USA > New Hampshire > Belknap County > Sanbornton > History of Sanbornton, New Hampshire, Vol. I - Annals > Part 4
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Hampshire. The eye can "take in" a range of more than one hundred miles (say from La Fayette on the north to Grand Monadnock on the south), without changing one's position ; while some fifty or sixty of the other mountain summits of our American Switzerland greet the beholder.
As a " guide" to these for the benefit of future visitors in Sauborn- ton, not to say of its residents, many of whom seem
A guide for strangely ignorant of what can be seen from their native the landscape proposed. hills, let us follow round the circle or boundary line of vision, beginning with LA FAYETTE (1), * the highest mount- tain in view, sharply towering to the height of nearly five thousand three Imundred feet, with one of the twin Haystacks, as here known, equally sharp, a little to the east, and the other buttressed against and blended with La Fayette himself, only to be distinguished when the latter is capped, or in the greater distance more dimly visible. The correct names of these twin mountain peaks are probably Liseurr (2) and FLUME (3) .; Then follows, a little east and yet nearer to us in a due north direction, a noble collection of lofty peaks,
* These numbers correspond with those of Table and Diagram at close of chapter. t l'erhaps, Flume (2) aud Hitchcock (3).
C
HISTORY OF SANBORNTON.
grotesquely piled together, including WELen (4), Frsunt (5), and Tecussen (6), in the north part of Waterville, and reach- Mountains In the northeast ing into the hitherto . ungranted land," or late township of Livermore.
section ; la Fayette, Sand-
wich lange, Ossipee. The flat-topped BLACK MOUNTAIN (7) or SANDWICH DOME stands yet nearer to us, and is too prominent in the landscape to be overlooked, though really belonging to the wall- like and massive Sandwich Range. This range culminates, as the eye passes still eastward, in old WHITEFACE (8), true to his name, though embracing PASSACONAWAY (9), which appears like a wooded spur of Whiteface, slightly to the rear and fully as high ; his son, WONOLANSET (10) ; PAUGUS (11) a little behind ; and the weird Choconun (12), seeming to frown upon us like the Indian chief whose dying curse upon its sumuit has given it a name. The Sandwich Range, as we view it, terminates in Chocorua, and thus perpetuates in its four easterly peaks the memories of four distinguished Indians of New Hampshire. But in front of this range snugly nestles ISRAEL MOUN- TAIN (13), while behind it, to the left of Whiteface, two peaks of the THIPYRAMID (14) are visible, with the white mark of the famous land- slide of 1869 upon one of them, down to the line where intercepted by the range itself. Nor must the nearer RED HILL (15), of Centre Harbor, be omitted, almost in a line with Chocorua, or the more distant PEQUAWKET (16), beyond North Conway, which shows its blue, pointed features at the head of the great eastern valley, and the house upon its summit plainly discernible with a good glass. South of this valley are the rolling tops of Osstres (17), just across our beautiful bays and lake ; and yet farther to the right, or more nearly east of us, a solitary eminence in the dim distance, GREEN MOUNTAIN (18) by name, - blue . to us, - borders hard upon the contines of Maine, in the town of Ellingham, with PROSPECT MOUNT (19) in Freedom a little to the north.
Sweeping down, now, till the line of vision crosses the village of Laconia, we have our very near and familiar landmarks, the GUN- STOCK (20), BELKNAP (21), and BLUE MOUNTAINS (22), a noble trin- ity in unity, - the two latter being named Mounts MAJOR and Mixou: ou Lancaster's carly map of Gilmanton ; with a distant emi- neuce - probably TUMBLE-DOWN DICK (23), or MOUNT DELIONT. in Wolfeborough - just bearing to the left. This Belknap group is the beginning and " big end" of the so-called SUNCOOK RANGE, which stretches along with several symmetrical peaks, like the Mountains in the southeast well-known PEAKED HILL (24), - round to us, - over- Duction - tiun-
stock, Suncook looking the village of Gilmanton, and finally euds, to Range, Unca- our vision, with our finniliar neighbor, the BRAN Iln.L. hoonuc.
