USA > New Hampshire > Coos County > Stark > Some recollections of the upper Ammonoosuc Valley > Part 2
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The writer can remember meeting Joshua Roberts, whose name figures so largely in the history of Camp Percy written by Mr. George P. Rowell about 1906. He lived on what was then, and still is, the last farm up the Phillips Brook Valley before one comes to the lumber settlement known as Siberia. Josh was very old then and died soon after, Thus the writer knew both men who were so greatly involved in the establish- ment of the Percy Summer Club. The farmhouse of Josh's brother Dan was a little to the south and was situated just. before one reaches the farm of Andrew Leighton on the road over the hill to the juncture of Phillips and Roberts Brooks. The house was standing until about 1925 but now there is not a trace of it. In the center was an enormous old double- faced chimney with brick ovens built in on the sides. When cook stoves came in, these fire places were boarded up, but they were observable when the house was partly dismantled and the wife of the writer has a pair of ancient andirons which came therefrom.
A favorite character of the writer and of all the campers in the old days was Henri Randolph Girard. Girard used to
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say, "My fadder was born in de Island of Jersey, my mudder was Irish and I was born in Canady and if dat don't make a Frenchman I dunno what does." He was a dapper, handsome, kind-hearted and very opinionated. Frenchman. He married rather late in life and his wife died a few years later. As a widower he kept house all alone. From the early 1880's until his death about 1919 he kept the village store in Percy and a highly unusual place it was. When he wanted a new garment, he took it out of stock. He threw all his soiled clothes in a spare bedroom and had one big washing done once a year. When he wanted to go fishing he closed up the store and went, and people who were out of anything were also out of luck. Girard loved children. He kept in his candy counter a tiny glass measure and when a little boy. or girl came in for its mother's modest order, he always filled this receptacle with vari-colored candies like pills and poured it into the youngster's hand. For years he would not stock the flanged sinkers that many brook fishermen like, but was finally persuaded to do so. When the writer arrived at Camp the following season there were no sinkers. When questioned, Girard replied, "Max, I ordered a gross of dem sinkers mostly for you, but every time a kid come in he'd say 'Hey, Randolph, gimme a sinker;' and you know it's a damn mean man dat won't give a kid a sinker, so you'll just have to take de split-shot." Once Girard was lunching with the writer alone in Camp and was taken to see White Birch lodge where he had worked as choreman many years before. The Whitmarsh family took him all around and showed him several unusual structural features. He seemed not impressed. Finally Mrs. Whitmarsh said, "Mr. Girard, were you ever in this cottage before?" "Yes Mam, I built it," came the answer with a dead-pan expression. As a matter of fact, he had assisted greatly in its construction.
On the one hundred-acre tract of land west of the Club holdings, of which the writer owns a part, there was, until about a dozen years ago, a large sugar camp which at one time had been well equipped. It was constructed of the timbers and boards which once had composed the barn of Daniel Potter, situated many years ago in "Dan's Field", the ancient clearing, now overgrown, known to most campers. George Smith of Percy moved the material to the new loca- tion and erected a commodious sugar shed, with enormous
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boiler, big cupola, many sap buckets and other appurtenances. It was used every spring for a number of years and a good many people known to the writer participated in the activities. However, he was never in camp at sugar making time and so cannot claim that he ever saw a sugar camp in operation. The building has been torn down and some of the beams and other lumber have been brought to camp and there utilized. Aside from these, all that the writer has as a memento of the last sugar camp that he knew about is a few ancient hand- made sap pails. The sugar maple grove which furnished the sap was hard hit by the hurricane of 1938 but, such as it is, it is still in the possession of the writer and other members of his family. Thirty and more years ago the maple sugar used on the table at Waterside came from this Camp.
At this writing there still lives in Percy a Mr. Henry Pike, good friend of the Club and a life-long friend of the writer, as are all his family. His twin brother, Hubbard Pike, (of whom there is a picture in the Waterside Log Book) was one of those physical marvels you read about. For many years he held the record for rowing the length of the Lake in a Rangeley boat until, in the late 1930's, this record was shaded by the writer's eldest son. Hub Pike is alleged to have trundled a wheelbarrow to the top of the North Peak over a trail then much rougher than it was later on; filled it with blueberries and wheeled it down the mountain.
