had forsaken the city, its pleasures, its opportunities, and had come
to pass the rest of his life among these mountains; one, too, whose
enormous possessions procured for him the title of Lord of the Valley.
We heard with astonishment that our day's journey, of which we had
completed the half only, was wholly over his tract--I ought to say his
dominions--that is, over thirteen miles of field, forest, and mountain.
This being equal to a small principality, it seemed quite natural and
proper to approach the proprietor with some degree of ceremony.
A servant took our cards at the door, and returned with an invitation to
enter. The apartment into which we were conducted was the most singular
I have ever seen; certainly it has no counterpart in this world, unless
the famous hut of Robinson Crusoe has escaped the ravages of time.
It was literally crammed with antique furniture, among which was a
high-backed chair used in dentistry; squat little bottles, containing
chemicals; and a bench, on which was a spirit-lamp; a turning-lathe, a
small portable furnace, and a variety of instruments or tools of which
we did not know the use. A few prints and oil-paintings adorned the
walls. A cheerful fire burnt on the hearth.
"Were we in the sixteenth century," said George, "I should say this was
the laboratory of some famous alchemist."
[Illustration: ABEL CRAWFORD.]
Further investigation was cut short by the entrance of our host, who was
a venerable-looking man, turned of eighty, with a silver beard falling
upon his breast, and a general expression of benignity. He stooped a
little, but seemed hale and hearty, notwithstanding the weight of his
fourscore years.
Doctor Bemis received us graciously. For an hour he entertained us with
the story of his life among the mountains, "to which," said he, "I
credit the last forty-five years--for I at first came here in pursuit of
health." After he had satisfied our curiosity concerning himself, which
he did with perfect _bonhomie_, I asked him to describe Abel Crawford,
the veteran guide of the White Hills.
"Abel," said the doctor, "was six feet four; Erastus, the eldest son,
was six feet six, or taller than Washington; and Ethan was still
taller, being nearly seven feet. In fact, not one of the sons was less
than six feet; so you may imagine what sort of family group it was
when 'his boys,' as Abel loved to call them, were all at home. Ah,
well!" continued the doctor, with a sigh, "that kind of timber does
not flourish in the mountains now. Why, the very sight of one of those
giants inspired the timid with confidence. Ethan, called in his day
the Giant of the Hills, was a man of iron frame and will. Fear and he
were strangers. He would take up an exhausted traveller in his sinewy
arms and carry him as you would a baby, until his strength or courage
returned. The first bridle-path up the mountain was opened by him
in--let me see--ah! I have it, it was in 1821. Ethan, with the help of
his father, also built the Notch House above.[7]
"Abel was long-armed, lean, and sinewy. Doctor Dwight, whose 'Travels
in New England' you have doubtless read, stopped with Crawford, on his
way down the Notch, in 1797. His nearest neighbor then, on the north,
was Captain Rosebrook, who lived on or near the site of the present
Fabyan House. Crawford's life of hardship had made little impression on
a constitution of iron. At seventy-five he rode the first horse that
reached the summit of Mount Washington. At eighty he often walked to
his son's (Thomas J. Crawford), at the entrance of the Notch, before
breakfast. I recollect him perfectly at this time, and his appearance
was peculiarly impressive. He was erect and vigorous as one of those
pines on yonder mountain. His long white hair fell down upon his
shoulders, and his fresh, ruddy face was always expressive of good-humor.
"The destructive freshet of 1826," continued the doctor, "swept
everything before it, flooding the intervale, and threatening the old
house down there with instant demolition. During that terrible night,
when the Willey family perished, Mrs. Crawford was alone with her young
children in the house. The water rose with such rapidity that she was
driven to the upper story for safety. While here, the thud of floating
trees, driven by the current against the house, awakened new terrors. At
every concussion the house trembled. Wooden walls could not long stand
that terrible pounding. The heroic woman, alive to the danger, seized a
stout pole, and, going to the nearest window, kept the side of the house
exposed to the flood free from the mass of wreck-stuff collected against
it. She held her post thus throughout the night, until the danger had
passed. When the flood subsided, Crawford found several fine trout alive
in his cellar."
"When do the great freshets usually occur?" I asked.