(25), of Northfield. We notice, however, peering above
--
VIEW FROM PARSONAGE LOT. (Belknap Mta.)
KEARSARGE MOUNTAIN. (From the site of William Prescott house.) See p. 7.
,
7
NATURAL FEATURES. - MOUNTAINS.
this range at two different points, the rough CATAMOUNT (26) of l'itts- field, and a dim wooded curve which is the crest of MeKor's Mous- TAIN (27) in Epsom. Over the western slopes of Bean Ilill, more- ever, we find our southern horizon bedecked, as it were, with beads of the purest sapphire, in the twin smmmits of UNCANOONCe (28), opposite Manchester, and the round tops of Jo ENGLISH (29) and the LYNDEBOROUGH ITILLS (30), the whole being pre-faced by RATTLESNAKE (31), and other well-known eminences in Concord and Hopkinton.
We have more than halved our proposed circle and reached the GRAND MONADNOCK (32) in Jaffrey, standing in solitary majesty upward of fifty miles away, and near the Massachusetts line, like some huge sentinel on our southern rampart, with his humble imitator the PACK MONADNOCK (33) a few miles to the cast. and
Mountains in the broad valley between the two sternly guarded by a long, shaggy pile with a still ruder name, Cuorenen
the southwest section - the Monadnocks,
Kearsarge,
. Rapged. MOUNTAIN (34) in Francestown ; the latter also being flanked ou its left (right to us) by the nearer, finely set, and four-headed CRANEY Hn.Ls (35) of Henniker. Now our line of vision is turning northward, we meet the table-like MINK HIL.L.s (36) in Warner, seeming to afford a good "jumping-off place" towards the south ; and presently we have overtaken the noble KEAR- SARGE (37), the most prominent of the mountains seen from San- bornton, and the grandest object in our western landscape, with the globe-like LOVEWELL'S MOUNTAIN (38) in Washington peeping from behind his southern slope (to the hill dwellers of Tilton), and the BALD SUNAPEE (39), of grisly aspect, near to the lake of the sante Dame, playing hide-and-seek behind his northern slope, being nearly as far distant from Kearsarge as that is from us. Within a few years past, the new building of the Colby Institute, in New London, has stood conspicuously upon our western horizon, just south of RAGGED MOUNTAIN (40) ; museen, to be sure, by the aborigines and early settlers of Sanbornton, though they, like us, doubtless found the mountain last cited ragged in nature as well as name, whenever they tried to ascend it !
Then follow in order the mountains of Hill : SARGENT's (41), chief, with its flat roof, and perhaps MOUNT PLEASANT (42) in Danbury or Grafton, and Horr Ihn. (43) in Orange, peering above their depres- sions, with Pimwie (44) in the foreground, seemingly a continua- tion of SANHOUSTON MOUNTAIN (45), - the whole finally rolling up into old CARDIGAN (46) of Alexandria, well known by his leaning top ; while SMART'S MOUNTAIN (47), overlooking the Connecticut Mountains in Valley from Dorchester and Lyme, discloses its abrupt the northwest southern face farther ou to the right and the northwest.
8
HISTORY OF SANBORNTON.
wetlon - Car. digan, Mooni.
But after all, one of the sublimest views of the whole series meets the eye that is gradually raised with a north- ward bearing, say from Parsonage Hill (northwesterly) over the blended peaks of Salmon Brook (45). "Alps ou Alps arise !" The different mountain tiers are often indicated by the different de- grees of haziness ; first, over Salmon Brook Mountains, the BiaDeE- WATER HILLS (48) ; then, over these, the PLYMOUTH MOUNTAINS (19) ; STINSON MOUNTAIN (50) in Rumney, surpassing the last ; Can: Moux- TAIN (51) in Warren, overtopping that ; and finally the broad-shonl- dered MOOSILNUKE (52), with his gigantie pile more than 1,800 feet above the sea, looking down over all from the great beyond.
