&l)c .farmer's iitowtljhi bisitov. 



there N not a do .lit on our mind that the smug- 

 gling trad- with Canada, under the high duties, 

 has heen of enormous amount. Reaching back 



to il»! war of \Sl'l, our recollection turns to the 

 many droves of cattle that went through the 

 woods for the British nnnv in Canada: the tragic 

 death of a person by the name of Beach, shot by 

 one of his neighbors, a custom-house officer, in 

 the performance of his duty, while driving eatite 

 over the line, is not forgotten by many persons 

 still living near the village of Canaan. 



Our conductor completed his engagement by 

 bringing ns over to Canaan, where we arrived 

 on Sunday before dinner. We called for refresh- 

 ment, and invited him to participate. He left 

 the compensation entirely to our generosity, and 

 seemed to be pleased that be had done so well 

 with the sum paid him. In the course of the af- 

 ternoon he came to usk of us pardon for taking 

 back with him a load of boxes of tea and bundles 

 of leather, with which he opeidy paraded on Ca- 

 naan common, of a bright sunny Sunday, as con- 

 fident ami sale as if there was no custom-house 

 or let or hindrance in the open trade between 

 Canada and the United States. 



A Chapter oil the Boundary, and the Maine 

 aud Montreal Railroad. 



As a sequel to the "chapter on smugglers" we 

 may present our further progress in one of the 

 interesting excursions of the last summer. Our 

 people have but begun to appreciate the value of 

 the interior country: much of that interior lying 

 near to us has hitherto been without value from 

 the difficulty in a short distance of transporting 

 earth's productions, the fruits of labor, to a mar- 

 ket. It is now distinctly seen that for New Eng- 

 land the railroads annihilate distances. 



With an eye to this state of the case, did we 

 come round in our last July excursion to the 

 sources of the Connecticut, to that country which 

 belongs to the "Coos above the Upper Coos." 

 The Canada forest carrier for the smugglers 

 brought us down through the woods from the 

 height to be surmounted by the Maine and Mon- 

 treal railroai 1 beyond the line, after leaving the 

 Connecticut river at the monument executed by 

 the commissioners of the two governments, un- 

 der the recent boundary treaty negociated by Mr. 

 Webster during the Tyler administration. So 

 much was done in cutting out the line to the 

 north of the 45th degree around the westerly and 

 northerly point of New Hampshire — so long were 

 the engineers and axe-men employed in that ser- 

 vice — that we wondered nobody in that country 

 could give us any particular account of the line. 

 The intelligent landlord of Canaan with whom 

 we stopped, hail much to say of the American 

 commissioner (our old acquaintance in times of 

 sharp political contest) and his troop of em- 

 ployees backing their provisions many miles into 

 the woods, beyond all travelled paths, around the 

 upper of the Connecticut lakes; but he did not 

 know, as he had never been over, the extent of 

 the travelled line. All the way the trees were 

 cut down in a pathway depth of twenty-eight 

 feet, and permanent monuments at suitable dis- 

 tances were erected. As relates to New Hamp- 

 shire, the new boundary line coming down to the 

 mouth of Hall's stream as the most northwesterly 

 source of the Connecticut river, gives that State 

 all she ev»r askeil : it fully confirms her right to 

 remuneration from the General Government for 

 a trifling expenditure rendered necessary to de- 

 fend us from invasion by the armed men of a for- 

 eign government. The last act done as a sena- 

 tor at Washington, at the instance of President 



Jackson, was to seek an interview with Mr. Fox. 

 the British minister, in the adjustment of an un- 

 derstanding as between the Canada authorities 

 and the State of New Hampshire, that possession 

 and jurisdiction should remain as they had been 

 until a treaty arrangement of boundary should 

 he made by the two governments. This informal, 

 verbal, arrangement (our sole and only act of 

 diplomacy n lib the representative of any foreign 

 government) at once superseded the necessity of 

 keeping up an armed force at the expense of the 

 State: it saved such a collision as in the State of 

 Maine cost the government afterwards some hun- 

 dred thousands of dollars. The six thousand 

 dollars expended by our State at that time saved 

 and protected our frontier, and the general gov- 

 ernment from collision which might have been 

 as disastrous in its consequences as the war 

 brought into existence on the Rio Grande: yet, 

 as sometimes happens, the hardiest, homespun 

 efforts of patriotism may call in vain for remun- 

 eration, while the extravagance which riots in 

 unnecessary prolonged contests has its never- 

 satiated maw supplied at any sacrifice. 



The line of boundary of New Hampshire has 

 been so made that it can no longer be a matter 

 of doubt. It surrounds a tract of land much 

 larger and of much more intrinsic value than has 

 been generally supposed. This line is marked 

 by the ridge which divides the waters running 

 into the Connecticut from those which run to the 

 St. Lawrence. The course of the line is devious 

 observing the exact point, frequently crooking 

 some amphitheatre valley for a distance, and 

 coming hack to near the same point. The plans 

 of this boundary had not been completed in the 

 winter of 1847: the engineer officers engaged 

 upon them at Washington have since been called 

 to Mexico. They will probably be printed by the 

 government when completed. 



