USA > New Hampshire > Merrimack County > New London > A history of the town of New London, Merrimack county, New Hampshire, 1779-1899 > Part 58
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SOO-NIPI PARK.
Bordering the Newbury line, in the southwest corner of the town of New London, is Soo-Nipi Park, the property of Pro- fessor John D. Quackenbos, of Columbia university, New York City, and an honored resident of New London. This park is made up of the old Pike farm and part of the farm of the late Amos B. Currier. It has an area of 400 acres, and stretches northward along the lake shore for some two miles, fully one half of its water front consisting of a gently receding beach of velvety white sand, crescented by pines. From the water's edge, the land rises in tree-covered knolls to a height of from 50 to 100 feet.
Soo-Nipi Park is well-covered with forests of spruce, pine, hemlock, and balm of Gilead fir. Within a quarter mile of the New London road are pine glades of surpassing beauty, crossed by two mountain streams "making sweet music with the enamelled stones," and everywhere threaded by wildwood paths and forest roads carpeted with pine needles and shaded by resinous boughs. There are about four miles of private carriage drives, three miles of brookside rambles, and perhaps ten of foot and bridle paths, now leading into the cathedral groves of white and Norway pine, anon skirting the rock-bound shore, or traversing stretches of sunny beach. The owner has made this property a university settlement. A number of cottages have already been erected on the lake shore; and in the belief that no other locality in the enchanting lake region
SOO-NIPI PARK LODGE, FROM THE EAST. FRONTAGE, ABOUT THREE HUNDRED FEET.
FACES THE SOUTHWEST.
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of central New Hampshire possesses attractions equal to those of Soo-Nipi Park, Dr. Quackenbos has offered lots and bnild- ing sites of any desired area or location, for lease on long terms, or for sale. The park is restricted for fifty years against all nuisances, including manufacturing operations, trades of every kind, the public sale of goods, tenement- and boarding- houses, and all immoral pursuits. No public wharf for the indiscriminate landing of passengers is permitted. The park piers are reserved absolutely, under the wharfage laws of the state, as private piers. Sales and leases are made subject to these restrictions, which are recorded in Book 301, page 165, Register's Office, Concord. The park beaches, pine glades, forest paths, drive-ways, and promenade piers are open for the enjoyment of owners and lessees, who have also bathing and haven rights, with all the privileges of the park. A convenient place on the beach has been selected for the erection of private bathing-houses ; and all owners and lessees, littoral or other- wise, have the right of access to the shores and the privilege of mooring boats at certain designated points.
Having long made the park his summer home and tested its advantages as a health and pleasure resort, Professor Quack- enbos has also built at Nirvaña, the principal steamboat land- ing, on an eminence one hundred feet above the lake level, a private reference hotel known as Soo-Nipi Park Lodge. This hotel consists of two large buildings, connected by a covered promenade and porte-cochère. It is furnished with every modern appointment conducive to health, convenience, and pleasure-bath-rooms with hot and cold water and perfect sanitary equipment, a hot-air furnace and open fire-places, cozy smoking-, reading-, and lounging-rooms, airy verandas, and sunny porticoes. The sleeping-rooms on the second and third floors, communicating with private balconies, in addition to commanding the most extensive views obtainable, are, by reason of their exposure to the volatilized oleo-resins from adja- cent evergreen forests, exceptionally adapted to the wants of invalids. All rooms are well ventilated, and both comfortably and artistically fitted. They overlook Lake Sunapee and Soo- Nipi Park, those that face the south and west commanding a distant panorama which, for picturesque diversity and restful beauty, has few equals in New England.
