USA > New Hampshire > Coos County > Lancaster > History of Lancaster, New Hampshire > Part 35
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The moose seems almost to have been an antediluvian animal and out of place in the highlands of New England. The long fore legs precluded grazing from level ground, or from drinking from the level of its feet. It could only browse on twigs and trees, sometimes inserting its teeth through the bark, stripping it off and masticating as it raised its head. I remember, while on the state boundary in 1858, after seeing moose signs, coming upon a mountain ash that had been stripped in the manner indicated, to a height of thirteen feet from the ground. Another peculiarity of the moose was the uncouth long upper lip, prehensile almost like a trunk, the broad nostrils that could be tightly closed, the false lid to the eye, all indicating the adaptability of the animal to feed under water; and indeed it was and is their custom, as is well known, to congregate in the soft, muddy margins of the ponds, feeding largely on lily pads and the roots of the pond lily, which they tore up from beneath the water.
Major Weeks's manuscript, before referred to, gives this description of the horns of this forest monarch : "Nothing can exceed the symmetry and beauty of the limbs and horns of the moose. The round part of the horns, or that next the head, is about fourteen inches in length, when it becomes palmated, and is in
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THE NATURAL HISTORY OF LANCASTER.
some instances twelve inches broad, surmounted, in one instance, told me by Edward Spaulding, now living (1839), by seventeen spikes on each horn. A horn now before me is one and one half inches in diameter at the base, and eight inches in length, terminating in a point. The largest class of horns spread five feet, and weigh about five hundred pounds."
The last moose familiar to Lancaster people was one owned and kept by Louis Annance, a St. Francis Indian, who forty-five years ago had a lodge a mile east of the village, near the Sawacoonauk or Isreals river. Annance was a tame Indian, and a member of the Ancient Masonic Lodge at Lancaster. He, how- ever, lived in the style of his fathers-his pappooses were strapped to boards and hung up in the lodge or carried on the back when traveling, and the moose was kept for exhibition.
From the manuscript of Major Weeks before referred to, I copy a description of the location of these animals together with some hints as to their habits.
About two miles southwest of the town centre is a large tract of alluvial land called " Martin Meadow " (the meadows in the present school district No. 2), from an early hunter whose name was Martin. He caught an immense number of beaver from Beaver brook, which meanders through the meadow; beaver dams on this brook can yet be traced in one instance for about fifty rods in length and near five feet in height. There are others of less extent, yet all exhibiting extra- ordinary skill and ingenuity, superior to some bipeds who attempt the erection of dams. The banks of this brook are perforated in hundreds of places, which show the former residences of bank beaver, a kind smaller than those wonderful archi- tects who build dams and erect houses, several feet in diameter, with a layer of poles through the middle which divides them into two stories, in one of which, their food for winter, consisting of bark and small poles, cut about two feet in length, is deposited, while the other, covered with leaves, is their resting place during the inclement season. The entrance to both kinds of habitation is always below low water mark, from which point they ascend, through a subterranean passage, often several rods long, to their dark, yet comfortable, abode.
The Beaver brook, here referred to, from the clearing up of the land around its sources, has much shrunk in volume, and now flows sluggishly through the low meadow, known to its owners as " the bog." It enters the Connecticut near the " Brick Schoolhouse," near which was the residence of Edwards Bucknam, a follower of " Governor Page," the first settler of the town. "He was a man," says the record, " of unbounded hospitality and usefulness, was a dead shot with his ' smooth bore,' could draw teeth, let blood, perform the duties of priest in marrying, was one of the most skilful and accurate surveyors in the state, was proprietor and town clerk (his house and records being destroyed by fire in 1772), was afterwards general of militia, became regardless of property and died poor." It may be added that he was buried near his home, on the heights of a promontory overlooking the valley, where for an hundred years the whispering branches of the sentinel pines, standing over his lonely and unmarked grave, have told his story to the winds and sighed his requiem.
