&l)c .farmer's illontljln bisitor. 



117 



liny considerable public improvement. Mr. 

 Dix's road was built llirough the Notch at a 

 higher point than the track of the present road : 

 the wall of the Dix road is seen as we pass along. 

 The rocks impend in craggy blocks seemingly 

 almost directly over head: falling down, these 

 blocks lie along the track. A hollow excavation 

 surrounded on all sides after the turn in the 

 ridge eastward was evidently left as the debris 

 fell from the clefts above on either hand. The 

 water running eastward is lost for some distance 

 below until it breaks out in a small rivulet which 

 discharges itself through the Androscoggin. At 

 the source of the Mohawk running the other 

 way is a beaver meadow of considerable extent, 

 where the tall blue joint grass was growing to 

 the head and shoulders. The last of Colebrook 

 and the first of Dixville up the valley in its deep 

 black soil and the immensely tall sugar tree3, 

 black birch, spruce and hemlock, near the clos- 

 ing-iu notch, showed there was great strength of 

 soil coming out of the bosom of these moun- 

 tains, in which rich clover feed started wherever 

 the sun could find its way as soon as the clear- 

 ing was opened. 



Coming down from the notch a fall of some 

 five hundred feet in a single mile, we strike a 

 level plain open about another mile in which are 

 the only two farms and settlements within the 

 town of Dixville: these two farms were opened 

 and settled thirty and thirty-five years ago, and 

 probably have not been much improved since. 

 They are handso::ie intervale, as level as possi- 

 ble. The town of Dixville is of large length, 

 heading on its longest side the whole extent of 

 Columbia, Colebrook and Stewartstown of the 

 towns on the west side of the State. It is cover- 

 ed with an immensity of trees: what of it is soil, 

 is all good. It is destined to become with all the 

 upland territory of Coos the best of land for 

 grazing. A good farm may be made almost any 

 where: the only difficulty is to find a way in and 

 out. When farms already cleared are abandon- 

 ed from the inconvenience of procuring necessa- 

 ries and from no neighborhood association for 

 the support and procurement of common bene- 

 fits, it may very readily be concluded that no 

 new land would be opened in that neighborhood. 

 Dixville has stood still amidst the New Hamp- 

 shire mountains for thirty years, while the west 

 has been pierced at the distance of thousands of 

 miles, and New England men, with chills and 

 fevers of a less healthy climate, settled down 

 upon them, have sought for that happiness 

 and prosperity which some of them have not 

 found. 



South-easterly from Dixville in an oblong 

 square is the town of Millsfield. From this 

 town we look back on the wonders of the notch, 

 which seems to be but a chasm piercing directly 

 through the side hill as if cut from the side of 

 an apple or a potato. That part of the debris 

 coming eastward has evidently at some remote 

 period formed the very level alluvion which 

 stretches down all the way from the gorge to the 

 river Androscoggin. There are rich fields over 

 this plain : the laud in Millsfield is still more 

 productive than in the town above. The pasture 

 ground of a farm, with buildings without inhabi- 

 tants, with cattle iu it, was teeming with rank 

 grass, where the raspberry vines did not stealthi- 

 ly come in as upon soil that belonged to them. 

 A mowing meadow, beautifully level as fit for 

 the deploying of a brigade of militia, lay along 

 the travelled path, standing iu rich herdsgrass at 

 the rate not less than two tons to the acre. 



Further on in Millsfield were rich fields of oats 

 standing five feet high and upwards. These two 

 or three almost neglected farms in Millsfield, as 

 in Dixville, are an earnest of the intrinsic value 

 of its soil. It may support as many inhabitants 

 on its agriculture hereafter as any crack town of 

 its size down south. 



Through this town and Errol below for the 

 distance of some six miles the road of three 

 rods iu width lies across the plain. By the side 

 of this road generally in that distance is the best 

 and most perfect post and five-rail fence for so 

 great an extent we have ever yet seen : it is said 

 to have been set full thirty years ago and is still 

 perfect. The hardwood posts and rails of 

 straight rift have stood all that time with less 

 decay than the more frail chestnut posts and 

 rails along the Concord railroad have shown in 

 four years. It was a noble enterprise of the 

 men who first cleared the settlements in Dixville, 

 Millsfield and Errol along the distance of ten 

 miles: buildings, large houses of two stories, 

 well finished on the outside, and ample barns, as 

 well as excellent wooden fences, showed at an 

 early day that gains to their owners must have 

 come from the use of this land. Probably the 

 profits were made in the rearing of cattle, many 

 of which were at that early time driven to the 

 Canada market. The most flourishing farm in 

 Errol west of the Androscoggin is that of Mr. 