"In the autumn," replied our host. "It is not the melting snows, but the
sudden rainfalls that we fear."
"Yes," resumed he, reflectively, "the Crawfords were a family of
athletes. With them the race of guides became extinct. Soon after
settling here, Abel went with his wife to Bartlett on some occasion,
leaving their two boys in the care of a hired man. When they had gone,
this man took what he could find of value and decamped. When Abel
returned, which he did on the following day, he immediately set out
in pursuit of the thief, overtook him thirty miles from here, in the
Franconia forests, flogged him within an inch of his life, and let him
go."
"Sixty miles on foot, and alone, to recover a few stolen goods, and
punish a thief!" cried the astonished colonel; "that beats Daniel Boone."
"Yes; and what is more, the boys were brought up to face hunger, cold,
fatigue, with Indian stoicism, and even to encounter bears, lynxes, and
wolves with no other weapons than those provided by nature. There, now,
was Ethan, for example," said the doctor, smiling at the recollection.
"One day he took it into his head to have a tame bear for the diversion
of his guests. Well, he caught a young one, half grown, and remarkably
vicious, in a trap. But how to get him home! At length Ethan tied his
fore and hind paws together so he couldn't scratch, and put a muzzle of
withes over his nose so he couldn't bite. Then, shouldering his prize
as he would a bag of meal, the guide started for home, in great glee
at the success of his clever expedient. He had not gone far, however,
before Bruin managed to get one paw wholly and his muzzle partly free,
and began to scratch and struggle and snap at his captor savagely. Ethan
wanted to get the bear home terribly; but, after having his clothing
nearly torn off his back, he grew angry, and threw the beast upon the
ground with such force as to kill him instantly."
"Report," said I, "credits you with naming most of the mountains which
overlook the intervale."
"Yes," replied the doctor, "Resolution, over there"--indicating the
mountain allied to Crawford, and to the ridge which forms one of
the buttresses of Mount Washington--"I named in recognition of the
perseverance of Mr. Davis, who became discouraged while making a path to
Mount Washington in 1845."
"Is the route practicable?" I asked.
"Practicable, yes; but nearly obliterated, and seldom ascended. Have you
seen Frankenstein?" demanded the doctor, in his turn.
We replied in the negative.
"It will repay a visit. I named it for a young German artist who passed
some time with me, and who was fascinated by its rugged picturesqueness.
Here is some of his work," pointing to the paintings which, apparently,
formed the foundation of the collection on the walls.
Our host accompanied us to the door with a second injunction not to
forget Frankenstein.
"You have something there good for the eyes," I observed, indicating the
green carpet of the vale beneath us.
"True; but you should have seen it when the deer boldly came down the
mountain and browsed quietly among the cattle. That was a pretty sight,
and one of frequent occurrence when I first knew the place. At that
time," he continued, "the stage passed up every other day. Sometimes
there were one or two, but seldom three passengers."
Proceeding on our way, we now had a fine view of the Giant's Stairs,
which we had already seen from Mount Carrigain, but less boldly outlined
than they appear from the valley, where they really look like two
enormous steps cut on the very summit of the opposite ridge. No name
could be more appropriate, though each of the degrees of this colossal
staircase demands a giant not of our days; for they are respectively
three hundred and fifty, and four hundred and fifty feet in height. It
was over those steps that the Davis path ascended.
A mile or a mile and a half above the Crawford Glen, we emerged from
behind a projecting spur of the mountain which hid the upper valley,
when, by a common impulse, we stopped, fairly stupefied with admiration
and surprise.
Thrust out before us, athwart the pass, a black and castellated pile
of precipices shot upward to a dizzy height, and broke off abruptly
against the sky. Its bulging sides and regular outlines resembled the
clustered towers and frowning battlements of some antique fortress
built to command the pass. Gashed, splintered, defaced, it seemed to
have withstood for ages the artillery of heaven and the assaults of
time. With what solitary grandeur it lifted its mailed front above the
forest, and seemed even to regard the mountains with disdain! Silent,
gloomy, impregnable, it wanted nothing to recall those dark abodes of
the Thousand and One Nights, in which malignant genii are imprisoned for
thousands of years.