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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
The general assembly and music room, 26 x 46 feet in area, and finished in quartered oak, with its cheerful fire-places, easy chairs and divans, tasteful decorations, and magnificent outlook, is a supreme attraction. A broad covered piazza, 250 feet in length and broken by porches, surrounds the hotel, affording opportunities for exercise in rainy weather and delightful gathering-places on summer evenings. Directly in front of this piazza lies Lake Sunapee. The dining-room, an especially bright and pleasant apartment some 1,200 square feet in area, is exquisitely furnished, and offers attractive sittings at private tables. The appointments are dainty in every respect ; the service, attentive and courteous ; the cuisine, unexceptionable. The reading-room is supplied with leading periodicals, and contains a library of books for study, enter- tainment, and reference. New York morning papers arrive at the hotel on the day of their issue. In many summer resorts, the beneficial effects of climate and out-door exercise are neutralized by dampness in the sleeping-rooms and imperfect drainage. At Soo-Nipi Park Lodge, absolute dryness is insured by the location of the houses on an eminence above the lake, exposed to steady currents of air from the west. Properly situated drains conduct all surface water away from the hotel, the plumbing is of the most approved modern type, and the sewer-pipes are constantly flushed and disinfected. A prome- nade pier, extending 400 feet into the lake and having a covered water-face 60 feet square, with comfortable sittings for ladies, is nicely fitted to the purposes of an out-door solarium. Its long reach of nearly an eighth of a mile serves as a unique promenade. A spacious boat-house is included beneath the roof, with bath-houses for such as enjoy a deep-water plunge.
Life at the Lodge is charmingly unconventional, every sug- gestion of a hotel being kept in the background. The house is not open to the public. There is no bar ; the atmosphere is refined and Christian ; it is understood that the Sabbath will be respected. Boats are not let on Sunday for fishing or gala purposes, nor turn-outs for excursion parties. Religious ser- vices are held on that day in the Assembly Room. Through- out the summer, there are evening receptions and entertain- ments, with music and dancing. The management provides at reasonable rates, all the luxuries and privileges of home for
A CORNER AT THE LODGE IN BLOSSOM TIME. ORIEL BALCONIES.
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cultured and moral patrons only, who find Soo-Nipi Park Lodge an ideal summer residence, combining the attractions of rustic and forest life with modern comforts and rare social advan- tages. The coarse and otherwise undesirable elements of society are rigidly excluded, and references from strangers are therefore expected.
The society is composed largely of families from New York, New Haven, and Boston, who have been attracted by the beauty and healthfulness of the region, and the intelligent and cultured tone characteristic of the Lodge. Professors from Yale, Harvard, and Columbia, besides many persons known to literary fame or actively engaged in educational work, make the park their summer home, either occupying cottages or boarding at the hotel. Among such guests and visitors at the park in past years may be mentioned Professors Rees, Wood- ward, Jacoby, Dunning, Munroe Smith, Ricketts, Trowbridge, Harry Peck, Wm. Carpenter, and O'Connor, of Columbia uni- versity ; Professors Whitney and Williston of Harvard ; Profes- sors William G. Sumner, Beebe, and Frank Porter of Yale; Professors Holman and Peabody of the Massachusetts Insti- tute of Technology ; Professor Smith of Dartmouth ; Professor Isaac E. Hasbrouck of Brooklyn ; Dr. Wm. H. Watson, Regent of the N. Y. State university ; Wm. Dean Howells, the novel- ist ; Miss Eliza Dean Taylor, author of "A Cup of Loving Ser- vice ; " the Rev. Dr. Samuel W. Duncan, foreign secretary of the American Baptist Missionary union ; the Rev. Dr. T. T. Munger of New Haven; the Rev. W. Montague Geer of St. Paul's church, New York ; the Rev. Robert L. Parker of Prov- dence ; the Rev. T. A. Leggett of W. Brighton ; Judge A. L. Brown of the U. S. Supreme Court, and Judge Dugro of New York.
