USA > New Hampshire > Coos County > Stratford > History of the town of Stratford, New Hampshire, 1773-1925 > Part 2
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The abundant snows that protect us during the winter are due to their presence, and, as if they realized that snow was their
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HISTORY OF STRATFORD
especial possession, they love to deck themselves in it, loading branches and tree tops until they droop with the weight of their lovely burdens. They gather upon their summits the first snow- flakes that fall, and when spring sunshine calls for its release they are loath to let it go, and hide it in crevices and under massive rocks, until it can no longer be restrained, and then send it rush- ing down in rivulets, over their precipitous sides, to join the river.
Stratford's mountains have not only furnished her beauty and protection, but wealth, for her greatest riches lie in her timber- lands.
The evergreens, spruces, firs, and hemlock, are abundant. The white pine, that was once so prevalent in the Connecticut valley, occasionally lifts a stately head above its fellows, or stands an isolated example of what Stratford's soil has been and is still capable of producing. An interesting experiment at reforesta- tion of this wonderful tree was made in 1920 by the Hon. John C. Hutchins, when a nursery of 40,000 white pines was set three miles below North Stratford village.
Maples, beech, birches, white and yellow, poplar and ash furnish us our hardwood growth. The elm grows to great height and beauty, and with the maple is used as a shade tree. To our list might be added the tamarack, cedar, butternut, oak and bass- wood.
It is undoubtedly fortunate for Stratford that the rugged and precipitous character of her mountains has somewhat retarded the work of the lumbermen, and that her mountain tops are still wooded. Sugar Loaf and Percy Peaks rise above the forest limit, which is 3,000 feet. Nature fills the vacancies caused by the removal of her magnificent trees, by an inferior growth, and will not replace that which has been wantonly destroyed, and the covetous group of lumber monopolies is to be feared for the future of our forests.
Fortunately the danger is becoming recognized, and safeguards are being thrown around them. Fire wardens are on the alert, reforestation is seen to be not only a possibility but a probability, and it is to be hoped that these grand old guardians of Stratford may be allowed to safeguard her future as they have her past.
BOWBACK RANGE FROM THE NORTHEAST
CHAPTER II
GEOLOGICAL or PHYSICAL HISTORY
Geologically New Hampshire is considered to be about the oldest land in North America. The proofs of her great age and the various formative periods of her physical history are nowhere more plainly marked than in the northern part of the state.
Stratford herself contains several distinctive features that make this phase of her history particularly interesting and worthy of our attention.
Fortunately for our study, the state, in 1868, authorized that a thorough geological survey be made. Professor Hitchcock, state geologist, assisted by several others, was put in charge of the work. One result of this survey was the wonderful relief map now hanging in the state house. Three large volumes were also issued, the first in 1874, the last in 1878. These books contained ex- haustive reports upon the physical features of the state, the ob- servations that had been made, including those of the climate, soil forests, fauna, flora, as well as the rocks and minerals of New Hampshire.
From this work, its charts and descriptions, we are able to tell somewhat of the processes the Creator has taken through millions of years to prepare our old town of Stratford for the abode of man.
We learn that her history reaches back into the Eozoic (the dawn of life), that epoch reaching farthest back in the divisions of time. It had four periods: the Laurentian, Atlantic, Labrador and Huronian.
Towards the close of the Laurentian, and probably after the formation of large islands to the north in Canada, and to the west in the Adirondacks, ocean currents began to accumulate sediments in the shallower places. After a while these masses attained large dimensions, and by the operating of igneous forces brought to the surface an archipelago of islands perhaps thirty in number. These islands constituted the first areas of dry land in New Hamp- shire.
A study of the charts fails to find Stratford among those islands, although the one farthest north extends up through Franconia Notch and Bethlehem into Whitefield.
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HISTORY OF STRATFORD
That mysterious process called metamorphosis, by which the clay and sand of those islands were changed into crystalline gran- ite and gneiss, is hard for the scientists to explain, but they now advance this theory: The sediments are supposed to have been rendered soft and plastic through heat and steam. Chemical affinities collected together, from the clay, all the materials re- quired to form the crystals of feldspar and the scales of mica. After their crystallization the rest, consisting of the sand (amor- phous silica), sought the crevices between the newly formed min- erals, and in turn became crystallized, giving us the third element of granite quartz.
