History of Carroll County, New Hampshire, Part 16

Author: Merrill, Georgia Drew
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Boston : W.A. Fergusson & Co.
Number of Pages: 1124

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Knew ye at morn's returning light, What deeds of darkness had been done Beneath the holy stars of night?

The sun, adown the golden west, O'er Passaconway's dome was set, When on Chocorua's eold, sharp crest The stern, avenging warriors met. The prophet spoke : " We meet at last ; And now for one no morn shall rise. Then let his farewell glance be cast Up to the solemn, starry skies ;

For wrongs that may not be forgiven Cry out for vengeance up to heaven."

With hand uplifted to the sky Cornelius Campbell made reply : "Speak you of wrongs yet unforgiven? Wrongs that ery up from earth to heaven? By Him who kindled the great sun, I swear no wrong by me was done; But erimes my lips forbear to tell, Such as insatiate fiends of hell Might plot, in your wild brain were planned, And wrought by your twice murdering hand.

We meet in deadliest hate, alone On this bleak mount, this tower of stone,

In the cold silence of the sky ; Now, witness heaven's avenging eye !

I'll hurl you from this mountain's brow

Down to that yawning gulf below,

Where only bird or beast of prey Shall bear your whitened bones away."

Chocorua spoke : " Where in the deep,

Wild north, earth's ancient mountains rise,

Where bright 'Siogee's waters sleep, And under yet remoter skies, Our warriors roamed o'er all the land. On this great mount whereon we stand

Have prophets, kings, and heroes stood, And gazed on earth's vast solitude. No fitter place beneath the sky Than this wild home in upper air,

Hallowed by many a prophet's prayer, To wreak dire vengeance, or to die."

One moment of hate's deadliest strife, Like tigers grappling, life for life, And the last prophet of his land Lay crushed beneath his conqueror's hand. He knew the fatal grasp ; his last, Despairing glance to heaven was cast. As if to see with dying eyes The gleaming lakes of Paradise.

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The victor dragged him to the brow Of the dread mount whereon they stood ; Pointing to awful depths below, He spoke : "Deep in yon gloomy wood The gray wolf hungers for your blood ;

And grim death waits - Now, murderer, go."

Down to a yawning, sunless vale,

O'er frowning battlements, he fell. Rang from his lips a wild death-wail, And barren hills gave back his knell.

A fiery star, a meteor bright,

Shining athwart the sombre sky,

Hung on the orient brow of night: Each star looked down with solemn eye;

Round Whiteface, baleful meteors swung; Minden's dark brow was bathed in light :

A death-song on the winds was sung, Ne'er heard till that strange, wrathful night.

Pale lights daneed over lake and wood; The chainless Saco blushed in blood ; And pitying angels, hovering nigh, Walked the cold heavens with mourning eye.

A graceful Indian legend floats over the placid waters of the gem-like Lake Chocorua to this effect: that the stillness of the lake was sacred to the Great Spirit ; if a human voice was heard while crossing its waters, the offender's canoe would instantly sink to the bottom.

Paugus, mighty monument of a mighty warrior, strangely enough presents the symbol of peace. From Albany rises the solid granite mass of this moun- tain, a huge pile of rock scaled over with forests, and 3,000 feet high. On its side stands out a spur whose upper crest shows the perfect image of a lamb's head on a gigantic scale. Eye, mouth, nose, car, and forehead are exact ; even the chest and back are clearly delineated. Here it has stood for ages, an object of veneration to the aborigines, a natural symbol of the Christian's Prince of Peace.

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CHAPTER XVI.

SCENERY, ATTRACTIONS, TRADITIONS AND LEGENDS OF CARROLL. CONCLUDED.

Champney's Falls - Bear Camp River - The Great Carbuncle - Saco River - The Story of Nancy -Carter Notch -Pinkham Notch - Boott's Spur-The Crystal Cascade - Glen Ellis Falls - Goodrich Falls - Conway - Echo Lake - Diana's Bath - Artist's Brook - Thomas Starr King- The Poet Whittier.

