134 





The village of Canaan, although situated upon 

 an elevation above tl,c valley of the railroad and 

 above the land on nearly all sides, has still .n its 

 whole extent on the east lit.le below its own lev- 

 el one of those beautiful lakes which are com- 

 mon, especially in the towns of liigher elevation, 

 throughout New-England. This laUe seeu.s o 

 have its place of natural outlet on the south | 

 where the fall is rapi.Uy towards the valley of the 

 railroad : not so, its outlet is on the north, .n a 

 directly opposite direction, where the power of 

 its water is used in a cotton factory, and various 

 other mills. It is fed by springs arising near .ts 

 Bliores where their location may be ascertamed 

 by their lively coldness emerging from the earth. 

 Like other bodies of water originating in these 

 highlands, this lake was originally alive w.th 

 trout, as the almost exclusive possessors-these 

 weighing ten and fifteen pounds were there 

 caught : civilization and settlement introduced 

 the "pickerel, common to the ponds on the east 

 side of the ridge ; and the carniverous jaws of 

 the usurpers have since entirely expelled the first 

 occupants. Still higher up than Canaan, around 

 bald Cardigan, are fish ponds, some of which 

 contaiti trout-in Orange, Dorchester, and per- 

 haps Lyme. To these some ofthe men sojourn- 

 ing in Concord, who emulate the piscatory taste 

 and skill of Izaak Walton, are already inquiring 

 out the way. The novelty of baiting the hook 

 and finding eve-.i chubs or perch to take the bait 

 in either of our Concord ponds, presents attrac- 

 tions sufficient to call together a company of fe- 

 males of a Saturday afternoon, at short warning : 

 more romantic will be the expedition fifty or 

 seventy-five .niles up the railroad, to follow up 

 and take fish out of the foaming streams coming 

 down from the mountains, or ambulating with 

 the large and nimble trout, sporting in lakes at 

 high elevations among the giant hills. 



A di.'ression from the railroad to avoid the 

 public houses in Grafton, crowded with boanl- 

 ers, carried us to Canaan to enjoy a better re- 

 pose for the night, where w« found a greater 

 crowd in the arrival of a portion of the officers 

 of the Grafton bri-adc, to be assembled here for 

 discipline and drill according to law. The hab- 

 its of that country, in its present intelligent gen- 

 eration, are such that little noise or confusion 

 accompanies a crowd. The most of our old ae- 

 qnaintance in Grafton, the faces we always knew 

 as pleasant to the recollection, have passed off 

 the stage : many of the new generations grow- 

 in" into men within the last twenty years, are 

 strangers ; but the specimen as exhibited in the 

 one hundred and fifty military officers collocted, 

 attaining the better knowledge of the school of 

 the soldier, did no discredit to either the lathers 

 or mothers of a later generation. Tlieir better 

 and more am|.le opportuuilies for improvement 

 indicate, that in this part of the interior of the 

 Granite Stale the sons will not be behind their 

 fathers in every good word and work. 



Canaan is about forty miles in a line north from 

 Concord: the higher altitude of its village would 

 make a difiurenco of about three degrees in lati- 

 tude. Indian corn grows well there: from the 

 field ofthe lion. Caleb Blodgett we plucked and 

 brought away, on the 'Jth September, ears fully 

 ripe of the large Dutton corn, which was planted 

 and has grown since the 21^ day of May last. 

 We engaged a bushel ofthe same field, to be ex- 

 changed as seed for the same kind of corn which 

 we already raise, having learned, from Utter ex 

 p<irience, that the seed corn which grows at the 

 north is always earlier and .piickcr in growth 



than that which grow.s and ripens at the south. 

 Oil the whole, this jaunt over about fifty miles 

 of the Northern railroad was most (ilcasant and 

 satisfactory, enabling us to anticipate how much 

 some of the subs'ances, not designated exactly 

 as rock, could be perforated only by generous 

 eliarges of guni-owder. The valley of old A-- 

 dover, through which no extensively travelled 

 road had ever passed, and in which many of the 

 respectable and intelligent citizens, first of old 

 Hillsborough and afterwards of Merrimack, had 

 been born and spent their days of infancy and 

 manhood, now for the first time opens to the 

 view of many a traveller who had heard about, 

 but never before seen it ; leaving the more fre- 

 quented and beautiful heights of Salisbury, all 

 that part of which upon the river constitutmg , 

 the larger portion of Franklin, to be deprived of 

 the almost exclusive monopoly of travel which 

 she had many years enjoyed. Andover, for so.ne 

 ten miles east and west, includes the valley 

 which separates Kearsarge and its eastern spurs 

 on the south-west from the Ragged mountain in 

 the north-east. Leaving Andover centre the 

 Northern road keeps the track near and alter- 

 nating on either side of the Jilackwater stream, 

 which of itself is a branch of the Contoocook : 

 the road preserves very nearly a level here for 

 the distance of ten miles, touching a corner of 

 Wilmot before it reaches Danbury, where it sur- 1 

 mounts a ridge at the rise of about one hundred 1 

 feet, dividing Smith's river on the north from 

 Blackwater river on the south. The soil in the 

 upper part of the Blackwater lias been left ex- 

 tremely hard by the action of the -waters which 

 in times before the flood forced through and 

 washed out this gorge. Although of compara- 

 tively slight elevation, the flinty hardness ot the 

 rock of felspar, mica or slate, would seem to defy 

 all but the perseverance of the Irish laborers, 

 who fail not at any time to make the due pro- 

 Tiess, aided by the many directions of ingenious 

 Yankee contrivances. Upon the valley which 

 strikes around the west point of Ragged moun- 

 tain, there seemed to be nothing of sand for ex- 

 cavation or fillings in a considerable disUince : 

 hard gravel, conglomerate of round washed peb- 

 bles, small rocks and large rocks, were the mate- 

 rial to be worked here for making of the road. 

