118 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



1779 : he there with liis family alnne buflettcd the 

 terrors of the wilderness for fourteen years with- 

 out an additional settler. With its elevations the 

 township contains an area of nearly :19,UU0 acres : 

 its population increased in ten years prior to 1S30 

 nearly iJOO — it was tlien 515, and will now proba- 

 bly number more than 800. Beyond this town 

 continuing along the foot of the White Mountains 

 on the easterly and northerly eide is a tract of land 

 called rinUham's Grant, being a grant made by 

 the State of New Hampshire to Daniel Pinkham, 

 the consideration for a part of which was tlie con- 

 struction and making of a road through the !and. 

 The toad liiis been cut out all the way and partial- 

 ly made — it is said to be comparatively a level 

 route, and wlien completed will be a shorter d.;- 

 tance and a more desirable route to Lancaster, on 

 the Connecticut river, the shire town of tlie coun- 

 ty, than that whicli has so lonw been considered a 

 wonder up the main bvaiioli of the Saco, tlirough 

 tlie Notch. Such is the fertility and the feasibility 

 of the soil all around the base of the Wliite Moun- 

 tains, that we cannot doubt durino- the next ten 

 years, tlie farming population of Jackson (incor- 

 porated in 1?00 by the name of Adams) will be 

 doubled, and that a respectable new town will 

 grow up in what is now all but a wilderness in 

 Pinkham's Giant. 



Town of Bartiett. 



Passing from Conway, with Albany in a south- 

 ern valley at the left liand, and Jackson to the 

 north on the right, we come into the older and long- 

 er settled town of Bartiett, named for tlie first 

 Governor of this State under the present consti- 

 tution, and one of the patriotic signers of tlie Amer- 

 can Declaration of Independence. This township 

 is entirely shut out by mountains on its northerly 

 and southerly sides ; it has for the greater part of 

 the distance of teii or twelve miles u\> the Saco 

 river a single road, along which, upon intervales 

 of various width, is a succession of settlements and 

 farms. The farms of Judge Fcndexter and llie 

 Messrs. Meserves in the lower part of the town, 

 and near the north village of Conway, are equal in 

 extent and value to almost any of the best upon the 

 Saco. Ten miles further up in this narrou' valley 

 the Hon. Obed Hall, a soldier of the revolution, 

 and among those who achieved the victory at Red 

 Bank below Philadelphia, on leaving the service 

 settled and cleared a line farm, which had its hon- 

 ey-suckle mountatin pastures of hundreds of acres, 

 and turned out from its beautiful bottom land one 

 hundred to one hundred and fifty tons of bay, and 

 much wheat, rye and Indian corn annually. Judge 

 Hall was liere a farmer growiiig rich from his herds 

 of cattle and other productions for many seasons — 

 was frequently, and always when he wished it, a 

 member of the Legislature, and was amoijg those 

 members of the Congress of 1812, wiio voted for 

 the declaration of war against Great lirilaiu. The 

 farm is still the property of daughters of that gen- 

 tleman ; but lor several years having been occupi- 

 ed as a tavern stand by tenants, its product of hay 

 has been lessened more than one half, and its a- 

 Tailable value probably diminished in that propor- 

 tion. The condition of this farm would tt^ach tliose 

 whose property is in the s.iil, that most stable of all 

 estate, that this property may be much magnified 

 or depreciated by the iviproviTi'j or the shhnmiufj 

 process, and witli about the same, expense ot' labor 

 in each case. We tarried at the Hall tavern over 

 night, and were there informed that an animal sup- 

 posed to be a wolf, had for several suceessive rights 

 made depredations upon the flocks of theep in tlio 

 neighborhood. Witir mountains e.3 either hand 

 and a long extent of unoccupied wr.y before reach- 

 ing a settlement, it is not surprising tliat wild ani- 

 mals should be frequent and make inroads upon 

 the extended valley constituting the ac-ttlement of 

 Bartiett. 



The bottom land in this valley seems not to be so 

 g«od as it is further down : much of the most fruit- 

 ful intervale suffered from the di;iintcgration of 

 rock at the time of the gre.at slides in the moun- 

 tains in the year Ic?5C, bringing down masses of 

 Btones and gravel, covering hundreds of acres. In 

 ■ome places this rock having been de'couipc sed by 

 exposure to the atmospliere, vegetatiOH'is'^beginning 

 to appear on the surface. The colrf:seasons have 

 operated as a discouragement to th'c cultivation of 

 this valley, the early frost cutting ofl' the In- 

 dian corn crop frequently, and sometimes the 

 wheat and oats; and some owners in conse- 

 quence, have neglected or abandoned the improve- 

 ment of ttie land to obtain a livelihood in some oth- 

 er way. Such seasons as the last and the present 

 can hardly fail to spur the industrious and enter- 

 prising farmers of this ancient toivn amono- the 

 mountains, to renewed esortions in reehiming- the 



beautiful valley and advancing it to the whole ex- 

 tent of production of which its soil is capable. 



