USA > New Hampshire > Merrimack County > Concord > History of Concord, New Hampshire, from the original grant in seventeen hundred and twenty-five to the opening of the twentieth century, Volume I > Part 2
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PHYSICAL FEATURES.
ny Cook," origi- nally attached to this locality. Horse Shoe island is an- other instance of similar severance and transfer by the river of some sev- enty-five acres from its east to its west side, at some re- mote date in the aboriginal period. This pond plainly indicates a previ- ous river channel now largely oblit- erated by decayed aquatic vegetation and silt.
During the last € sixty years, the riv- P er has moved east- ward from its for- mer bank, near the south end of Main street, 1500 feet and south-easterly 1200.1 Twice since Badger's Plan of the Course of Merrimack River in 1855. 1885 has the Wyatt house, upon the bluff opposite that point, been moved back on account of the river's encroachments.
In 1855 a tract of land situated in the upper part of Wattanum- mon's field, bought by the late Benjamin Farnum of the heirs of Capt. Eliphalet Emery, had an area of forty acres. Measured in June, 1900, it was found to contain but about twenty-seven acres, the river having in the meantime washed away thirteen, being an average of about twenty-nine one hundredths of an acre each year, and corre- spondingly increased the flat upon its opposite shore. Tradition says that this transfer was initiated by the removal of the bushes which once lined its southerly bank.
Since 1726 the largest portion of seven lots formerly abutting upon the Fan road have been washed away and about thirty-five
1
HAR
HARD
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PLAINS
ARD
M
1 Measurements of Maj. Lewis Downing, Jr.
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HISTORY OF CONCORD.
acres, formerly upon the south side of the river, must now be sought for on its north side or in its channel. According to the survey of the interval, made in the year just mentioned, the river was distant from the East Concord road, by way of the Fan road, two hundred and twenty-three rods. Its distance is now (June, 1900) but one hundred and fifty. During the last seventy years the Fan point has moved eastward some fifty rods, and the bluff opposite has receded a like distance.
A marked change in the river's course has occurred at Penacook, a few rods below the Northern Railroad station. Here many acres have been washed away from the northerly side of the Rolfe interval, while its easterly side has been greatly enlarged at the expense of the land adjoining the river's opposite shore.
One result of the turning of the entire volume of the river into its east channel, at the upper end of Sewall's island, has been a severe abrasion of its east bank for a distance of half a mile or more and a corresponding accretion to its opposite shore of some twenty- five acres.
Another has been a later infringement of the river upon its west- ern shore, just below the south end of this island, whereby land to the amount of three or four acres has been washed away and serious injury done to the fields below by covering their rich soil with coat- ings of barren sand.
A large portion of its former channels on the west side of Sewall's island and of Goodwin's point, from which the Northern Railroad excluded the river in 1846, has since been filled with sand and decayed vegetation. Eventually but few traces of its occupancy will remain.
It is interesting to observe upon the river's present flood plain its more recent changes of course. Those of prehistoric dates, however, are mostly obscure, and, like the movements of the aborigines, can be traced with difficulty and uncertainty.
The changes of the river's course thus far mentioned have been natural changes. Allusion should not be omitted to an artificial one, made, and before alluded to, by the Northern Railroad in 1846, whereby the peninsula known as Goodwin's point, of about forty acres, was cut off by the river's diversion to a new channel excavated across its junction to the main land.
The abrasions above mentioned have been often arrested by coat- 'ing the slopes of endangered banks with rubble. In a few years bushes generally take root beneath it, around which sand gathers and renders them sufficiently firm to successfully resist all assaults of floods and ice, and breakings no longer occur. About fifty years
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PHYSICAL FEATURES.
ago some one hundred and twenty-five rods of the river's south bank above Federal bridge was thus protected, and no loss by washing has since taken place. Like action, with like results, has been taken at other exposed sections.
From the foregoing statements it will be seen that the surface of Concord consists, approximately, of :
Post-tertiary drift, of various elevations 23,666 acres.
Modified drift, mostly of plain surface 8,837
River alluvium
4,547
Water areas
2,000
Whole area 39,050 6
The soil varies, from the dry and porous sand of the pine plains and the fine humus-bearing alluvium of the interval, to the more or less rocky and clayey formations of the post-tertiary age.
