ground, into which only the most celebrated and intrepid white hunters
ventured. Among these was a young man of twenty-three, named Stark, who
lived near the Amoskeag Falls, in what is now Manchester. In April,
1752, Stark was hunting here with three companions, one of whom was
his brother William. They had pitched their camp on Baker's River,
in the present limits of Rumney, and were prosecuting their hunt with
good success, when they suddenly discovered the presence of Indians in
their vicinity. Though it was a time of peace, they were not the less
apprehensive on that account, and determined to change their position.
But the Indians had also discovered the white hunters, and prepared to
entrap them. When Stark went out very early the next morning to collect
the traps he was intercepted and made prisoner. The Indians then took a
position on the bank of the river to ambush his companions as they came
down. Eastman, who was on the shore, next fell into their hands; but
the two others were in a canoe floating quietly down the stream out of
reach. Stark was ordered to hail and decoy them to the shore. He obeyed;
but, instead of lending himself to the treachery, shouted to his friends
that he was taken, and to save themselves. They instantly steered for
the opposite shore, receiving a volley as they did so. Stinson, one of
those in the boat, was shot dead; but William Stark escaped through the
heroism of his brother, who knocked up the guns of the savages as they
covered him with fatal aim.
Stark and his fellow-prisoner were taken to St. Francis by Actæon and
his prowling band, with whom they had had the misfortune to fall in. At
St. Francis the Indians set Stark hoeing their corn. At first he cut up
the corn and spared the weeds; but this expedient not serving to relieve
him of the drudgery, he threw his hoe into the river, telling his
captors that hoeing corn was the business of squaws, not of warriors.
This answer procured him recognition among them as a spirit worthy of
themselves. He was adopted into the tribe, and called the "Young Chief."
The promise of youth was fulfilled. The young hunter of the White
Mountains and the conqueror of Bennington are the same.
The choice is open to leave the railway here and enter the mountains by
the Pemigewasset Valley, or to continue by it the route which conducts
to the summit of Mount Washington, by Bethlehem and Fabyan's. To journey
on by rail to the Profile House is seventy-five miles, while by the
common road, following the Pemigewasset, the distance is only thirty
miles. A daily stage passes over this route, which I risk nothing in
saying is always one of the delightful reminiscences of the whole
journey. Deciding in favor of the last excursion, my first care was to
procure a conveyance.
At three in the afternoon I set out for Campton, seven miles up the
valley, which the carriage-road soon enters upon, and which by a few
unregarded turnings is presently as fast shut up as if its mountain
gates had in reality swung noiselessly together behind you. Hardly had I
recovered from the effect of the deception produced by seeing the same
mountain first in front, next on my right hand, and then shifted over to
the other side of the valley, when I saw, spanned by a high bridge, the
river in violent commotion far down below me.
The Pemigewasset, confined here between narrow banks, has cut for
itself two deep channels through its craggy and cavernous bed; but
one of these being dammed for the purpose of deepening the other, the
general picturesqueness of the fall is greatly diminished. Still, it is
a pretty and engaging sight, this cataract, especially if the river be
full, although you think of a mettled Arabian harnessed in a tread-mill
when you look at it. Livermore Fall, as it is called, is but two miles
from Plymouth, the white houses of which look hot in the same brilliant
sunlight that falls so gently upon the luxuriant green of the valley.
The feature of this fall is the deep water-worn chasm through which it
plunges.
By crossing the bridge here the left bank of the stream may be followed,
the valley towns of Campton, Thornton, and Woodstock being divided by it
into numerous villages or hamlets, frequently puzzling the uninitiated
traveller, who has set out in all confidence, but who is seized by
the most cruel perplexity, upon hearing that there are four villages
in Campton, each several miles distant from the other. One would have
pleased him far better.
[Illustration: ON THE PROFILE ROAD.]