Narrower valley in the mountains. 



July 19. Leaving Bartiett, the valley of 

 the Saco is narrowed down into limits not admit- 

 ting of a settled town. From the late Judge Hall's 

 farm to Mr. Abel Crawford's in Hart's location, 

 is eight miles. The Saco river, winding round and 

 round with an apparent insuperable mountain bar- 

 rier in front, sometimes in an open space of a mile 

 or two in depth covered with a heavy growth of 

 vvood, and sometimes with the overhanging moun- 

 tain so near as to render an artificial embankment 

 of rocks on the very bed of the stream necessary 

 for the road, parts in this distance in nearly equal 

 quantities. Sawyer's river unites on the westerly 

 or southern side, coming in from between huge 

 mountains in a gorge or valley which few persons 

 living havt; ever explored. Old Mr. Crawford, 

 who settled in.this valley a contemporary of Judge 

 Hall, says he has explored it, and the valley of 

 Sawyer's river brings the distance to Franconia 

 village from this point only about fifteen miles. If 

 so, and a road can be made there as has been done 

 between the mountains in other directions, who 

 knows what value in land, timber or minerals 

 mightbe opened .' The present travelled distance 

 from Portland to Vermont, by opening this route, 

 would be shortened at least twenty miles. When 

 passing up the Saco valley and seeing, near water- 

 falls furnishing abundant power, vast quantities of 

 maple, beech, ash, birch and other timber which 

 might be converted into chairs, wooden ware and 

 other utensils, the reflection was forced upon us 

 with how little effort manufacturing villages might 

 grow up in these mountains among the rocks. — 

 There are many locations where from the construc- 

 tion of the mountains there could be no danger of 

 such slides as overwhelmed the Willey family in 

 the same valley, and where the water might be so 

 conducted as that the works moved by it should 

 never be in dancrer. To crown with success such 

 an experiment, it need only be mentioned that these 

 positions in tlie mountains are quite as near the 

 market where manufactured articles would sell, 

 and where all needed supplies could be procured, 

 as are many flourishing manufacturing villages in 

 the interior of Massachusetts. 



A farm overwhelmed. 



The elder Crawford, nine miles below the Notch 

 in one of the expanses between the mountains, had 

 an alluvial farm which w^ts highly valuable and 

 productive, but which vv'as much injured by the ef- 

 fects of the great inundation in the memorable 

 year 1.S96; a new channel fcr the entire waters of 

 tHe Saco removing the bed of the river a consider- 

 able distance to the south, was torn through the 

 whole extent of the fertile intervale ground, cov- 

 ering the space of many acres. Slides came down 

 the mountain on the side opposite his house which 

 choked the river, turned its course and covered up 

 much valuable tillage and grass ground. Rocks 

 of great weight overwhelmed him from above', and 

 gravel usurped in extended space the region of veg- 

 tation. Mr. Crawford supposes that at lea.-^t one 

 half of hts-iiitervale ground in the simple process 

 of on^ nitrjit was covered up or destroyed. 



The White Mountains, the Notch and the 

 Milley House. 



From Crawford's to the Willey house is six miles, 

 and from that spot to the narrow neck or entrance 

 of the Notch itself is three miles further. At the 

 mouth of the Notch commences an amphitheatre of 

 from six to elglit miles in extent each way, form- 

 ing the northern and western base of the great 

 White Mountains themselves, the central summit 

 of which, more than six thousand feet in height, is 

 caller: Mount Washington, at whose right and left, 

 v.'ith scarcely an inferior elevation, rise the moun- 

 tains bearing the names of Adams, JefTerson, Miid- 

 ison, Monroe and J'ailtson. The Notch is situated 

 near the soutliern part of this sublime range, to the 

 west of which and forming the barrier of the am- 

 phitheatre is a range of high mountains bounded 

 by a series of valleys and. other mountains for ma- 

 ny miles, which have hardly been explored. This 

 barrier, broken by the valley of the Amonoosuck, 

 has the C h.erry mountain and Mount Deception on 

 the north uniting in that direction with the main 

 mountains. The tops of the mountains are tlie 

 sources of the rivers, and between them correspon- 

 ding with the several spurs are the streams wliich 

 forili the .Amonoosuck and Saco rivers. The larg- 

 er portion of the water failing into this amphithea- 

 tre is discharged into the Connecticut through the 

 Amonoosuck : only that originating in the inouu- 

 tains north and south (others might say east and 

 west) nearest the Notch runs easterly through the 



Saco. The pass near the upper extremity includ- 

 ing botl^the road and tlie stream is barely two rods 

 in width for a considerable distance. Within the 

 last thirty years this pass has been much obstruct- 

 ed bv the fallen rocks : the road went through the 

 Notch nearly upon a level. The fallen rocks and 

 gravel decomposed have made the path more and 

 more uneven. 



