

173.
Weed, Mr., makes augers, 69.
Weed, Orlando, 67.
Weeks, John W., the explorer,

77, 78.

Weeks, Representative (now Sen-
ator) John W., 393.

Weeks Bill and Act, 394-95, 396,
399, 400, 401.

Weiss, Ewald, 274, 275.

Wells River, Vt., 223, 224.

Wentworth, Governor Benning,
26, 50, 51, 60, 67.

Wentworth, General M. C, 172.

Wentworth, Mark H., 52.

Wentworth, Mount, 106.

Wentworth, Sir Thomas, 63.

Wentworth, , porter for

Thoreau, 123.

Wentworth Hall, 172.

West Campton, 66, 185, 194, 203.

West Ossipee (now Mount Whit-
tier), 179, 182.

West Thornton, mound, 3, 66.

Wheeler, Amos, 60, 161.

Wheeler, Vice-President William
A., 248.

Wheelwright, Reverend John, 5.

Whipple, Colonel Joseph, 29, 52,

53. 55. 56.

Whistler, George Washmgton,
222.

Whitcher, Chase, 255.

Whitcomb, Francis, loi.

White, Franklin, 307-09.

White, Colonel John H., 166.

White Hills, use of the name, xxiii.
See White Mountains.

White Mountain Club, 348, 349.

White Mountain Echo, 253, 254.

White Mountain House, 81, 83;
history of, 165, 166, 336.

White Mountain National Forest,
388-401, 403.

White Mountain Notch. See
Crawford Notch.

White Mountain School of artists,
189.

White Mountain Station House
(Gorham), 169.

White Mountains, literature of,
ix_^.; extent and character of
the region, xxiii; physical geog-
raphy and geology, xxiii; their
name and its origin, xxiii, xxiv;
first appearance of name in
print, xxv-xxvi; Indian names,

432

INDEX

xxix-xxxi; as a river source,
xxxi; as a summer playground,
xxxi; dearth of historical inter-
est, xxxii; Indian legend and
history, iff.; Indian legend of
their origin, 13; early explorers,
17^.; maps, l8, 19; explored by
Darby Field, 20; by Thomas
Gorges and Richard Vines, 22 ;
by John Josselyn, 23; by two
parties of men, 24; by Captain
Evans, 25; Belknap's party,
27 Jf.; Dr. Cutler again. Dr.
Peck and Dr. Bowditch, 33;
visited by Reverend Dr, Timo-
thy Dwight, 33, 34, 35; by Dr.
George Shattuk, 35; by Dr.
Jacob Bigelow and others^ 35,
36; by Dr. Boott, 36, 37; by
Oakes, 37; first settlements,
39^.; first hotel in, built, 73;
various persons explore or visit,
\oiff.; Hawthorne in, 115;
Emerson in, 118-20; Professor
Tuckerman explores, 120-21;
Thoreau in, 122-24; Francis
Parkman visits, 124-27; Henry
Ward Beecher in, 127, 131-33;
Phillips Brooks in, 127, 133-37;
T. Starr King in, 127, 128-31;
Hosea Ballou, 2d, in, 128; early
foreign visitors, 139 ff.; Wash-
ington Irving in, 142, 143; early
hotels and beginnings of region
as summer resort, 154 Jf.; poets
in, 175-88; Whittier, 176-82;
Lucy Larcom, 183-85; Long-
fellow, 185-86; Bryant, 186-88;
scenery described by Bryant,
187-88; painters in, 188-203;
importance in American art,
190; Thomas Cole, 190-93;
Henry Cheeves Pratt, 191,
194; Thomas Doughty, 194;
Champney and other artists
i". 195 ^M later scientific ex-
plorations of, 204^.; first
geological survey, 204-08; sec-
ond geological survey, 208-14;
early geological explorers, 214;
Agassiz, 215-16; Guyot, 216,
217; railroads to and in, 220-

28; John E. Lyon and, 224;
General Grant, 242, 243; note-
worthy "characters" of, 259-
66; casualties, 267-84; Dr.
Ball, 284-301; landslides, 302-
04; later hotels, 331-44; early
trails in, 345-48; White Moun-
tain Club, 348-49; work of
Appalachian Mountain Club in,
350-57. 358-59; Mount Wash-
ington fire, 360-64; lumber in-
dustry in, 378-79. 383-87;
other wood industries, 379-80;
forest fires, 381-83; history of
National Forest Reserve, 388-
401; recent changes in travel
and business, 405-09; use as a
winter resort, 408-09.