Wolves were frequent in the Cohos country at the time of its settlement, and did not entirely disappear until within the last thirty years. Old residents of Lancaster have informed me that they frequently heard, thirty-five years ago, the howl of the wolf from the woods east of the village, not more than half a mile distant. The last wolf captured in that town was about 1840, and by Mr. Edward Spaulding, then an old man, and one of the first white persons in town. He had set a trap on the northern slope of Mount Pleasant, near his farmhouse and south of the village, and repairing to it found therein a large gray wolf. The animal, by its struggles, was in danger of freeing himself, when Mr. Spaulding attacked him with a stake which he carried, and succeeded in disabling and finally killing him. I well remember, as a child, the sight of the skin as shown in the
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HISTORY OF LANCASTER.
village. and of the wondering interest with which I listened to the story of the battle between the old man with his club and the gaunt monster of the forests.
As exhibiting the numbers and ferocity of these dread animals during the earlier settlement of the Cohos country, I give the following incident, told me by my mother, who had it from her great-grandfather, John Mann, the first settler of Orford in the Lower Cohos, who came to that town in 1765, commencing his first house and clearing on the Connecticut interval, a little west of where the present homestead stands, on the broad main street running through that pleasant village.
Mr. Mann was engaged in clearing, and had in his employ a stalwart negro, who is remembered by tradition as especially powerful and fearless. Wolves abounded and were exceedingly fierce; indeed it was the custom to leave the woods, where choppers were engaged, each day before sundown. On the occa- sion referred to, the sun going down behind the hills on the west side of the Con- necticut, and the shadows beginning to darken the recesses of the forest, grand- father shouldered his ax, telling the negro to follow him, in his return to the house and security. The man was engaged on a giant tree and hesitated, saying that he meant to lay that low before leaving. Telling him that it was unsafe to remain, and bidding him follow, Mr. Mann started for home, expecting the black to obey him. Arrived there, he discovered that he was alone, but momentarily expected the arrival of the other. Night came but not the negro, and a great noise of wolves was heard in the woods he had left. It would have been death to return in the darkness alone, and through the hours of that long night, amid the howls from the forest, he waited, powerless to help or save. With the morning light he hastened to the spot where he left the man the day before, to find seven wolves lying dead, a bloody ax, and the ghastly relics of the daring fellow, who had remained at his work too long. He had been attacked by a ravenous pack, selling his life after a terrific struggle. I have never seen this incident in print, but I heard it in my childhood, and recently it was again told me, as it came from the aged pioneer, who told it to his great-grandchild in her girlhood.
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Deer abounded, but are now rare. They were finally driven away by chasing them with dogs, nor will they be plenty in the deep woods that yet remain if this practice is continued. Dogs follow them on the crust, as the wolves used to pursue and exterminate them, and the more limited forest area, together with the increased number of hunters in later years, has accomplished what the wolves failed to do, driven the deer absolutely from broad areas of our country. It is believed that where deer still remain, hunting with firearms alone will not depopulate or drive them away, but they fly from the lands when dogs are put upon their trail.
Deer formerly existed in vast numbers in the pine forests of Jefferson, Carroll, Whitefield, Dalton, and the southern part of Lancaster. This abundance was largely due to an agreement among the people of those towns to keep dogs off the deer, and many dogs were killed that they might not chase them. Another reason for the plentiful supply, aside from their natural fecundity and increase when in a manner protected, was because they fled from hunters and hounds used for their capture around Littleton and adjacent forests in Vermont. One hunter in Lancaster took forty deer in one season, and Mr. James B. Weeks one year, without effort or chase, shot fifteen from his farm on the southern slope of Mount Prospect. Deer are now comparatively rare.
The black bear was very common, and indeed is now frequently taken in Coös. A summer rarely passes wherein one or more are not captured on the slopes of the Pilot range and Starr King, not more than four or five miles from Lancaster village. The animal lives on roots and weeds, with occasional variations of diet, comprising berries, green corn, or a fat sheep from the outlying flock. He enjoys the wild turnip and other indigenous roots, digging them with one claw as neatly as a man would run his forefinger around in mellow ground; briefly,
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THE NATURAL HISTORY OF LANCASTER.
the food of the bear is whatever a hog eats, with mutton extra. They seldom attack men ; hardly ever unless in defence of their young.
Partridges, or ruffed grouse, were once, and until quite recently, very plenty ; just now, however, they are rare. This scarcity is attributable to the large increase of the red fox, who preys upon him with devastating effect. Reynard is not now poisoned as formerly, and hence has largely multiplied. His pelts abound in the country stores, and his tracks, after a light snow, trace a labyrinth over every field and hillside. Partridges have disappeared before him.