Thence the Pemigewasset Range soon leads us round to our starting-point, MOUNT KINSMAN (53) being its highest eminence, and the upper cliffs of CANNON MOUNTAIN (54), and the place or "open- ing" of the far-famed Franconia Notch and its wonderful Profile being plainly seen on the west side of Lafayette. So much for the "mountains round about " Sanboruton.
We append to this chapter a diagram and table of the fifty-four mountains just described, which has been kindly prepared and faith- fully executed by Mr. Henry Nason Kinney, of Andover
Diagram and table of the Theological Seminary (1881-82). It will greatly facilitate foregoing the " finding " of the mountains, and will hence be a val-
Juountaind.
uable accompaniment to the foregoing description. The uminbers, both of diagram and table, are given in precisely the same order in which the names of the mountains have just been introduced.
PARSONAGE TILL is taken as a centre, from which the distances are indicated by circles, the first with a radius of ten miles, the other eight of five additional miles each, so that points on the outer circle are fifty miles from the centre. This, of course, as reckoned geographi- ically or in an air line ; while the same distances topographically, or as measured by the travelled roads, would prove about oue fifth greater.
The positions of the mountains are indicated, at least approximately, by the several figures (or the central point of each double figure), having been assigned with care, both as seen from Parsonage Hill, and calculated upon the new State map of New Hampshire (1878). Those eminences which cannot be actually seen from Parsonage Ilill, on account of intervening woods or highlands, but only from certain neigliboring and other heights in town, are indicated by (*). Those eminences which do not bound the horizon, wholly or in part, are indicated by (t). The altitudes are given in feet directly after the Dames ; those in larger figures are according to Prof. Hitchcock, in his State Survey ; the others are from older estimates, or estimates expressly made for this table from the State map. It will be seen
T
9
NATURAL FEATURES. - MOUNTAINS.
that only one of these catalogued mountains, as viewed from Sanborn- ton, is rated below 1,000 fect.
N
2 23
15
52
6
9
-
12
7
30
-
17
-
15
40
à
43
23
(57) (45) (:(0) (25) (30) (25)
42
221
1
2
24
33
30
36
30
55
27
34
30
92
-
S
1 LaFayette .. 5,259
20 Gunstock 2,062
"1 Belknap. 2,594
22 Blue Mt. 1,479
40 Ragged Mt. ......
41 Sargent's Sit ...... 1 , 110
5 Fisher * 3,900
42 Mt. Pleasant (?) .. 1,000
& Tecumseh * 4,000
43 Hoyt Hill( ? )(est.)
1,700
Black Mt. 4,000
25 Beau Hill
1,515
& Whitefuce .. 1,007
26 Catamount 1,3.11
27 MeKoy
1,690
lu Wonalancet
2,000
29 Uneanoonuc.
1.339
46 Cardigan .. .......
3,1.56
11 l'angus ..
3,200
2 Jo English.
1,100
Chocorua ..
5,640
30
Lyudeboro' Ilills.
1,500
48 Bridgewater Hills 1.500
13 lerael t ..
2,000
31 Katdesuake ;..... 783
3,718
50 Stinson Mt.t ......
15 lied Hillt.
33 Pack Monadnock.
2,289
51 Carr Mt ..
3.522
16 l'equawhet.
3,251
34 Crotched Mlt .. ....
2,000
Mousilauke ..
17 Ossipee
2,361
33 Craney Hills 1,420
53 Mt. Kinsman.
18 Green Mt.
1,700
So Mink Ililla 1,528
54 Cannon Mt .. ....
3,550
19 Prospect
1,UUU
37 Kearsarge. 2,943
08 Lovewell's Mt .*.. 2.197
Liberty (?) t .. ... 1,500
3 Flume Nt .. 4,500
4 Welch Mt. * t. ...
3,500
23 Tumble- Down Dick (?).
1,200
24 Peaked Mill
1,400
# l'eriwig t .. .......
1, INU
l'assaconaway . 4,200
45 Samboruton, or sul- mou Brook .....
2,200
47 Stuart's Mit. * (est.)
49 l'lymouth Mt ..... 1,000
14 'T'ripyramid 1,100
52 Grand Monadnock
39 Bald Sunapee ....
--
45
26
CHAPTER II.
