tfrljc jformer's ittcmtljln bisitor. 



119 



lescence \v 1 1 i c 1 1 is satisfied with nearly enough 

 of the world ;— at an earlier period, a fixed pur- 

 pose to do a thing halting not at trifles, might 

 have not prevented the hacking out from the 

 danger of going down. We cotdd not swim at 

 nil: our two conductors cotdd swim the falls 

 like ducks, and had the boat swamped, with the 

 ducking, they probably would have taken us to 

 the shore. Down, down we went, with young 

 Air. Curtis in company as rapid almost as rail- 

 road speed : the boat struck the rocks plainly 

 once, twice, thrice — it veered half way round as 

 if to he turned broadside over at the next strik- 

 ing. Down she went under the bridge: in pass- 

 ing which the landlord and young men gave us 

 the " hurra !" Again we plunged over the high 

 foam upon oik; upraised rock in n gulph formed 

 by the eddying whirl of waters below : in a mo- 

 ment alter, all was safe. The danger after the 

 first setting out did not raise as much fear as the 

 single blowing off of a Long Island sound 

 steamboat under way had often done. The 

 boat, which had been the bearer of the company 

 up the Umhagog, came over this fall of twenty- 

 five feet in gallant style, and was hauled up at 

 her place of mooring on the shore of the bay 

 below. The conductors did not until this time 

 inform us that the accident of upsetting with the 

 ducking of the passenger overboard had occur- 

 red in the last transit : the water-proof man 

 seized and swam with his charge in a moment 

 to the shore. The boat, however, on that occa- 

 sion was a sharp Indian bark canoe: in it the 

 known Indian hunter Jo of the St. Francis Cana- 

 da tribe, had come down from the head of the 

 Margallaway a few weeks before, bringing him, 

 besides a small boy Indian a cub moose which 

 he had taken, down to the settlements. The 

 bark canoe was a great curiosity — it had evi- 

 dently been recently made. Its construction 

 may be regarded as evidence of native Indian 

 instinct all but equal to that of the yellow or 

 humming bird which holds the. mirror up to na- 

 ture in the construction of its nest more com- 

 plete and finished in its style than the hand 

 of the best human artist could perfect it. The 

 Indian canoe, was the beau ideal of a vessel to 

 glide with the slightest resistance over the wa- 

 ters: it might with small power be made to 

 skim up the ripples of falls, as with a skilful 

 baud it might be guided downward over the ra- 

 pids. It was formed of the bark of one spruce 

 tree which was forced into the shape with the 

 fine points and length of the salmon, of which 

 fish it is said that from the force of its own mus- 

 cular strengih it will mount a perpendicular wa- 

 terfall of several feet with the body of falling 

 water not greater than the size of the fish. The 

 Indian canoe made many miles away from the 

 white inhabitants, with its cracks repaired with 

 fir rosin, light enough to be carried over land by 

 a single person, and stout enough to buffet the 

 waves upon these lakes not often visited by the 

 while man, was a model that wotdd show the 

 awkwardness of many elegant steamers which 

 have been thought to do credit to the genius of 

 educated scientific ship constructors. 



We opened our observations upon a journey 

 among the mountains in the Switzerland of the 

 United States far to the north, because desirous 

 of bringing before our readers at once that most 

 interesting, but most neglected part of the State 

 of New Hampshire beyond the high mountain 

 range. At first the settlements in Coos were 

 almost exclusively confined to the rich intervales 

 along the Connecticut river for sixty miles above 



the fifteen mile falls : these were among the very 

 best farms in the State in their first opening. 

 Names of their owners are still familiar to our 

 early recollection : many of the noble mansions 

 of these owners yet remain — some of the undi- 

 vided farms are continued in their whole extent 

 — in not a few of them the production has been 

 kept up. Others show a withering neglect, with 

 the ample buildings dilapidated and going to 

 decay. It is since our own remembra'nee that 

 the openings and clearings have been made off 

 of the river. The beautiful town of Lancaster, 

 the shire town of Coos, in a very few years 

 doubled and trebled its population by extending 

 its clearings bach upon the hills. There are in 

 that town many families made independent and 

 some of them wealthy by the occupation of 

 farming alone: as good common schools for the 

 instruction of youth exist in all that region as in 

 any other part of the State. The country has 

 sent forth a constant tide of emigration, not of 

 enterprising young men alone, but of accom- 

 plished and high-bred females. Nearly forty 

 mih's above Lancaster the settlements have ex- 

 panded from the river in Colebrook and Stew- 

 artslown. Even in the best towns lower down 

 in the rich valley of the Connecticut no better 

 lands have appeared than those found in these 

 two towns of what was the extreme north end 

 of the Granite State — now, since the settlement 

 and marking of the boundary with Canada, ex- 

 tending some thirty miles further north in its 

 most distant point at the source of the Margalla- 

 way. Looking back from the recent openings 

 before coming to the Dixville notch, we have a 

 view of some of the Colebrook farms upon the 

 hills. The towns of Columbia and Stratford lie 

 along the river below these upper towns: settle- 

 ments back had long been regarded here as im- 

 practicable from the near approach of the moun- 

 tains to the river. Men have gone in therewith 

 their axes ; and some of the very best farms in 

 Coos may now be found back of the mountain 

 out of sight in Columbia. 