Soo-Nipi Park is a health resort of rapidly extending re- pute. With its matchless summer climate and bracing au- tumn air ; its medium elevation, which insures immunity from the dangers of extreme altitudes ; its sandy soil, doing away with all surface dampness; and its freedom from malarial influences-the Sunapee tableland is conspicuous among nat- ural sanatoriums. Hay fever patients experience immediate benefit in the vicinity of its evergreen forests. Irritable bladder and lithæmia are alleviated by the use of the pure, soft water
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of the lake, a pure diluent and solvent. Drinking water of unrivalled purity (see analyses) is furnished at the Lodge, and will be found a most important factor in the treatment of kidney and bowel disturbances, dyspepsia, and the uric acid diathesis. The generally dry climate is agreeable to sufferers from rheu- matism and neuralgia; the elevation is nicely adapted to nervous, asthmatic, and cardiac disorders; while amid the diversity of employments, all invalids discount introspection. Convalescents, persons with sensitive lungs and throat, and delicate children, will find at Soo-Nipi Park the conditions for improvement and cure.
The park meets a most important condition of healthfulness, in that it is situated on the eastern shore of a New England lake, thus receiving the last rays of the setting sun, and know- ing no twilight chill. Mists are rare. The border of the lake is pure and clean. Weeds secure no foothold in the white sand and gravel. Mosquitoes are absent after June; other insect plagues are unknown. The sanitary laws of the state prohibit the contamination of the lake by sewage or kitchen drainage ; and the Lake Sunapee Protective association, composed of the principal littoral owners, has for its object the prevention of all such pollution. Hence the water, which is as free from impu- rities as undistilled water can conceivably be, is universally used for drinking purposes. Further, it is so cold and pure that it possesses neither the temperature nor the concentration of nutritious substances (from decomposing vegetable matters) essential to the growth of bacilli. The typhoid plant and the hematozoon of paludism cannot reproduce themselves in Lake Sunapee.
ANALYSIS OF LAKE SUNAPEE WATER, N. Y. HEALTH DEPART- MENT.
Parts by weight in one hundred thousand .- Chlorine in chlorides .120 .- Equivalent to sodium chloride .197. Phosphates, none. Ni- trogen in nitrites, none. Nitrogen in nitrates .0066. Free ammonia .002. Albuminoid ammonia .008. Hardness equivalent to carbo- nate of lime (before boiling) 1.77-(after boiling) 1.77. Organic and volatile (loss on ignition) 1.50. Mineral matter (non-volatile) .So. Total solids (by evaporation) 2.30. Total nitrogen .148. Grains to the gallon, 1.34.
A GLIMPSE OF SUNAPEE FROM THE LODGE, ONE HUNDRED FEET ABOVE THE LAKE LEVEL.
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ANALYSIS OF THE HOTEL SPRING WATER, N. Y. HEALTH DEPARTMENT.
Parts by weight in one hundred thousand .- Chlorine in chlorides ·342 .- Equivalent to sodium chloride .562. Phosphates, none. Ni- trogen in nitrites, none. Nitrogen in nitrates .0325. Free ammonia ·0055. Albuminoid ammonia .002. Hardness equivalent to carbo- nate of lime (before boiling) 4.43-(after boiling) 3.82. Organic and volatile (loss on ignition) 2.20. Mineral matter (non-volatile) 4.80. Total solids (by evaporation) 7.00. Total nitrogen .038. Grains to the gallon, 4.08.
Grains to gallon in Croton water, from 4.89 to 7.7 ; in Poland water, 3.75 ; in Boston drinking water, 2.5.
