^\)c iTavmcr'B iltontl)lw bisitor. 



139 



of old StniflonI, now cnn«tiliilin;r tlmt and the 

 entire ooiinlics of Bt'lkiiap and Caiioll. A lic-t- 

 ter, nlthoiigli not a lawyer-jiidgo, never iidmin- 

 istered in the seltlen]entof proi)city and estates 

 in this State, than Jiidye Mooney, a soldier of the 

 revolution, who after having coiKHiticd lilierty 

 for his eoiMiti y, eanic into this then wild region, 

 cut down the trees and assisted in the first rlear- 

 ing of the beaiitil'id farm still owned liy his des- 

 cendants. 



Ahont a mile anil a half di.-tant from the fiu'm 

 and residence of Jndge Simpson, apart from each 

 other at the distance of ahont a mile, are the re- 

 spective locations of the two high schools, the fe- 

 male ajul the male literary sinuinarics of New 

 Ilamjiton. The female Institution isattheheau- 

 tifnl village at which the laie Daniel Smith, an 

 enterprising liiniherman upon the Merrimtick 

 river, comineneed husiiiess some filly years ago : 

 lie built the turnt)iUe to Sandhorntim, shortening 

 the ilistaiice several miles, and making easier the 

 travel fi'orn Plymoiilli to Concord, running diicct- 

 ly through the ravine to w hicli we have alluded. 

 Over the pond at the higher point of this ravine, 

 having no outlet, and loo deep for a foundation 

 and almost for sounding, is tin; remarkable float- 

 ing bridge which travellers will have noticed. 

 The village has its saw-mill and maunfacturing 

 \vater-|iower. whose oiigiji and entire distance 

 above ground embraces hardly the length of a 

 mile. It is called Smith's village, in honor to the 

 name of its founder, an<I although away from the 

 centre of the town, has for many years been its 

 place of principal business. Over the interven- 

 ing sand riilge at the north, at the distance of one 

 mile from the female academy, at the corner of 

 roads coining in from several points of the town, 

 is the seat of the male Inslitniiun, IVir which a 

 brick edifice of the dimensions of one of the 

 considerable colleges, with roonjs for libraries 

 and cabinets, and for accommodating students 

 with places for study and residence, has been ad- 

 dud to the other buildings within the last ten 

 years. The location of the male academy is In 

 (be valley of anolher stream issuing from one or 

 more lakes in the easterly part of the town, 

 which unites ilself to the Merrin)ack a few njiles 

 above the village stream near the southerly einl 

 of Holderness. In the vallcysof the iwo semina- 

 ries all around are those evidences of newness 

 which we are accustomed to find in countries of 

 the most recent opening — large stnmi)s of trees 

 thickly dolling the enclosures seemingly to the 

 interrnpiion of the plough and all other conven- 

 ient cultivation. It was the region of the noble 

 "evergeen pine " whose timber has either hi en 

 wasted in the accumulated cost of Iranspoilation 

 to the soaboad, or suffered to rot on the ground 

 where the limbs could not be conveniently col- 

 lected and burned. Partaking of the dnr.ibility 

 of the timber w liich has no rival in the structure 

 and finish of buildings for human accommoda- 

 tion, these w bite pine stumps abont the New 

 Hampton institutions have stood thiriy, forty and 

 fifty years since the a.xe first severed them from 

 their native trees. Now and iheii a lot of them 

 is cleared away, requiring an excavation of rods 

 around to reach the points of extending roots, 

 and ujachiuery with power to raise many tons to 

 pull them out as the teeth of the ground. Their 

 most convenient and useful disposition afterwards 

 is in the construction of fences almost equally 

 durable as stone wall, and betler than that as pre- 

 venting the ingress and egress of every spe- 

 cies of cattle. 



Formerly the road into the country above 



New Hampton, orofsing a bridge over the Pemi- 

 gewassclt river at Smith's village, was through 

 the town of Ibidgewater to I'lymouth : for many 

 years this was the stage road, which avoided the 

 hills to be encountered after leaving the river, at 

 no great distance on the other side. The brisk 

 business village near the south end of Holder- 

 ness, which had grown up from the use of water 

 power issuing from the great and liiile Sqnain 

 lakes at the northeast, was necessarily out of the 

 range of travel to and from the country, without 

 either climbing up and down the successive hills 

 of New Hampton lying all along the river, over 

 which the road by the first settlers was nalurally 

 constructed, or crossing the bridge from the west 

 to the east side, and travelling out and back a 

 mile each way. Quite recently the stage route 

 has been amended, so as to reach and pass by 

 Holderness village on the east side, without en- 

 countering hills, by a new road, taking a direc- 

 tion through Ihe pine forest which the betler cal- 

 culation of some laud owners has preserved up- 

 on the plain. Passing through the dull monotony 

 of this new road, over a light sand, powdered uj) 