The reason so little progress has been made 

 in the settlement of Coos has been the want of 

 means of those who first opened these settle- 

 ments. The men of means and enterprise find, 

 or think they find, more inviting positions in a 

 more wealthy neighborhood. When one of 

 them has the courage to go into the forest per- 

 haps several miles beyond one affluent neighbor 

 with the generosity and means to aid him, he 

 cuts down the heavy trees for a burn : these he 

 has only the strength partially to clear off, so 

 that his first crop, his almost sole reliance for the 

 next year's subsistence, is stinted and partial. lie 

 sows none or very little grass seed upon the new 

 ground; and the consequence is, after the second 

 year, wild bushes and sorrel usurp the place of 

 the useful grasses, and the land appears only as 

 a sample of poverty and sterility, worse than it 

 it had never been cleared. After cutting down, 

 stumps are in the way: the rocks appear where 

 the fire has run over them ; and if th» cattle 

 feeding upon it do not clear the land, it is gene- 

 rally abandoned as useless and good for nothing. 

 There are thousands of acres in New Hampshire 

 partially cleared and abandoned during the last 

 seventy years, much of which are already rich in 

 a second growth of forest trees. 



The time is speedily coming when every part 

 of the Granite State will be accessible, and all 

 its forest lands will be more valuable than the 

 lands that have no trees. It is the good lortune 

 of the State that much of its most valuable 



lands remain yet to be cleared ; and the policy 

 of the land owners will be to clear these lands 

 no faster than the wood and timber shall be 

 called for in some useful purpose that shall give 

 it a value beyond the expense of carrying it 

 away. 



The upper valley of the Androscoggin, em- 

 bracing the Margallaway west and the series of 

 lakes eastward, a part in New Hampshire and 

 probably a larger part in Maine, is territory not 

 to be surpassed as valuable in a wilderness state, 

 by any other part of the United States. This 

 area of country, equal in extent to some small 

 States of the Union, is soon to be opened to 

 near and convenient access to the ocean by 

 means of railroads reaching it almost before the 

 few scattered inhabitants living on its outer 

 edges are aware of it. 



We saw enough of this valley in its few open- 

 ings to be convinced on inquiry of the great 

 value of that which remains to be opened. The 

 lake expedition of the young gentlemen who 

 preceded, enabled us to realize the unsurpassing 

 beauty, fecundity and fertility of this lake coun- 

 try. The waters of the lakes, alive with fishes, 

 the means of easy access to all the points 

 around, will become the source of motive power 

 to cities of manufactures to be hereafter estab- 

 lished ; and the land about them is destined to 

 be the residence of a virtuous yeomanry abun- 

 dant in all the means of intelligence and good 

 living. The great and better health of this 

 country is indicated in that of the family of 

 Capt. Bragg that has gone along, father, mother 

 and seven children, without the occurrence of a 

 single death for twenty-two years: the climate 

 of the country, less forbidding than might be 

 supposed because enduring more than half the 

 months in cold and frost, is not more inconve- 

 nient to the family of healthful activity than the 

 warmer climate further south. The ground, 

 covered in snow generally five months in the 

 year, opens more beautiful in the spring than 

 that where freezing and thawing in March and 

 April make it very uncertain where winter ends 

 and spring and summer begin: in the mire 

 northerly region the snow disappears at the 

 same time that the frost leaves the ground, and 

 the season of sowing and planting is entered 

 upon at once. Besides there is an accommoda- 

 tion and an enjoyment in the steady winters 

 which few can realize who have not participated 

 in them ; accommodation, for the active business 

 of the day in the trodden snow paths with teams 

 of horses and oxen engaged in useful transpor- 

 tation of the teeming products of industry 

 whether from the soil or the hand of the me- 

 chanic and artificer— and that best enjoyment, 

 the " social, festive night" or afternoon of the 

 winter's sleigh ride and the other accompanying 

 entertainments of youth and age which those 

 who have never participated in such scenes 

 '' wot not of." 



After tarrying within the hearing of the wa- 

 terfall at what may hereafter become Umhagog 

 city forty hours, die Concord company having 

 struck their tent after a night's rest with a severe 

 rain pattering a portion of the time over their 

 heads to return back to Colebrook by the way 

 they came; we, under a more easy preparation, 

 took our solitary way alone eastward towards 

 the State of Maine. Crossing the bridge that 

 part of Errol eastward which comes down to 

 Cambridge on the south line is a promontory 

 becoming a peninsula with a bay of the Umba- 

 gog running in south discharging itself north 



