l6 NEW HAMPSHIRE AGRICULTURE. 



Sugar Ball ferry. Two years before this, on the 26th day of 

 January, 18390 it rose fifteen feet in as many hours, and swept 

 away all the Concord bridges with the single exception of Federal 

 bridge. This stood until April nth, 1S72, when it was again 

 carried away and the one near the south end of Main street was 

 so damaged as to require a partial rebuilding. 



But the highest freshet on the Merrimack, of which any an- 

 thentic record has been preserved, was that of April 13th, 1895. 

 There had been a moderate rise of the river early in this month 

 which had partially subsided by Friday, the twelfth, when, 

 about its head waters, a rain commenced and continued 

 through that day, Saturday, and until the evening of Sunday. 

 This caused a second rise which, augmented somewhat by the 

 waters of dissolving snows, proved unprecedented. 



With the exception of a few square rods on Waternummon's 

 hill, adjacent to the track of the Concord & Montreal Rail- 

 road, the entire Concord interval was covered. At its highest 

 stage, the water was twelve feet deep on the top of SewalPs 

 Falls dam. South of West street, the tracks of the railroad just 

 mentioned were submerged for the distance of one or two miles, 

 as were those of the Northern Railroad for some three miles 

 north of Bridge street. On the floor of one of the barns on the 

 Farm of the First Minister, the water stood two feet deep and 

 its proprietor then learned by a new experience that the immer- 

 sion of hay in cold water for twenty-four hours does not improve 

 its quality, for ordinary purposes. He accordingly sold the 

 most he had which had been so treated to milk men, as soon as 

 he could and for what he could get. 



By this freshet, many of the houses upon the interval below 

 the gas works, in Concord, were for a time surrounded by 

 water, and some of them were temporarily vacated by their in- 

 habitants. Four were undermined, two of which were moved 

 from their foundations. The logs, timber, cord wood, old 

 fences, discarded railroad ties, and other multifarious debris 

 brought disgust to the owners of land upon which they finally 

 rested. And the flood came freighted with sand also, which it 

 deposited at its own sweet caprice, sometimes where it would 

 do good and sometimes where its presence was as unwelcome as 

 it was annoying. 



