History of Carroll County, New Hampshire, Part 4

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

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Arsenopyrite. - Large masses of the non-crystalline variety are found at Jackson.

Fluorite is found at the Notch in beautiful sea-green octahedrons, of the size of hickory nuts and of perfect form. It occurs in the quartz veins. These green octahedrons are found on Mts Crawford and Webster, at Bemis brook, and, indeed, all along the White Mountain Notch. It is also found at Jackson in crystals of green, white, and purple. Fluor spar also occurs as a microscopic ingredient of the granites and sienites on Chocorua mountain.

Hematite. - A part of the iron ore in the beds at Bartlett and Jackson is hematite.

Magnetite. - Large amounts of magnetic iron are associated with the hematite at Bartlett. It is also found on Thorn mountain, in Jackson.

Tin was first discovered in the United States in 1841, at Jackson. Large excavations have been made with the idea of extracting the ore, but no quantities sufficient to yield metal of consequence were found. The tin at Jackson is dark-colored and opaque, except in the thinnest fragments. The veins are from half an inch to several inches wide, but they are mostly filled with arsenopyrite, chalcopyrite, and other minerals. The veins are in mica schist.

Limonite. - Bog iron ore has been found in the bottom of Six-mile pond, in Madison, also in Moultonborough.

Quartz. - Common transparent, glassy quartz forms a large proportion of our rocks, and is, moreover, found in the most grand and beautiful crystalliza- tions. Fine, large, clear crystals are found at Bartlett and the White Mountain Notch. Smoky quartz is found at Bartlett and the Notch. Quartz of a delicate rose color, called rose quartz, occurs in mica schist rocks in the White Mountains, and is quite abundant on Mt Washington ; much of it is annually carried away by tourists. Amethyst, or purple quartz, is found at Mt Crawford.

Beryl. - The largest beryls of the world are in New Hampshire. Professor Hitchcock obtained one for the state museum weighing half a ton. Smaller but much more perfect crystals are found in the islands of Lake Winnipiseogee, Chatham (in the stream near the path to Baldface), and at many places in the White Mountains.

Epidote fills a vein in Jackson, from which immense crystals have been taken, some of which were eight inches in diameter and of a fine green color. Smaller but better crystals, and also twins, are more common.

Mica in New Hampshire is an important mineral from an economic stand- point, and a most common and interesting rock constituent. The color of

HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY.

granites, as well as many schists, is largely due to the kind of mica they contain. Granites that contain the white micas are light colored, while the black micas make the granite dark colored in proportion to the quantity of mica contained.

Feldspar. - In a county like Carroll, which is covered by crystalline rocks, feldspar is, next to quartz, the predominant mineral.

Tourmaline. - Localities of note for black tourmaline are Moultonborough and White Mountain Notch (very large). All through the White Mountains little tourmalines are seen here and there scattered through the schists. Sometimes they are very abundant and of considerable size, and sometimes small and sparsely disseminated.

Chiastolite. - The variety of andalusite called chiastolite is abundant in the state. It abounds on some parts of Mt Washington, in Albany, and other places in Carroll county.

Fibrolite exists in some of the schists of the White Mountains in such amounts as to give a character to the rock.

Apatite is found in Jackson. The augite sienite of Jackson is filled with very perfect crystals which are large enough for optical examination. The gabbros at Mt Washington contain apatite in fine crystals of some size.

Scorodite, the hydrous arsenate of iron, is said to have been found at the tin mines in Jackson.

Calcite. - Crystals of calcite are found at the Notch.

Novaculite, or oil-stone, so highly prized for sharpening tools, exists in Tamworth of a black color.

Gold has been mined for to some extent, although geologists consider it not present in any quantity. The " Diamond Ledge Gold " mine was opened near Sandwich Centre in 1877, and a yield of $49 a ton was claimed. A company is now developing a property in Sandwich. Certain quartz veins in Ossipee and Wakefield have been supposed to contain gold.

FLORA.

CHAPTER V.

FLORA.

Alleghanian, Canadian, Arctic or Alpine Divisions - White-Pine - Pitch and Red-Pine- Hemlock - Oaks - Chestnut - Butternut - Elm - Maples - Birches - Beecli - Black and White Ash - Black, Choke, and Fire Cherries -Black-Spruce - White-Spruce - Balsam-Fir - American Larch - Poplar - Small Trees and Shrubs - Alpine Plants.

