Tront-FisJiiug in the Rangeley Lakes. 



353 



HIC JACET. 



monplace and civilized, but formerly it was quite as well off as its 

 neighbors. Originally, it was known as Oquossoc Lake, but about 

 fifty years ago a wealthy English squire, Rangeley by name, 

 having wearied of the civilized tameness of his Virginia estate, 

 decided to settle in this northern wilderness. He cleared a broad 

 tract at the outlet of Rangeley Lake, built a dam across the stream, 

 erected extensive saw and grist mills, and expended large sums of 

 money in other improvements. His supplies of all kinds were trans- 

 ported from Phillips or Farmington, a distance of thirty to fifty miles, 

 and he was compelled to haul his lumber a hundred miles to find a 

 market. For twenty years Squire Rangeley lived here, pushing his 

 business enterprises with great energy and more or less success, and 

 enjoying the field sports, of which he was passionately fond. Moose, 

 caribou, deer, bears, and wolves were his constant neighbors; ducks, 

 geese, partridge, and smaller game were so abundant that shooting 

 them could hardly be called sport ; and brook-trout weighing from six 

 to nine pounds could be taken by the score from the stream which ran 

 past his front door. When Squire Rangeley gave up the enterprise 

 which he had pushed for a time with so much energy, his mills and 

 buildings were all abandoned, and the clearings which he had made 

 were rapidly seeded down by the hand of nature ; pines, spruces, juni- 

 per, and fir springing up everywhere in place of the ancient monarchs 

 of the primeval forest which he had cleared away at the cost of so 

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