 by the contact of tnany successive loaded wheels, 

 wc almost regretted that we had not chosen, of 

 the three ways leading from New Ham|itou to 

 Plymouth, that fimhcst to the east, over which 

 we had never passed, sbowijig us by com|.arison 

 the steeper up-hill and down-hill of life as that 

 which has most contributed to whatever is esti- 

 mable and excellent in the character of the first 

 setilers of New England. We go decidedly, coii- 

 snlling both ihe physical power which carries us 

 forward, the comliirl of the beast of burden who 

 makes onr transit easy, and the gratification of 

 the mind and soul in tlie more splendid view of 

 the great and mighty works done in nature ; — we 

 go for the ride and ihe'jomney over the smooth- 

 er kept and better repaired roads on the higher 

 bills in what we now know of New England, 

 rather than lake the shorter ami more level re- 

 cently constructed roads of ihe valleys deefjly 

 imbedded by the repetition of [he wheels of hea- 

 vily laden carriages. The worst road we en- 

 countered in ihe distance of some five hundred 

 miles travel with a single horse, in the months of 

 August and September, was the nine miles near- 

 est honjc which we were obliged to riicounter 

 between Concord and Boscavven — a road quite 

 level, over which ihere is more travel, the heavy 

 part of which to be almost exclusively supplant- 

 ed by the railroad next year, than over any oth- 

 er nine miles probably within the limits of any 

 of the three states of New England north of 

 INIassaclinsells. 



The new road commencing near the New 

 Hampton male instilniiou was solitary enough, 

 and at this time the carriage wheels passed tnuch 

 of the distance as through a bed of nshe.s Now 

 and then a new opening settlement had been cut 

 out in the cleared ))ine wood — again an opening 

 bom the snbslaniial seltled farms seveial hnn- 

 lirtd feet above came down to ihe pine plains 

 below as a part of the original finni properly. — 

 The fact is worthy of remark how soon the best 

 of the light pine plain soil, uiiiler the system of 

 farming connnencing as a mattpr of convenience 

 and perhajis of necessity under the stinted means 

 of the opening settlers, becomes what is called 

 " worn-oiil," The habit has been to get out of 

 Ihe land every thing that can be extracted in the 

 first crops. The while pine is of much more 

 deep and permanent root than the hard pine — it 

 comes up by nntiire in the plain land having ils 

 uiiiieral manures belter prepared : and from this 



circumstance llie farmer considers the land of 

 Ihe white pine better than that of the hard or 

 yellow pine. Some, in the nbuudnnce of onr 

 lands, abandon the hard pine groimd entirely as 

 of no value for safe farm cultivation, and reluc- 

 tantly take hold of the while plain lainl. The 

 plains and valleys too in the midst of the Ibresls 

 of pines and other evergreen trees are very sub- 

 ject to the fiost. All these pine plain lands 

 when they shall be cleared, under an improving 

 system of husbandry, are destined to become our 

 most inofitable lands (or cullivalion. The mat- 

 lerials of which all om- lands are made are very 

 nearly the same every where. The blacker 

 mould, ihe heavier richer soil, will (.raciically bo 

 (bund in this norlberii climate, (or most pur|)Oses 

 of the farmer, the most expensive to carry on, 

 and the most difficult to be kept in an improving 

 state. Stimulative vegetable manures, almost 

 the only kind of manures yet brought into use in 

 many parts of the LTuiled States, such as rich 

 stable manures, and the finer scraiiiiiys of the 

 barn-yard a(ic;r ihc night enclosure of a herd of 

 cows, will at once promote a rich vegetable 

 growth; but Ihe best of land, with its mineral 

 qualities extracted, will only raise great straw and 

 stalk, without forming and carrying out the bet- 

 ter growth of grain. That manure is nmst valu- 

 able to any ground which operates upon the soil 

 preparing that to promote vej,'etation, rather than 

 that which throws itself at, once into the vegeta- 

 tion. The mineral and the vegetable manures 

 act best togelhcr — the one takes up and assists 

 the action of the other; and both togelhcr will 

 turn even the most barren sand into a friiiiful 

 field. Our whole under-soil, below where the 

 plough has hitherto reached, is fruitfiil in the 

 mineral materials, which with slight deviations 

 may be made to produce almost every kind of 

 crop. And there is a double object answered 

 by going deeper into the earth — we not only 

 bring into action all those mineral substances 

 which have been extracted by the superficial first 

 cultivation, leaving the soil what we consider 

 Horn out, but we go enlarge the field (or the ac- 

 tion of vegetalion as, assisted by water capillary 

 attraction, natural in every soil to the use of a 

 parched surface above, that the astonished oper- 

 ator will find his lightest ground, over which he 

 has before only skimmed the surface, becoming 

 a retentive soil, soon to be forgotten as the arid 

 pine plain barren. One great agent for the reno- 

 vation of land is the roots of each vegetable and 

 tree growing upon the surface — soon they chango 

 the apjiearance of the sand or clay through which 

 they operate. On much of the light lauds wa 

 may go deeper into the groimd without the ncr 

 cussily of under-draining: the heavier clay lands 

 retaining water, the hardpan rocky lands out of 

 w hich water oozes, to give the farmer full oppor- 

 tuniiy for action, must be prepared v\ii|i covered 

 drains, leading the water off by gentle slopes, all 

 covered, below the reach of ihe plough. Tha 

 subsoil over these, stirred to the dpplh of from 

 two to six or eight inches, would make a single 

 acre, with an equal preparation of vegetable 

 stimulating manures upon the same quanlity, 

 vvorlh the pioduction of a dozen acres of the 

 fields "worn out," in the long cultivation of a 

 skin-deep ploughing. In these remarks, our read' 

 er will perceive why we advance the singular 

 opinion that our [loor pine idain lands are herc- 

 al'ler to be our most reaily and profitable lands 

 for cultivation. 



Coming over into the valley of the Merrimack 

 at New Hampton on the east side, the ancient 