C ARROLL COUNTY is on the transition line between the southern or Alleghanian division of New England flora and the northern or Canadian

division. If we were to attempt to draw an abrupt line of division, it would run from the Maine line in Conway to Lake Winnipiseogee, marking an elevation of from five to six hundred feet above the sea ; but an arbitrary line cannot be drawn. The two divisions interweave, advance and retire, and intermingle with each other for some distance. In the northern section are the black and white spruce, arbor-vitæ, balsam-fir, sugar-maple, and beech. In the southern division are the chestnut, white-oak, etc .; while the range of the various pines and walnuts, red-oak and hemlock, and the white or river maple is principally confined to this division. The White Mountains introduce another division of flora into this county - the Arctic or Alpine, which is not that of trees, but only of dwarfed and abnormal growths and mossy and lichen- ous plants. We will enumerate a few of the principal plants of each division, and refer the reader for further information to the proper botanical works.

White-Pine. - During the Indian occupation the territory now Carroll county was covered with heavy forests. The king of all the towering growths was the massive white-pine. At the commencement of European possession of this state all the river valleys were filled with a stately growth, reaching in some cases to a height of two hundred and fifty feet, and a diameter of from four to six feet. This was an undeveloped mine of untold wealth. After 1721 there was a special reservation in all of the royal grants of " all white-pines fit for masting the royal navy," and wherever the wilderness was traversed by the surveyors of the royal forest, the " broad arrow " was stamped upon the most splendid specimens. To cut these stamped trees for any other purpose than masts in the royal navy was, under British law, a felony, and punishable by a fine of £100 sterling for each "mast-tree " cut down. This arbitrary reservation caused great indignation in the thickly settled portions of the colony, and was, doubtless, one of the causes leading to the independence of the colony. Only here and there are scattered isolated white-pines of the original growth; the lumberman's axe has cut the rest away.

HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY.

Pitch and Red Pine .- The pitch-pine grew in numbers on the sandy plains and drift-knolls from Lake Winnipiseogee to North Conway, and yet is found in plenteous numbers of smaller trees. The handsome red-pine was scattered in groups, according to its companionable way, over the same territory, and went to a higher altitude, going up the Saco valley to the head of the Noteh. This is a very ornamental tree, of rapid growth, and worthy of special attention for its beauty.

Hemlock. - The hemlock is as much at home in this county as in any part of the state, and was in great abundance in early days. It has not been so closely cut off as the white-pine, and will be a valuable product for years. It does not often ascend high on the mountain-sides, and may be said to be found at and below the foot of the mountains. It is frequently of immense size. A tree cut in Moultonborough was 90 feet long, with 290 rings of growth.

Oaks. - The white-oak extended, and is now found, in the southern part of the county as far north as Ossipee lake. Its limit in altitude is about five hundred feet above the sea. The scrub, pin, or barren oak lives in sterner air, and is found as high as the sandy plains of Madison and Conway. The charming chestnut-oak finds one of its few abiding-places in New Hampshire in Ossipee, where it flourishes abundantly. The yellow-oak is usually a companion of the white-oak, and is found in the lower towns of Carroll. The red-oak is the hardiest of the oaks, and grows as high up as the lower part of the Notch, or to about one thousand feet above tide-water.

Chestnut. - The chestnut, like the white-oak, is found in the lower part of the county. In a few localities near Lake Winnipiseogee, where the water modifies the temperature, it grows at a greater height than its real limit of altitude - four hundred feet above the sea.

Butternut. - This grows along the borders of the streams to the base of the mountains.

Hickory. - The shell-bark variety clings around the vicinity of Lake Winnipiseogee and the lower lands of the county.

Elm. - The American elm, singly or in groups of very small numbers, adds a picturesque charm to the river landscapes all through the county, and follows them closely to the mountains.

Maples. - The sugar or rock maple is a valuable economic factor in the wealth of the section where it is found, producing valuable timber and the cele- brated maple sugar and sirup. It grows in good soil, and, easily transplanted, makes one of the finest shade-trees. The red-maple gives the brilliant scarlet hue to the autumnal foliage, and its plenty and habitat will then be shown to be universal in the county below mountain altitudes.

Birches. - The black, yellow, and canoe birches occupy the same range for the most part as the red-oak, yet the canoe or paper birch attains the highest elevation, its white bark showing in striking contrast with the deep-green foliage of the spruces and firs upon the mountain-sides.

FLORA.

Beech. - This is one of the common trees of the county below the foot of the mountains, not so numerous in the Notch as lower down, however. It is not a stately tree ; almost always it is low, with "long diverging arms, stretch- ing outward at a large angle."

Black and White Ash. - These trees occur in the lower altitudes of the county, and approach the mountains, but do not ascend them.

