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Qll)c jTavmcv's JHcmtljlij bisitor. 



123 



cleared so (Hat the larger white pine trees are 

 really more scarce there than perhaps in any 

 other part of New England : evidence of the ex- 

 istence of the trees exists however in the giant 

 stnmps on which if not pulled out by the teeth 

 half a century of years will make hut little im- 

 pression. The country has heen denuded of its 

 best timber with the least possible advantage to 

 its owners from the difficulty and great expense 

 of getting it to a market: some noble pines that 

 would now be worth in the market a hundred 

 dollars to the single tree have been cut down to 

 be burnt, or girdled to full and rot on the ground. 

 The growth succeeding the original is seldom 

 the same: hard wood of some kind generally 

 follows the pine; but in much of this part of 

 tl.e country along the vnllies where the soil is 

 light, poplar and birch of the more diminutive 

 woods are the common growth of the grounds 

 neglected for cultivation' 



An extensive business in this country now 

 seems to be, the manufacture from hard wood 

 of sugar casks for the West India and southern 

 market, and barrels and casks for flouring mills 

 and other business continually increasing in the 

 towns along the seaboard. The ingenuity of 

 mechanical discoveries has taught how these 

 and almost all other useful vessels and imple- 

 ments of wood may be made with a great saving 

 of expense and labor, so that hard wood trees, 

 as are all the pines and lighter woods, are be- 

 fouling of great value standing far up country in 

 the forest. 



Fifteen miles from Bethel along a road some 

 dozen miles to the east of Chatham and the 

 easterly mountain line of New Hampshire 

 brought us by an easy passage down to Water- 

 lord Flat: this is the lowest of the Oxford 

 towns, the south west corner of which county is 

 finely sprinkled with ponds holding communica- 

 tion with each other in vnllies generally pointing 

 north and south. The Flat lies along the mar- 

 gin of one of these ponds: at this place is Docl. 

 Furrur's new Hydropathic Institution for the cure 

 of chronic rheumatism and other complaints, al- 

 ready become celebrated. Fiom the personal 

 experience of the last two months we have not 

 u doubt of the utility of the frequent application 

 of water as a most useful restorative whether to 

 disorders external or internal having relation to 

 the flow and circulation of the blood. Cold wa- 

 ter under a naked exposure in no very great 

 length of time becomes by no means unpleasant; 

 and we may well conceive that cold water with 

 c&dens as a refrigerator may become to the 



leiudinnrian a soothing application much easier 

 ..o be endured than lying in bed under weakness 

 V* fever that dries up the pores of the skin, 

 . bleb, without a remedy, must terminate with the 

 life of the patient. Sick and weak persons in 

 search of health now seek the cold water establish- 

 ments as a place for amusement and cure. We 

 found at the Water ford Cold Water Hospital as- 

 sociated with Dr. Farrar a friend of short ac- 

 quaintance, Dort. Prescott of Farmington, who 

 so kindly introduced us through the towns of 

 Franklin and Somerset counties on an agricul- 

 tural expedition five years ago, furnishing us with 

 wiltiuble facts then published in the Visitor in 

 relation to that part of Maine: the thirty patients 

 here, many of whom were seated at a long din- 

 ner table when we drove up to the Institution 

 which was to all appearance a tavern wanting 

 only the taken-down sign as many of the coun- 

 try taverns now do since the prevalence of strin- 

 gent penalties relative to temperance, presented 



evidence of exhiliration of spirits resulting, per- 

 haps from cold water — perhaps from good eat- 

 ing. Strong urging, on the Saturday afternoon 

 of that day designated for our arrival at home, 

 at this inviting location, failed to induce our tar- 

 ry here over the Sabbath : our temerity was pun- 

 ished by a drenching rain which followed us that 

 afternoon all the way five miles to North Bridg- 

 ton. the head of the long lake and the point of 

 landing for the steam boat which carries passen- 

 gers daily over one or the other way to and 

 back to the landing ten miles out of Portland. 



This whole lower region of Oxford and upper 

 end of Cumberland is a country far more valua- 

 ble anil belter cultivated than we hud ever sup- 

 posed : evidences of wealth and comfort as the 

 result of enterprise and industry were every 

 where apparent. The cultivated farms are gene- 

 rail hard lands upon long oval swells: ample 

 and neatly painted houses and the long barns 

 (many new and improved) and sheds common to 

 the best New England farms are to he found 

 here. Every town has its village of business — 

 sometimes more than one — every considerable 

 waterfall has its mills and frequently its facto- 

 ries. Within the space of the centre to each 

 twenty miles there is generally an academy or 

 high school for the instruction of one or both 

 the sexes. These schools are of that thorough 

 teaching which fits the New England youths for 

 taking a high stand in whatever part of the world 

 they may emigrate. 



Among the wealthy men of this part of Maine 

 the late Enoch Perky of Bridgtpn was conspic- 

 uous. He commenced as a tanner in the early 

 settlement of the town. Preserving his own 

 best limber lands, he bought and sold elsewhere. 

