120 



^\)t jTarmcr's illoixll)li) fatsitor. 



elegant permanent arch granite bridges, wliich 

 several of the town corporations have been so 

 ready to build — which liave grown from one 

 arch over a small ravine to several arches over 

 all of our secondary rivers, and which before 

 many years are destined to pass the travel in 

 safety over the rolling waters of the largest in- 

 terior streams of New England. The deficiency 

 of water in seasons of dronjiht had l)een a great 

 inconvenience to the fiictory establishments 

 higher up on Souhegan river. Nature has left 

 near the sources of nearly all our considerable 

 rivers, low, swamp grounds, much of them of 

 little value for cultivation, that can at no great 

 expense be damnied up and converted into reser- 

 voirs. The factory owners at New Ipswich have 

 recently purchased considerable tracts of these 

 Bwamp grounds over the line of ftlassachnsetts 

 in Ashburnham : the retention of water in these, 

 enables them to bring it down aiid operate their 

 factories in their dryest season. What with 

 these factories at the lower or bank village, and 

 the handicraft manufacture of cigars, matches, 

 shoe-blacking, &c., sold extensively all round the 

 country at the old village of the Farras, the 

 Pritchards, the Prestons and the .Champneys — 

 what with the farmers who are making two 

 spears grow where hardly one grew before, and 

 who are turning their forty foot barns into hun- 

 dred foot barns — the town of New Ipswich will 

 be enableil to occupy its jjosition as one o( the 

 most wealthy, intelligent and respectable of our 

 interior towns. 



Pass on thus far in New Hampshire into Mas- 

 sachusetts at that point of the highlands where 

 the head waters of three considerable streams 

 running into the Merrimack, to wit : the Nashua, 

 the Souhegan, the Contoocook, and Miller's river 

 running in an opposite direction to the Connect- 

 icut, have their commencement. Visiting at 

 Ashbinnham the high ground which was the 

 site of the old town meeting-house, with its 

 rocky grave-yard for the first time since death 

 liad commenced his work in cutting down the 

 head of the family, we were struck with the fact 

 that the earthly remains of that (larent who 

 nourished and cherished our early youth, lay at 

 n point where the rains which descended from 

 the raised mound at one end might run west- 

 ward by Miller's river to the Connecticut, and 

 the other go ofi' by the northern branch of the 

 Nashua to Merrimack. From this high position, 

 forty years a^o, might be descried sixteen differ- 

 ent meeting-houses in as many surrounding 

 towns, at the distance of from six to twenty 

 miles. The first meeting houses, erected from 

 eighty to a hundred years ago, were set uijon the 

 highest hills of the towns. The jjosition has 

 since been changed, so that many of the sixteen 

 have since disappeared from the view on meet- 

 ing-house hill at Ashburnham. 



The industry and growth of this highland 

 town have been before noticed in the Visitor. 

 Not more flourishing has that been, than most of 

 the towns of that region on both sides of the 

 line between the two States, have become from 

 the manufaclming industry which has derived 

 little aid from any protection of the government. 

 Tlie hands and lingers of the lal)nring jieoplc 

 both male and female — and few there bo of any 

 rank or class who in this region consider it dis- 

 reputable to bo engaged in productive labor — 

 have contributed aiid continue to accmnuhile the 

 means of comfort and wealth, flowing in a stream 

 of continued prosperity. As articles peculiar to 

 this region are wooden furnituro nnd all the im- 



aginable variety of wooden implements and 

 wares which have become a merchandize for ex- 

 port, and which are found for sale hundreds and 

 even thousands of miles distant in the far West 

 nnd South. To assist in these inaniifac-tin'cs, the 

 waters of every stream large enough to turn a 

 water-wheel are put in retpiisition, and artificial 

 means where the streams fail or are deficient to 

 reserve an accumulating sur[dus are put in re- 

 quisition. 



The visit to the friends and relatives of our 

 parental home, becoming less frequent as the 

 cares and casualties of life blunt the ardor of 

 youthful affection and sympathy, sweetened at 

 this lime, by finding all enjoying better than 

 our anticipation, terminated by an bom's 

 strolling over the ground where repose the re- 

 mains of many of our chihlliood acquaintance, 

 some of them younger, but many heads of fami- 

 lies older than ourselves. Of the longevity of 

 this region, to which the moral habits of the peo- 

 ple, not less than the elastic excellence of the 

 climate, the gushing pure water from the granite 

 springs, and the healthy green growth of the 

 sunoimding hills, casting off no noxious impuri- 

 ties, have greatly contributed, we may hereafter 

 take occasion to communicate in a notice of in- 

 dividuals whose lives may be interesting to the 

 general reader. 



The Fitchhurg railroad on its way to Connect- 

 icut river passes up the north branch of the 

 Nashua, through a corner of Westminster and 

 the southerly part of Ashburnham : its straight 

 course taking the name of the Massaehiiselts 

 and Vermont railroad, is through a more south- 

 erly stem of the Nashua, coming down from 

 Gardner at the height of land, when it takes its 

 course down the valley of iNliller's river, which 

 it pursues by South Rnyalton to Connecticut riv- 

 er at Greenfield. Of so difficidt ascent is some 

 part of this rise, that the high ground is sur- 

 mounted by successive inclined plains, running 

 above each other and turning in opposite direc- 

 tions. This part of the road we did not sec. 