C HAMPNEY'S FALLS, Albany, are most surely worthy of the tourist's attention, and will repay the time and trouble it takes to visit them. Professor Huntington says: " There are two streams and two falls, but they are so near together that they are collectively known as Champney's Falls. They are on a small stream flowing from the south into Swift river, nearly two miles from the road. A person who goes without a guide and follows down the stream will be at first disappointed; for all that is seen is a small stream, with a few massive blocks of a granitoid rock. It is true that even here are immense caverns, and here the stream runs between two blocks, and then over another, when it falls on the great sloping ledge, and goes bounding along until it tumbles over a precipitous ledge, and is lost to view. We see where the water takes its leap, yet nowhere does there seem to be anything remarkable. Then we climb along the ledges, and, by following a rough path, get to the base of the falls, yet there is nothing striking. We are about to turn away sadly disappointed, when the eye catches a sunbeam reflected from the water that seems struggling through the leafy foliage. Then, just there, not a dozen rods away, but almost hidden by the trees, we discover one of the most beautiful falls in New Hampshire. We stand just at the edge of the fall, on the stream we followed down. The sunbeams fall aslant through the trees ; the eye follows the high perpendicular ledge that runs at right angles to the stream, and through the leaves of the trees we see the water come over the ledge, fall down and strike the rock, that projects just enough to throw the water in spray and break, for an instant only, the continuity of the stream. In the entire fall there are three such projections ; after the last fall the water rests in a quiet basin, where it flows out and runs into the stream. The entire fall may be sixty feet; opposite, thirty feet distant, is a high ledge ; probably where this gorge now is there was once an immense trap-dyke that has been disintegrated and carried away.

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HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY.

Bear Cump River. - Loveliest of the streams of the many lovely ones of the Granite State, the Bear Camp river has been immortalized by one of America's greatest poets, and words of ours would be faint beside these exquisite lines of J. G. Whittier.

A gold fringe on the purpling hem Of hills, the river runs, As down its long, green valley falls The last of summer's suns, Along its tawny gravel-bed Broad-flowing, swift, and still,

As if its meadow-levels felt 'The hurry of the hill. Noiseless between its banks of green From curve to curve it slips ; The drowsy maple-shadows rest Like fingers on its lips.

A waif from Carroll's wildest hills, Unstoried and unknown ; The ursine legend of its name Prowls on its banks alone. Yet flowers as fair its slopes adorn As ever Yarrow knew, Or under rainy Irish skies, By Spenser's Mulla grew ; And through the gaps of leaning trees Its mountain eradle shows The gold against the amethyst, The green against the rose.

Touched by a light that hath no name, A glory never sung, Aloft on sky and mountain-wall Are God's great pictures hung. How changed the summits, vast and old ! No longer granite-browed, They melt in rosy mist ; the rock Is softer than the cloud ; The valley holds its breath ; no leaf Of all its elms is twirled ; The silence of eternity Seems falling on the world.

Slow fades the vision of the sky, The golden water pales, And over all the valley-land A gray winged vapor sails. I go the common way of all ; The sunset fires will burn;

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The flowers will blow, the river flow, When I no more return.

No whisper from the mountain-pine Nor lapsing stream shall tell The stranger, treading where I tread, Of him who loved them well.

Farewell! these smiling hills must wear Too soon their wintry frown; And snow-cold winds from off them shake The maple's red leaves down. But I shall see a summer sun Still setting broad and low ;

The mountain slopes shall blush and bloom, The golden water flow. A lover's claim is mine on all I see to have and hold -

The roselight of perpetual hills, And sunsets never cold.

The Great Carbuncle. - According to the Indians, on the highest mountain, Kan-run-vugarty, suspended from a crag overlooking a dismal lake, was an enormous carbuncle, which many declared they had seen blazing in the night like a coal of fire. Some even asserted that its ruddy glare lighted the rocks by night, while by day its rays were dazzling as the sun. The Indians, however, declared that no mortal hand could hope to grasp this great fire- stone. It was, they said, guarded by the genius of the mountain, who, on the approach of explorers, disturbed the waters of the lake, so that a dark mist arose, in which the daring adventurers, perplexed and then bewildered, wandered into the troubled waters, and were hopelessly lost in its dismal depths. Several wizards and conjurers of the Pequawkets, emboldened by their success in exorcising evil spirits, made the ascent of the mountain. They never returned, and doubtless were either petrified or thrown down some wild and fearful precipice into a still more terrible chasm.

Although no one returned, still the belief continued in the existence of this great carbuncle, and their imaginations were inflamed with the desire to see and behold this precious jewel. Crawford shows that the belief in its existence and attempts to secure it existed among the whites as late as his day.