NATURAL FEATURES. - GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS. - TREES.
" And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything." - SHAKESPEARE.
The surface of our town, aside from its mountain heights already named, largely consists in gravelly ridges, or " swells " of strong, fertile soil, extending and descending in a sontherly direction towards the two principal streams, the Salmon Brook and Winni- Surface; ridges aud piseogee. Between these ridges is a constant succession gurges. of gorges or . gulf's," through which most of the brooks, previously mentioned, tind their courses. As one travels across the town, east or west, he must therefore encounter this tedions but often picturesque series of hills and ravines. In some localities these ridges extend almost to the brinks of the streams, affording some of our best tillage farms on their very banks ; as instance the Dearborn and Philbrick places; near Tilton village. In other cases, an extensive sweep of sandy or pebbly plain intervenes between the ridges and the streams, as in that below Little Bay, renowned for its blueberries from time inmemorial, or that which extends l'lains, bottom above the junction of the Salmon Brook and Pemigewas- lands, mead- set, with its heavy growth of pine. The valley of the UWS.
Pemigewasset is prevailingly light and sandy, though the lower bottom lands are susceptible of profitable culture, as seen in those of the Morrison farm, on Lot No. 25, First Division (Frank- lin). The bottoms of the Winnipiseogee, where the ridges do not touch the river, present a more rugged or pebbly aspect, as at the foot of the Sanborn Road in Tilton. A succession of small marshes or meadows is found along most of the minor streams, though few of these have proved malarial, except perhaps in the upper sections of the Sahnon Brook Valley.
11
NATURAL FEATURES. - GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS.
The most remarkable of the " gulfs," or that half a mile below the
Square, was deemed worthy of special description as a The "pull": curiosity in the old gazetteers : - description romu Gazetteer. " Extending nearly a mile through very hard, rocky ground, thirty-eight feet in depth, the walls from eighty to one hundred feet nsunder, and the sides so nearly corresponding as to favor an opinion that they were once united. There is also a cavern in the deelivity of a hill [at the same gulf], which may be entered in a horizontal direction to the dis- tance of twenty feet."
This is the famous Devil's Den, which has been the theme for the " composition " of many a Saubornton school-child. To
The Devil's Den, from a quote from one of recent date : -
school .. com-
position." "It is in two compartments, formued by sharp, angular rocks tive or six feet in thickness, protruding over a clin. The per- pendicular height of the topmost rock outside, above the mouth of the cave, is twenty-one feet. The larger compartment is twenty-four feet in length, and six feet high at the entrance, with an average width of thirty-one inches, sides gradually receding to an angle, and a 'skylight' half-way up, two feet in diameter at the bottom and three at the top. The other compartment is eight feet high at its entrance, but shorter and more irregular in its dimensions."
The direction of the cavern floor is somewhat ascending rather than " horizontal," and the length of the "gulf" proper is considerably exaggerated in the above description ; but the perpendicular height of
the gulf bridge is twenty-five feet on its south side, while Depth of the over the debris to the gurgling waters below is fully fissure.
twenty-five feet more, as every gazer down that dizzy chasm will tell us.
Geologically considered, the peculiar surface and soil of Sanborn- ton are to be attributed to the so-called " Glacial Drift," The Glacial Drift. or the movement of ice masses in the primitive ages, as now in the arctic regions, with "hard rock fragments frozen into the bottom of the ice sheet." The direction of these masses is indicated by "long parallel scratches" called " strice," by which the durable rock is covered while the softer ledges have been "worn to a rounded form." The course of the " stria:"
Course of the in the towns of Sanbornton and Tilton is indicated in ** atrice " it Sauboruton. Ilitchcock's " Geology of New Hampshire " to have been.