The Cheshire railroad commences in the up- 

 per part of Ashburnham, and pursues its way 

 near the centre and by the town of Wiivchendon, 

 striking the line of Fitzwilliam south of the vil- 

 lage, which is on elevated groinul — thence pass- 

 es through the centre of Troy, over corners of 

 Marlborough and Swanzey, where it finds its 

 level with the flourishingand enterprising village 

 of Keene — thence it preserves the level of a few 

 miles to rise and smmount a higher elevation at 

 the lowest point between that town, Westmore- 

 land and Walpole, terminating at I'cllows .falls, 

 where it is calculated to connect with a road 

 throtigh Rutland, in Vermont, down the Otter 

 creek and U|) the shore of Lake Champlaiji to 

 Burlington. 



Anxious to see the route of the Cheshire rail- 

 road, as well as to view the progress of the towns 

 and villages between for the last ten years, we 

 took our course round an additional distance of 

 twenty miles as the way towards home. 



In the time since our last passing, Winchen- 

 don has made great inqirovcment in its manu- 

 factures. It.s factory establishments are upon Ihi' 

 waters of Miller's river. Spring village has 

 grown into a place of importance. The waters 

 of a lake in Rindge at the foot of one spur of 

 the Moiiadnock tnoinitain, further north than an- 

 other pond at ,1 s|3ur still more easterly, which is 

 a feeder to the southerly branch of the Contoo- 

 cook, together with lowland swamps converted 

 into reservoirs, furnish the moving power for the 



factories at Spring village. The wooden wares 

 made on the small streams about Winchendon 

 are perhaps of not less consequence than its 

 cotton and woolen manufiictnres. 



Rindge and Fitzwilliam on the New Hamp- 

 shire side of the line, have grown into smart 

 (ilaces comparing well with the enterprise and 

 growth of the Massachusetts towns. The former 

 was not within our range, but the village of the 

 latter overlooking the ridge of land including 

 the Wachusett mountain, twenty miles easterly 

 and south-east, in its houses and workshop.^, and 

 farm buildings, shows an increase in the last ten 

 years at which we were quite agreeably surpris- 

 ed. Within the town of Fitzwilliam has been 

 created at the southerly point of the Monadnock, 

 an extensive body of water, on which we saw 

 boats floating by two gentlemen coming into the 

 State from Massachusetts : they purchased low 

 lands to a considerable extent, which have been 

 flowed out, together with a pwtion of the Fitz- 

 william tmnpike, running through the tract. — 

 The public road has been made to pass over 

 higher grounil, and the lake of new creation fur- 

 nishes water-power for manufactures and over- 

 shot grist-mills. 



From the towns of Fitzwilliam and Marlbo- 

 rough, some thirty years ago, was taken and in- 

 corporated the town of Troy, which also has its 

 manuliicturing village. The son of the almost 

 exclusive ancient re|Mesenlativc of Alarlborough, 

 at that time himself representative of Marlbo- 

 rough, and subsequently of Troy, is recollected 

 as actively managing the case of incorporating 

 the new town before the Legislature, against a 

 powerful array of some of the best law talcnis 

 of old Cheshire : the sign of this gentleman up- 

 on an extensive store at this village, shows him 

 to be yet in prosperous business. In a valley, as 

 between a high elevation at the south of siitflcient 

 magnitude, out of the wake of the higher Mon- 

 adnock, to be called a moimtain, and the little 

 iMonadnock south of the main njountain, comes 

 down thiongh the Troy village, the Cheshire 

 railroad, at this lime seeming to be here nearly 

 completed in its excavation. As an object of 

 curiosity worthy almo."?!, as Mr. Jefferson would 

 say, a voyage across the Atlantic, wouhl be the 

 ravine down which the stream of this valley 

 runs from Troy in a direction toivards Keene. 

 Up this ravine, some twenty years ago, ns the on- 

 ly practicable route out of the valley of the Ash- 

 uelot from Keene, without encotmtering tremen- 

 dous hills, a road was planned, the excavation of 

 which was so difficult thai some gentleman de- 

 clared he would not desire to outlive the time 

 when such a road shoidd be made passable. — 

 Means were however, devised to find room in its 

 simious course for the running stream, and for a 

 very good road either along side or over it. We 

 must do our fellow-citizens of Cheshire credit 

 for more moral courage and enterprise than ■ : 

 could possibly be foimd in any other part of the 

 Stale, when we stale that without apparent hesi- 

 tation, they have adopted this ra\ine as the route 

 (lounwitid towards Boston, upward all the way 

 for alioiil eight miles on an inclined plane il' 

 from til'ty to fifty-eight feet in Iho mile. The 

 matter of making the railroad here is' so far ad- 

 vanced as to be no longer prolilematical. Pass- 

 ing down the ravine at points of short turning 

 in tho rocky mountain sides, on either hand 

 where the water had dono its best to work the 

 way through the rocky abjss, we rested to see 

 some twenty to forty stout Irishmen, some of 

 them up to the knees in water, drilling out the 



