64 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



drop of rum from his junk bottle, and breaking it on the rock, called it 

 Sawyer's rock, by which name it has ever since been known. A road 

 was soon opened by the proprietors of lands in the upper Coos, and 

 settlers began to make their way into the immediate vicinity of the 

 mountains. Jefferson, Whitefield, Littleton, and Franconia were first 

 settled within two or three years after this date. A road was also com- 

 menced through the eastern, or Pinkham notch, in I774> ^-^d Shelburne, 

 which included Gorham, received its first inhabitants in the following year. 

 The earliest articles of commerce taken through the notch have not 

 escaped mention. They appear to have been a barrel of tobacco, raised 

 at Lancaster, which was carried to Portsmouth, and a barrel of rum 

 which a company in Portland offered to any one who should succeed in 

 taking it through the pass. This was done by Captain Rosebrook, with 

 some assistance, though it was nearly empty, we are informed, "through 

 the politeness of those who helped to manage the affair." The difficulty 

 of communication was often the occasion of more serious want, and it 

 was no rare thing to suffer from scarcity of provisions. In 1800, the 

 inhabitants of Bethlehem were obliged to leave their occupations, go 

 into the woods, and cut and burn timber enough for a load of potash, with 

 which to procure provisions after a journey of one hundred and seventy 

 miles. The tenth turnpike of New Hampshire was incorporated in 1803, 

 to extend from the west line of Bartlett, through the White Mountain 

 notch, a distance of twenty miles. The original cost of the road was 

 forty thousand dollars, and the expense of repairs was large ; but it proved 

 a profitable investment. Strings of teams of half a mile in length were 

 sometimes seen winding through Conway on their route to Portland, the 

 great market at that time for all northern New Hampshire. 



Visits of Scientific Parties. 



Mt. Washington was ascended in July, 1784, "with a view to make 

 particular observations on the several phenomena which might occur," 

 the party consisting of the Rev. Manasseh Cutler, of Ipswich, Mass., a 

 zealous member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the 

 Rev. Daniel Little, of Kennebunk, Me., also a member of the Academy, 

 and Col. John Whipple, of Jefferson (then Dartmouth), together with 

 others to the number of seven in all. They are said to have been "the 



