406 FARxMERS' REGISTER— AVALANCHE IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 



not got a still upon it! When they first arrived 

 from America, they were both a moral and reli- 

 gious people. Without teachers, they for a time 

 performed their public and private devotions regu- 

 larly, and in a very serious manner. With their 

 freedom, however, their religion has vanished. 

 There is now neither church nor school in any of 

 the settlements. The former preachers have degen- 

 erated into irreclaimable drunkards. A school- 

 master, lately sent among them, has been obliged 

 to retire, on account of want of success, encourage- 

 ment and pay, and is now obliged to cut canes, in 

 order to support his existence ! The timber which 

 had been cut and dragged a considerable distance 

 from the woods, for the purpose of building a church 

 and a school-house, now lies rotting on the ground. 

 Not one will put a hand to it. Government cruelly 

 neglected these people. They pointedly refused 

 to send them a religious teacher until about eigh- 

 teen months ago, when the Bishop of Barbadoes 

 sent a clergyman with a salary of 300Z. sterling 

 per annum, for the establishment. When he arri- 

 ved on the coast, about six miles distant, not one 

 of them, either for love or money, would engage 

 to carry his baggage. It was carried to the settle- 

 ment by slaves. Disgusted and terrified at Avhat 

 he saw and heard, he only remained among them 

 for a few days, when he left, declaring that nothing 

 could induce him to return or stay among such a 

 set of savages. In fact, the only instructers and 

 lielpmates that government sent among them, 

 were a set of dirty, ignorant, and savage Congo 

 women, rescued from the wreck of a Spanish slave- 

 ship at Anegada,and sent from Tortola to this set- 

 tlement in Trinidad, at the expense of £385 58. 

 sterling, to the British Treasury. 



AVALANCHE IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 



E.xtract from ^ Suballci)i''s Furlough. 



The Notch, as the term implies, is a narrow pass, 

 six miles in length, at the southern end of the 

 White Mountains, the loftiest of which. Mount 

 Washington, is 6234 feet above the level of the 

 sea ; but on each side of the pass they rise only 

 from 1800 to 2000, at an angle of about 45°, form- 

 ing a valley less than half a mile in width between 

 their bases, and down which the roaring Saco 

 takes its course. The whole extent of their front 

 is fyrrowed and scarred by the tremendous storm 

 of July, 1826 ; and the valley, choked up with 

 trees uptorn by the roots, remnants of bridges, 

 buildings, and huge masses of rock piled upon 

 each other in the greatest disorder, presents what 

 might be almost imagined as the wreck of nature. 

 A melancholy and interesting story is connected 

 with this storm, which will for years to come be 

 the cause of thousands making a pilgrimage to the 

 White Mountains. I give it as related to me by 

 one who, though not an eye-witness, was in the 

 immediate vicinity at the time it occurred; it was 

 as follows : — A farmer of the name of Willey, 

 with his wife, five children, and two laborers, oc- 

 cupied a house with a small farm at the u|)per end 

 of the valley. They were much esteemed for 

 their hospitable attentions to travellers, who, over- 

 taken by night, sought shelter at their hearth, 

 which was the only one in the Notch, their near- 

 est neighbors being at the farm aforementioned, 

 six miles distant. The hills at that time were 

 thickly overgrown with forest trees and shrubs; 



nor had any thing ever occurred to make them 

 suspicious of the safety of their position, until the 

 descent of a small avalanche, or slide of earth, near 

 the house, in the month of June, 1826, so terrified 

 them by the havoc it caused, that they erected a 

 small camp in what they deemed a more secure 

 place, half a mile lower down the Saco. The sum- 

 mer had been unusually dry until the beginning of 

 July, when the clouds collecting about the moun- 

 tains poured forth their waters as though the flood- 

 gates of the heavens were opened, the wind blew 

 in most terrific hurricanes, and continued with 

 unabated violence for several days. On the night 

 of the 26th of the month, the tempest increased to 

 a fearful extent, the lightning flashed so vividly, 

 accompanied by such awful howling of wind and 

 roaring of thunder, that the peasantry imagined 

 the day of judgment was at hand. At break of 

 day on the 27th, the lofty mountains were seamed 

 with the numerous avalanches which had descend- 

 ed during the night. Every one felt anxious re- 

 specting the safety of the family in the valley, but 

 some days elapsed before the river subsided so far 

 from its extraordinary height as to allow any in- 

 quiries to be made. A peasant swimming his 

 horse across an eddy was tlie first person who 

 entered the Notch, when the terrible spectacle of 

 the entire face of the hills having descended in a 

 body presented itself. The Willeys' house, which 

 remained untouched amidst the vast chaos, did not 

 contain any portion of the family, whose bodies, 

 after a search of some days, with the exception of 

 two children, were discovered buried under some 

 drift-wood within 200 yards of the door, the hands 

 of Miss Willey and a laborer grasping the same 

 fragment. They had all evidently retired to rest, 

 and most probably, alarmed by the sound of an 

 avalanche, had rushed out of the house, when they 

 were swept away by the overwhelming torrent of 

 earth, trees and water. The most miraculous fact 

 is that the avalanche, descending with the vast im- 

 petuosity an abrupt declivity of 1500 feet would 

 give it, approached within four feet of the house, 

 when suddenly dividing it swept round, and, car- 

 rying away an adjoining stable with some horses, 

 it again formed a junction within a few yards of 

 the front. A flock of sheep which had sought 

 shelter under the lee of the house were saved ; but 

 the family had fled from the only spot where any 

 safety could have been found, every other part of 

 the valley being buried to the depth of several 

 feet, and their camp overwhelmed by the largest 

 avalanche which fell. A person standing in rear 

 of the house can now with ease step upon the roof, 

 the earth forming such a perpendicular and solid 

 wall. 



A small avalanche was seen descending from 

 one of the mountains some days after the above 

 occurrence. The thick pine forest at first moved 

 steadily along in its upright position, but soon be- 

 gan to totter in its descent, and fell headlong down 

 with redoubled fury and violence, followed by 

 rivers of floating earth and stones, which spread 

 over the plain, carrying devastation far and wide. 

 The long heat of summer had so dried and crack- 

 ed the ground that the subsequent rains found easy 

 admission under the roots of trees, which, loosened 

 by the violence of the wind, required but little to 

 set the whole in motion. There was no tradition 

 of a similar descent having ever taken place ; but, 

 upon a close examination, traces of one which had 