Black, Choke, and Fire Cherries. - These are found in the intervales as natives, and the latter varieties spring up thickly as second growth in some places where the land has been cleared.

Black-Spruce. - This magnificent tree rises to the height of the lower forest, but adds to the general effect as much by its sombre masses of color as by its outline ; the elegance peculiar to it in isolated positions is usually not attained in any great perfection in the thick woods. It makes huge forests itself, redolent of healing perfume, carpeted inimitably with thick mats of fresh moss. Here the spruce has sometimes attained enormous size. Josselyn, in 1672, tells of spruce-trees "three fathom," eighteen feet, round about. Its blackish-green foliage appears along the mountain-sides, and, with the fir, it is the last of the aborescent vegetation to yield to the increased cold and fierce winds of the higher summits. Since the comparatively recent discovery of its excellence in lumber, extensive lumbering operations have been carried on, and the original growth is fast passing away. Unlike the white-pine, however, a new growth springs up, and, with proper attention and care, the supply may be kept up for a long period.

White-Spruce .- This differs from the preceding in being of less size, having a lighter color and a more graceful habit.

Balsam-Fir. - This is a lovely tree, of rare elegance of form, and has the most beautiful foliage of any of the evergreens, and also the smoothest trunk. The fir, intermingled with the black-spruce in about equal numbers, gives to the White Mountain scenery one of its most peculiar features.

American Larch. - This tree, known also as the tamarack, or hackmatack, is chiefly found in swamps of small extent, and is a very graceful tree. It is deciduous, but bears many of the characteristics of the evergreens.

Poplar .- Two varieties occur in Carroll county. One, a small tree, common in light soil, springs up in great abundance where woodland is cleared away. This is the American aspen, and closely resembles the aspen of Europe, so cele- brated by the poets. It ascends, in burnt lands, several thousand feet up the mountain-sides. The other is a larger tree, often attaining considerable size. In spring the young leaves are covered with white down, by which the tree can be distinguished a long way off. The dark color of its bark gives it the name " black-poplar." Its wood is in great demand for the manufacture of wood- pulp.

Small Trees and Shrubs. - Among these we mention the mountain-ash,

HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY.

mountain-laurel, red-cedar or savin, juniper, witch-hazel, striped-maple or moosewood, mountain-maple, cranberry (high bush) or pembina, several alders and willows, blackberry, raspberry, elder, blueberry, mountain holly. The shrubs grow smaller and smaller as the mountains are ascended. The mountain- aster and golden-rod, the white orchis, white hellebore, wood-sorrel, and Solomon's seal ascend into the " black growth," while the clintonia, bunch- berry, bluets, creeping snowberry, and purple trilliums keep them company and cease to grow at about the same altitude. The red-cedar is found in Hart's Location and other places.

Alpine Plants. - An Alpine or Arctic vegetation is found on the treeless region of the upper heights of Mt Washington and adjacent peaks, where alone are found the conditions favorable to their growth. They are of great hardihood, and sometimes bloom amid ice and snow. The region they occupy is a wind-swept tract above the limit of the growth of trees, and is about eight miles long by two miles wide. Here dwell about fifty strictly Alpine species, found nowhere else in the state. About fifty other species are "sub-Alpines," and are found elsewhere in New Hampshire, and along the base of the White Mountains. These occupy the ravines and lower portion of the treeless region, but not the upper summits. The firs and spruces become more and more dwarfish as they ascend the mountain, at last rising but a few feet, while their branches spread out horizontally for a long distance, and become thiekly inter- woven. They present an almost even upper surface, strong enough for a man to walk upon. These dwarf trees at last disappear, giving place to the dwarf birch, Alpine willows, Labrador tea, and Lapland rhododendron, which spread out over the nearest rocks after rising a few inches above the ground, thus gaining the warmth which enables them to live in spite of cold and storm. On the mountain-tops these disappear and are succeeded by the Greenland sand- wort, cassiope, diapensia, azalia, Alpine bearberry and heath, mingling with Arctic rushes, sedges, and lichens. On some of the warmer spots of the higher elevations grow the Alpine violet, the eyebright, mountain cudweed and sorrel, and the beautiful grasses which are found on the summits of the Alps in Switzerland.

The various trees brought in by Europeans have adapted themselves well to their surroundings ; the loeust especially seems to thrive. It is not necessary for the purpose of this work to enumerate these.

INDIAN HISTORY.

CHAPTER VI.

INDIAN HISTORY.