The wild pigeon, once also very plenty, is now comparatively rare. Thirty years ago every buckwheat field in the fall swarmed with pigeons. They had regular roosts, from which they swarmed down on the fields; an old device was to have a " pigeon bed " for a decoy, with a net so arranged as to be thrown over the bed at will, when the birds had alighted. I have the experience of a present citizen of Lancaster, who informs me that when a boy he caught forty dozen pigeons one autumn, from a bed on his father's farm on Mt. Prospect.
In the autumn of 1844 James W. Weeks of Lancaster was engaged in surveys in the extreme northern part of the county, near the boundary range. He says that he then on one occasion passed through a " pigeon roost" extending over a two hours' walk, the trees being full of nests built upon crossed twigs laid upon the branches ; the ground literally sprinkled with shells beneath them.
Salmon ceased in Cohos about 1808. Up to that time they came up the Con- necticut at least so far as Stewartstown, forty-five miles north of Lancaster, there being a notable place there known as the "Salmon Hole." They abounded in Lancaster and ascended the Ammonoosuc so far as the Fabyan place in the White Mountains. Mr. Edward Spaulding of Lancaster used to say that the early settlers relied as much on catching and salting down an annual barrel of salmon, as later farmers did upon salting down the yearly supply of pork. In the great eddy at the head of the "Fifteen Mile Falls" in Dalton, near the mouth of "John's river," the location of Captain John Stark's capture by the Indians, was a famous " salmon hole," where the noble fish apparently rested in the somewhat cooler water discharged by the smaller stream, after the ascent of the falls. Here people resorted from all the region round about, as they did to Namoskeag, and for a similar purpose. At the mouth of the Isreals river in Lancaster was a similar salmon hole.
The first dam across the Connecticut in Massachusetts was built about the end of the last century ; but these early dams, lower, and equipped with " aprons," did not offer the obstacles to the ascent of the stream by these vigorous fish pre- sented by their successors; and so the salmon, in lessened numbers, continued to return from the sea, until higher dams impeded their progress.
Recent efforts to restock the Connecticut and some of its tributaries with this fish have been only moderately successful, and can never be of practical avail until generous fishways are constructed at all the obstructing dams.
There is little absolute certainty that shad were once common to our waters, although at Littleton, in Grafton county, there is a record, in 1792, of the elec- tion of "inspectors of salmon and shad," leaving the presumption that shad were then known there. If so, they doubtless came higher up the streams.
Trout, the natural and delicious fish of New England, once peopled, in crowded abundance, every stream of our hills and ponds of our valleys. They have in some places disappeared before the voracious pickerel, but the sawdust of the lumberman is more fatal to them than the hunger of this destroyer or the arts of the angler. The day has passed when the local bard could truthfully record that-
" In the silent hollows, The red trout groweth prime For the miller and the miller's son To angle when they 've time."
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HISTORY OF LANCASTER.
For then, lulled, almost, by the drowsy monotone of the grist mills, the trout slumbered in each alder-shaded pool of all our streams.
Wherever there is a sawmill the dust clogs the stream and the trout disappear from below it. For trout to propagate and multiply, clear water is essential, with a reasonable large reach of still, deep water for a winter retreat. Obstacles removed, they suddenly reappear and rapidly multiply. A few years ago an old dam on the Otter brook, in Lancaster, was down and free egress given to the waters of the stream ; sawdust also ceased. A gentleman, going his rounds on the meadow below, saw in a shallow pool in the grass, several trout ; procuring a handful of shingles, by sticking them down, he cut off their retreat, and by gradu- ally advancing them, worked the fish upon the dry land, when he took eighteen fine trout, half filling a Shaker pail and weighing about one pound apiece. These fish had come down through the broken dam on the first opportunity and, in the absence of obstructions and the fatal sawdust, had multiplied and thriven. If the day ever comes when our streams are pure, they will again be filled with this delicious fish.
CHAPTER II.
LOCALITIES, STREETS, PARKS, AND CEMETERIES.
THE DERIVATION OF THE NAMES OF LOCALITIES AND PLACES IN AND ABOUT LANCASTER.
BY HON. JAMES W. WEEKS.
