EXPLORATIONS AMONG THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 73 



and sheds. He had hardly become comfortably situated, however, when 

 a cancer broke out on his hp, and after a few years of intense suffering, 

 which was patiently borne, he died September 27th, 18 17. "In all 

 respects Mr. Rosebrook was a remarkable man. He loved the rugged 

 scenes of pioneer life, and was never more in his element than while 

 scaling the mountain, or trapping the woH or bear. There are men 

 enough who prefer the city, and cling fondly around their native village ; 

 but he could never endure the restraints connected with our larger settle- 

 ments, — the restraints of artificial life ; but freely, his arms and broad 

 chest all bare, he must breathe the strong, pure air, as it came rushing 

 along through these mountain gorges." 



Abel Crawford, who married Capt. Rosebrook's daughter, and who is 

 remembered as the "patriarch of the mountains," also came from Guild- 

 hall a few years later, locating himself twelve miles farther south, near 

 the site of the present Mt. Crawford house. In 1840, at the age of 

 seventy-five, he made the first horseback ascent to the top of Mt. Wash- 

 ington. Dr. C. T. Jackson, state geologist, was a member of the same 

 party. Mr. Crawford died at the advanced age of eighty-five. For sixty 

 years he had been acquainted with this region, and had seen the gradual 

 process of civilization applied to the wilderness from upper Bartlett to 

 Bethlehem. So long had he been accustomed to travellers during the 

 summer months, that he felt he could not die without seeing them arrive 

 once more. " He used to sit, in the warm spring days, supported by his 

 daughter, his snow-white hair falling to his shoulders, waiting for the first 

 ripple of that large tide which he had seen increasing in volume for 

 twenty years. Not long after the stages began to carry their summer 

 freight by his door, he passed away." 



His son, Ethan Allen Crawford, succeeded to the estate of Capt. Rose- 

 brook ; but the ample buildings which the latter had reared were soon after 

 burned to the ground. For many years the Crawf ords were the only ones 

 to entertain strangers at the mountains. All the bridle-paths on the west 

 side were cut by them, the first of which, made for a foot-path in 1821, 

 extended from the Rosebrook place, nearly seven miles, to the foot of Mt. 

 Washington, following the Ammonoosuc river. It was afterwards known 

 as "Fabyan's road." It was in this year that ladies first climbed to the 

 summit. They were thfee in number, — sisters, — the Misses Austin, of 

 VOL. I. 10 



