THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



119 



We arc now convinced that the rocky mountains 

 of the country arc the sources of the great fertili- 

 ty of the l:iud below U|)on the rivers. The White 

 Mountains themselves have ]>artially furnished the 

 substance which has so greatly enriched the Con- 

 necticut river valley ; and every freshet brings 

 down upon the alluvial bottoms new matter from 

 the jnountains, as a deposile of riches to the farm- 

 er. The idea is a mistaken one that vegetable mat- 

 ter alone is the cau^e of fertility — it is mineral mat- 

 ter, it is the substance of t;ie rocky mountain it- 

 self dissolved or worn into small particles by attri- 

 tion of water or by (Exposure to tile air, that cre- 

 ates the fir.itful alluvial soil. 



Change of the Mountains. 



A great revolntion has taken place in the m'^"- 

 nificent White JVlountains since the recollection of 

 persons now living, llev. Dr. Currough^ of Ports- 

 mouth, with whom we conversed at the mountains, 

 says that he first visited them more th.an thirty 

 3'enr3 ago ; that since that time vast quantities of 

 matter, independent of the great slides of Il5".2(), hive 

 been precipitated into the Notch road all along tlic 

 valley of the Saco, and that when he first saw the 

 mountains a great part which now discovers the 

 naked rock was covered with a heavy growth of 

 wood : fires have since run over these moun- 

 tains, in many places consuming the growth of 

 wood and the e.xterior soil; and the waters, 

 from this CTuee, have brought down a more than 

 usual qaanti'.v of the body of the mountain itself. 

 In the course of nature this loss might be repaired 

 if the mountains should be left to themselves ; for 

 exposure to the atmosphere in the return of seasons 

 will chan^ie much of the naked rock to soil on 

 whicii a new growtli of trees will spring up. 



An eldrrly gentkunan long acquainted v.'ith the 

 mountains accounts for the slides in the fact that 

 the surtlice i;icludiu<j the body and roots of trees 

 having been burnt oU", a long drought converting 

 what remained of the soil to extreme dryness, and 

 this beciuning afterwaj'ds heavy from a superabun- 

 dance of rain, was precipitated down by its increas- 

 ed weight. The great slides of 1S26 present a ruost 

 extraordinary a:-*pearance in the mountains. There 

 is one mountain (we believe Monroe) halfway be- 

 tween Mount Washington and the Notch, the fa^ic 

 cf v.hich is a slide in the shape of a lengthened tri- 

 angle or beater, naked and of the cjlor of ycllo^v 

 ochre. Tliis heater piece has its point at the top, 

 and increases in width as it comes down the moun- 

 tain. T!» ? body of matter which came down at 

 once mu.sL have reaelred deep into the surface of, 

 the mountain itself: it was forced far belov/ tlic 

 ba^e into tKe amphitheatre, and is said to cover 

 more than a mile square. Similar ajjpearances are 

 sepn on several of the mountains at the distance of 

 si.x or eight miles, and there appear quite large. 

 More than one hundced extensive slides arc said to 

 have taken place on the night of the fatal catastro- 

 phe to the Willey- family. 



' '' Destruction of a Family. 



The plate in this number of the Visitor presents 

 a view of the Notch house and its appendages as 

 lh,cy now appear : between the pencil delineation 

 and subsequent erigrav ing there is rather too much 

 appearance of a small growth upon the mountain 

 near at liand in the rear of the house, covering the 



track of the slide in some instances. Indeed the 

 picture may be more faithful than our imagination, 

 f .r abundance of vegetation is already springintr 

 up at tlie foot if not up the sides of the mountain" 

 down which the sl.de was precipitated. The house 

 and premises are presented as they now stand. — 

 The buildings, even the barn more recently erect- 

 ed, are fast fallmg into decay : the doors arc spread 

 open and olT their hinges — "the windows are brok- 

 en, and the rain descends througli the roof from 

 the defective shingles. The materials of the whole 

 house ere falling away and as perishable and cven- 

 escent as the thousand names whiclvsince the ca-' 

 tastrophe have been carved or written upon lire 

 walls and wainscoting. 



Mr. Samuel Vv'illey, jun. the head and father of 

 Ih.-! family which perished at this spot on theniciht 

 of the 2Gth August iS'iG, v/as precisely one week 

 older than the editor of the Visitor, havino- been 

 bora on Sunday, March 31, 1788 : his wife, "whose 

 maiden name was Polly Lovejoy, v/as three years 

 younger than himself, dating her nativity Aprd iri, 

 1701. The five children v.-ho perished with them 

 were Eli/.a Ann Willey, born July 19, 1814; Jere- 

 miah Jjovejov Willey, "July :30, 1815; Martha Gla- 

 zier Willey, Sept U'i, ISlti ; Elbridge Gerry Wil- 

 ley, July 13,1819; and Sally Willey, July II, 

 18'2o. With these perished two hired men, David 

 Allen, aged about 30, and Uavid Nicholson, about 

 20. We can scarcely realize that this event took 

 place thirteen years ago this month, and that the 

 youngest innocent of the groupe, if it had lived 

 until this period, would have been a grown wo- 

 man. Mr< and Mrs. Willey were natives of the 

 same neighborhood in Conway, and were of re- 

 spectable connections. Twenty five years ago we 

 knev; an elder brother of Mr. Willey as a valuable 

 ofhcer in the late war ; another brotiier was a set- 

 tled congregational cleroyman, and anotlier has 

 represented the town of Conway in the legislature. 