Saco River. - Sullivan says in his " History of Maine " that in October, 1775, the Saco was found to swell suddenly. As there had not been rain sufficient to account for this increase of volume, people were at a loss how to explain this phenomenon, until it was finally discovered to be occasioned by a new river having broken out in the side of the White Mountains. When this river issued, a mixture of iron ore gave the water a deep-red

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color, and the people inhabiting the section declared the river ran blood, and regarded it as an evil omen for the success of their arms in the struggle between the colonies and Great Britain.

The Story of Nancy. - Nancy's Rock, Nancy's Brook, and Nancy's Mountain in Bartlett receive their name from Nancy Barton, the first white woman to voluntarily pass through the Notch. She came from Portsmouth as cook for Colonel Whipple, of Jefferson, and kept a boarding-house for the men employed by him. She was faithful, industrious, and hard-working. Tradition says she once rescued the colonel from captivity by giving rum to his Indian captors until they were helplessly intoxicated, and then cutting the ropes by which he was bound. Her life was one of toil and little recompense, but she saved from each year's wages until she acquired quite a sum.

She was sought in marriage by one of the colonel's men in 1788, and it was arranged that they should go to Portsmouth with the next party, and settle down there to the enjoyment of married life. She entrusted her savings to her lover, and made her preparations to go. But her lover was faithless. Colonel Whipple did not desire to lose his competent cook, and they contrived to make their start while Nancy was at Lancaster on a conveniently arranged errand. She, however, heard of their departure on the day they went, walked to Jefferson, found the report true, tied up a small bundle of clothing, and started on foot to overtake her lover at his first camping-place, the Notch, thirty miles distant, along a snow-covered trail indicated only by spotted trees in the dense forest. She traveled all night, and reached the camp to find them gone, and the camp-fire extinguished by the rapidly falling snow. Trying in vain to rekindle it, she hastened along their track, fording the icy waters of the Saco several times, until exhausted nature gave out. The chilling wind had turned her saturated clothing to sheets of ice, upon which chung the thick masses of the falling snow. She sank down on the south side of the brook in Bartlett which bears her name, and was speedily chilled to death. A party which had started to resene her after the storm began found her body not long after.

It is said that, on hearing of her terrible fate caused by his dastardly conduct, the regreant lover became insane and died a horrible death. The carly settlers believed that his restless ghost haunted the place of her death, and that its cries and lamentations were often heard.

Carter Notch .- We condense from Drake's graphie account of his visit to this notch, given in " The Heart of the White Mountains," the following description : " By half-past seven of a bright and erisp morning I was climbing the steep hillside over which Jackson Falls pour down. On arriving at the top, instead of entering a difficult and confined gorge, I found a charming and tolerably wide vale, dotted with farms, extending far up into the midst of the mountains.

" Half a mile above the falls the snowy eupola of Washington showed itself

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over Eagle mountain for a few moments. Then, farther on, Adams was seen, also white with snow. For five miles the road skirts the western slopes of the valley, which grows continually deeper, narrower, and higher. Spruce moun- tain is now on our left ; the broad flanks of Black mountain occupy the right side of the valley. Beyond Black mountain Carter Dome lifts its ponderous mass, and between them the dip of the Perkins Notch, dividing the two ranges, gives admittance to the Wild River valley, and to the Androseoggin in Shelburne. Before me the grand, downward curves of the Carter Noteh opened wider and wider.

" Burying ourselves in deeper solitudes, we descended to the banks of the Wildcat at a point one and a half miles from the road we had left. We then crossed the rude bridge of logs, keeping company with the gradually dimin- ishing river, now upon one bank, now on the other, making a gradual ascent along with it, frequently pausing to glance up and down through the beautiful vistas it has cut through the trees.

" We were now in a colder region. The sparseness of the timber led me to look right and left for the stumps of felled trees, but I did not see fifty good timber-trees along the whole route. An hour and a half of pretty rapid walking brought us to the bottom of a steep rise. We were at length come to close quarters with the formidable outworks of Wildcat mountain. The brook has for some distance poured a stream of the purest water over moss of the richest green, but now it most mysteriously vanishes from sight. From this point the singular rock called the Pulpit is seen overhanging the upper erags of the Dome.

" We turned sharply to the left, and attacked the side of Wildcat mountain. We had now attained an altitude of nearly 3,000 feet above the sea, or 2,250 above the village of Jackson; we were more than a thousand feet higher than Crawford Notch.

