$l)c .farmer's iHoittl)lij Visitor. 



101 



sixty or eighty miles. With him we talked of 

 an exploring expedition in tlie month of August 

 over to the St. John's hy the wiiy of the Aroos- 

 took, to seek out the probable practicability of 

 steam navigation upon the higher portion of that 

 river, which next to the Si. Lawrence is the 

 great river of the Northern Stales. The south- 

 eastern branches of the St. John's interlock with 

 the waters of the upper Penobscot, so that by 

 extensive damming the lumber collected upon 

 the one river is floated over to the other, and 

 brought down to Bangor. An immensity of 

 pine timber, the only kind of forest that as yet is 

 regarded of value in that part of the State of 

 Maine, remains yet undisturbed in the upper re- 

 gions of the Penobscot and St. John's. AH of it 

 is yet to be made accessible by means of im- 

 proved navigation of the rivers and railroad 

 transportation. The land of this extensive terri- 

 tory, we have good reason to believe, is among 

 the best for (settlement in New England: the 

 fertility of the far West scarcely exceeds that of 

 linicti of the new lands down East which we 

 have seen opened. Never having been as far as 

 the Aroostook, or upon any portion of the St. 

 John's, we are of opinion from the representa- 

 tions made of that country that it is far more 

 desirable, because equally productive, as the 

 West and more healthy and belter adapted to 

 northern constitutions than to encounter the 

 change which requires acclimation through 

 "chills and fevers" going to all parts of the 

 great West. We know a family who have been 

 settled twenty-three years in the upper and re- 

 "niaining wild region of our own rough granite 

 Slate upon the confluence of waters embracing 

 the Magallaway river and the Umbagog takes as 

 they are discharged and make up she head stem 

 of the Androscoggin river : the father and mo- 

 ther of this family with five children then pitch- 

 ed down in Errol — to these one child was after- 

 wards added; and if there had ever been occa- 

 sion for one, no physician had been called to 

 that family in all that time, and no death had oc- 

 curred. It Is pleasant to reflect that so well did 

 the parents of this family contrive as to educate 

 the six sons and daughters, making, we believe, 

 every one of them capable as instructors of 

 youth, two of the sons being at the head of re- 

 spectable schools in the city of New York. 



The sons of New England have "looked to 

 the West," as we think, to a sacrifice, if not of 

 their pecuniary prospects, of that health which 

 is much more precious to life than all the prop- 

 erty that may he gained from the risque of life. 

 The opening means of intercommunication 

 through every part of the northern Slates make 

 it more desirable for our young men to settle 

 down upon the forests .of the most northerly 

 Slates which have not yet been taken up: the 

 mountains, even the higher mountains of New 

 Hampshire, with the shut out valleys lying be- 

 tween which every where constitute much the 

 greater surface, are found to be when opened to 

 clearing, the very best lands for summer pastur- 

 age of sheep and cattle: cleared off, the wild 

 animals which destroy sheep and cattle, as some 

 of these mountains already are and all of them 

 may he, they are a safe residence for the young 

 cattle and sheep of the farm from the first of 

 April to the last of November. The best beef 

 and mutton come from the pasturage of these 

 mountains; and the mares with their colts, 

 which in the training of horse-venders in coun- 

 try and city become of the value of two, three 



and sometimes five hundred dollars cash, subsist 

 more than half the year Upon the spontaneous 

 growth of the rocky hill pastures. On enquiry 

 we were first surprised to learn that some of the 

 pastures so much covered with rocks as to have 

 all the appearance of a ledge at a distance, are 

 really more valuable as furnishing a greater 

 quantity and more sweet feed than the plain or 

 lowland pasture without rocks. 



Our course on the 5th July going east for the 

 first forty miles was over the Maine and Montreal 

 railroad, commencing at Portland and running 

 eastward towards both Bath and Brunswick near 

 the sea, Augusta and Waterville up the Kenne- 

 beck, as well as in the line of Canada north- 

 westward through the Androscoggin valley to 

 the Connecticut river over New Hampshire 

 nearly half the distance down from its most 

 northerly line as lately settled by the boundary 

 commissioners, to the southerly bound upon the 

 State of Massachusetts. When this Maine and 

 Canada road shall be completed, it will open a 

 most valuable timbered region upon the very 

 best soil of the Slate to an easy and a ready sea- 

 board market ; so that to ail rich intents and 

 purposes the Maine enterprise will help New 

 Hampshire no less than it helps herself. 



The first remark we have to make upon the 

 railroads east of Portland is their widened track 

 upon the rail, a foot if not a foot and a half wi- 

 der than any other track of the New England 

 railways westward. This is a decided improve- 

 ment: the cars from the widening of the seats 

 are much more convenient and comfortable ; 

 and we are told that decided advantage is given 

 in the construction of engines of enlarged ca- 

 pacity which will enable heavy merchandise 

 trains to pass with more celerity. The course 

 out of Portland for the Canada road, as we have 

 said, at least until it arrives near the Androscog- 

 gin, bears in various directions, branches of 

 which are already under way. At Lewiston in 

 Cumberland, about forty miles out of Portland, 

 where unite the waters of Little and Great An 

 droscogi;in, there is a splendid water power 

 which is unsurpassed by the Saco power or any 

 other in the country. The facilities of construct- 

 ing railroads have been wonderfully increased 

 since the enterprising spirit of the working pow- 

 er of New England has embarked in them. 