The Atlantic period which followed was a great time of rock formations. Metamorphisms were taking place, strata of sedi- ment were deposited, forming crystalline schists. Crumpling and folding-up processes were going on, giving us stratified rocks. This was succeeded by the greatest period of disturbance and elevation known in New Hampshire. The White Mountains, Green Mountains and probably the Atlantic ranges came into being. Most of New Hampshire was raised above the waters. Stratford still continued hidden from view, although Odell di- rectly east from her, and a ridge beginning from Averill and ex- tending down through part of Bloomfield and Brunswick into Lunenburg, had been elevated.
Next came the Labrador, a fiery period, a time of terrible earth- quakes, and the largest eruptions ever known in New Hampshire. It was ushered in by an overflow of igneous material, fed by ejec- tions of molten rock, and terminated by upheavals, rending of the strata, and pouring of fiery sienite (granite mica replaced by hornblend) into the crevices, which oozed out and formed moun- tains. In this manner and during the Labrador period were formed our Bowback Mountains, and the mountains in the north- ern part of the town, and in the southeastern part, where Stratford Peaks stand; for a basin filled with igneous granite was made at that time. This basin extended into Lemington and Columbia at Meriden Hill, taking in also Mount Monadnock.
The Huronian was a period of great length, but no great changes can be noticed in the physical features of Stratford. Two more great geological changes afterwards came to Stratford, the first in the Coös period, when, with the exception of the granite peaks, she was covered by the ocean. When the waters receded
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HISTORY OF STRATFORD
they left in their wake great mountain masses of silica and horn- blende, mica, schists, clay and lime deposits.
After another very long interval of time the valley was again submerged in the Helderberg age. The waters were of great depth, as is shown by the deposits of deep sea crinoids. Strat- ford received more deposits of limestone, slate, schist and con- glomerate.
An immense lapse of time, of which we have no record, followed. The land was probably covered with vegetation. Indeed from the early appearance of ores, the vegetation that is required for their production must have belonged to a much earlier date. Animals roamed the hillsides. From the fossils of plants found in Brandon, Vt., we know that forests of hickory, beech, cinnamon and coniferous existed, denoting a warm climate, similar to that of North Carolina.
At the close of the Tertiary (age of Mammals), ice began to accumulate, and there was ushered in an immensely long period when the state was covered with glaciers and the climate corre- sponded to that of Greenland.
The cause of this great disturbance is not fully known, but has been placed to astronomical disturbances, when the sun was in aphelion, or farther from the earth in its orbit. This great period of eccentricity began about 240,000 years ago and lasted 160,000 years. During this time the winters which occurred farthest from the sun would be colder and longer than now, the summer's heat not being sufficiently long to melt the annual accumulation of snow. Hence we might make the statement that the ice sheet is supposed to have been the natural accumulation of frozen mois- ture from the atmosphere, requiring thousands of years' time to collect.
The height to which scratches and drift occur about the White Mountains prove that the upper surface of the ice in this region was from 6,000 to 6,500 feet. The thickness of the glacier farther to the north was so much greater than in this latitude, that its immense weight caused it to move slowly outward. The direc- tion of its current in New England was between south and south- east. The termination of this ice sheet on the Atlantic was prob- ably like the great sea wall which Sir J. C. Ross found on the Antarctic continent.
In the slow but irresistible movement of this mighty force,
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HISTORY OF STRATFORD
fragments were torn from the ledges and were held in the bottom of the ice, and worn to small size by friction upon the surface over which it moved. This is called the lower till. It is usually a gravelly clay of dark bluish color. Its color is due to seclusion from air and water, its hardness and compactness to compression under the great weight of ice. Because of this quality, the lower till is commonly known as "hard pan." While this was being made below the ice, large quantities of coarse and fine matter were being swept away from hill-slopes and mountain sides, and carried forward in the ice. When this melted, a large portion of the material which it contained fell upon the surface. This deposit is called the upper till. With the departure of the ice sheet the gravel and earth and boulders held in the ice would be carried away and distributed, the strong current of the glacial rivers being sufficient to transport great boulders. These with the coarser gravel would be carried first, afterwards the finer gravel, sand and fine silt or clay. The valleys were thus filled with modified drift which increased in depth in the same way that additions are made to our bottom-lands in the spring.