This was Frankenstein. We at once accord it a place as the most
suggestive of cliffs. From the other side of the valley the resemblance
to a mediæval castle is still more striking. It has a black gorge for a
moat, so deep that the head swims when crossing it; and to-day, as we
crept over the cat's-cradle of a bridge thrown across for the passage
of the railway, and listened to the growling of the torrent far down
beneath, the whole frail structure seemed trembling under us.
But what a contrast! what a singular freak of nature! At the foot of
this grisly precipice, clothing it with almost superhuman beauty, was a
plantation of maples and birches, all resplendent in crimson and gold.
Never have I seen such masses of color laid on such a background. Below
all was light and splendor; above, all darkness and gloom. Here the eye
fairly revelled in beauty, there it recoiled in terror. The cliff was
like a naked and swarthy Ethiopian up to his knees in roses.
We walked slowly, with our eyes fixed on these cliffs, until another
turn of the road--we were now on the railway embankment--opened a vista
deserving to be remembered as one of the marvels of this glorious
picture-gallery.
The perfection and magnificence of this truly regal picture, the
gigantic scale on which it is presented, without the least blemish to
mar its harmony or disturb the impression of one grand, unique whole, is
a revelation to the least susceptible nature in the world.
Frankenstein was now a little withdrawn, on our left. Upon the right,
fluttering its golden foliage as if to attract our attention, a
plantation of tall, satin-stemmed birches stretched for some distance
along the railway. Between the long buttress of the cliff and this
forest lay open the valley of Mount Washington River, which is driven
deep into the heart of the great range. There, through this valley,
cutting the sapphire sky with their silver silhouette, were the giant
mountains, surmounted by the splendid dome of Washington himself.
[Illustration: STORM ON MOUNT WILLEY.]
Passing beyond, we had a fine retrospect of Crawford, with his curved
horn; and upon the dizzy iron bridge thrown across the gorge beneath
Frankenstein, striking views are obtained of the mountains below. They
seemed loftier and grander, and more imposing than ever.
Turning our faces toward the north, we now beheld the immense bulk and
superb crest of Willey. On the other side of the valley was the long
battlement of Mount Webster. We were at the entrance of the great Notch.
VIII.
_THROUGH THE NOTCH._
Around his waist are forests braced,
The avalanche in his hand.--BYRON.
The valley, which had continually contracted since leaving Bartlett,
now appeared fast shut between these two mountains; but on turning the
tremendous support which Mount Willey flings down, we were in presence
of the amazing defile cloven through the midst, and giving entrance to
the heart of the White Hills.
These gigantic mountains divided to the right and left, like the Red
Sea before the Israelites. Through the immense trough, over which their
crests hung suspended in mid-air, the highway creeps and the river
steals away. The road is only seen at intervals through the forest; a
low murmur, like the hum of bees, announces the river.
I have no conception of the man who can approach this stupendous chasm
without a sensation of fear. The idea of imminent annihilation is
everywhere overwhelming. The mind refuses to reason, or rather to fix
itself, except on a single point. What if the same power that commanded
these awful mountains to remove should hurl them back to ever-during
fixedness? Should, do I say? The gulf seemed contracting under our very
eyes--the great mountains toppling to their fall. With an eagerness
excited by high expectation, we had pressed forward; but now we
hesitated.
This emotion, which many of my readers have doubtless partaken, was our
tribute to the dumb but eloquent expression of power too vast for our
feeble intellects to measure. It was the triumph of matter over mind; of
the finite over the infinite.
Below, it was all admiration and surprise; here, all amazement and fear.
The more the mountains exalted themselves, the more we were abased.
Trusting, nevertheless, in our insignificance, we moved on, looking with
all our eyes, absorbed, silent, and almost worshipping.
The wide split of the Notch, which we had now entered, had on one side
Mount Willey, drawn up to his full height; and on the other Mount
Webster, striped with dull red on clingy yellow, like an old tiger's
skin. Willey is the highest; Webster the most remarkable. Willey has
a conical spire; Webster a long, irregular battlement. Willey is a
mountain; Webster a huge block of granite.
