120 



$l)e faxmct's iltontljlw btsitor. 



and uniting with the Margallaway which he- 

 comes the Androscoggin downwards, leaving 

 the promontory in the shape of an ox-bow. 

 Passing before school-time the new school- 

 house with its four scholars, no other fastening 

 being necessary here where all the inhabitants 

 were known to be honest than a simple staple 

 and hook without a key, we lingered a moment 

 to see its inside : it was' the best mod:l of the 

 few small school-houses we had ever seen — it 

 reminded us of the school-houses of by -gone days 

 between forty-five and fifty-five years ago where 

 in a few weeks, summer and winter, all the 

 scholastic instruction was had which we ever 

 received. JJut how great was the contrast in 

 the qualifications of instructors and ill the hooks 

 of instruction then and now ? All the refine- 

 ments and discoveries of the age, by means of 

 cheapened materials and facilities for making 

 books, appear almost simultaneously in the vil- 

 lage school of the wilderness with that of the 

 city. To the intrusion of an unasked entrance 

 on the premises then controlled by the young 

 instructress, evidences of whose literature and 

 taste we had seen about the boudoir which had 

 been given for our use during our two nights 

 stay in the soothing sound of the waterfall, we 

 were invited by reading on the outside door the 

 following notice : 



" Coos ss. This certifies, that marriage is in- 

 tended between Mr. Jusiali Black and Miss 

 Katharine Brown, both of Cambridge. David 

 H. Thurston, Town Clerk Errol. Errol, Aug. 

 5, 1838." 



Careful as the up-country people are on all 

 the points of matrimonial connection to come 

 up to the law, while we thought this modo of 

 making public the banns to be about the same 

 as that of a notice posted on a tree in the far 

 away forest, it was difficult for us to fathom how 

 the law could be answered by the clerk of one 

 town notifying for the inhabitants of another 

 town in a spot where so few would read the ad- 

 vertisement: perhaps the new edition of the re- 

 vised statutes, which is not before us, may ex- 

 plain all. The reason of the distinction may be 

 that Errol is a town with incorporated privileges, 

 while Cambridge has only the name with the 

 territory of a town : its inhabitants are believed 

 not even to enjoy the privilege of voting for the 

 rulers of State or Nation. Excluded from all 

 other privilege means to arrive at lawful matri- 

 mony will be found in all its forms, taking the 

 corporation rights to those who as yet have cor- 

 poration rights in nothing else: black and brown 

 will come together where nature prompts to the 

 union of the sexes. That all the refined know- 

 ledge of the cily goes for the benefit of the 

 country — that the wilderness blossoms with 

 other flowers wasting themselves not altogether 

 on the desert air than those planted by nature — 

 was evinced in the desk of the schoohlame 

 in which with a pencil we copied on the instant 

 these apothems in good harmony with the 

 careful step on the outside to effect a holy union 

 of the sexes. " A mind well turned and long ex- 

 ercised in virtue does not easily change any course 

 it once undertakes." " Exercise and temperance 

 strengthen the constitution and sweeten the erijoy- 

 ments of life." " Diligence, industry and proper 

 improvement of time are natural duties of the 

 young." 



The clearing upon the promontory over which 

 the road towards the State of Maine has its way 

 seems to be but recent : several new lots on this 

 way have been but lately opened. Looking one 

 vtay on either side and over a large extent of 



country from the top, this promontory when 

 cleared of its large trees will present beautiful 

 views of land and water in almost any direction. 

 The road here has been much improved the 

 present year: this and the elegant new bridge 

 passing over the falls of the Androscoggin in a 

 single span, are the beginning of those improve- 

 ments which ought to be made on what might 

 become at once a much travelled road. Inter- 

 course not only with New Hampshire and Ver- 

 mont on the other side, but with the opening to 

 the Lower Canada townships which must be 

 made by the construction of the .Maine and 

 Montreal railroad, will at present in its shortest 

 distance he through the Dixville notch. Contribu- 

 tions for improving this passway in its unsettled 

 part have been made, we understand, by people 

 of the Canada townships who are interested in 

 the trade eastward. Large quantities of fish 

 from the Maine seaboard go over this road in 

 winter. 



From the Errol bridge to township Letter 15. 

 in Maine is ten miles: nine miles of this brings 

 us to the rock of division between the two States 

 marked " i\. II.— I. VV. W." on the one side and 

 " M." upon the other. To this rock the fenced 

 cleared land of Maine comes up : sighting north 

 and south from both sides of the road the line 

 strikes over the top of a high mountain at the 

 north a little westward as it must be of the Mar- 

 gallaway valley. The fertility of the land of the 

 promontory may be imagined from the fact that 

 spring wheat in the burnt ground upon a field at 

 the highest point of the road stood at a level of 

 five and a half to six feet from the ground. We 

 plucked and brought home a sample of this 

 wheat as we did of the tall oats growing in old 

 ploughed ground within the same valley after 

 passing Dixville notch. 