Modified Drift is the name given to this period from the de- parture of the ice sheet to the present.
Of this modified drift were formed those long ridges or mounds of coarse water-worn gravel, or layers of gravel and sand, called "kames." These extend down through the Connecticut valley, often concealed by the alluvium which covers them. Geologists point out one at North Stratford a little below the station, evi- dently the bank where the steps are that lead to the schoolhouse.
The terraces that were formed during the Champlain period, as this time of the glacial disappearance was called, are very plainly shown here in Stratford, the upper terrace showing the width of the great flood which forced its way between the granitic peaks that bordered its path, and the lower, which we call the meadow, its quieter progress.
At North Stratford the highest alluvial banks are 119 feet above the river. In Stratford and Brunswick the heights of the allu- vium are well shown. The upper terrace is about 100 feet above the river at Brunswick Springs, and for much of the way through Stratford, the terrace is from one fourth to one third of a mile wide. The terrace, or meadow, is the most valuable portion of these alluvial lands, having a more finely pulverized and more
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HISTORY OF STRATFORD
fertile soil than that of the higher terraces. In the south part of Stratford the meadow occupies more space than the terrace.
Perhaps there is no other spot in Stratford so conspicuous and that attracts so much attention from the tourist as her terminal moraine. This is a hillside midway between the two villages, where several acres of land are so thickly covered with granite boulders as to make one believe that this must be the proverbial New Hampshire pasture where the sheep are obliged to sharpen their noses. Some of these boulders are very large, one weigh- ing about 1,300 tons. On looking across the valley we can see similar boulders, but less abundant on the Vermont side. They probably extend beneath the river and intervening distance.
The granite of these boulders is not like that of New Hampshire, but resembles the granite quarried on the Nulhegan. The ice there seems to have descended the Nulhegan before joining the frozen stream of the upper Connecticut.
SUMMARY FROM GEOLOGY
The following list of occurrences is the order of events in New Hampshire in the Glacial, Champlain and subsequent periods:
I. The country was covered with forests in the late Tertiary period, as before stated. The change of climate induced by the change of land, combined with astronomical causes, would destroy most of these plants and render the region sterile. Then the ice commenced to spread over New England with alternate meltings of limited extent, so as to give rise to beds of sand and gravel.
2. The ice accumulated in the St. Lawrence valley so as to flow over New England. The whole country would have been covered by a sheet of ice, thousands of feet in thickness-probably 7,000 or 8,000 feet in the lower part of the state-flowing southeast toward the ocean. This was the period of the formation of the lower till.
3. The melting of the ice has progressed steadily, until no more ice is supplied from the St. Lawrence valley. New Hampshire is now covered by local glaciers, pushing down the river valleys.
4. The thermal influences prevailing, the ice is driven back to the mountains. The débris which it contained forms the upper till; the kames show themselves, deposited between walls of ice; and the valleys are filled with plains of modified drift, including the blue and gray clays.
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HISTORY OF STRATFORD
5. The terraces are produced by excavations of the last formed deposits, vegetation and animal life return; the horse and wild boar, whose remains have been found with us, flourished.
6. A warmer period followed, as illustrated by the presence of the rhododendron, cedar and other plants upon the land, the quahog and oyster in the ocean, and the introduction of the Amer- ican aborigines.
7. A somewhat colder climate, only a few hundred years back from the present date, ensued. New Hampshire was colonized by the Europeans.
This is the summary of the story Stratford's rocks tell us. For ' much of the geological time the record has been meagre. Entire races have peopled its surface and left behind no evidence of their existence. No doubt the wonderful birds, which left their foot- marks along the Connecticut valley in Massachusetts, built their nests among the jungles of New Hampshire. And in the car- boniferous period immense forests must have covered our hillsides more luxuriant than the original growth which furnished so many magnificent masts for the royal navy of England. The last is the greatest of all the periods in our history. Man, the crowning piece of creation, has been introduced. May its record grow brighter and more glorious to the end of time.