About three miles down the gorge or narrow 

 pass the summit on, the westerly or southerly aide 

 suddenly recedes, leaving at the base an opening 

 a little above the level of the stream of several acres. 

 The >'o1ch house is situated in this opening. The 

 plate on the next page, copied from a hasty sketch 

 taken the day before our visit, presents a tolerably 

 accurate view of the Willey house as it now ap- 

 pears. It stands, as it has stood the three sever- 

 al times we have passed it, without an occupant. 

 The track of the road from the right to left down 

 the Saco will be seen in front: the barn or stable 

 on the opposite and lov/er side of the road was not 

 there at the time of the fatal avalanche. It has 

 been erected since tocnable a winter occupant to 

 fErnish entertainment for the traveller, there being 

 then no other house for seven miles above and six 

 miles below. Within the last I'vvi years however 

 use of the Willey house has been superseded by 

 the erection of commodious buildings by T. J. 

 Crawford, just outside of the Notch. A barn above 

 the road near the rock on the right hand of the pic- 

 ture, was prostrated by the slide from the moun- 

 tain, while the house escaped. At no great distance 

 below and at several points above and below, the 

 slides filled up the road so as to make it nearly im- 

 passable. 



A supposed new discovery. 



The most of these slides took place in August, 

 1S2G. The first time we passed through the Notch 

 afterwards was in July 1S:5'.$: we again passed it in 

 the summer of 183(1. At both times, as well as the 

 present, we stopped at different places on the road 

 to mark the changes that had occurred. After 

 leaving Abel Crawford's we this time noticed par- 

 ticularly at the sides of the road wherever the 

 ground had the advantage of the sun, that the veg- 

 etation was uncommonly luxuriant ; tlie raspberry, 

 the white honey-suckle and other natural grasses 

 were abundant. We recollected, where the road 

 passed over the track of several of the slides, that 

 the gravel and rocks of the color of light grey 

 granite in some places, and in others of a yellow 

 tinge, had entirely usurped the place of every thing 

 green ; and the bed of the road was like a naked 

 beach of pebbles on the sea shore. In six years 

 the face of the road at the location of these slides 

 had almost entirely changed : the pebbly track had 

 become in some instances a black loamy soil, and 

 a flourishing green sod covered that part over 

 which there w.as no constant travel. Exposure to 

 the atmosphere for several successive years, with 

 alternate freezing and thawing, had converted the 

 rock of the mountain itself into rich soil. 



That there might be no mistake about this fact, 

 especial reference was had to the slide at the Wil- 

 ley house. This slide came down from the steep 

 above and from the depth of several feet into the 

 mountain side on either hand of the house. A por- 

 tion of that part which came down on the easterly 

 or st.uth side was left several feet m depth on the 

 upper side of the road fronting the barn as it now 

 stands — it was a pile of clear mountain matter, 

 rocks decomposed or sub-soil. On this vegetation 

 was as rank as that growing upon the manure bed. 

 We pointed out the fact to a Massachusetts gentle- 

 man who happened to be upon the spot: he saU! 

 there must have been manure placed tliere. The 

 barn vard was below on the other side of the road 

 — the land had never been used for cultivation ; 

 and it Vv'as at'occe s<?en that no manure had been 

 placed there : pointing to the ground above, the 

 same luxuriant growth was observed. "The veg- 

 etable matter ca.oie from the mountain," said the 

 genllenntn. Our opinion was that the mountain 

 rock itself had changed into rich vegetable mould. 

 The Euiattering knowledge we have gained within 

 in ashOrttime_of thecompsition of the earthy has ef- 

 fected an almost entire revolution in our mind as to 

 the value of the hard New England soil. In many 

 places we liad .seen the solid gravel dug from some 

 ten or twelve to twenty and eveij thirty feet below 

 the surface, after exposure to the atmosphere of a 

 fevv seasons, become soil, and yield vegetation. In 

 other harcj land almost imperyiouB to. the plough, 

 we had seen improvement going on by the deep- 

 ening of the soil, so fast as the sub-soil was stir- 

 red. We thought not much of this until appraised 

 in recent publications of the great advantage which 

 has resulted in England from the use of the sub- 

 soil plough^in creating new soil from the hard 

 pan. 