"On every side the ground was loaded with huge gray bowlders, so pon- derons that it seemed as if the solid earth must give way under them. Some looked as if the merest touch would send them erashing down the mountain. Undermined by the slow aetion of time, these fragments have fallen one by one from the high cliffs, and accumulated at the base. Among these the path serpentined for half a mile more, bringing us at last to the summit of the spur we had been climbing, and to the broad entrance of the Noteh. '

"Fascinated by the exceeding strangeness of everything around me, I advaneed to the edge of the serubby growth in order to command an unob- strueted view. How still it was! I seemed to have arrived at the instant a death-like silence suceeeds the catastrophe. I saw only the bare walls of a temple, of which some Samson had just overthrown the columns. The light of a midday sun brightened the tops of the mountains, while within a sepulchral gloom rendered all objects - roeks, trees, cliffs - all the more weird and fan- tastie. I was between two high mountains, whose walls enclose the pass.

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"Overhanging it 1,500 feet at least, the sunburnt crags of the Dome towered above the highest precipices of the mountain behind me. But what is this dusky gray mass, stretching huge and irregular across the chasm from mountain to mountain, completely filling the space between, and so effectually blockading the entrance that we were compelled to pick our way up the steep side of the mountain in order to avoid it?

" Picture to yourself acres upon acres of naked granite, split and splintered in every conceivable form, of enormous size and weight, pitched, piled, and tumbled about like playthings, tilted, or so poised and balanced as to open numberless caves, and the mind will then grasp but faintly the idea of this colossal barricade, seemingly built by the giants of old to guard their last stronghold from all intrusion. It is evident that one of the loftiest precipices of the Dome has precipitated itself in a crushed and broken mass into the abyss.

" Previous to the convulsion, the interior of the notch was doubtless nar- rower, gloomier, and deeper. The track of the convulsion is easily traced. From top to bottom the side of the mountain is hollowed out, exposing a shallow ravine, in which nothing but dwarf spruces will grow, and in which the erratic rocks, arrested here and there in their fall, seem endeavoring to regain their ancient position on the summit. There is no trace whatever of the débris ordinarily accompanying a slide - only these rocks.

" We felt our way cautiously and slowly out. In the midst of these grisly blocks stunted firs are born, and die for want of sustenance, making the dreary waste bristle with hard and horny skeletons. The spruce, dwarfed and deformed, has established itself solidly in the interstices ; a few bushes spring up in the crannies. With this exception the entire area is devoid of vegeta- tion. The obstruction is heaped in two principal ridges ; from a flat rock on the summit of the first we obtained the best idea of the general configuration of the notch ; and from this point, also, we saw the two little lakes beneath us which are the sources of the Wildcat. Beyond and above the hollow they occupy, the two mountains meet in the low ridge constituting the true summit of Carter Notch."

Pinkhum Notch presents some of the wildest sylvan scenery in all the mountains, such a profusion of rich foliage being exceedingly rare. It takes its name from Daniel Pinkham, an early resident of Jackson. In 1824 he commeneed a road through the wilderness, which, about twelve miles in length, connected Jackson with Randolph. The notch is situated at the Glen Ellis Falls, where the mountains are only a quarter of a mile apart.

Boott's Spur is the highest curve of the massive granite spur rooted deep in the Pinkham defile. It is nearly three miles long, and the sky-line of the ravine's head-line is about 5,000 feet above the sea.

The Crystal Cascade, one of the most beautiful waterfalls of the White

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Mountains, is on Ellis river, below the outlet of Tuckerman's Ravine, and on the west side of the Pinkham Notch. It vies with the Glen Ellis Falls in loveliness, but is very unlike it. The kaleidoscopic effect of different combi- nations of rocks, trees, and water is wonderful, and nature has entirely outdone herself in producing this preeminently picturesque of cascades. Its setting of moss-grown cliffs is wild and impressive ; the rocks and trees on either side partially exclude the light and lend their sombre shadows to the romance of the scene ; while through these shades the cascade gleams like a silver stream. Down it comes, leaping, dancing, tripping, widening its pure tide, then, gush- ing through a narrowing pass in the rocks, it reaches a curve, where, winding around, it sweeps along, scattering its diamond sprays over the green mosses on the gray and purple rocks.