 While the main railroad which has agitated the 

 State of Maine and the British provinces, which 

 has called for successive missions to Europe for 

 the aid of the British government and British 

 capital, and which has been the subject of ear- 

 nest jealousy and contention as between Boston 

 and a more easterly and Higher route to Canada, 

 has "dragged its slow length along" in the last 

 ten or fifteen years, a single important branch 

 eastward from Lewiston falls, by enterprising 

 citizens of the secondary farming towns of the 

 interior, has been projected, laid out and will be 

 constructed within the space of about two years 

 far a distance of about fifty miles in the interior, 

 but on the most direct way north-east in the 

 Slate of Maine towards one of the most interest- 

 ing sections of the United States, its greatest 

 pine limber region. Over this new road from 

 Lewiston to Winthrop after leaving the Maine 

 Canada route we passed on the forenoon of the 

 •V.li of July. In finding the best passage for this 

 road from the Androscoggin across to the Ken- 

 nebeck above the larger falls of the former and 

 the lesser falls of the latter, it become necessary 

 to take the valleys of tributary low streams feed- 





ing them. The Androscoggin and Kenneheck 

 road pursuing ibis low ground encounters suc- 

 cessive boggy and sunken morasses. In one ol 

 these the ground has sunk many feet at different ' 

 times: at one time loaded cars irreclaimahly 

 went down to the depth of full sixty feet. Ii 

 was said this ground was yet sinking an inch 1 

 every day. A similar sinking meadow has been 

 encountered on the Concord and Montreal road 

 between this and Meredith Bridge village, where 

 a train of cars at the last sinking had a most 

 fearful escape. This is a road, like that new 

 road in Maine, which the country people, inde- 

 pendent of Boston capital, have been carrying 

 on with their own means, and which has been 

 built at less than half the expense of any road 

 in New Hampshire exclusively under the direc- 

 tion of Boston brokerage. The friends of im- 

 provement in New England will rejoice to sea 

 and feel the effect of the measurement of their 

 own strength and ability in constructing cheap 

 railroads, which will make the price oftranspor 

 so low as to give its proper value to every pro 

 duct of the soil and every possible manufacture 

 to which our water power invites the applica 

 tion of labor. 



But to the subject of our journey : in littli 

 more than twenty-four hours after we left home 

 having rested at night at Portland and enjoyed 

 the unexpected spectacle of celebrating the natal 

 day of Independence with many thousand stran- 

 gers, travelling in three States more than a hun- 

 dred miles out of the direct line, we found our- 

 selves at the present terminus of the road ten ' 

 miles this side of the Kennebeck at the fine vil- 

 lage of Winthrop, which lies upon the neck of ' 

 a waterfall dividing at no great distance two 

 long and beautiful hikes, which supply the mill I 

 power near the mouth of a tributary to the Ken- 

 nebeck that discharges itself at Gardiner, tbi 

 lowest of three villages which spread themselves 

 as a single city, lying upon both sides, but main- 

 ly upon the westerly shore of that river. Be- 

 yontl Winthrop the track of the new railroad on « 

 its way to- Waterville is seen for several miles as 

 it rises in a higher elevation ascending a portion 

 of the waters running into the Kennebeck at j 

 nearly the same point as the course of the larger j 

 river itself. Here leaving the railroad, a carriage I 

 conveyance always on hand on arrival of a train 

 to carry passengers in any direction, took us to 

 the village of North Wayne, six miles north of 

 Winthrop ; a village which has heretofore been i 

 noticed in the Visitor as having grown up under ) 

 the enterprise of Reuben B. Dunn, Esq., as the 

 most extensive scythe manufactories in the United 

 States and probably in the world. 



No adequate idea would be formed of this •: 

 country and location from its position as between : 

 the waters of the Kennebeck and the Andros- 

 coggin, furnishing a water power especially 

 adapted to this kind of business — a steady water 

 power which neither overflows from swollen 

 sudden freshets nor gives out in long summer 

 droughts — a [lower whose water supply running 

 in a narrow channel with grass-plaited banks, 

 the resort of the trout and the perch, runs noise- 

 less where no impending jet of rocks lets < 

 down in a pouring cascade. The body of wy 

 is in a chasm of thirteen ponds which conic, 

 down from Mount Vernon by portions of Fay- 

 ette and Readfield some ten or fifteen miles. 

 North Wayne is about three miles from the vil- 

 lage of Wayne, and between the two is another 

 of that series of beautiful ponds which at a neck 