Crossing this bridge, and descending to the level meadow below the
falls, I made a brief inspection of the establishment for breeding and
stocking with trout and salmon the depleted mountain streams of New
Hampshire. The breeding-house and basins are situated just below the
falls, on the banks of the river. This is a work undertaken by the
State, with the expectation of repeopling its rivers, brooks, and ponds
with their finny inhabitants. All those streams immediately accessible
from the villages are so persistently fished by the inhabitants as to
afford little sport to the angler from a distance, who is compelled
to go farther and fare worse; but the State is certainly entitled to
much credit for its endeavor to make two trout grow where only one grew
before. It is feared, however, that the experiment of stocking the
Pemigewasset with salmon will not prove successful. The farmers who live
along the banks say that one of these fish is rarely seen, although the
fishery is protected by the most rigid regulations. No one who has not
visited the mountains between May 1st--the earliest date when fishing
is permitted--and the middle of June, can have an idea of the number
of sportsmen every year resorting to the trout streams, or of the
unheard-of drain upon those streams. Not the least of many ludicrous
sights I have witnessed was that of a man, weighing two hundred pounds,
excitedly swinging aloft a trout weighing less than two ounces, and this
trophy he exhibited to me with unfeigned triumph--the butcher! This is
mere slaughter, and ought not to be tolerated. A pretty sight is to see
the breeding-trout follow you in your walk around the margin of their
little basin to be fed from your hand. They are tame as pigeons and
ravenous as sharks.
Mount Prospect, in Holderness, is the first landmark of note. It is
seen, soon after leaving Plymouth, rising from the opposite side of the
valley, its green crest commanding a superb view of the lake region
below, and of the lofty Franconia Mountains above. It is worth ascending
this mountain were it only to see again the beautiful islet-spotted
Squam Lake and far-reaching Winnipiseogee quivering in noonday splendor.
The beautiful valley is now open throughout its whole extent. Of
course I refer only to that portion lying above Plymouth. But it is an
anomaly of mountain valleys. Its length is about twenty-five miles, and
its greatest width, I should judge, not more than three or four. For
twenty miles it is almost as straight as an arrow. There is nothing to
hinder a perfectly free and open view up or down. Contrast this with
the wilful and tortuous windings of the Ammonoosuc, or the Saco, which
seem to grope and feel their way foot by foot along their cramped and
crooked channels. The angle of ascent, too, is here so gradual as to be
scarcely noticed until the foot of the mountain wall, at its head, is
reached. True, this valley is not clothed with a feeling of overpowering
grandeur, but it is beautiful. It is not terrible, but bewitching.
The vista of mountains on the east side of the valley becomes every
moment more and more extended, and more and more interesting. A long
array of summits trending away to the north, with detached mountains
heaved above the lower clusters, like great whales sporting in a frozen
sea, is gradually uncovered. Green as a carpet, level as a floor, the
valley, adorned with clumps of elms, groves of maples, and strips of
tilled land of a rich chocolate brown, makes altogether a picture which
sets the eye fairly dancing. Even the daisies, the clover, and the
buttercups which so plentifully spangle the meadows seem far brighter
and sweeter in this atmosphere, nodding a playful welcome as you pass
them by. We are in the country of flowers.
Since passing Blair's and the bridge over the river to Campton Hollow I
was on the alert for that first and most engaging view of the Franconia
Mountains which has been so highly extolled. Perhaps I should say
that one poetic nature has revealed it to a thousand others. Without
doubt this landscape is the more striking because it is the first, and
consequently deepest, impression of grand mountain scenery obtained
by those upon whom at a turn of the road, and without premonition, it
flashes like the realization of some ecstatic vision.
Half a mile below the little hamlet of West Campton the road crosses
the point of a hill pushed well out into the valley. It is here that
the circlet of mountains is seen enclosing the valley on all sides
like a gigantic palisade. In one place, far away in the north, this
wall is shattered to its centre, like the famous Breach of Roland;
and through this enormous loop-hole we see golden mists rising above
the undiscovered country beyond. We are looking through the far-famed
Franconia Notch. On one side the clustered peaks of Lafayette lift
themselves serenely into the sky. On the left a silvery light is
playing on the ledges of Mount Cannon, softening all the asperities of
this stern-visaged mountain. The two great groups now stand fully and
finely exposed; though the lower and nearer summits are blended with
the higher by distance. Remark the difference of outline. A series of
humps marks the crest-line of the group, which culminates in the oblique
wall of Mount Cannon. On the contrary, that on the right, culminating
in Lafayette, presents two beautiful and regular pyramids, older than
Cheops, which sometimes in early morning exactly resemble two stately
monuments, springing alert and vigorous as the day which gilds them. At
a distance of twenty miles it demands good eyes and a clear atmosphere
to detect the supporting lines of these pyramidal structures, which in
reality are two separate mountains, Liberty and Flume. This exquisite
landscape seldom fails of producing a rapturous outburst from those who
are making the journey for the first time.