 Near to the town of Conway and within the limits 

 of Bartleit, Mr. Willey owned and occupied a farm 

 for several years previous toremovingto the Notch 

 house. This situation, lower down on the banks 

 of the Saco, v.'as hardly Jecj romantic and danger- 

 ous than thf Notch houje its'lf. A vast rock sev- 

 eral hundred feet high, cut og" as with a knife and 

 nearly perpendicular, stands so near that the clifts 

 have fallen at times very neair where the house 

 stands. Sjine fifty feet below a pleasant and well 

 cultivated meadow extends as far as the river Saco, 

 constituting the farm wliich lie had cultivated. 



The tracks of the slides from the mountains an- 

 terior to those of 1.826 are to be seen in various di- 

 rections. In IS13-14,uslido came down the vidiole 

 length of the White Face Mountain in Saiulwicli, 

 N. H. Previous to the numerous slides of the 25th 

 August, two other ididea had been noticed in the 

 newspapers as taking place near the Willey house: 

 these.were on or about the 9th of July, s\k weeks 

 before the family was overv/helmed. Mr. Abel 

 Crawford, who sav/ one of these slides, represents 

 it as descending with prodigious power, bearino- 

 large rocks and logs, and in same cases .trees stand- 

 ing, but not faster, as he supposed, than a man 

 would walk. One of these slides terminated in 

 the valley about sixty, the other about twelve rods 

 from the Willey house. The latter came so near, 

 that Mrs. V^'illey then caught her two youngest 

 ciiildren in her arms to escape down the valley. 



The impending danger did not however seem so 

 great to persons v.ho had longl.ved near the base 

 of precipitous rocks as to warn them from their 

 position. The husband and wife were both of that 

 serious, religious character that is reconciled to the 

 dispensations of Providence : in the month of Ju- 

 ly, Mrs. W. to a person conversing on this very 

 subject expressed a perfect reliance on the protec- 

 tion of the Almightv. 



The rain for several days prior to the 25th Aug- 



ust, had fallen in great quantities ; but upon the 



mountains themselves and around tiieir base, the 



quantity falling for two hours before and after sun 



I down was without a parallel in that region, during 



[the present age. The meadows of the Amonoo" 



I suck and the Saco were at once overflowed ; the 



t water rose so high as to drown flocks of cattle and 



shee-p on supposed safe grounds, and houses and 



buildings were swept n:T in the flood. Rocks of 



many tons weight were moved down by the waters 



and the roads washed down far into the clifts. 



Mr. Abel Crawford, whose house is full fifteen feet 

 above the usual level cf tlie Saco river, was first 

 alarmed by the flow of water into his dv/elling. 



As no one lived to relate the story, no one can 

 tell what occurred on that fatal night, in the in- 

 teresting family at the Notch house. The slide 

 which came upon the house was in depth from 

 twenty to twcnty-five feet, and had expanded, 

 bringing down a prodigious mass of trees, rocks 

 and earth, confusedly mixed together, to the 

 width of soine-tv.'elve to fifteen rods. Singular as it 

 may appear, this immense body, when Tt arrived 

 within tiic distance of not more than two rods of 

 the house, struck a rock of sufficient size and 

 depth to cause a separation of the moving mass, the 

 one portion passing ofl^ on the lower cud, over the 

 road about forty rods to the south, and the other 

 overv/helming and destroying the barn at no very 

 great distance fro.m the house. Nothing was 

 known of the fate of this family for two days after- 

 wards : the road was so entirely blocked up and 

 destroyed as to prevent a passage with horses or 

 carriages. A pedestrian traveller from Whitefield 

 going through the pass, caine to the house and 

 found it em])ty : he found two horses dead under 

 the ruins of tile barn, and %va3 able to extricate a 

 yoke of oxen, also under the ruins, which were 

 not killed. He remained in the hou.se over night, 

 not dreaming or supposing tliat the family occupy- 

 ing the house K'ere destroyed. On Wednesday, 

 -^ug. 2Sth, four or five persons met at the Notch 

 house, and, being better acquainted than the trav- 

 eller, came to the conclusion that the family must 

 be overH-hclmed. On Thursday, 29th, as many as 

 fifty persons came to that spot, (the report of the 

 the great disaster having reached Conway, thirty 

 miles below) among whom was the brotiier of the 

 deceased, the Rev. Mr. Willey. Search for the 

 bodies commenced, in which the people were aid- 

 ed by the scenting of dogs. Mrs. Willey and the 

 hired man Allen were first discovered very near 

 each otheT, covered with brush and timber, their 

 bodies much mutilated. Mr. Willey soon after 

 was found at no great distance^hia body much 

 bruised. Two of the children and the other hired 

 man were found a few days after ; but the bodies 

 of the three other children v/ere never found. The 

 bodies were not discovered in either of the slides 

 whicli encircled tha house, but down the stream 