Before crossing it aud near the line within the 

 limits of Hereford, the one-story house and resi- 

 dence of the Scotchman, Alexander Rea, was 

 pointed out to us. This was the man who figured 

 conspicuously as a magistrate with both civil and 

 military powers, coming over into our territory 

 and claiming the Indian stream settlements as 

 part and parcel of his own British township of 

 Hereford, independent of the survey and entirely 

 beyond the limits of the ten mile square town- 

 ships into which this part of Lower Canada is 

 laid off. Rea was backed up by misrepresenting 

 the matter lo his government; and he in turn 

 backed up the fugitives from the Stales, who 

 found that a convenient place of retreat from the 

 execution of any civil process for their responsi- 

 bilities. It is remarkable that the territory and 

 settlements claimed to be British bad no means 

 of access to the settlements in Hereford by any 

 practicable road that did not pass through Ver- 

 mont at the 45th degree north. 



he tarried for the regular stage conveyance over 

 to Tuesday ; and the landlord kindly offered to 

 accompany him as far out and back as carriages 

 had travelled, which all might be done in a day. 

 The present town of Pittsburg embraces all 

 that part of New Hampshire beyond the 45th de- 

 gree north, lying westerly of the stream which 

 communicates directly with ihe three lakes at the 

 bead of the Connecticut river. The settlements 

 upon the river in Pittsburg extend nearly twenty 

 miles above Canaan village at the north-east cor- 

 ner of Vermont. Slewartstown village in New 

 Hampshire is opposite Canaan : here are mills, 

 and the largest rapids in the river found in its 

 whole first extent, below the lake, of sixty miles. 

 The land bine all the way is much less moun- 

 tainous and broken than it is down further south. 

 To the north of Slewartstown, on the east side 

 of the stream, lies the first Dartmouth college 

 grant, lately incorporated by the name of Clarks- 

 burg. We travelled up the river on the east side 

 fifteen miles; but our intention to visit the first 

 lake four miles further was frustrated by the ex- 

 treme heat sweating the horse and a threatened 

 thunder shower. 



Much of the road running higher than the 

 river bank at no very ereat distance leaves the 

 valley pn either side of the stream to be over- 

 looked by the traveller. Lower down on the way 

 some of the farms and open clear ngs seem to 

 have been abandoned: the fences have rotted 

 away and the fields lay open, leaving grass un- 

 fed in good condition for mowing. At other 

 points new buildings indicated that clearings 

 sometime abandoned had been recently resumed. 

 The better looking farms in most cases were 

 those which appeared to he most recently clear- 

 ed. The friend where we made our haltinform- 

 ed us that some who bad gone far west after their 

 better ease, had returned back with the surer 

 prospect of health and sound enjoyment which 

 they found in these wilds. 



In three instances upon this Pittsburg road we 

 passed clusters of some dozen or more men each 

 engaged in framing barns for raising. All the 

 wtiy was a better road than we had expected — a 

 turnpike road of far more easy travel ihan the 

 best roads down in .Massachusetts fifty miles from 

 Boston, within our youthful memory. Encoun- 

 tering the sharp hills, we found that our Pittsburg 

 friends had not yet realized the value of a new 

 and useful principle in road making. The rains 

 had made a deep gully and broken up the track 

 of the old road over quite a steep rise : instead 

 of taking the path lower down, which would pre- 

 vent the rise upon both sides, an exceedingly well 

 made road higher Up had been worked, making 

 the steep greater than in the original path. 



We stopped at a neat two story house painted 

 white, upon a side-hill overlooking the upper val- 



ey of the Connecticut and the country at a long 

 For the first time brought into thai part of the | distance lo the north-east and east : surrounding 



country which had been the scene of interesting 

 occurrences through the war of J812, by the 

 events connected with our boundary negotiations 

 down lo the treaty tiegociated by Mr. Webster, 

 which left New Hampshire no longer anxious as 

 to the extent of her limits, our travelled editor 

 would have gone on foot over the whole extend- 

 ed boundary between Canada and I, is State, and 

 between that and the Slate of Maine, had not the 

 matter, in his condition of wind aud limb, ren- 

 dered the expedition a physical impossibility. 

 As it was, he determined that the 45th degree, 

 the line of Vermont, should not be the northern- 



the house were well-constructed barns and other 

 outbuildings such as we find appertaining to the 

 wealthy farmers of the old settled towns. It was 

 the residence and farm of Clark J. Haines, Esq., 

 who bad represented the town of Pitishurg in 

 Ihe Slate legislature. He was at a distance from 

 home over in Clarksburg, one in a gaog-of neigh- 

 bors helping a new settler to build him a barn as 

 a cover to the hay which he contemplated gath- 

 ering. The lady of the house, in feeble health, 

 made a quick acquaintance as the daughter of our 

 deceased friend, the late Col. Moody Bedel of 

 Haverhill, who settled at the Indian stream soon 



most limits of this summer jaunt in the Slates:' after the close of the war of 1812, in which he 