There are many points of resemblance between this view and that of the
White Mountains from Conway Corner. Both unfold at once, and in a single
glance, the principal systems about which all the subordinate chains
seem manoeuvring under the commanding gaze of Washington or Lafayette.
Soon after starting it was evident that my driver's loquaciousness was
due to his having "crooked his elbow" too often while loitering about
Plymouth. The frequent plunge of the wheels into the ditches by the
roadside, accompanied with a shower of mud, was little conducive to the
calm and free enjoyment of the beauties of the landscape. The driver
alone was unconcerned, and as often as good fortune enabled him to steer
clear of upsetting his passengers would articulate, thickly, "Don't be
alarmed, Cap': no one was ever hurt on this road."
Silently committing myself to that Providence which is said to watch
over the destinies of tipplers, I breathed freely only when we drew up
at the hospitable door of the village inn, bespattered with mud, but
with no broken bones.
Sanborn's, at West Campton, is the old road-side inn that long ago swung
the stag-and-hounds as its distinctive emblem. A row of superb maples
shades the road. Here we have fairly entered the renowned intervales,
that gleam among the darker forests or groves like patches of blue in
a storm-clouded sky. Looking southward, across the level meadows, the
hills of Rumney flinging up smooth, firm curves, and the more distant,
downward-plunging outline of Mount Prospect, in Holderness, close the
valley. Upon the left, where the clearings extend quite to the summits
of the near hills, the maple groves interspersed among them resemble
soldiers advancing up the green slopes in columns of attack. Following
this line a little, the valley of Mad River is distinguished by the deep
trough through which it descends from the mountains of Waterville. And
here, peering over the nearer elevations, the huge blue-black mass of
Black Mountain flings two splendid peaks aloft.
For a more intimate acquaintance with these surroundings the hillside
pasture above the school-house gives a perspective of greater breadth;
while that from the Ellsworth road is in some respects finer still.
About two miles up this road the valley of the East Branch, showing the
massive Mount Hancock, cicatriced with one long, narrow scar, is lifted
into view. The other features of the landscape remain the same, except
that Mount Cannon is now cut off by the hill rising to the north of us.
As often as one of these hidden valleys is thus revealed we are seized
with a longing to explore it.
[Illustration: WELCH MOUNTAIN, FROM MAD RIVER.]
One need not push inquiry into the antecedents of Campton or the
neighboring villages very far. The township was originally granted to
General Jabez Spencer, of East Haddam, Connecticut, in 1761. In 1768 a
few families had come into Campton, Plymouth, Hebron, Sandwich, Rumney,
Holderness, and Bridgewater. No opening had been made for civilized men
on this side of Canada except for three families, who had gone fifty
miles into the wilderness to begin a settlement where Lancaster now
is. The name is derived simply from the circumstance that the first
proprietors built a camp when they visited their grant. The different
villages are much frequented by artists, who have spread the fame of
Campton from one end of the Union to the other. But a serpent has
entered even this Eden--the villagers are sighing for the advent of the
railway.
Having dedicated one day to an exploration of the Mad River Valley, I
can pronounce it well worth any tourist's while to tarry long enough
in the vicinity for the purpose. It is certainly one of the finest
exhibitions of mountain scenery far or near. Here is a valley twelve
miles long, at the bottom of which a rapid river bruises itself on a bed
of broken rock, while above it are heaped mountains to be picked out
of a thousand for peculiarity of form or structure. The Pemigewasset
is passed by a ford just deep enough at times to invest the journey
with a little healthy excitement at the very beginning. The ford has,
however, been carefully marked by large stones placed at the edge of the
submerged road.