Somewhat more than half of the land in Concord is suitable for tillage, while the remainder, too rough for the plough, is well adapted to grazing and to the production of wood and timber. Here and there, on limited areas, the underlying rock formation protrudes above the surface and supplies material for one of the city's greatest industries. Millions of cubic yards of choicest granite have been taken from Rattlesnake hill, and millions of millions more await the quarryman's drill.
The importance of the subject seems to warrant farther allusion to the soils of Concord. There are four leading varieties :
1. The alluvial soil of the interval. This is fine grained, fairly moist, granitic, and contains assimilable plant food sufficient to pro- duce moderate crops of ordinary farm products without amendment. It is free of stones and easily manipulated. Adequate fertilization renders it highly productive.
2. The modified drift soil of the plains. This is of coarser texture than the foregoing, is more porous, contains but little humus, is easily affected by droughts, holds manures in a loose grasp, and is subject to early frosts. It is better adapted to cereals than to grasses. It is a little more easily wrought than the land of the interval. With proper culture, it yields moderate crops of rye, oats, corn, buckwheat, grass, and roots.
3. The upland soil. This is usually warm, friable, retentive of moisture, well supplied with humus, and adapted to the production of almost all ordinary farm crops. But it is often pretty full of stones when first cleared of the forest. Until thesc are removed, its manipulation is laborious and expensive.
4. Mucky Soils. Frequent tracts of these, of varying arcas, arc
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HISTORY OF CONCORD.
found in all considerable sections of Concord. Some of them consist of decomposed vegetation and the wash of surrounding hills, some of decayed aquatic plants, mingled with river silt. They are all more or less rich in nitrogen and some of them in potash. When properly drained, they make grass fields of much value. As yet, but few of them have been very thoroughly improved.
The soil-sheet which covers the underlying rock formation of Con- cord varies much in thickness. The latter undulates in sudden elevations and depressions, and the stratum of earth resting upon it conforms, more or less, to these. At the works of the Page Belting Company, on Penacook street, the surface of the bed rock has been found at a depth of about eighty feet below that of the ground; at Toof's laundry, just west of Main street, between School and Warren streets, at fifty-seven and a half feet; at the Concord & Portsmouth Railroad bridge, at Turkey Falls, at about twenty feet.
It may be further remarked of the surface of Concord that it rises on each side from the river's level by three broad steps to elevations of from four to five hundred feet on its western and the northern half of its eastern border. Along the southern half of the latter it sinks to the level of the Soucook river, which forms the city's southeastern boundary.
The first step upwards from the Merrimack to the interval makes a rise, varying from three or four to fifteen feet. The second from the interval to the plain makes another of from a hundred to a hun- dred and twenty feet. From the plain the ground ascends in irregular slopes to the side lines before mentioned.
The surface of the two first steps is nearly level, the variations therefrom rarely exceeding ten feet. That of the third is very uneven. On the west side of the river it is characterized by three parallel ranges of hills and intervening valleys, the crests of the former some- times rising into conspicuous summits designated by particular names.
Along the first or most easterly range, on the west side of the Merrimack, are found Rum, Parsonage, Dagody, and Rattlesnake sum- mits, rising to the respective altitudes of five hundred, six hundred and seventy-five, six hundred and forty, and seven hundred and eighty-three feet above the level of the sea.
In the second are found the summits known as Silver hill, having a height of four hundred feet ; Jerry hill, of seven hundred and twenty- five ; Pine hill, of eight hundred and teu; and Horse hill, of seven hundred and sixty.
Along the third range, which skirts the Hopkinton line, rise Stick- ney hill, having an altitude of five hundred feet; Dimond Hill, of six hundred and eighty ; and Beech hill, of seven hundred and seventy-five.
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PHYSICAL FEATURES.
On the east side of the river the high ground is confined to a single chain of hills, commencing near Sewall's Falls and sweeping around easterly and southeasterly, in a semi-circle to the Soucook. In this are found the rounded elevations known as the Mountain, Oak hill, and the broken ground, having in the order of their men- tion altitudes of seven hundred, nine hundred and thirty, and seven hundred and twenty feet.
STREAMS.
Merrimack River. The principal river of Concord is the Merrimack. The headwaters of its most northern west branch are found about the bases of the Pemigewasset, Profile, and Flume mountains, in Lincoln and Franconia ; while those of its most northern east branch may be traced to the feet of Mount Willey, in Bethlehem, and of the moun- tains in Waterville and Livermore.