upon an average, south 26° east, which corresponds very nearly with the general " lay" of the ridges or swells of land before mentioned, and the direction of the valleys or gulf's between them. Moreover, the bowlders or huge round rocks which these Distribution ul' bowlders. glaciers or icebergs were lust transporting from their native ledges, perhaps hundreds of miles to the northward, were
12
HISTORY OF SANBORNTON.
oftentimes distributed upon the surface, on the final melting of the ice, and are there left for our present inspection. One of these bowlers may be observed in Sanbornton on the top of a
Prominent ledge west of the turnpike, a little above Cawley Pond. buwlers in Sunboratou. A " nest" of them may be found on the right in a pasture at the foot of the hill, just before reaching the " Meadow School-Ilouse " from the west, and several others near J. N. Sanborn's, Lot No. 21, Second Division. But by far the largest of these rocks known in town, which may well be added to our short list of .. natural curiosities," is to be seen a little north of the old Stairs Hill, proceed- ing westward from the Square. Its measured circumference on the grond. exclusive of fragments, is ninety-three and one hall' Dimensions of feet, the distance over its top sixty-six and one half feet, the Big Buck.
and its greatest perpendienlar height twenty-five feet. As viewed from a little distance through the trees, it resembles a fair-sized barn, and is well worthy of a visit.
The deposits of this Glacial Drift period, though leaving the soil and surface essentially as at present, are supposed to have been " modified" by various other causes since the passage of the glaciers,
" Modified
Drift " ( Ilitch- especially along the river-courses, where " it is evident that
cock's N. L.
the high terraces and wide plains were formed by much
Geology). greater floods than those of the present time, laden with vast quantities of alluvium " (Hitchcock's New State Geol., Vol. III., Chap. I.). It is also said in the same volume, page 77, that -
"For eight miles northward [from the month of Winnipisco- Iligh alluvium gee River] the highest alluvium extending through Sanborn- plain of the
l'emigewasset. ton, and including the large plain north of Salmon Brook, has all elevation from one hundred and fifty to one hundred and ses - enty-five feet above the river, which is greater than in any other portion of this valley."
Other modifying influences are found to result in the so-called " kames " and "dunes." The former are short gravel ridges, pro- jecting a few feet above the plain of which they form the border ; the latter are sund drifts, always on the east side of the Merrimack Valley, and rising in some cases " to three hundred feet above the highest ter- races." Among the kames we are informed that one "about twenty rods long and thirty-five feet above the plain, on the west edge of which it occurs, was seen in Sanbornton near the river," The " hames" two miles and a quarter southeast of Hill village, and three and " dunes." hundred and sixty-five feet above the sea. Our town may also boast of its dunes ; for after describing one between Bridgewater and New Hampton as a drift of sand, some portions of which have been carried forward by the wind " three hundred feet ahead, and fifty
13
NATURAL FEATURES. - GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS.
feet higher, within fifty years," the narrative adds (N. II. Geol., Vol. 111. p. 74) : -
" Another very good illustration of this transporting power of the wind is found in Sauborutou, a mile southeast from Hill, on a hillside which reaches a height four hundred feet above the river, or seven hundred above the sea. flere the ancient dunes, as in New Hampton, have been swept forward anew since the land was cleared. The sand from a hollow one hnudred and fifty feet long, forty wide, and two to five feet deep, has been carried in long north- west to southeast drifts two hundred to four hundred feet farther, The dunes of and twenty-five to thirty feet higher up the hill. The depth of
Sanbornion
more fully recent excavation is shown by a large stump which has been thus
described by undermined. The highest of these dunes have now reached the
Hitchcock. crest of the hill, covering the originally naked ledges; but they will not stop here, and at length may be found far beyond in the hollow on the east side of this first hill range."