Lancaster and Lunenburg were undoubtedly named from the Massachusetts towns of the same name. It is reasonable to so attribute them, inasmuch as many of the original grantees were from the immediate vicinity of those Worcester county towns.
Martin's Meadow .- According to tradition one Martin in very early times trapped beaver on the vast meadows to which his name in time became attached. He seems, whoever he was, to have been of a roving disposition, and discovering these beaver meadows was accustomed to come to them to replenish his stores of furs. No. one ever knew where he came from or where he went. He must have come here a long time before the first settlers, for when they arrived they found the beaver dams somewhat gone into decay and the meadows covered with grass as the waters had receded. The fact of that meadow affording vast quantities of hay determined the first settlers to locate near it, as did the presence of grass on the Connecticut river determine the settlement of Stockwell and Page far up that stream. Major Weeks is authority for the statement that the beaver dams were five feet high, as much as fifty rods long, and covered with trees in his day. This fact would indicate vast numbers of them, and a long and uninterrupted occupancy of the streams to accomplish such stupendous results. Rev. Stephen Wil- liams, who, with his father, was captured by the Indians at the sack-
WHITE MOUNTAINS FROM DISTRICT NO. 10.
MARTIN MEADOW POND.
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LOCALITIES, STREETS, PARKS, AND CEMETERIES.
ing of Deerfield in 1704, and hunted and fished with them in Lower Coös for a long time, says in his diary, "We killed on one brook as many as eighty beavers." It is not unlikely that they visited this famous home of the beaver. At all events they must have been equally abundant here, from which fact the meadow is rightly named. The hills and pond adjacent to the stream and meadows have taken the same name-Martin Meadow hills, Martin Meadow pond.
Isreals River and Johns River .- These streams were named after Isreal and John Glines, brothers, who trapped along their waters. Each one located his camp on the stream that after a time was referred to as his river. At just what date they located here is not definitely known; but Johns river was known by that name when John Stark, who was captured by the Indians and carried to Canada in 1752, camped near the mouth of the river, and refers to it by that name in the account of his captivity. A tradition, accord- ing to General Bucknam, as related by Esquire Brackett, was that sometime prior to 1752, John Glines was passing up the Connecti- cut river in his canoe when an Indian shot at him from the shore, and missing his aim, Glines returned the fire killing the Indian. That, of course, made it unsafe for him to remain in the vicinity, as there was an unfriendly feeling existing between the Indians and whites at the time. The Glines brothers were said to have been connections of Mrs. Sally (Bishop) Stanley, and came from Bos- cawen, then Contoocook.
Indian Brook .- This brook running through the village, cross- ing North Main street near the jail, derives its name from the cir- cumstance of a few Indian families having their wigwams near its mouth shortly after the first settlers came here. There is a tradi- tion that one squaw died and was buried there, but that a short time afterward her bones were dug up and carried to Canada for Christian interment under auspices of Jesuit missionaries, who in those days exercised a great influence over the Indians of the region north of here who frequently sojourned along the head waters of the Connecticut.
Nash Stream .- This stream was named for one Sam Nash, a vagabond hunter, who hunted in that vicinity, and hung about Lieutenant Stanley's in hope of getting food and shelter from Mr. Stanley.
Nash and Sawyer's Location .- This location was named for Timothy Nash and Benjamin Sawyer, the former of Lancaster and the latter of Conway. They obtained a grant of land in 1771, in consideration of building a road through the Notch of the White Mountains. The whole of the grant laid to the west of the Notch, and was surveyed by Edwards Bucknam in 1773. Much has been
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HISTORY OF LANCASTER.
written and published concerning the discovery and improvement of the roadway through the Notch, and also concerning the names of the builders of that road that is misleading, which calls for correc- tion at our hands. Timothy Nash was a citizen of Lancaster. On the 12th of March, 1772, he was appointed one of a committee " to look out and mark out a road to Pigwaket." Nash had discovered the pass in 1771, while pursuing a moose which disappeared through the Notch. Confiding his secret to Sawyer, they hastened to the governor and got themselves appointed on a committee to lay out a road through the newly-discovered mountain pass, then an Indian trail of which there was legend. Sawyer does not seem to have had anything to do with the road north of the mountains. He was a well-known character about Conway, where many interesting anecdotes were told of him.