 Acres, whose father from Newbury, Vt. settled 

 in this valley forty years ago: his premises were 

 neat and tidy, as any of the best farmers down 

 south: his barns were large and capacious — his 

 high wooden fences ample against the inroads 

 of cattle : his house seemed to be the smallest 

 affair about it, and in decided contrast to many 

 of the stately mansions opened along the inter- 

 vale vallies of New Hampshire many years ago 

 some of which have been sadly deteriorated 

 with the soil about them. Near Mr. Acres' farm 

 is one of the beautiful bodies of water (large as 

 the lochs or lakes of Scotland) whose outlet is 

 at the foot of the Androscoggin falls two miles 

 below, coming down to which on the opposite 

 side is a timber district of considerable extent, 

 Further up north rises a large isolated height 

 called the Dustin mountain. 



It was a somewhat singular coincidence that 

 brought the editor of the Visitor in a circuitous 

 journey nearly two hundred miles from home, in 

 the single one horse vehicle, making the way of 

 between thirty and forty miles in the day, nearly 

 all the way en route on the same road with a 

 company of young gentlemen from Concord. 

 Their destination, without our knowledge, had 

 been the lakes including Umbagog above the 

 Errol falls: our purpose was to address the 

 Ammonoosuck Agricultural Society at Lisbon 

 on the 10th August, and afterwards reach, as far 

 as practicable by ways which we had never 

 travelled, so far north beyond the White Moun- 

 tains as would consume a fortnight's time of la- 

 bor and diligence such as both ourselves and 

 our old faithful Charley (both of us alike not 

 now worth much either as man or horse) could 

 undergo without absolute prostration. In the 

 solitary cleared valley path with the mountains 

 on eilher side it would raise a smile upon the 

 most sedate to see the man first reaching from 

 the narrow track of the buggy wheels and after- 

 wards alighting to pick, eat and he filled with 

 rare ripe raspberries, while the horse patiently 

 standing turned without stepping out of the 

 pathway to eat the raspberry bush itself as best 

 suiting his appetite. One grand feature of the 



jog-trot animal over such a travelled track of 

 decaying logs and rocks made here by time as 

 successive rains and floods had washed away 

 their coverings, and sunken in dangerous bridges, 

 was the advantage of comparative safety which 

 his careful stepping gave both our vehicle and 

 ourselves while on this almost unfrequented 

 way of sudden, short and difficult hill sleeps as 

 well as of more extended lengths approaching 

 nearly a level. The lower swampy grounds 

 seemed to present the greater obstructions. We 

 approached Bragg's in Errol from the Colebrook 

 corner in this leisure way of travel, a distance of 

 twenty miles over the difficult way in about five 

 hours : for the hist three or four mrles the road 

 was very fine over the plain. Nearly a mile off 

 the white tent of the Concord young men about 

 which we had notice as before us oil the way 

 through the Franconia notch, by Lancaster to 

 Colebrook, made its appearance: the old horse 

 pricked up his ears and we soon came along 

 side. We supposed a meeting of the young 

 men here, as they had all the way pitched this 

 tent and lodged in camp every night for the first 

 hundred and fifty miles. On alighting we found 

 only their driver left in the charge of the tent 

 and the horses, while the following entry upon 

 the tavern record for the first time shewed us 

 who composed the company, the account of 

 whom had saluted our inquiry at every step after 

 we arrived at the lower mountain region beyond 

 Plymouth : the names were Charles A. Davis, 

 Walter G. Curtis, John M. Hill, J. D. Carswell, 

 J. A. Pearson, H. C. Sanborn, Martin B. Hines, 

 J. K. Cate, Augustus Willey, of Concord, and 

 G. B. Eames of Littleton. About one half of 

 the company were printers from the Patriot es- 

 tablishment, who had been engaged in severe 

 day and night service during the sitting of the 

 Legislature. All of them (we are writing now at 

 home) returned to Concord the same day of our 

 arrival (Wednesday, Aug. 22d) with complexions 

 greatly altered, in excellent health, and some of 

 them with increased weight. 



On our arrival at Bragg's we found the Con- 

 cord company had been absent up the lakes be- 

 yond the settlements from Thursday morning 

 until this afternoon of Monday. A young Mr. 

 Bragg who had qualified himself up here in the 

 woods as a respectable school-teacher in the city 

 of New York and who was at home on a visit, 

 accompanied the troupe as a pilot over the lakes 

 for the first time: the father and another brother 

 were busy iu the hay-field. The youngest 

 daughter of the family, alone unmarried, was 

 the teacher of four scholars (all the summer 

 children of the district) in a neat new school- 

 house on the other side of the river. The com- 

 pany had left their tent at Bragg's from inability 

 to carry the weight with them, expecting to 

 lodge as they did four nights in the open air up- 

 on beds of hemlock evergreens generally. It 

 had been our purpose to continue this journey 

 directly on : under the enthusiasm excited by a 

 desire to see persons who had just gone over this 

 lake country which we were disappointed not to 

 visit in person, we concluded to await the return 

 of the party; and on the next morning (Tuesday) 

 after sitting down to the commencement of 

 these notices, about ten their avant courier noti- 

 fied us of their approach. They looked indeed 

 like a body of Indians or wild men coming in 

 from the woods: no face bad been handled by 

 the tonsor (and some of them with large whis- 

 kers before) since the company left Concord : 

 one was laden heavily with ppt and pans for 



