166 



&lic ifaratcr's ittotitbto bisttor. 



by Squam lake, a large sheet of water scarcely 

 three miles from Winnipissiogee lake, surround- 

 ed by a fine farming country with best pasturage 

 for cattle reaching to the very tops of the moun- 

 tains. We had been upon Prospect Hill which 

 overlooked the railway valley route for many 

 miles, extending from far up the valley of Ba- 

 ker's river, by 'Plymouth and the Pemigewassett, 

 up the Squam river, by the Measley pond, and 

 finally over to and along the Winnipissiogee 

 lake shore in a winding but by no means very 

 indirect way, considering the level preserved 

 through an interesting country. Our wish was 

 to dive deeper into the mountain valleys : so we 

 turned to the right of Prospect mountain, and 

 we found all the way through Holderness and 

 Campion until we touched the Pemigewassett, 

 roads easily to be travelled, and farms that had 

 long been occupied The way led us directly in 

 view of that farm of Col. Holmes of Campion, 

 whose enterprise and wealth, and noble, gene- 

 rous spirit were twticed in an article from the 

 Old Man of the Mountain, extracted into a for- 

 mer number of the Visitor. In this region of 

 country vast was the amount of timber trees 

 standing in the original forest. The pioneer set- 

 tlers resorted to various expedients to be rid of 

 them : the larger trees were girdled to die stand- 

 ing, until they fell to rot on the ground. Within 

 the last fifty years pine lumber has been cut in 

 that region to be run over the falls and floated 

 downward towards a market. Generally with 

 the best of the trees, was little profit made by 

 the undertakers to make the standing timber of 

 any considerable value. As the. best timber low- 

 er down has "been taken away, so the enterprise 

 of the lumberers has reached further back. It is 

 only three or four years since Mr. Norcross, an 

 enterprising timber-dealer of Maine, has given a 

 new stimulant to the lumber trade of the Merri- 

 mack. Until his time it probably never entered 

 the head'of any man that an immensity of tim- 

 ber standing in the mountains beyond where 

 even the hunter or fisherman often ventured, 

 could be. floated down from near the very sources 

 of the Merrimack river waters. 



From the time of leaving home in August we 

 had intended to go as far as our strength would 

 admit up the middle and main branch of the 

 Pemigewassett, which has its origin but a very 

 short distance over a high mountain ledge on 

 the west side of the celebrated Notch of the 

 White Mountains, dividing the sources of the 

 Saco from those of the Merrimack. A forest of 

 many thousand acres lies in here, several. streams 

 coming into the main branch which comes, down 

 from a distance probably of more than twenty 

 miles, before it unites with two other blanches 

 near tiie north line of Woodstock, one of them 

 a stem of the Merrimack, having its source, at 

 the Franconia Notch, which parts the waters in 

 ponds laying near the summit level as between 

 the Connecticut and Merrimack rivers. We had 

 been recommended to Mr. Barston at Woodstock 

 as the man who had personally led in the hard 

 work of Mr. Norcross' enterprise, and we Were 

 sorry to find that exposure ir. severe labor at 

 haying upon his own premises had laid him 

 down iu an excruciating fever. " He was physi- 

 cally unable to accompany us to the scene of 

 operations in the forest of which he had been 

 the leader. We proceeded onward to Lincoln, 

 the less inhabited of the incorporated towns of 

 the State, where we made the best arrangements 

 that presented to effect our object. 



Simon Tuttle, Esq. has resided some twenty 



years in Lincoln: since his time, with the assist- 

 ance of a small appropriation from the State 

 treasury made in the year 1826-7, a passable road 

 has been made over Lincoln, by the " Old Man 

 of the Mountain," through the summit level of 

 the Notch from which this highway, pursuing its 

 course northward, descends five miles to the 

 Iron works at the western extremity of the town 

 of Franconia. One mile below the tavern of 

 our friend Tuttle, the streams of the upper Mer- 

 rimack part, the main branch coming in from the 

 north-east. Two miles from Tuttle's in the edge 

 of Woodstock is a sharp mountain at the height 

 of one thousand to fifteen hundred feet, at the 

 top of which is a lake of one hundred acres, 

 from which a stream of pure water issues. Mr. 