ROCKS OF STRATFORD
We have learned in this brief sketch of Stratford's formation that different parts of the township appeared during different periods of time. This is shown in the many varieties of granitic rock found here. They are all crystalline, metamorphic or gran- itic, whichever term you may care to apply, but there are sienites, porphyrites, granites and gneiss, and all show their volcanic or igneous origin, for in northern New England rocks composed only of quartz, feldspar and mica found in typical proportions are very rare.
In sienite the mica is partly replaced by hornblende, a dark green or black mineral. These are our oldest rocks, and we find them in the western part of the town near the northern limit where they consist of dark siliceous schist (schist is any rock that easily splits, siliceous showing its origin, silica or sand). Extensive out- crops are found at the head of Bog Brook and along the western side of Stratford Peaks. Sugar Loaf is also a sienite of a very dark
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HISTORY OF STRATFORD
color, either from its being colored with manganese, or from the decomposition of the feldspar. The summit of Sugar Loaf is a solid mass of rock from 200 or 300 feet in length and half as wide, and so precipitous that there are two or three places only where it is possible to reach the summit. A reference to the Labrador period will show that these mountains lie in the igneous basin of that period to be hardened into rocks during the next period, or the Huronian. Also you will recall that the rocks of Odell ap- peared earlier than those of Stratford, and in them we find a marked difference. In Odell the granite contains a feldspar that is flesh-colored, while in Stratford the rock changes, and we find a very coarse granite, composed chiefly of feldspar and quartz, but there is a small quantity of black mica, and there is hardly any doubt but that this is genuine eruptive granite and it is newer than the stratified rocks along the Connecticut, since in Lyman Brook, where they come in contact, it has penetrated the schists in numerous veins and beds.
Between the branches of Nash Stream and Lyman Brook we find at the height of land a coarse granitic rock that shows a simi- lar origin.
West of these granite formations lie the mica schists, extending to the river. The strata stand at a high angle and have an east- erly dip. Near the granite the strata are everywhere penetrated by veins of granite; but the veinstones are of a much finer texture than the mass of the granite.
The rocks of Stratford Peaks differ somewhat. The feldspar is more of a flesh color and not so abundant; they also contain some black mica and a smaller proportion of hornblende. Quartz is present, and what is quite uncommon, the quartz is crystallized and, though generally distributed equally through the mass of rock, crystals of smoky quartz have been found having a diameter of six inches. Biotite granite, deep red on account of the color which oxide of iron imparts to the feldspar, is found there.
The Stratford Peaks owe their dome-shaped summits to the crys- talline feldspar which predominates in their rocks and which does not so readily decompose as in the coarser granites to the north, where we have sharper outlines of the mountains of porphyrite. They stand isolated examples among their porphyritic neighbors, their conical shapes clearly betokening their volcanic origin. Porphyry peaks somewhat resemble granitic summits, the latter
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HISTORY OF STRATFORD
are usually more rounded, while the porphyry summits remind one of a triangle with one slope much higher than the other. The Pilot Range, Twin Mountain and, in Stratford, Lightning, are distinctly porphyritic peaks.
Porphyrite is quite a common rock in northern New Hampshire, but Stratford is its northern limit, where it is found on Lightning Mountain. On the south side of that mountain, where it has been quarried, there is found a dark granitic rock, composed chiefly of feldspar, which gives it a dark olive green color; there is also in the rock a small proportion of dark vitreous quartz. This rock was used in the construction of the piers of the railroad bridge at North Stratford. Weathering affects this rock to a great depth; the color of the feldspar is changed to a dull gray, though it has no decided tendency to crumble. The whole aspect of the rock is so unlike the original that one would hardly suspect that a rock so compact and of such a color should be found beneath the wea- thered surface. A specimen taken from this mountain, color olive green, is a typical granite in which biotite and hornblende are most intimately mixed.
SOILS (
A study of Stratford's soils most naturally follows that of her rocks, for the same elements are found in them and in about the same proportion.
We are not surprised after our study of the varied rocks of Stratford to find a variety of soils: calcareous, slaty and granitic.