Aboriginal Indians - Iroquois - Mohawks - Algonquins - New England Tribes - Wig- wams - Social Life, Government, and Language - Food - Religion -Taratines - War, Famine, and Plague- Nipmucks - Passaconaway - Wonalancet - Kancamagus - Lovewell's Enterprises, Battle, etc. - Death of Paugus - Abenaquis -St Francis Village - Bounties for Scalps and Prisoners.

W HEN the Europeans first landed on the Continent of America, the Indians who inhabited the Atlantie slope and dwelt in the valleys of the Connecticut and St Lawrence, in the basin of the Great Lakes, and the fertile valleys of the Alleghany region, were composed of two great nations and their sub-divisions. These were soon known to the whites under the French appellation of Iroquois and Algonquins (Ale-zhone-ke-we-ne, people of one language). These nations differed in language and lineage, in manners and customs, in the construction of their dwellings and boats, and were heredi- tary enemies.

The Iroquois proper, who gave their name to one division, the ablest and most powerful of this family, were the Five Nations, called by themselves the Ho-de-no-sau-nee, "the people of the long house." They compared their union of five tribes, stretched along a narrow valley for more than two hundred miles in Central New York, to one of their long wigwams containing many families. Among all the aborigines of America there were none so politie and intelligent, none so warlike and fierce, none with such a contrasting array of virtues and vices as the true Iroquois. All surrounding tribes, whether of their own fam- ily or of the Algonquins, stood in awe of them. They followed the warpath, and their warcry was heard on the banks of the Mississippi, on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, where the Atlantie breakers dash in Massachusetts Bay, and the high tides rise and fall in the Bay of Fundy. "Some of the small tribes were nearly exterminated by their ferocity and barbarity. They were more cruel to the Eastern Indians than those Indians were to the Europeans." The New England tribes, with scaree an exception, paid them tribute ; and the Montagnais, far north on the Saguenay, called by the French " the paupers of the wilderness," would start from their midnight slumbers at dreams of the Iroquois, and run, terror-stricken, into the forest. They were the conquerors of the New World, and justly carried the title of "The Romans of the West." The Jesuit father, Ragueneau, wrote, in 1650, in his " Révélations des Hurons,"

HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY.

" My pen has no ink black enough to paint the fury of the Iroquois." The tribe which guarded the eastern door of the typical long house was the most active and most bloodthirsty one of this fierce family, the dreaded Mohawks, to whom the Connecticut River Indians gave the appellation of Ma-qua-ogs, or Maquas - " man-eaters." The Mohawk country proper was west of the Hud- son river, but by right of conquest they claimed all the country between the Hudson and the sources of the north and easterly branches of the Connecticut, and by virtue of this claim all the Indians of the Connecticut valley paid them annual tribute.

The few tribes of the Iroquois were surrounded on all sides by the much more numerous Algonquins, to which family all the New England tribes belonged. Along the valley of the St Lawrence dwelt the Algonquins proper, the Abinaquis, the Montagnais, and other roving tribes. These tribes were often forced, during the long Canadian winters when game grew scarce, to subsist on buds and bark, and sometimes even on the wood of forest trees, for many weeks together. From this they were called in mockery by their bitter enemies, the Mohawks, " Ad-i-ron-daks," tree-eaters. The late B. D. Eastman, who fairly reveled in aboriginal languages, gives this concerning the Abinaquis, in his sketch of North Conway :-

" The Ale-zhone-ke-we-ne confederacy, located in the northeast, on territory between Mass-ad-chu-set, 'near the great hills or mountains,' now called Massa- chusetts, on the south, and Hech-sepe, 'chief river,' now called St Lawrence, on the northeast, were called the Ab-e-na-kies. This name is thought to be a disguise of the name Wan-ban-ak-kees, which by some Indians is pronounced Oob-an-ak-kees. This name was probably applied to distinguish them as the people dwelling in the region of the Wan-ban-ben, 'Aurora Borealis,' or Northern Lights.' So the name Abenakees appears to mean the 'Northern Light People.'. The elements of this name has place in many Indian names in the country they occupied. Their confederate sign manual or totem was 'Great Bear,' Masse-machks, which is a corruption of the Ale-zhone-ke-we-ne term for 'Great Bear,' Mishe-mo-kweir. Probably the name Mich-mack and Merrimack had their origin from this name -one given to the Indians resident on the river, the other the river itself."