Along its banks and those of its main tributaries, in aboriginal times, lay important Indian trails from the mountains to the ocean. These formed sections of one of the great Indian routes from the Canadas to the Massachusetts coast. As the red man receded west- ward, they were broadened to carriage highways, to be paralleled in time by steam and electric railroads.
From the top of Sewall's Falls dam to the foot of Garvin's Falls, the Merrimack makes a descent of fifty feet, furnishing to Concord a single water-power of about fifteen feet at the falls first mentioned. Its volume, which has an average summer width of about four hun- dred feet, is considerably increased within this city's limits by the waters of the Contoocook, which enter it at Penacook, and by those of several minor streams along its banks.
The population of the Merrimack valley, if it be allowed to consist of the two tiers of towns which line its banks from its main forks at Franklin to its mouth at Newburyport, is probably denser than that of any other extra-urban section of the United States. While, in 1890, the population of New Hampshire numbered 41.31 persons to the square mile, of Massachusetts 278.41, and of Rhode Island 318.44, that of the Merrimack valley was 471.
Contoocook River. The stream next in size to the Merrimack is the Contoocook. It enters the city near its northwest corner, and after flowing southerly and easterly in a tortuous course of about seven miles, joins the Merrimack at Penacook. It has an average width of some two hundred feet, and from the top of the dam at Contoocook River Park to its outlet it makes a descent of one hun- dred and eleven feet, furnishing at different points four important water-powers. To these the flourishing village just mentioned is largely indebted for its prosperity.
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HISTORY OF CONCORD.
Turkey River. Turkey river, a much smaller stream than the Contoocook, drains the ponds bearing this name. It has a varying width of some twenty to thirty feet, and a length of about three miles. At the end of a total fall of a little more than three hundred feet, it joins the Merrimack in Bow, near the north line of that town, having furnished six mill privileges along its course, the upper four of which are in Concord. Of these, only two are now utilized. For- merly the four at and near St. Paul's School were occupied by a grist- mill, a clothing mill, and two sawmills.
This stream has interesting associations with literary celebrities. Upon its bank Nathaniel H. Carter, Concord's earliest and sweetest poet, was born, September 17, 1787. During the last half century it has had intimate relations with the boys of St. Paul's School, similar to those existing between the Thames and the boys of the ancient school at Eton. Half a mile from it Dr. John Farmer, in his day the most distinguished historian and genealogist in New England, breathed his last, on the 13th day of August, 1838. In the same house, some five years later, passed from earth the spirit of the gifted Mary Clark, on the 9th day of May, 1841.
Soucook River. The Soucook forms the southeastern boundary of Concord, separating it from Pembroke and belonging in part to each township. From the point where it first touches the territory of the latter in a straight line to its mouth, the distance is about six miles and three quarters. By the stream it is a little over ten. It has an average width of some forty-five feet and furnishes two small water- powers of seven and nine feet fall, respectively, and in its entire course makes a descent of one hundred and eight feet.
Mill Brook. This stream receives the overflow of Turtle pond and, after pursuing a westerly and southwesterly course for some two miles and a quarter, enters the Merrimack near East Concord village. In this distance it falls nearly one hundred feet. While its volume is not large, it affords three small mill powers, two of which were improved as early as 1729, the first utilized in Concord.
Hackett's Brook. This is a small stream, supplied by the overflow of Hot Hole and Snow's ponds. From the former to the river, which it enters just above Sewall's falls, it makes a descent of two hundred and thirty-three feet.
Bow and Wood's Brooks. These, starting in a single stream from the cast side of Little pond, take separate courses at the junction of the Little pond and Woolson roads. The first pursues a southeast- erly course for about four miles through the woods, the county jail lot, the state hospital farm and other estates, to Turkey river, in Bow. The latter passes easterly through the woods, Blossom Hill
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PHYSICAL FEATURES.
cemetery and other lands for a distance of about a mile and a half, to Horse Shoe pond. Some fifty years ago it furnished power to a small sawmill located a few rods east of the main entrance to Blossom Hill cemetery. Of late years the removal of the forest has restricted its flow to a portion only of the year.