White Mountains Railroad, 224,
225, 336.

White River Junction, Vt., 223.

Whiteface, Mount, 67, 210.

Whitefield, 60.

Whitefield and Jefferson Rail-
road, 226.

Whiting, Leonard, 62,

Whitney, Josiah Dwight, 206.

Whittier, John G., uses Agio-
cochook, xxx; accepts Haw-
thorne's "The Great Stone
Face," 117; the poet of the
White Hills, 176-82; friendship
with Lucy Larcom, 182, 183.

Whittier, Mount, 182.

Wild River Valley, 382, 397.

Wilde, Hamilton, 198.

Wilder, Joseph, 63.

Willard, Frances E., 356.

Willard, Joseph, 113.

Willard, Mount, carriage road,
85; named, 113; Hon. Amelia
Matilda Murray, 151 ; Anthony
Trollope, 153; explorations on,
213; Guyot, 217.

Willard, Sidney, 113.

Willey, Benjamin G., his Inci-
dents in White Mountain His-
tory, xiv; quoted, 13, 40, 53, 83;
on the Willey disaster, 85, 87;
on building of Willey House,
89; death, 90; on Frederick
Strickland, 268.

433

INDEX

Willey, George F., 86.

Willey, Captain Samuel, 60, 90.

Willey, Samuel, Jr., 85; moves
into Willey House, 90; thinks
of removal, 90; body found,
96.

Willey, Mrs. Samuel, Jr., 90, 96.

Willey, Selden C, 178, 183.

Willey Brook Bridge, 227.

Willey Disaster, 85 jf.; 109, no,
141.

Willey family, 70.

Willey Hotel, built, 164; burned,
343.

Willey House, built, 89, 157; re-
paired, 89; burned, 89; Ethan
Allen Crawford runs it, 89;
Samuel Willey, Jr., moves into,
90; Pendexter moves into, 100;
no. III; engraving of, in;
repaired by Horace Fabyan,
164; Thomas Cole at, 191;
burned, 343.

Willey Slide, occurs, 92 ; Professor

, Silliman, 109, 127; Parkman
climbs, 127; Sir Charles Lyell
examines, 147; Thomas Hills
painting, 200.

Williams, artist, 203.

Williams, M. B,, 206.

Williamson, John, 197.

Willis, N. P., 194, 196.

Wilson, Edward L., Mount
Washington in Winter, 305;
on Mount Washington in win-
ter, 319, 327, 328.

Wilson, General John, 77.

Wind velocity on Mount Wash-
ington, 320, 322, 323.

"Wine Hills" map, 18.

Winthrop, Governor John, Jour-
nal, XXV, 20; account of Darby
Field's expeditions, 20, 21; ac-
count of Gorges and Vines's
exploration, 22.

Wireless telegraphy between
huts, 354.

Wonnalancet, Indian sachem, 9.

Wood, William, his New Eng-
land's Prospect, quoted from, 8.

Woodbridge, F., 318.

Woodbury, Captain Lot, 161.

Wood-pulp industry, 379, 380.

Woodstock, mound, 3; granted
and settled, 62, 63.

Wyman, Ensign Seth, 46.

Yale College, 34.

Zealand Valley, 381, 385, 399.

CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
U . S . A

iCamping in the White Mountains

^ By Ella Shannon Bowles

The boauUes of the White Moun- Mountain Reserve. One of the finest
tain region are easily accessible by fol- I views in New Hampshire is obtained
lowing trails into the ancient forest, f'^o'" Mount Cardigan, and a camp-
by mountain climbing, fishing, and '"f ,jf '^^ j« ^^''']^ developed there.
1,., f • . .. Further down m the State, near

hunting m season, to camper, motor- ! sunapee. is the Pillsbury tract, which
1st, and "hiker." The National Gov- . offer.s many advantages to the camptfi-.

ernment, the State of New Hampshire
the Society for the Protection of New
Hampshire Forests, and the Appa-
lachian Mountain Club are developing
various plans by which tourists may
readily visit the natural wonders of
"The Old Granite State."