Fording the river and climbing the hill which lies across the entrance
to this land-locked valley, I was at once ushered upon a scene of
great and varied charm. Right before me, sunning his three peaks four
thousand feet above, was the prodigious mass of Black Mountain. Far up
the valley it stretched, forming an unbroken wall nearly ten miles long,
and apparently sealing all access from the Sandwich side. A nipple,
a pyramid, and a flattened mound protruding from the summit ridge
constitute these eminences, easily recognized from the Franconia highway
among a host of lesser peaks. At the southern end of this mountain
the range is broken through, giving passage to a rough and straggling
road--fourteen hundred feet above the sea-level--to Sandwich Centre, and
to the lake towns south of it. This pass is known as Sandwich Notch.
Campton Village lies along the hill-slope opposite to Black Mountain.
Completely does it fill the artistic sense. Its situation leaves nothing
to be desired in an ideal mountain village. So completely is it secluded
from the rest of the world by its environment of mountains, that you
might pass and repass the Pemigewasset Valley a hundred times without
once surprising the secret of its existence. All those houses, half hid
beneath groves of maples, bespeak luxurious repose. Opposite to Black
Mountain, whose dark forest drapery hides the mass of the mountain, is
the immense whitish-yellow rock called Welch Mountain. Only a scanty
vegetation is suffered to creep among the crevices. It is really
nothing but a big excrescent rock, having a principal summit shaped
somewhat like a Martello tower; and, indeed, resembling one in ruins.
The bright ledges brilliantly reflect the sun, causing the eye to turn
gratefully to the sombre gloom of the evergreens crowding the sides of
the neighboring mountains. Welch Mountain reminded me, I hardly know
why, of Chocorua; but the resemblance can scarcely extend farther than
to the meagreness, mutually characteristic, and to the blistered, almost
calcined ledges, which in each case catch the earliest and latest beams
of day. In fact, I could think only of a leper sunning his scars, and in
rags.
At the head of the vale, alternately coming into and retreating from
view--for we are still progressing--is the mysterious triple-crowned
mountain known on the maps as Tripyramid. When first seen it seems
standing solitary and alone, and to have wrapped itself in a veil of
thinnest gauze. As we advance it displays the white streak of an immense
slide, which occurred in 1869. This mountain is visible from the shore
of the lake at Laconia. It is one of the first to greet us from the
elevated summits, though from no point is its singularly admirable and
well-proportioned architecture so advantageously exhibited as when
approaching by this valley. Its northern peak stands farthest from the
others, yet not so far as to mar the general grace and harmony of form.
Hail to thee, mountain of the high, heroic crest, for thy fortunate name
and the gracious, kingly mien with which thou wearest thy triple crown!
Prince thou art and potentate. None approach thy forest courts but do
thee homage.
The end of the valley was reached in two hours of very leisurely
driving. The road abruptly terminated among a handful of houses
scattered about the bottom of a deep and narrow vale. This is, beyond
question, the most remarkable mountain glen into which civilization has
thus far penetrated. On looking up at the big mountains one experiences
a half-stifled feeling; and, on looking around the scattered hamlet, its
dozen houses seem undergoing perpetual banishment.
This diminutive settlement, in which signs of progress and decay stand
side by side--progress evidenced by new and showy cottages; decay by
abandoned and dilapidated ones--is at the edge of a region as shaggy and
wild as any in the famed Adirondack wilderness. It fairly jostles the
wilderness. It braves it. It is really insolent. Yet are its natural
resources so slender that the struggle to keep the breath in it must
have been long and obstinate. A wheezy saw-mill indicates at once its
origin and its means of livelihood; but it is evident that it might
have remained obscure and unknown until doomsday, had not a few anglers
stumbled upon it while in pursuit of brooks and waters new.
[Illustration: BLACK AND TRIPYRAMID MOUNTAINS.]