 Tuttle has a well cultivated farm along and near 

 the branch stream coming down from the Fran- 

 conia notch : near his house along the road was 

 a cornfield equal in growth and forwardness to 

 any we had seen during the year. Mr. Tuttle 

 and his sons were engaged iu haying upon a 

 newly cleared lot at some half a mile to a mile 

 distance of more elevated land, from which he 

 was taking at the rate of thirty to forty hundreds 

 of the best stable hay to the acre. Around and 

 not very far from the road on the westerly side 

 there were other open clearings in the forest 

 where settlements had been begun. The heavy 

 timber growth upon these lands makes the labor 

 of clearing very great. This labor with the 

 price of the cost of land at one to three dollars 

 the acre, will be repaid in a successful first crop 

 of rye or wheat : but few young men have the 

 courage or ability to encounter the labor and the 

 expenditure with no return for at least one year, 

 while employment with cash wages is readily 

 procured all about the country. This state of 

 things has prevented and will continue to pre- 

 vent a speedy settlement of much good land 

 which still remains in New Hampshire. Poor 

 men with families, unable to purchase the land 

 only on credit, make a pitch upon the corner of 

 some lot, and elect a rude residence : the indi- 

 vidual cuts down at first two or three acres, 

 burns over the ground and sows it with some 

 sort of grain. Not having the ability to purchase 

 grass seed, the first crop is succeeded by fire 

 weeds and sorrel, bushes and briers ; and the 

 best of iand with such a growth is accounted 

 worthless. Some thirty years ago, before the 

 Franconia notch road was made passable as a 

 travelled road for carriages, there was « clearing 

 and settlement of three or four farms a little way 

 up the branch whose, navigation has been im- 

 proved by Mr. Norcross. From some discourage- 

 ment not arising from deficiency in the soil, 

 these settlements were partially abandoned : the 

 owners went off to the West, it is believed, to 

 fare no better than they might have done here. 

 Through these lands formerly cleared, with Mr. 

 Charles N. Tuttle of Lowell, who was at home 

 on a visit at his father's, the editor took a six 

 hours jaunt out and back up the main stem of 

 the Merrimack to the second camp of Mr. Nor- 

 cross, the distance of about eight miles. Leav- 

 ing the lots that had been formerly cleared, much 

 of which had come up into a second growth, 

 and proceeding over the winter path-way on 

 horse-back, the character of the timber growth 

 and the soil at once struck us with surprise. 

 The immensity of logs wjth which Mr.Norcross 

 had covered the Merrimack in the two last years, 

 taken from this ground, seemed scarcely to have 

 thinned the forest. Indeed we believe he had 

 regarded as of little or no value other than pine 



and spruce logs. Within two miles of the qpen- 

 ed settlement was his first encampment. The 

 operation of logging was done in the winter 

 while snow of less or greater depth covered the 

 ground. The cattle stables were constructed of 

 logs edged into each other, affording a comforta- 

 ble protection within wfiile the storm raged with- 

 out. A large log house with an aperture at the 

 to)) to let off the smoke, was the place of rest 

 for the woodmen while not engaged in the la- 

 bors of the day. Plenty of fuel being at hand, 

 the long cold evenings and nights of winter were 

 here beguiled with the enjoyment of sports, with 

 songs and music, with stones and the joke and 

 repartee — and with as great cheer and zest as 

 those of the best of men and women in the mar- 

 bled halls of costly palaces. Sleep was there 

 not the less sound and sweet to the man who had 

 wielded the axe or lifted hard in snicking [?] the 

 log of heavy dimensions from its place of falling 

 to be dragged to the river bank. 



Mr. Norcross' first encampment is within the 

 limits of Lincoln: beyond it along the path-way 

 and at a higher level than that of the river bank 

 facing towards the south, is a maple growth of 

 thousands of the original trees, which our guide 

 pointed out as the property of Joseph Barnard, 

 Esq. of Hopkinton, who has of late years invest- 

 ed some of his loose earnings in the cheap tim- 

 ber lands of the upper region of New Hamp- 

 shire. It was not until the past summer that 

 these lands had been mentioned to us as at all 

 valuable for cultivation by the worthy represen- 

 tative in the legislature from the town of Wood- 

 stock. Even Mr. Norcross, the owner of the 

 largest track, seems to have imbibed the notion 

 that where the great trees grow, there are too 

 many granite rocks underneath near the surface 

 to make the soil eligible for the farmer. Where- 

 ever any of these lands have been opened to 

 cultivation, experience soon corrects the com- 

 mon error. Bretton- Woods, at the time of our 

 first visit to the White Mountains, twenty-five 

 years ago, was thought to be a track of land en- 

 tirely impracticable for clearing or settlement: 

 if it was not too hard from its mountainous, 

 rocky surface, it was considered too cold and 

 frosty ever to give a crop. That place has since 

 become an incorporated town with more than 

 seventy ratable polls, the most of whom are in- 

 dustrious, thriving farmers. There are single 

 acres of piae timber in this town probably worth 

 a hundred dollars. The representative of this 

 town among the mountains, an intelligent and 

 well-informed genriemaii of middle age, removed 

 here from Vermont three years ago: he made 

 bis pitch upon a hundred acre lot of wild land 

 upon the Ammonusuck, where he resides in a 

 log-house. He finds the soil to be of the first 

 quality ; and Indian corn, now that the country 

 is opened by clearings, is as nearly safe a crop 

 as it is down a hundred miles south. This town 

 of Carroll is on the other side of the Franconia 

 ridge northerly from the Norcross track. 



We pursued our way up the main stem of the 

 Merrimack to the second encampment, where it 

 unites with another stream called the Hancock 

 branch, having its sources upon the same level 

 which is the head water of the Swift river, turn- 

 ing the other way, that unites with Saco river at 

 Conway on the easterly line of the State. When 

 the lands shall be cleared away in this region 

 that has hitherto been treated as altogether rocks 

 and mountains, posterity will be surprised to find 

 how little of the mountains fill up the space. As 

 you pass up these streams the mountains recede 