The lake region offers phenomenal advantages for mental and physical recreation. Not only do the natural charms invite to æsthetic passiveness, teaching " the divine principle of leisure ;" the country affords as well opportunities for active pursuits, for mountain drives and climbs and horseback rides, for wheeling, for forest rambles, for sketching, photographical, geological, and botanical excursions. Crystals of amethyst (New London and Springfield), choice beryls (the largest in the world in Grafton), garnets, tourmalin prisms(Springfield), fibrolite, staurolites or cross-stones, quartz diamonds, amethys- tine and smoky quartz, rose quartz (Ragged Mountain), the finest of mica and graphite, infusorial earths,-are the possible rewards of him who seeks. Moreover, no section of New England presents a greater diversity of glacial phenomena, the lake-basins themselves having been excavated by the ero- sive power of ice, and many of the adjacent rounded or lenticu- lar hills (notably New London street) owing their origin to vast deposits of sand left in the wake of receding glaciers. Striations, planed surface-rocks, and boulders, wandered from their native beds, bear further witness to the irresistible power of the moving primeval ice-mass. Pot-holes, or Indian kettles, furnish texts for impressive sermons in stones, and caverns hol- lowed in the abrupt sides of cliffs, invite to scientific investiga- tion.
Artists in search of the rare, the novel, and the quaint, may gather attractive material among the deserted farmhouses draped with woodbine, the crumbling mills with their scum- covered eddies, the lonesome lily-ponds, dense cathedral
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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
groves, and emerald fern-shaws. The ornithologist will find the lake border a peculiar meeting-ground for Alleghany and Canadian bird forms, and hence exceptionally adapted, by the variety and profusion of its bird life, to the study of our avi- fauna. Three hundred and seventy different species of birds have been noted in the fields and forests. With a single excep- tion, the entire family of thrushes is here represented; and the restful notes of the Wilson's thrush, with the ethereal strains of the solitary hermit, " Nature's sublimest songster," may be enjoyed in their perfection. Everywhere through the forest aisles, song and white-throated sparrow, blue-headed and red- eyed vireo, bay-winged bunting, warbler, snow-bird, rose- breasted grosbeak and winter wren, make music such as art knows not.
The flower lover, too, through a long holiday may revel in a wealth of wild bloom, from the trillium, anemones, and arbu- tus tufts of early spring, to the white and purple asters that checquer the October roadsides. All through June, the pink cypripedium, or slipper-shaped orchid, colors the woodland dells ; blue and white violets spangle the meadows; mauve azaleas and white honeysuckles breathe in favored nooks their delicate odors; and every wall is snowy with blackberry blows, that Walt Whitman said " would adorn the parlors of Heaven." Strayed far from gardens long-forgotten, hoyden Jacqueminots, rich in attar, spread their gaudy magenta in sequestered pastures ; and pale swamp-roses lay bare their golden hearts amid wet thickets. And then, " born to joy and pleasance,"
" O'er her tall blades the crested fleur-de-lis,
" Like blue-eyed Pallas, towers erect and free."
As the summer wears on, the clematis climbs in tangles of silvery plumes, and sweet-scented nymphæas, "white angels of the crystal lakes," light many a shadowy recess. Fire- weeds flaunt their brilliance in the clearings ; blue gentians dapple the low grounds ; the purple sarracenia lifts its gro- tesque pitchers in the peat-bogs; and waxy stems of Indian pipe nod their corpse-white flowers over the roots on which they feed. The open woods are prankt with orange lilies ; and orchid beauties, " the elite of the floral kingdom," hide
TEN-POUND SUNAPEE QUANANICHE.
THE WHITE TROUT, OR SAIBLING, OF SUNAPEE LAKE. (Salvelinus Alpinus Aureolus.)
FISHING SCENES. "LUCKY IKE" WITH AN EIGHT-POUND OUANANICHE.
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their blooming wonders in the forest depths. At last, in the September days, the world seems turned to golden-rod ringing with the cricket's song ; and low-voiced streams trickle through glossy pools, where cardinal clusters still signal the ruby- throated humming-bird to feast upon the nectar stored in their " heart-red bloom."
Fortunate are they whose leisure permits them to linger through the dreamy Indian summer of October, and watch the flush of autumn deepen over the forests. The climate is then at its best. The days, if ever, are perfect. The hillsides, ablaze with crimson and gold, mirror their glories in the motionless lake.