The glen is surrounded by peaks that for boldness, savage freedom,
and power challenge any that we can remember. They threaten while
maintaining an attitude of lofty scorn for the saucy intruder. The
curious Noon Peak--we have at length got to the end of the almost
endless Black Mountain--nods familiarly from the south. It long stood
for a sun-dial for the settlement; hence its name. Tecumseh, a noble
mountain, and Osceola, its worthy companion, rise to the north. A
short walk in this direction brings Kancamagus[31] and the gap between
this mountain and Osceola into view. All these mountains stand in the
magnificent order in which they were first placed by Nature; but never
does the idea of inertia, of helpless immobility, cross the mind of the
beholder for a single moment.
The unvisited region between Greeley's, in Waterville, and the Saco is
destined to be one of the favorite haunts of the sportsman, the angler,
and the lover of the grand old woods. It is crossed and recrossed by
swift streams, sown with lakes, glades, and glens, and thickly set
with mountains, among which the timid deer browses, and the bear and
wildcat roam unmolested. Fish and game, untamed and untrodden mountains
and woods, welcome the sportsman here. With Greeley's for a base,
encampments may be pitched in the forest, and exploration carried into
the most out-of-the-way corners. The full zest of such a life can
only be understood by those to whom its freedom and unrestraint, its
healthful and vigorous existence, have already proved their charm. The
time may come when the mountains shall be covered with a thousand tents,
and the summer-dwellers will resemble the tribes of Israel encamped by
the sweet waters of Sion.
Waterville maintains unfrequent communication with Livermore and the
Saco by a path twelve miles long--constructed by the Appalachian
Mountain Club--over which a few pedestrians pass every year. I have
explored this path for several miles beyond Beckytown while visiting
the great slide which sloughed off from the side of Tripyramid, and
the cascades on the way to it. Osceola, Hancock, and Carrigain, three
remarkably fine mountains, offer inviting excursions to expert climbers.
I was reluctantly compelled to renounce the intention of passing over
the whole route, which should occupy, at least, two days or parts of
days, one night being spent in camp.
The Mad River drive is a delightful episode. In the way of mountain
valley there is nothing like it. Bold crag, furious torrent, lonely
cabin, blue peak, deep hollow, choked up with the densest foliage,
constitute its varied and ever-changing features. The overhanging
woods looked as if it had been raining sunshine; the road like an
endless grotto of illuminated leaves, musical with birds, and exhaling a
thousand perfumes.
[Illustration: FRANCONIA NOTCH, FROM THORNTON.]
The remainder of the route up the Pemigewasset is more and more a
revelation of the august summits that have so constantly met us
since entering this lovely valley. Boldly emerging from the mass of
mountains, they present themselves at every mile in new combinations.
Through Thornton and Woodstock the spectacle continues almost without
intermission. Gradually, the finely-pointed peaks of the Lafayette group
deploy and advance toward us. Now they pitch sharply down into the
valley of the East Branch. Now the great shafts of stone are crusted
with silvery light, or sprayed with the cataract. Now the sun gilds the
slides that furrow, but do not deface them. Stay a moment at this rapid
brook that comes hastening from the west! It is an envoy from yonder
great, billowy mountain that lords it so proudly over
"many a nameless slide-scarred crest
And pine-dark gorge between."
That is Moosehillock. Facing again the north, the road is soon swallowed
up by the forest, and the forest by the mountains. A few poor cottages
skirt the route. Still ascending, the miles grow longer and less
interesting, until the white house, first seen from far below, suddenly
stands uncovered at the left. We are at the Flume House, and before the
gates of the Franconia Notch.
II.
THE FRANCONIA PASS.
Beyond them, like a sun-rimmed cloud,
The great Notch Mountains shone,
Watched over by the solemn-browed
And awful face of stone!--WHITTIER.
When Boswell exclaimed in ecstasy, "An immense mountain!" Dr. Johnson
sneered, "An immense protuberance!" but he, the sublime cynic, became
respectful before leaving the Hebrides. Charles Lamb, too, at one time
pretended something approaching contempt for mountains; but, after a
visit to Coleridge, he made the _amende honorable_ in these terms:
"I feel I shall remember your mountains to the last day of my life.
They haunt me perpetually. I am like a man who has been falling in love
unknown to himself; which he finds out when he leaves the lady."