Sawyer's Rock derived its name from the fact that Benjamin Sawyer on one occasion was pursuing a moose that tried to ascend the rock, which was covered with ice, and fell backward off it, upon which Sawyer ran up and cut his " hamstrings " with a knife, a feat that brought to him great renown among the pioneers.
Burnside Meadows .- The extensive meadows of that name located in Lancaster and Northumberland, were originally beaver meadows to which one Burnside resorted for grass to feed his stock as he had not at the time of his settling in Northumberland cleared enough land to produce hay for stock.
Burnside Brook .- This is the brook running through Burnside Meadows, and derived its name from the same source-Thomas Burnside.
Otter Brook. - A small stream that empties into Isreals river from the north about half way between Lancaster Village and Jeffer- son Mills. It got its name from the otter that inhabited it in vast numbers. In the early records of the town it was known as Great brook also. The farm on which Spofford A. Way lives was named " Great Brook Farm " by Titus O. Brown, who lived upon it about that time, and upon which he raised the tobacco that formed the first article of commerce shipped through the White Mountain Notch road toward the sea-coast from Lancaster.
Great Brook .- This brook, as known to-day, was first called Marden's brook, but at a later date was changed to its present name, and with the smaller stream running between the houses of James and John Marden has taken the name of Marden's brook.
Mount Prospect .- The high mountain knob lying directly south of the village was named Mt. Prospect at a very early date on account of the extended view to be had from its summit of the entire surrounding country.
Mount Willard. and Willard's Basin .- Mt. Willard is the round
GREAT ROCK AND SCHOOLHOUSE.
GRANGE VILLAGE AND CHURCH.
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LOCALITIES, STREETS, PARKS, AND CEMETERIES.
mountain in Kilkenny. Willard's Basin is the large tract of com- paratively level land lying to the west of Mt. Willard. These were named for Jonathan Willard who came from Charlestown, N. H. He was a relative of Governor Hubbard and Hon. Enos Stevens, and also grandfather of Mrs. Soloman Hemenway. For some rea- son Willard abandoned his family and friends, and about the time Page, Stockwell, and Bucknam came to Lancaster he appeared. He was an eccentric character, and lived for many years in entire soli- tude in the forests, with no other company than his dog Pilot. Once in a while he would visit Captain Stockwell, and after remaining a few days return to his solitary retreat in the dense forest. After many years when he had become quite infirm his son came and took him back to Charlestown.
Egypt .- The extensive meadows, known as the " Brooks' Mead- ows," on the Connecticut river, now owned by Frank Smith & Com- pany, obtained the name of Egypt during the cold seasons prior to 1817, when they were the only lands in Lancaster on which corn would ripen, and "going to Egypt for corn" became a common expression. It is handed down by tradition as a fact that Col. Syl- vanus Chessman, who owned the land at that time, was accustomed to build fires around his cornfields to ward off the frost and thus save his corn crop from utter loss. These lands once belonged to Jeremiah Wilcox, an early settler who left town about 1800, after which the lands were owned by Ezra Brooks who occupied the Wilcox house which stood on the west side of the Dalton road, a short distance north of where Jason H. Woodward now lives.
Paris .- The farm next above Wilcox's on the river was called Paris from the circumstance that Colonel Chessman made plaster of Paris there which he used as a fertilizer on his lands. This material is otherwise known as gypsum, or land plaster.
THE STREETS AND PARKS .- NAMES OF STREETS, WHEN AND HOW NAMED .- CENTENNIAL PARK .- SOLDIERS' PARK.
Lancaster is noted for its broad, clean, and shady streets. Among the earliest settlers in the village there was an inherent love of trees, and the Lancaster of to-day is full of that most exquisite beauty that only trees can impart. The older streets, Main, North Main, Mid- dle and Elm streets, are lined with gigantic elms that almost arch the streets. There was an old elm standing in the middle of Main street nearly opposite Centennial park that was too sacred to cut down. It stood there defying the storms and pleasing the eyes of the people of Lancaster until Jan. 10, 1849, when it was blown down. There is an elm tree in front of Mary Young's house on Main street, planted by Titus O. Brown, 1795. Judge Everett at
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HISTORY OF LANCASTER.
a very early date planted a row of Lombardy poplars from the court- house down past where the Lancaster House now stands, but they have long since perished while the stately elms continue to hold up their heads full of life and beauty.
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