 One lot of 1G0 acres in Waterford he purchased 

 for the sum of $125. In process of time the 

 standing timber upon this lot sold for the sum of 

 §25,000. The best pattern of a neat and perfect 

 kitchen garden, the most beautifully arranged 

 flower beds, pinks, roses, geraniums or crisan- 

 ihoms, was in the yard and upon the ground of 

 Dr. Gould fronting and near his very neat and 

 nearly new white dwelling at the village of 

 North Biidglon fronting (he academy. The 

 nectarine nearly ripe was of the fruits of this 

 garden, which contained the varieties of peach, 

 cherry, pear and plum trees with running grape 

 vines: pinks and other flowers surrounded the 

 healthy and well filled carrot, beet and onion 

 beds. The garden was the work of the hand of 

 the practising physician himself in his intervals 

 of leisure: the beautiful flowers were cherished 

 and nurtured by the wife, a descendant of the 

 Perley family. A stranger to all in this village, 

 passing and re passing to church on the Sab- 

 bath, paused on the way to admire the beauty 

 which taste and well directed labor brings 

 easily from the earth in the appointed order of 

 nature. 



Westerly from North Bridgton between and 

 within that and the town of Denmark stands out 

 the isolated Pleasant Mountain overlooking in 

 every direction a great extent of country. Upon 

 the highest point of this mountain a house has 

 been erected which is seen along the road many 

 miles. Many visitors ascend the mountain : the 

 view is thought to he equal to that of the cele- 

 brated Red Hill of New Hampshire. Denmark 

 comes down to Saco river south-easterly from 

 Fryeburg. Lower down upon the Saco we pass 

 on tho river to Hiram, and l\\e miles further to 

 the edge of Cornish where the waters of Great 

 Ossipee unite with those of the Saco, and where 



is a business busy village. From Cornish to 

 Limerick, nine miles over a ridge of fine fanning 

 country looking back to the north-west upon the 

 more extended ridges making the large and val- 

 ued town of Parsonsfield, brings us into the val- 

 ley of the Little Ossipee : Limerick continues 

 up this stream touching Newfield first, and the 

 residence of the Hon. Nathan Clifford in four 

 miles, and at Adams' corner five miles further on. 

 Thence to Wakefield, N. II., passing another 

 ridge as between the Saco and Salmon falls 

 branch of the Piscataqtta, is nine miles further. 



Wakefield, lying along under the Moose 

 mountain on its north-easterly side with Effing- 

 ham and Freedom further north, seems to he 

 more out of communication with the centre and 

 westerly portion of New Hampshire than almost 

 any other town of the Stale : it is a wealthy 

 farming town, the lower and southerly town of 

 Carroll left in the late subdivision of Strafford 

 county. The pond of this town lying easterly of 

 the village whose waters flow southerly was that, 

 on a point or island of which very near the line 

 of Maine, Capt. Loved, before his disastrous 

 final contest at Fryeburg forty miles further 

 north, slow the Indians one hundred and thirty- 

 three years ago. The stream running from this 

 pond forms the boundary between Maine and 

 New Hampshire below, and curves the line, of 

 the Granite State further ea.M than its direct line 

 further north, until it reaches the sea below 

 Portsmouth. 



The last twenty years has greatly increased 

 the population of lower Strafford : this increase 

 has been greatest in the two towns of Dover and 

 Somersworth, where great capital in manufac- 

 tures owned in other States has heen invested. 

 These towns flourishing spread the increase of 

 business in the towns above. We were surprised 

 to learn that the village called Farmington Dock 

 employed at least six hundred persons engaged 

 there as shoe-makers making shoes and boots 

 for the southern market. A railroad in the di- 

 rection of this village from Dover to Alton hay 

 upon lake Winnipissioggce is already under 

 way. These roads once started among a busi- 

 ness people seem to almost possess the power 

 in the capital of their own creation to build 

 themselves. 



Our mountain country would appear almost to 

 have been made with tracks left for railways 

 through its higher elevations. The valley fol- 

 lows a branch of the Cochecho from the Dock 

 up to New Durham in a very gradual rise to the 

 summit which comes down in another va'lcy 

 from a pond at the west end of Moose moun- 

 tain: this stream suddenly turns in a northerly 

 direction running very near a level to Alton bay 

 which runs down several miles before it unites 

 with the lake, along whose southerly side is in 

 the nearest direction to the flourishing villages 

 and towns of Gilford and Meredith, all turning 

 with ihe lake and its numerous feeders into the 

 Merrimack river valley taking a different and 

 more distant route to the seaboard. 



But we might wear out the pen as well as the 

 reader's patience in describing w hat we have seen 

 and what we have thought of the country in the 

 space of little more than a fortnight's journey 

 among the mountains and hills pertaining and 

 adjacent to our own Stale. Sufficient for one 

 number of the Visitor have we written ; and yet 

 our beginning without a proper end was half- 

 way after the commencement of the journey. 

 That journey presents matter in its first part too 

 interesting to be passed over; and we will in 