The action of our present river currents in high water is also very perceptible from year to year, in modifying the structure of the river banks. The Pemigewasset, especially, has, from the time of our carliest settlements, been playing havoc with the sand of its lower terraces along the Saubornton shore. The writer, when perambulat- ing the New Ilampton and Sanbornton line with the selectmen of the former town, in 1870, found that the terminal bound stone, which was standing seven years before upon the high bank of the stream, had been carried away by the undermining of the soil, and Recent action or actually forced by an eddy up stream to a point at low- river currents illustrated. water mark several feet above its proper place, where at last it was discovered in the water's edge, half embedded in the sand. The new road down the long sandbank, from the upper to the lower terrace, near the Samboruton and Franklin town line, above Morrison's Mills, has been repeatedly torn to pieces by the treacherous river beneath, so that finally it has been abandoned by the town authorities, and is only kept passable by private enterprise. The Winnipiscogve is a better behaved stream !
Upon those anterior geological periods, loug preceding the Glacial, when the primitive rocks of Sanbornton were formed, and
Anterior geo- logical periods. theu, like those of New Hampshire generally, were " sub- jected through long ages to the ordinary disintegrating agencies of rain and frost," we cannot dwell at length or speak with confidence. The investigation would land us too soon in the region of mere hypothesis. Let a few additional quotations respecting Sanborn- ton, from the distinguished geologists who have traversed our State, sullice. They are merely inserted for the scientific, to
Three forma- whom their interpretation must be left. There seems to lions meeting in Faubornton. have been, within the limits of the town, a meeting or blending of at least three of the older sedimentary forma-
11
HISTORY OF SANBORNTON.
tions, as beautifully illustrated on No. 5 of Hitchcock's Geological Maps of New Hampshire. There is none of the earliest or porphy- ritie gneiss or granite : but, First, Two or three patches of the Lake gneiss appear, -i. e., of that granitie gneiss, filled with segregated veins, which is peculiar to the vicinity of Lake
Winnipiseogee, and hus not yet been observed far away
from it. Layers of this formation . come to the surface on parts of the Sanbornton Mountain range, and at Cawley Pond as you travel the old road from New Hampton "; Second, Both in the north and south parts of the old town there are indications of the third, or The " Mout- alban." Montalban series, -i. e., of that peenliar kind of gran- itie gueiss which largely composes the White Mountains, though cropping out in various other parts of the State, as in the Con- cord granite ; and Third, The rock formation which covers the greater part of our town is the so-called Rockingham mica schist,
The " Back- which is of a much later date, and is . spread like a ingloan wica blanket neonformably over several of the older gueissic DeLial."
groups." " This formation covers a great area in Rock- ingham and Stratford Counties," and runs up by a narrow band so as to take in Northfield, and most of Sanboruton. It may be described in general as ** a simple compound of mica and quartz, resembling an argillaceons rock at times, and often showing the mica in irregular blotches." It everywhere " contains beds of a very coarse granite," and " forms mountain masses in many towns" ; citing, among others, Catamount Mountain in Pittsfield, and Bean Hill in Northfickl, to which may be added the most of our own Sanbornton Mountain. ". This mountain," says Prof. Hitchcock (Vol. II. p. 508), " has not been visited, but is supposed to consist of mica schists." As pertain- ing to Sanbornton (Vol. II. pp. 577, 578) : -
" This area [of the Rockingham mica schist ] touches the porphyritic gueis and the Great Bay on the northeast, small patches of lake gueiss on the north and south, and Montalban on the southwest. It does not seem to cross either the Winnipiscogee or the Pemigewasset Rivers, though reaching to the banks of both streamus. On the slope towards Great Bay the ledges
The erhist of are mostly concealed by a sloping mass of drift. The granite sanborutou (quoted from of the series appears north of O. Calet's. Going north from the New Tilton the boundary of this group is reached at the .gulf,' the Hampshire
Geology). dip changing abruptly to the southeast instead of northwest. It changes back again a mile north of the Square, near W. Y'aine's, 60º north 27º west, also 80º north 60" west. The dip sometimes descends to 10º. At T. B. French's, beds of granite occur. As far as E. F. Plummer's, leges dip north 60º west. The mica schist is red at J. Flanders's, near Meredith line. At J. and M. N. March's, a mile west of the gulf, the dip is so' north ssy west, and the ledees are common between this point and Tilton village, some of them belonging to an older series."
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