The sun is wont to go to glade amid purple pomp, or throned in pillared clouds of flame; and a rosy-lilac afterglow gives mysterious lustre to the twilight hour between sundown and moon dawn. The nights are cool but bland; and through the mellow haze, planets and stars glimmer with subdued splendor. Visitors who prolong their stay into November will find the cli- mate grow gradually more stimulating, outdoor exercises more exhilarating, life in every way more intense. And, to quote a native poet,
" A beauty is upon the earth this hour " Ne'er seen but in these opening winter days."
Soo-Nipi Park is the medius locus of the greatest angling resort in New England. Said A. N. Cheney, the New York State Fish Culturist (Forest and Stream, July 28, 1892) : " If one should ask where the greatest variety of game fishes can be found in water that is open to the general public for fishing, I should say in Sunapee Lake, N. H." Eight species of sal- monidæ inhabit the Sunapee system: I. The brook trout, which attains as large a size as in the Rangeleys-6 to 10 lbs. II. The land-locked salmon, known also as the " Ouanani- che," the most popular of American game fishes. Specimens have been killed at Sunapee weighing 14 and 15 lbs. III. The Loch Leven trout, imported from Loch Leven, Kinross- shire, Scotland ; either a land-locked sea-trout, or the descen- dant of the Firth of Forth salmon, whose means of communica- tion with the sea was suddenly cut off by some convulsion of nature. In quickness of wit, fighting qualities, and delicacy
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of flavor, second to no fish in the world. Extreme known weight, 18 lbs. IV. The brown or Von Behr trout of Europe, a recent importation from Caledonia Creek, New York, where it has attained a weight of II lbs. Grows to 30 lbs. V. The rainbow trout, from California, so called on account of its iri- descent purplish sides, and broad lateral crimson band. VI. The blue-back trout, from the Rangeley lakes. VII. The Sunapee saibling, or aureolus, a golden-hued charr of the Alpine species, the descendant of a once widely-spread Arctic form which survives only in Lake Sunapee, a deep, cold pond connected with the Ossipee system, and a small lake near Mt. Desert. This saibling is a prolific and rapidly growing sal- monoid, surpassing all congeners in symmetry and brilliancy of coloration. It is known to attain a weight of 12 lbs. VIII. The land-locked smelt, a delicious table fish. The brook trout and salmon afford fine fly-fishing from May I to June 10. Black bass then come to the shores, and are taken with a fly after June 15. The bass is a favorite with ladies and children, who readily capture it by trolling or still-fishing. Pickerel and pike perch are found in certain localities.
A prolonged autumn stay will be found both interesting and profitable in connection with the work at the State Hatchery on Pike brook, in Soo-Nipi Park. The spawning season of the various salmonidæ extends from September I to November 10. During this period the nets of the commissioners are spread at the mouth of Pike brook, which the salmon and trout are about to ascend, and on the mid-lake beds of the saibling. Large numbers of adult fish are in this way secured. No weather deters employees who are faithful to their obligations. With icy hands, they tenderly loose spawner and milter from the net's clutch at dead of night, up to their breasts in freezing water when the necessities of the case demand it, beaten and drenched with tempest, but ever with sprightliness unchilled, always cheerful, never complaining, no half-hearted service.
The fish commissioners have bound themselves to use the property leased from Dr. Quackenbos exclusively for fishery purposes ; to keep it private at his request ; to give access to no other persons than state employees ; to prohibit at the Camp all practices, businesses, and doings in general, that are objec- tionable to the lessor.
FISHING FOR THE STATE IN KING'S HILL BROOK, SOO-NIPI PARK. FAST TO A BIG ONE.
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SUMMER RESIDENTS AND SUMMER HOMES.