The White Mountain National For-
est, under the direction of the Forest
Service, is open to the public and stop-
ping places where campers may cook j

Coming back again Into the h^rt
of the M^hite Mountains, the tourist.
finds that the Appalachian MtwiifTiam
Club has erected along many of th*
trails open .shelters for the I'ieneRt of
Irampors and mountain cli>nbers. On
Mount Madison, at the J/ake of the
Clouds, and at Carter Notch, ar»
.stone huts, under thi> care of l«;ep-
ers, ivhere one ma.\yfind food and
."Shelter for a nornvial fee. The
"Guide to Paths ixy the White Moun-

meala and find shelter are maintained, j lain.s and Adjacent Regions." pub-
The Dolly Copp, or Copp Spring Camp j Kshed by the Appalachian Mountain
Ground, — - -

on tho Glf

y Lopp, or Copp Spring Camp i-sneu oy me .f»ppaiacnian iviountain
is six miles up from GoihaJnK'l"^, 1050 Tie»Jfiont Building. Boston,
ilen Road, which follows up Mass., is valuable for descriptions of

trn'ls. and interesting information
and irt.'ip!fvmay be obtained from the
Ftiiest Sut^ervisor at Gorham, N. H.

In the Kinsman Notch, six miles
west of North 'Woodstock and twer;*-'
miles southeast of Bethlehem, i.5 jno
of the most remarkable scenic won -

Lo^r.

the Peabody River, with a marvellous
view of Mount Washington through
the Pinkham Notch, noted for its
beautiful waterfalls, and ojti to Glen.
This camp ground is typical of the
sites maintained by the Forest Ser-
vice, with a crystal spring of water, , . ,. ^^rr.„ »,
stoned up; high, dry places for pitch- 'l^^'ilJ" iltjyH /? °."" I"^
ing tents, sanitary conveniences, and
plenty of dry wood for fires.

Farther up on this same road, nea.t'
Glen Ellis Falls, is another can»p
ground w-hich bears the name of the
falls. Gale River Camp Ground is on
the road from the Crawford to the
Franconia Notch and is convenient
for the tourist who plans to visit the i

River, a series of caverns out in soli 1
•^Sranite by an ancient glacial stream,
is in a tract of land purchased hv
the Society for Protection of Ne"-
Hampshire Forests in 1911. It was a
wild, rough place, inaccessible to
women, and the Sitate Federation of
Women's Clubs contributed -unds f"
put in ladders to reach the gorge.

Old Man of the Mountains and the I ^^« ^/^\^. °P^"«^ ^^Tl- *° /^'''^
Flume. There are attractive camping ^l'"''?" ^" "!^' ^^"^ ^^'""^ V""^ **'"'"

^;lre^^^el;^^r^'ni°t^;^?ta^r" ^^l^ i^ '!s\^^^?^iss Zi ^'Se

Valley, near the bnlted States ranger L^^i^^ employs college boys to shon^

nr^Z fn ^v, f^^T 7'^t''' ^^^^*^'" visitors through the passages. Lunches

Bridge m the town of Livermore. | ^re served, lodgings in tents are pro-

Aside from these convenient camp 1 ..j^e^ a„,, there is a free camping

grounds picnickers and tourists may ^^ for automobile parties. ^

feel free to use tl.e forest for camping, ..Touiing Afoot.- by Dr. C. P For-

,i*'i,"^ respect is paid to safety rules, ^yce. is a new number of the outing

The State of New Hampshire is handbooks issued by the Outins

ilalso anxious to make things pleasant Publishing Company. IL contains in

Hfor campens. On the site of the old j compact form an entertaining and

IWilley House on the State lands in , dtar presentation of the well esitab-

the Crawford Notch a camp ground i iLshed rules for comfort in "hitting

i;and rest room are to be maintained, the trial," with some matter of new

fin the foothills of the mountain I v.ilue from the author's experienc?^

region, near Newfound Lake, the State j particularly as to shelters and out-

owns 2.000 acres in the Cardigan door beds. ^

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY

Los Ai^^es

This book is DUE on the last date stamped below.

«1

Form L9-50»i-9,'60(B361064)444

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UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FAOUTY

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