Wigwams. - The Algonquin Indians made their wigwams small and round, and for one or two families only ; while the Iroquois built theirs long and narrow, cach for the use of many families. The Algonquin wigwam was made of poles set up around a circle, from ten to twelve feet across. The poles met at the top, forming a circular framework, which was covered with bark-mats or skins ; in the centre was the fire, the smoke escaping from a hole in the top. In these wigwams men, women, children, and dogs crowded promiscuously together in complete violation of all our rules of modern housekeeping.

Social Life, Government, and Language. - The government of the Indian

INDIAN HISTORY.

was completely patriarchal. The only law was the custom of the tribe ; conforming to that, he was otherwise as free as the air he breathed to follow the bent of his own wild will. In his solitary cabin he was the head of his family, and his " squaw " was but his slave to do the drudgery. Over tribes were principal chiefs called sachems, and lesser ones called sagamores. The direct succession was invariably in the female line. The war-chiefs were only leaders in times of war, and won their distinction only by their valor on the warpath. The Indian language, in the language of modern comparative philology, was neither monosyllabic like the Chinese, nor inflecting like that of the civilized Caucasian stock, but was agglutinating, like that of the northwest- ern Asiatic tribes and those of southeastern Europe. They express ideas by stringing words together in one compound vocable. The Algonquin languages were harsh and guttural, not euphonious like that of the Iroquois. Contrast the Algonquin names A-gi-o-cho-ok, Co-os, Squa-ke-ag, Am-os-ke-ag, Win-ni-pi- se-o-gee, Waum-bek-ket-meth-na, with Hi-a-wath-a, O-no-a-la-go-na, Kay-ad-ros- se-ra, Ska-nek-ta-da.

Food. - The Indians had fish, game, nuts, berries, roots, corn, acorns, squashes, a kind of bean called now " seiva " bean, and a species of sunflower, with roots like an artichoke. Fish were speared or taken with lines, nets, or snares, made of the sinews of deer or fibres of moosewood. Their fish-hooks were made of the bones of fishes or of birds. They caught the moose, the deer, and the bear in the winter season by shooting with bows and arrows, by snaring, or in pitfalls. They cooked their fish by roasting before the fire on the end of a long stick, or by boiling in closely woven baskets, or stone or wooden vessels. They made water boil, not by hanging over the fire, but by the constant immersion of hot stones. The corn boiled alone was " hominy ;" with beans, "succotash."

Religion. - The aborigines had but a vaguely crude idea, if an idea at all, of religion. They had no priests, no altars, no sacrifice. They had "medicine- men " - mere conjurors - who added nothing to the mysterious awe and super- stition which enveloped the whole race. The Indian spiritualized everything in nature ; heard " aery tongues on sands and shores and desert wildernesses," saw " calling shapes and beckoning shadows dire " on every hand. The flight or cry of a bird, the humming of a bee, the crawling of an insect, the turning of a leaf, the whisper of a breeze, all were mystic signals of good or evil import, by which he was guided in the most important undertakings. He placed the greatest confidence in dreams, which were to him revelations from the spirit-world, guiding him to the places where his game lurked, and to the haunts of his enemies. He invoked their aid on all occasions to instruct him how to cure the sick, or reveal to him his enemies.

Three centuries of contact with our civilization has unchanged him, and he is still the wild, untamed child of nature. "He will not," says Parkman, " learn

HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY.

the arts of civilization, and he and his forest must perish together. The stern, unchanging features of his mind excite our admiration from their immutability ; and we look with deep interest on the fate of this irreclaimable son of the wilderness, the child who will not be weaned from the. breast of his rugged mother."

A powerful confederacy of tribes occupied New Hampshire and Maine when Captain Smith sailed along the coast and named New England. The leading chief was the one who ruled over the Penobscot tribe, which dwelt along the river of that name. Shortly after this (1615) the Taratines sent war parties from Acadia and captured the chief village of the Penobscots, and nearly exterminated the tribe. This dissolved the confederation, and a season of civil war and anarchy ensued. The Taratines, flushed with victory, sent forces by land and sea against the various tribes, and conquered all opposition. It was a war of extinction to the weak tribes. There was no time for hunting, fishing, or corn-planting, and a grievous famine fell on those whom the toma- hawk had spared. Closely following this, and in conjunction therewith (1616), a mysterious plague developed rapidly near the sea, and raged through a wide extent of territory for three successive summers, sweeping away whole tribes, and leaving a solitude in the most populated sections. Nine tenths of the Indian population was exterminated by the combined action of the three forces of war, famine, and pestilence. As these ceased, new tribal arrangements were formed, and a confederation of thirteen tribes was organized with the historic Passaconaway, of Pennacook, as bashaba, or chieftain.

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History of Carroll County, New Hampshire, Part 4

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