Surmounting the ridge by a winding road in 

 Errol along which several new farms are 

 opening with a soil as fertile as can be desired, 

 we come down to the not yet incorporated town 

 of Cambridge, which touches on the bay shore 

 of Umbagog perhaps to the distance of three or 

 four miles. Here are all the settlements as yet 

 made in the township, of which one only and 

 that rising the hill on the Maine line can as yet 

 be called a farm : a brook comes down to the 

 lake sufficient for the purpose probably of car- 

 rying a grist mill. The shore nf this hay to a 

 very considerable extent is bordered with a wide 

 ribbon plat of green grass covering what may 

 be a dry meadow in the lowest state of summer 

 water, but overflowed when the northern water 

 backs out of the Margallaway river coining 

 down from the northern valley above. This 

 field of green continues along the easterly side 

 of the bay and widens to a much greater extent 

 when it reaches further north another promon- 

 tory becoming an island in the highest waters 

 over which the line between the States takes its 

 way, and within the New Hampshire part of 

 which in Errol are the three new cleared farms 

 accessible only by water communication. The 

 green plat of land along the lake shore un- 

 doubtedly belongs to the owners of the fronting 

 lots, although the settler of whom we made in- 

 quiry said the land-owners of whom the occu- 

 pants bought deeded only to the water's edge: a 

 good quantity of natural meadow grass might 

 be taken from this ribbon strip in every dry 

 summer. All of it, with the patience of the 

 Dutch for barricading and shutting out the 

 water, might at no very great expense he 

 made ever producing fields for grass or grain. 



Through Cambridge, a town as yet in its in- 

 fancy, but exceedingly well situated to become 

 hereafter one of the most valuable of the New 

 Hampshire towns, the road is bad from the 

 actual physical inability as it would seem of the 

 present settlers to make it better. Rising one of 

 those smooth swells as we leave the shore of the 

 lake, comes down within a mile the township 

 known all about as "Letter 15." in Maine, to 

 which a regular stage with the United States 

 mail arrives once a week : the mail on horse- 

 back is taken only once a fortnight through the 

 Dixville notch road in New Hampshire. Mr. 

 John J. Bragg, nephew to our landlord at the 

 Bridge, with no sign of a licensed tavern, keeps 

 here such a house as would induce the traveller 

 to tarry long and enjoy nice and good eating, 

 drinking or sleeping. The lady of this house, 

 young and accomplished, but a volunteer atten- 

 dant of the table whose cooked trout and viands 

 her own hand had prepared, surprised us too 

 that she was a descendant on both paternal sides 

 of the Eastmans and Grahams of Concord, a 

 town so distant that she had yet never visited it. 

 Tlie hill or swell continues to rise in cleared 

 fields of Mr. Bragg's farm half a mile southerly 

 of his house: from this rise a large portion of 

 the upper Androscoggin valley is looked over as 

 upon a map. The eye catches the waters of the 

 expanded lakes in the distance around a fourth 

 part of the circle at the north : far beyond this 

 the range of mountain highlands which divide 

 the boundary between the States and Canada lie 

 along the circle. Further east, we look in the 

 long distance up the Dead river valley and upon 

 the mountains Saddleback, Mount Abraham and 

 Mount Bigelow, a part of the ridge which turns 

 the head waters of the Kennebeek river many 

 miles further east. The view of the whole 

 country north from Letter B. near Mr. Bragg's is 

 to an extent that is rarely gained when we do 

 not rise high upon some isolated mountain. 



Fifteen miles from the Letter B. bring us 

 down to Andover in .Maine, a town that from 

 appearance we might suppose to have been set- 

 tled a hundred years. We did not expect so 

 wild a country as we encountered in this dis- 

 tance — there seemed to be a mighty valley gorge 

 anil fall in the mountains coming down to An- 

 dover: an entire stranger to a solitary road laid 

 hare in rocks by frequent washing, with danger- 

 ous holes in decayed bridges and deep gullies to 

 be watched, the way always seems long. Com- 

 ing through the crooked pass in the mountain of 

 which the road itself presents frequent miniature 

 samples, at the bottom of the steep a level plain 

 opens wide enough for narrow farms extending 

 up the side hill on either side. Enquiring soon 

 we were answered that this was called li Ando- 

 ver surplus," and that the distance to the town 

 itself was six miles. The gorge which widens 

 out approaching the town down which is the 

 outlet of the most northerly road in New 

 Hampshire is the source of a stream called Frye 

 brook, which uniting with others below becomes 

 the Ellis river uniting with the Androscoggin at 

 Rumford point twelve miles below Andover. 

 Another gorge from the lake country comes out 

 at Andover from the Richardson lake timber 

 township: this was opened several years since 

 as a county highway when the great expenditure 

 at that township was going on. Over it the 

 loaded teams carrying materials for building and 

 provisions as well as the persons of fortune makers 

 who went there to realize in advance the riches 

 that were to flow from the grand enterprise, 