For two miles the gorge winds between these mountains to where it is
apparently sealed up by a sheer mass of purple precipices lodged full
in its throat. This is Mount Willard. The vast chasm glowed with the
gorgeous colors of the foliage, even when a passing cloud obscured the
sun. These general observations made, we cast our eyes down into the
vale reposing at our feet. We had chosen for our point of view that to
which Abel Crawford conducted Sir Charles Lyell in 1845. The scientist
has made the avalanche bear witness to the glacier, precisely as one
criminal is made to convict another under our laws.
Five hundred feet below us was a little clearing, containing a hamlet
of two or three houses. From this hamlet to the storm-crushed crags
glistening on the summit of Mount Willey the track of an old avalanche
was still distinguishable, though the birches and alders rooted among
the débris threatened to obliterate it at no distant day.
We descended by this still plain path to the houses at the foot of the
mountain. One and the other are associated with the most tragic event
connected with the history of the great Notch.
We found two houses, a larger and smaller, fronting the road, neither
of which merits a description; although evidence that it was visited by
multitudes of curious pilgrims abounded on the walls of the unoccupied
building.
Since quite early in the century, this house was kept as an inn; and
for a long time it was the only stopping-place between Abel Crawford's
below and Captain Rosebrook's above--a distance of thirteen miles. Its
situation, at the entrance of the great Notch, was advantageous to the
public and to the landlord, but attended with a danger which seems not
to have been sufficiently regarded, if indeed it caused successive
inmates particular concern. This fatal security had a lamentable sequel.
[Illustration: MOUNT WILLARD FROM WILLEY BROOK.]
In 1826 this house was occupied by Samuel Willey, his wife, five
children, and two hired men. During the summer a drought of unusual
severity dried the streams, and parched the thin soil of the neighboring
mountains. On the evening of the 26th of June, the family heard a heavy,
rumbling noise, apparently proceeding from the mountain behind them. In
terror and amazement they ran out of the house. They saw the mountain
in motion. They saw an immense mass of earth and rock detach itself
and move toward the valley, at first slowly, then with gathered and
irresistible momentum. Rocks, trees, earth, were swooping down upon
them from the heights in three destroying streams. The spectators stood
rooted to the spot. Before they could recover their presence of mind the
avalanche was upon them. One torrent crossed the road only ten rods from
the house; another a little distance beyond; while the third and largest
portion took a different direction. With great labor a way was made over
the mass of rubbish for the road. The avalanche had shivered the largest
trees, and borne rocks weighing many tons almost to the door of the
lonely habitation.
This awful warning passed unheeded. On the 28th of August, at dusk,
a storm burst upon the mountains, and raged with indescribable fury
throughout the night. The rain fell in sheets. Innumerable torrents
suddenly broke forth on all sides, deluging the narrow valley, and
bearing with them forests that had covered the mountains for ages. The
swollen and turbid Saco rose over its banks, flooding the Intervales,
and spreading destruction in its course.
Two days afterward a traveller succeeded in forcing his way through the
Notch. He found the Willey House standing uninjured in the midst of
woful desolation. A second avalanche, descended from Mount Willey during
the storm, had buried the little vale beneath its ruins. The traveller,
affrighted by the scene around him, pushed open the door. As he did so,
a half-famished dog, sole inmate of the house, disputed his entrance
with a mournful howl. He entered. The interior was silent and deserted.
A candle burnt to the socket, the clothing of the inmates lying by their
bedsides, testified to the haste with which this devoted family had
fled. The death-like hush pervading the lonely cabin--these evidences
of the horrible and untimely fate of the family--the appalling scene of
wreck all around, froze the solitary intruder's blood. In terror he,
too, fled from the doomed dwelling.
On arriving at Bartlett, the traveller reported what he had seen.
Assistance was despatched to the scene of disaster. The rescuers came
too late to render aid to the living, but they found, and buried on the
spot, the bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Willey, and the two hired men. The
remaining children were never found.
It was easily conjectured that the terrified family, alive at last to
the appalling danger that menaced them, and feeling the solid earth
tremble in the throes of the mountain, sought safety in flight. They
only rushed to their doom. The discovery of the bodies showed but too
plainly the manner of their death. They had been instantly swallowed up
by the avalanche, which, in the inexplicable order of things visible in
great calamities, divided behind the house, leaving the frail structure
unharmed, while its inmates were hurried into eternity.[8]
For some time after the disaster a curse seemed to rest upon the
old Notch House. No one would occupy it. Travellers shunned it. It
remained untenanted, though open to all who might be driven to seek its
inhospitable shelter, until the deep impression of horror which the fate
of the Willey family inspired had, in a measure, effaced itself.