In addition to these streams there are others in different parts of the city, varying in length from one to three miles each, of which the limits of this chapter allow no extended mention. Of this number are Wattanummon's brook, which connects Horse Shoe pond with the Merrimack ; Ash brook, which rises at the foot of Beech hill and joins Turkey river near St. Paul's School ; Beaver Meadow brook, which drains the bog at West Concord ; Willow Hollow brook, which enters the Merrimack from the west about a mile south of Penacook ; Burnham's and Bowen brooks, which also discharge their waters into the Merrimack at East Concord, and others of yet minor importance.
Various causes have operated to the reduction of the several vol- umes of these streams. They all carry less water than formerly. Yet the statement is made that, upon the Merrimack and its tributa- ries, more cotton is spun and woven than upon any other river in the world ; a fact which accounts for the important towns and cities which occupy its banks, at intervals, all the way from Lake Winnepesaukee to the sea.
PONDS.
In depressions among the hills may be found the seven ponds before mentioned, each of sufficient area to claim a brief mention. Of these two are in the northeasterly section of the city, one, Snow's pond, lying between the Mountain and Oak hill ; and Turtle pond, situated about a mile south of it, between Oak hill and the Broken ground. The former has an elevation of one hundred and ninety-five feet above the river, an area of sixty-two acres and a watershed of four hundred and ninety-two. The latter lies ninety-nine feet above the Merri- mack, has an area of one hundred and forty-six acres and a water- shed of fourteen hundred and fifty. On the west side of the river, in the southwest section of the city, are two ponds, respectively desig- nated as Turkey and Little Turkey. They lie near to each other in the depression between Silver, Stickney, and Dimond hills. The first has an area of two hundred and thirty-nine acres and a watershed of fifteen hundred and seventy-one. The second has an area of thirty- five acres and a watershed of five hundred and fifty-five. The former lies one hundred feet above the river and the latter ninety.
In the depression surrounded by Rattlesnake, Jerry, Pine, and Par- sonage hills, a little west and north of the centre of the city, lies Long pond, the largest within its limits, one hundred and seventy-
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HISTORY OF CONCORD.
nine feet above the river. It has an area of three hundred and thirty- eight acres and a watershed of nineteen hundred and twenty.
In a small hollow, high on the Rattlesnake range, is found a small body of water known as Little pond. It covers some five. acres and lies within a watershed of about thirty-five.
Just above the north end of Main street, in a former channel of the river, may be found a semi-circular body of water known as Horse Shoe pond. It originally had an area of some sixty acres. By the growth of aquatic vegetation, successive deposits of river silt in times of inundation and drainage, its surface has been reduced to about fifteen acres and its original form changed from that of a horse shoe, whence has come its name, to that of a semi-circle. It is fed in part by springs and in part by Wood's brook, which carries to it a portion of the outflow of Little pond and the drainage of some of the southeastern slopes of Rattlesnake hill. It has an elevation above the summer surface of the Merrimack of about three feet.
All of these ponds, with the exception of Long pond, are wholly or partially surrounded by low, wet, and level meadows, composed largely of decayed vegetable matter, the accumulation of unknown periods, which have encroached upon their original areas. Of this process Horse Shoe pond furnishes a marked example.
To the ponds already mentioned might be added a small one at Fort Eddy, formed by the Merrimack, in 1828, when it cut for itself a new channel ; and another at Sugar Ball, produced in the same way, three years later.
In addition to these are several artificial ponds, the largest of which are the Asylum pond, made in 1848 by the damming of Bow brook, which has an area of about six acres; the semi-circular pond near Sewall's Falls, made by the Northern Railroad in 1846 by a transfer of the river to a new channel cut for it across the base of Goodwin's point; and the pond on the west side of Sewall's island, formed at the same time by this railroad, which closed the west channel of the river and forced its whole volume into that on the east side of the island.
FRESHETS.
The Merrimack has ever been subject to occasional overflows, resulting from heavy rains or melting snows upon its watershed and those of its tributaries. These have varied in height from a few feet up to a score or more, and inundated more or less of its interval. In some instances the interval has been entirely submerged.
Of these freshets we possess but imperfect records. Tradition says that one of the highest occurred about 1784 and also that, in 1799, the timber of the house now occupied by Dr. William G.
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PHYSICAL FEATURES.
Carter (No. 244) at the north end of Main street was floated to its destination on the waters of a freshet.