By virtue of his contracts with the state, Dr. Quackenbos has full right to decide what kind of procedures shall charac- terize the life of employees at the station of the New Hamp- shire Fish commission. As an uncompromising foe to immor- ality of every kind, including Sabbath desecration, Dr. Quack- enbos will always insist that fish-catching and fish-hatching at Soo-Nipi Park shall be carried on in an atmosphere pure enough for the most sensitive to breathe.
Soo-Nipi Park is open to the people of New London and their summer visitors by the courtesy of Professor Quackenbos, who invariably receives with munificent politeness all who may come to his place in the spirit of ladies and gentlemen.
The trout and salmon captured during September and Octo- ber in the manner already described, are detained in huge tanks until the ovaries of the females are fully developed. The eggs are then extruded by gentle pressure, and are ferti- lized by bringing them in contact with milt similarly obtained from the male fish. In the hatching-troughs of the station (which has accommodations for a million eggs) in a current of cold spring water, these vitalized ova mature safely on wire screens coated with paraffine varnish to prevent rust. The percentage of loss is small, for, although in danger of destruc- tion by fungus (Saprolegnia ferox), there is immunity from drought, flood, and frost, and absolute exemption from the attacks of a multitude of enemies, such as fish, birds, frogs, water-rats, and the larvæ of various insects. Of 10,000 eggs deposited in the natural method, it is estimated that only 20 hatch. But since one half of all fishes that are born perish before attaining a marketable size, there would be but 10 full- grown salmon or trout from every 10,000 eggs. With scientific care, however, 9,500 can be hatched, and if one half these perish, there would still remain, as a possible outcome of artifi- cial propagation, 4,750 full-grown fish for every 10,000 ferti- lized eggs.
It is worth a trip to Sunapee to see the large trout and sal- mon corralled in the state tanks. It is a unique experience to watch the American saibling spawning on their midlake beds- the grandest sight ever viewed by angler, and one which nowhere else can be enjoyed. On shallows two or three feet beneath the surface, in all the glory of their nuptial tints, flash
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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
schools of these dazzling beauties, circling in proud sweeps about the rocks they would select as the scenes of their loves, the poetry of an epithalamion in every motion-here, offering to the sunbeams in graceful leaps their golden sides dashed with vermilion and clouded in amethyst ; there, suddenly dart- ing in little companies, the pencilled margins of their fins seeming to trail behind them like white ribbons under the rip- ples. There are conspicuous differences in intensity of gen- eral coloration, and the gaudy hues of the male are tempered in the spawner to a dead-lustre cream tint or delicate olive, with pearl spots. The wedding garment nature has given to this charr is unparagoned.
During the interval of fish-culture study, visitors will find fair sport with the gun through "Autumn's soft, shadowy days." Plover, snipe, and other aquatic birds are in season ; and ruffed grouse may be shot during September. Large flocks of ducks and geese frequent the lake, and their wild chatter mingles in the gloaming with "the loon's weird laugh- ter." The covers abound in the great northern hare ; superb woodcock shooting may be enjoyed within a few miles, and the fox is always ready to match his trained instincts against the hunter's intellect and skill. Raccoons give opportunity for exciting moonlight chases ; squirrels, red and gray, tenant the forests, and deer are frequently jumped in the roads and pas- tures. In winter, out-door amusements of all kinds-tobog- ganing, skating, snow-shoeing, ice-yachting, fishing through the ice, fox and hare coursing, etc., may be enjoyed.
Tennis courts, golf links, croquet lawn, and quoit ground, canoeing, sailing, bathing, berrying, and picnic parties, lake carnivals and regattas, fishing, hunting, and mountain excur- sions are among the many recreations open to summer guests. Boating and bathing at Sunapee are without danger. Ladies and children may paddle for a mile's stretch along the park beach without going beyond their depth. The barn is a rainy- day play-house, where the little ones may tumble on the new- mown hay or ride in the vis-a-vis swing. A dark-room with running water is provided for the use of amateur photogra- phers, and,-in short, every possible facility for the comfort, convenience, and amusement of the guests is utilized to the utmost.
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