The effects of the cataclysm were everywhere. For twenty-one miles,
almost its entire length, the turnpike was demolished. Twenty-one of
the twenty-three bridges were swept away. In some places the meadows
were buried to the depth of several feet beneath sand, earth, and
rocks; in others, heaps of great trees, which the torrent had torn
up by the roots, barricaded the route. The mountains presented a
ghastly spectacle. One single night sufficed to obliterate the work of
centuries, to strip their summits bare of verdure, and to leave them
with shreds of forest and patches of shrubbery hanging to their stark
and naked sides. Thus their whole aspect was altered to an extent hardly
to be realized to-day, though remarked with mingled wonder and dread
long after the period of the convulsion.
From the house our eyes naturally wandered to the mountain, where
quarrymen were pecking at its side like yellow-hammers at a dead
sycamore. All at once a tremendous explosion was heard, and a stream
of loosened earth and bowlders came rattling down the mountain. So
unexpected was the sound, so startling its multiplied echo, it seemed as
if the mountain had uttered a roar of rage and pain, which was taken up
and repeated by the other mountains until the uproar became deafening.
When the reverberation died away in the distance, we again heard the
metallic click of the miners' hammers chipping away at the gaunt ribs of
Mount Willey.
How does it happen that this catastrophe is still able to awaken the
liveliest interest for the fate of the Willey family? Why is it that
the oft-repeated tale seems ever new in the ears of sympathetic
listeners? Our age is crowded with horrors, to which this seems trifling
indeed. May we not attribute it to the influence which the actual scene
exerts on the imagination? One must stand on the spot to comprehend;
must feel the mysterious terror to which all who come within the
influence of the gorge submit. Here the annihilation of a family is but
the legitimate expression of that feeling. It seems altogether natural
to the place. The ravine might well be the sepulchre of a million human
beings, instead of the grave of a single obscure family.
We reached the public-house, at the side of the Willey house, with
appetites whetted by our long walk. The mercury had only risen to
thirty-eight degrees by the thermometer nailed to the door-post. We went
in.
In general, the mountain publicans are not only very obliging, but equal
to even the most unexpected demands. The colonel, who never brags, had
boasted for the last half-hour what he was going to do at this repast.
In point of fact, we were famishing.
A man was standing with his back to the fire, his hands thrust
underneath his coat-tails, and a pipe in his mouth. Either the pipe
illuminated his nose, or his nose the pipe. He also had a nervous
contraction of the muscles of his face, causing an involuntary twitching
of the eyebrows, and at the same time of his ears, up and down. This
habit, taken in connection with the perfect immobility of the figure,
made on us the impression of a statue winking. We therefore hesitated to
address it--I mean _him_--until a moment's puzzled scrutiny satisfied us
that it--I mean the strange object--was alive. He merely turned his head
when we entered the room, wagged his ears playfully, winked furiously,
and then resumed his first attitude. In all probability he was some
stranger like ourselves.
I accosted him. "Sir," said I, "can you tell us if it is possible to
procure a dinner here?"
The man took the pipe from his mouth, shook out the ashes very
deliberately, and, without looking at me, tranquilly observed,
"You would like dinner, then?"
"Would we like dinner? We breakfasted at Bartlett, and have passed six
hours fasting."
"And eleven miles. You see, a long way between meals," interjected
George, with decision.
"It's after the regular dinner," drawled the apathetic smoker, using his
thumb for a stopper, and stooping for a brand with which to relight his
pipe.
"In that case we are willing to pay for any additional trouble," I
hastened to say.
The man seemed reflecting. We _were_ hungry; that was incontestable;
but we were also shivering, and he maintained his position astride the
hearth-stone, like the fabled Colossus of old.
"A cold day," said the colonel, threshing himself.
"I did not notice it," returned the stranger, indifferently.
"Only thirty-eight at the door," said George, stamping his feet with
unnecessary vehemence.
"Indeed!" observed our man, with more interest.