 From Andover centre we have first light, pine 

 plain-afterwards, harder soil growing into rocks 

 and rocky hard pan exclusively, as you advance. 

 There are three stations in West-Andover— the 

 first a few rods out of the village, at the west 

 meeting-house-the second, a very considerable 

 depot at the point of confluence of that branch 

 of the Blackwater coming down at the north- 

 west foot of Kearsarge, where a village has al- 

 ready commenced near the cottage residence of 

 the necromancer Potter, celebrated and well 

 known thirty years ago in all parts ofthe country 

 for slight of hand, and his feats and agility : the 

 bones"of this man of color, who had a noble 

 heart and a character more elevated than might 

 be expected from his profession, if not from the 

 tincture of his skin, with those of his deceased 

 wife, repose only a few feet distant, marked each 

 by a white marble slab, from the railroad track •. 

 the third Andover depot, further on, is where the 

 Second turnpike separates from that to Grafton 



and C;inaau. 



Tl,e Northern road hero takes the course to- 

 wards the summit of the Grafton road. On its 

 way it encounters very nearly a curious gorge 

 in the natural rock, through which the turniuke 

 was originally madf. The higher point ol the 



ridge which separates the waters of the two riv- ^ 

 ers is reached by an inclinalioii of less than fifly 

 feet to the mile, in a rise of little more than a 

 hundred feet— this would make between three 

 and four hundred feet rise, with little if any fall, 

 from the point of leaving the iMerrimack at 

 Franklin to the rise at the foot ofthe summit. 

 The turn in the road to a more northerly direc- 

 tion is around the west end of the Rigged moun- 

 tains, which, in their whole length to the Mer- 

 rimack, divi<le the towns of Andover on the one 

 hand from Hill, and a part ef Danbury on the T 

 other. The Grafton turnpike was originally laid 

 over some of the least elevated portions of this 

 route, the tracks ofthe turnpike and railroad be- 

 ing so near at the head of the Ragged mountain 

 elevation and the summit of both, found at the 

 lowest point at the foot of the Cardigan hills, 

 that the common road for considerable distances 

 has been removed to a new track, to give place 

 to the railroad. After pursuing nearly a level for 

 about ten miles, the first rise is gained at the 

 point of Ragged mountain liy considerable cut- 

 ting through the solid rock : here is a channel 

 tlirou-h the rock as natural as if it had been cut 

 out whh human hands, which undoubtedly was 

 formed by a former flow of the waters over the 

 ridge. This cradled cutting is through u species 

 of rock which disintegrates, and becomes soil 

 from the action of the atmosphere and of frost. 

 Just wide enough only for the passage of the 

 turnpike road in a straight line, the railroad 

 avoids this chasm by cutting another through 

 harder rock a little further east, which leads tlie 

 track to a lower level as it proceeds north. Froiu, 

 the height of this summit there is little or no fall 

 before "touching Smith's river, the main source 

 of which is found in the rocky summit to which 

 1 the railroad threads it way, preserving beyond 

 very nearly a further level for about ten miles 

 thVough the towns of Danbury and Grafton. 

 The temporary station of the cars is at the re-si- 

 dence of Jesse Cass, Esq., about one mile south- 

 west of the turnpike village, and nearly halfway 

 between that and the ancient meeting-house ol 

 Grafton at the town centre. The meeting-house 

 is at the centre of an amphitheatre, nearly mn- 

 rounde.1 by hills on all sides : at the bottom ol 

 this amphiiheatro, near the stream in much ol 

 the distance, the Northern railroad has its couise. 

 The layers of rounded rocks, smoothed by the 

 Ion- action of the waters, the nake.l rocks upon 

 the^iills, the ledges exposed by the successive 

 ,.uttin.'s, the fis.ures of trap-rock, the nlternanou 

 ,b,.oiigli a single ledge from felspar to granite, 

 and from gueis .0 mica, present this region as a 



empting spot to the geologist. Dr. J-'-^;'.;;;;; 

 Vui" Grafton about four years ago, has brou^lu 

 ont^in an elderly gentleman of the name ... 



Carswell a passion for curious specimens o, 

 i-ocks, leading him to .levote his whole attentuni 

 i., the search for specimens. F-n ''- ''U'" " 

 residence on the road his board exhibits pmu»?. 



urn that more scientific and learned anmtc • 

 might not be ashamed to own. ^ 1 t lie . 

 minerals to be fbuud in this region is te 



sive bed of isinglass, mentioned '")■ » '1^"» 

 his history ofthe State. The naked ledge of ih. 

 !:;:tlntail.^Vonl which it is taken may e seen a. 



.tdistancewhilepassiugaong.hevall . 1 



, inalnss which is found also lu other place. . h 



Slr^^Snto shape, audits. lie uiu^.- 



and clcartiess of common window glass . n 

 rlnttured into n^ncy boxes. Many tc.s.M 



been taken from tho larger l^;JS« " 'V,,,, 

 uot occur to us, how great ts the u»9 