A legend comes down concerning this beautiful cascade which is well worth repetition. In the olden days, when this lovely valley, now Jackson, was occu- pied by the red man, there was enacted a tragedy of "true love never runs smooth," wherein a young warrior and a true-hearted maiden met a watery death. As was customary among these savage tribes, the chief had selected a lover for his daughter, but as she evidently preferred another, and one high and renowned of a neighboring tribe, when he brought his gifts of feathers and fur and demanded his bride, the father could not honorably refuse. He called a council of his braves, and in solemn conclave they concurred that the beautiful maiden should be the bride of the one most skilful in drawing the bow. A mark was set up and the two warriors took their stand. Although he who had won the girl's heart was an expert with Cupid's arrows, his rival was the victor in this trial of skill. But before the echoes of the triumphant shouts of the assembly had died away, the two lovers had grasped hands and were running through the dense forests. They were quickly pursued, and it soon became a race of life and death. Finding their pursuers gaining upon them, the lovers reached the verge of the cataract and, clasped in each other's embrace, threw themselves into its rushing waters. Often when the glittering mists are ascending the falls, imaginative observers perceive two airy forms hand in hand.

Glen Ellis Falls are on the Ellis river at the base of Wildcat mountain. They were formerly known as the Pitcher Falls, in allusion to their shape, but received the present name in 1852. This fall is probably the finest in the White Mountains. The solitude is deep, dark, and intense, with its stately pines, funereal cedars, and sombre hemlocks. Through the trunks of trees the mad seas of foam come spurting along the rocky gorge ; we hear the echo of the roar, and feel as if we too must rush along impelled by the energy of the rushing water; then we are hushed and silenced by the thought of the grand- ness and majesty of the power which moves these waters in this very heart of mountain wildness. From the rocks above where the torrent descends is the

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best view of the falls. Here the cataract leaps eighty feet to carry its contri- bution to the Saco, and the grim, fierce wildness and savage force and beauty make a deep and abiding impression upon the beholder. The stream is clear and cold, having come from the snows of Tuckerman's Ravine.

Samuel Adams Drake, in his "Heart of the White Mountains," thus recounts a legend of Ellis river. An Indian family living at the foot of a lofty peak near the source of Ellis river had a daughter more beautiful than any maiden of the tribe, possessing a mind elevated far above the common order, and as accomplished as she was beautiful. When she reached a proper age, her parents looked around them for a suitable match, but in vain. None of the young men of the tribe were worthy of so peerless a creature. Sud- denly this lovely wildflower of the mountains disappeared. Diligent was the search, and loud the lamentations when no trace of her light moccasin could be found in forest or glade. The tribe mourned her as lost. But one day some hunters, who had penetrated into the fastnesses of the mountain, dis- covered the lost maiden with a beautiful youth, whose hair, like hers, floated down below his waist, on the shore of a limpid stream. On the approach of the intruders the pair vanished. The parents of the maiden knew her com- panion to be one of the kind spirits of the mountain, and henceforth con- sidered him as their son. They called upon him for moose, bear, or whatever creature they desired, and had only to go to the water-side and signify their wish, when, lo! the animal came swimming toward them.

This legend resembles one of those marvelous stories of the Hartz Moun- tains, in which a princess of exceeding beauty, destroyed by the arts of a wicked fairy, was often seen bathing in the river Ilse. When she met a traveler, she conducted him into the interior of the mountain and loaded him with riches.

Goodrich Falls (Jackson) is at the junction of the two branches of Ellis river. The height of the rock at the right from the water is eighty feet. There is a large cireular pool of great depth below the fall. When the river is full, the water pours a broad, beautiful sheet over the dam, covering the rocks and throwing up clouds of spray, sometimes to the height of one hun- dred feet.

Conway seems to be the grand gateway to the White Mountain region. Its location is romantic and delightful, and wealth and taste have been united to enhance its superior natural advantages. Here the outlines of Kearsarge, the big Mote, and the legendary Chocorua are sharp and well defined, and the view of the White Mountains, rising over the Saco meadows, bursts upon the traveler like an enchanted view. This entrance to North Conway is said to be the most beautiful and most imposing introduction to the White Mountains. " Nature has formed here a vast ante-chamber, into which you are ushered through a gateway of mountains upon the numerous inner courts, galleries,

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History of Carroll County, New Hampshire, Part 16

Author: Merrill, Georgia Drew Publication date: 1889 Publisher: Boston : W.A. Fergusson & Co. Number of Pages: 1124

Author: Merrill, Georgia Drew
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Boston : W.A. Fergusson & Co.
Number of Pages: 1124