The calcareous lies in the narrow valley where the inundations of the ocean in the Coös and Helderberg ages brought a deposit of lime formation, the granitic peaks on either side of the river hold- ing back the waters from extending farther and giving Stratford a greater extent of more fertile soil. From the crumbling of the granite, which is constantly taking place from the action of the atmosphere, we obtain potash, a valuable ingredient.
East of the rivers and mountain ranges we find the slaty soil, inferior to the calcareous but superior to those along the coast. The rock is apt to be a schist containing much alumina, a little lime and magnesia, and ten or twelve per cent of soda and potassa.
CHAPTER III
INDIAN HISTORY OF STRATFORD
The Indians occupying the St. Lawrence valley, the Atlantic slope and the Alleghany valleys were divided into two great na- tions: the Iroquois and the Algonquins. They differed in lan- guage and customs and were always bitter enemies.
To the Algonquins belonged all the New England tribes, who dwelt along the sea and on the banks of the larger streams.
These roving tribes had their favorite hunting grounds, and the Abenaquis, who dwelt in the valley of the St. Lawrence and who had a large village at the junction of the St. Francis with that river (hence the name St. Francis Indians), claimed and held pos- session of the valleys of the Saco, Penobscot, and Piscataqua, and of northern New Hampshire, to which they gave the name of Cohos, Cowasse and Coös, from the crooked course of the Con- necticut.
The word may be further derived from "cooash," signifying pines. It is known that the Indian inhabitants of a section were generally entitled by some descriptive name, and the tribe occupy- ing this region was known as the Cooash-aukes, or "Dwellers in the pine country " (cooash, pines; auke, place). This title applied especially to the locality and inhabitants north of the mountains and along the Connecticut, the region north of Moosilauke.
It is supposed that the name Cooash was carried north by In- dian exiles from the Merrimack, who fled north after the massacre in Dover in 1689, and joined the bands at the sources of the Saco, Connecticut, Ameriscoggin (Androscoggin), the Cooash region. The streams in this section abounding in trout, their native food, all the way from the lower to the upper Coös, the territory became known as Namaos-coo-auke, or "Pine tree fishing place," a name now transformed and perpetuated in Ammonoosuc, still held by three streams in this region.
Some of the Indian traditions and beliefs have been preserved for us by John Josselyn who in 1672 made the first mention of the White Mountains in print.
"Ask them," he says, "whither they go when they dye, they will tell you, pointing with their finger to Heaven, beyond the
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HISTORY OF STRATFORD
White Mountains and do hint at Noah's Flood, as may be con- ceived by a story they have received from Father to Son, time out of mine, that a great while ago their country was drowned, and all the People and all the other creatures in it; only one, Powow and his Webb, foreseeing the Floud, fled to the White Mountains carrying a hare along with them and so escaped. After a while the Powow sent the Hare away, who, not returning, emboldened thereby, they descended and lived many years after and had many children, from whom the countrie was again peopled with Indians."
The Indians are said to have been restrained by awe and fear from climbing to the summits of the White Mountains. Their traditions represented that here was the abode of the Great Spirit, who, with a motion of his hand, could raise a storm and destroy the daring adventurer who presumed to approach his abode. Awed by their sublimity and grandeur, they did not feel the sense of proprietorship with which the calmer beauty of lake and river inspired them. Thus while solitary mountains throughout the state, like nearly all the rivers and lakes, preserved their ancient names, always the last memorial of a departed race, the central portion of the White Mountains is wholly English in name. We do not know that the Indians distinguished them by any other than a collective name. This was "Agiocochook" in one dialect, and in another, "Waumbek Methna," "Mountains with snowy foreheads."
The Algonquins lived in wigwams 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 birch bark mats or skins. In the center was the fire, the smoke escaping from a hole in the top.
The Indians had fish, game, nuts, berries, corn, acorns, squashes, a kind of bean, now called "seiva bean," and a species of sunflower with a root like an artichoke. Fish were speared or taken with lines, nets or snares, made of the sinews of deer or fibers of moose- wood. Their fishhooks were made of the bones of fishes or of birds.
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