Benjamin Kimball, who lived for many years near the east bank of the river at Sugar Ball, and there kept a ferry, makes mention in his diary of a winter freshet in January, 1772, which broke up the ice in the river and strewed it far and wide over the interval. He also records the occurrence of two other ice freshets ; one on the 5th of April, 1819, and the other on the 10th and 11th of February, 1824; the first of which swept away Federal bridge and the second a part of it.
Of the first of these, the New Hampshire Patriot and State Gazette in its issue of April 13, 1819, remarks : "The heavy rain of Sunday night last week (April 4) producing a sudden breaking up of the ice in Merrimack river, the northerly bridge in this town and the turn- pike bridge at Isle Hooksett was rendered impassible by carrying away three piers in the former and one pier in the latter. Prepara- tions had been made for the erection of a new bridge in this town, in the anticipation that the old one would be unfit for use after the present season ; so that the inconvenience, though great, will be only temporary."
Of the latter the same paper says, on the 16th of February, 1824 :
"On Thursday last a flood, the most tremendous ever known in this part of the country, took place. The extreme cold of the pre- ceding week was followed on Tuesday and Wednesday by southerly winds, which increased to a gale on the evening and night of that day, during the greater part of which rain descended in torrents. The solid coat of ice which covered the ground, while melting it added to the quantity of water, prevented the earth from receiving it, and the whole rushed toward and filled the smaller streams, pushing thence into the river; in a few hours the thick ice giving away, swept bridges and everything else in the way into the mass of undistinguished ruin. . The cakes of ice, some of which are more than two feet in thickness, lie pile on pile on the interval ground in this vicinity. . The following is the best informa- tion of damage we have been able to gather: . . Concord lower bridge, two stone piers and a part of the body of the bridge carried off. Concord upper bridge (new), one wooden pier and about two thirds of the body carried away."
Mr. Kimball further states that, in 1826, during the 30th of August freshet, the river rose twenty fect above low-water mark, and that, upon its subsidence, three days later, forty-seven men were engaged in digging potatoes at Sugar Ball that they might prevent the loss of them by decay.
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HISTORY OF CONCORD.
Dr. William Prescott says (Bouton's Hist. Concord, p. 773) that the April freshet of 1850 submerged the whole interval; while twenty years later Mayor John Kimball remarks in his address to the City Council that the ice freshet of 1872 " did serious injury to four of the seven bridges across the Merrimack and Contoocook rivers."
Twice, certainly, within the last fifty years has high water washed away so much of the road-bed of the Concord & Montreal Railroad, between the Concord station and its East Concord bridge, as to render it impassable for nearly a week in each instance.
In a communication to the Concord Daily Monitor, January 29, 1894, H. N. Robinson of Pittsfield says: "I remember a Mr. Moulton, who lived near us, saying that he rowed his boat into several houses in East Concord, and in one he had run the nose of his boat into the brick oven. I can remember the ice piled high on the Free bridge road, between the bridge and the hill to the east, some four feet deep ; left there by a mid-winter freshet. The last of these high freshets which I recall was in October, 1868, when the railroad between Concord and East Concord was submerged."
The recent freshet of 1895 covered the iron of the Northern Railroad at Penacook street to a depth of from three to four inches, and the water about the Rolfe and Rumford Asylum rose to within eighteen inches of the first floor of the institution. This freshet, the highest within the remembrance of persons now living, covered the entire interval in the central part of the city with the exception of some ten square rods of the summit of Wattanummon's hill. The water of the freshet of 1896 rose nearly as high and covered most of the river's flood plain.
ELEVATIONS.
Dates.
Elevations in feet above datum line.
1851
18.99
1859
17.98
1862, April 22
19.64
1865, March
18.93
1869, April 22
18.22
1869, Oct. 5
20.18
1870, April 20
19.90
1873, Oct. 22
16.68
1874, Jan. 9
16.78
1878, Dec. 12
20.09
1886, Jan. 6
16.60
1895, April 17
21.65
1896, March 2
21.53
1897, July 15
17.48
1900, April 20 .
16.12
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PHYSICAL FEATURES.
The foregoing list of the flood elevations above the city's datum line (low-water mark) at the Concord bridge, since 1851, a period of forty-nine years, has been kindly furnished by Frank A. Merrill, assistant chief engineer of the Boston & Maine Railroad.
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