Although not a regular resident of Percy Village, Simeon Veazie was the boss of the woods in charge of early lumber camps in the valley around the headwaters of Rowell Brook. He was a small, active and very dapper man. Clad in a long red mackinaw shirt and Stetson hat he made the rounds of his operations on a little pony, something like a mustang, and he looked as if he had stepped out of a Frederick Rem- ington painting. Sim lived until 1944 or 1945, when he died as the oldest man in Stark, past ninety. Speaking of age, there was always a rivalry between Si Lunn and old Justus Potter as to who was the older. Each one confidentially in- formed the writer as a boy that he could remember when the other one was born. As a matter of fact, they were about the same age. Justus was the father of the campers' old friend (who died in 1947 past ninety) Don Potter. His real name was Adonno. Don worked at almost every lodge in Camp
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and was a great favorite. Old Justus was an exceedingly active man and in the hayfield at eighty set a pace which his son and his nephews found it hard to follow. One of the latter, Charlie, told the writer that he had put in such a day with his uncle from sunrise to sunset. After supper the uncle suggested that they take a walk up the road to Girard's store. Very tired, but ashamed to let the old man outdo him, Charlie joined him in this 4-mile hike. Justus had a "visit" with the store loafers; bought himself a nickel plug of tobacco, and after the walk home remarked, "Charlie, ain't we had fun tonight?" Charlie was not enthused. The old man ran out of tobacco one winter for a while and, before he could re- plenish his stock, he smoked up all the wormwood which Don's wife had drying in the attic.
In those days Biblical names were popular and also rather fancy ones. In the Potter family were Aaron and Abijah, as well as Justus and Adonno. Don Potter had a magnificent bass voice and sang in the choir in the old Methodist Church at Stark, still standing. Forty years afterwards the writer heard his voice roll out the same old hymns on the occasion of an Old Home Sunday. When Don had finished his day's work at Camp, there remained nothing for him to do but row a third of a mile; walk nearly two miles; milk his own cows and do his own chores. When he started across the Jake he usually struck up some lovely old hymn like "Abide With Me," or."Rock of Ages" which, with its echoes, made a beau- tiful sound. Once the writer called to him and asked him if he would please sing, this being for the benefit of some visi- tors at Waterside. Don waved his hand; cleared his throat, and broke out with "In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree, Sat Adam with Eve on His Knee."
A while ago mention was made of old Mr. Potter's "good time." Good times, as city folks knew them, did not exist in the valley in the early days. Roads were bad and there was no entertainment as readers of this know it. There were "grange" meetings and an occasional revival and an occa- sional husking or a quilting bee, but little else except dances. The North Country people were, and still are, fond of dancing and would travel many a mile in terrible weather to disport themselves for hours. Steve Crawford was one of the best dancers in Coos County. Living alone in Crawford Lodge he
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would make himself presentable and drive his sleigh in sub- zero weather alone to Lancaster, eighteen miles away, to a dance. He would change his big felt boots to heavily em- broidered carpet slippers, which served him as ballroom pumps, and his activities on the floor were said to be amaz- ing. It is said that he was almost the last man in this neigh- borhood who could cut a genuine 'pigeon-wing." In 1901 Steve came to President McKinley's second inauguration and at the Inaugural Ball danced a waltz most creditably with Miss Caroline M. Platt.
Orchestras traveled from town to town and even today still do so, but the dances and the music have changed notably. The writer remembers attending a dance at the Stark Town Hall in 1918 at which old and modern dances alternated. He himself could participate only in the two-step, waltz and fox- trot. Every other dance was a square dance and some of them were amazingly intricate and evidently very old. A figure caller clad in moccasins guided the various steps and the writer and his friends sat open-mouthed at the ability of the local residents. He remembers that seated in the chairs sur- rounding the floor were no fewer than eight former Water- side cooks, all his good friends.
When Mr. Charles N. Kent built the Casino at Camp Percy in 1887, a ball was held to open it. Participants were camp- ers and local residents alike and it seems to have been a most successful and unusual affair. Uncle Justus Potter lugged in his "bull fiddle" and was the nucleus for the rest of the local orchestra. Of course Steve Crawford was in rare form that night.
There was little education in the valley in those days, ex- cept for the country District schools. The High schools at Groveton, Berlin and Lancaster were too far off for most children to attend. However, Waterside had one chore boy about 1895 who confided to the writer that his ambition was to go to college. When asked which college, he stated: "Well, I'd like to go to Hahvahd, but I suppose I will have to put up with Ammust." This made, naturally, a great hit with the writer's father who had graduated from Amherst twenty years before.
To revert to Waterside cooks from the neighborhood: The writer can remember most of them and here are the names
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of some of the worthy women who fed hungry fishermen three times a day:
Bertha Wentworth
Mrs. Joseph Montgomery (later Mrs. Warren Sessions)
Alice Emery
Mrs. Green and her son, Ozro, for helper
Mrs. Oleson
Susan Jackson
Ollie Montgomery
Elsie Coburn
Alice Rogers Hodgkins
Effie Cole Spreadbury (later Mrs. W. N. Emery)
Mabel Pike Smith, and
Malvina Ludovina Bennett, together with her sister, Cloffie Deary.
The one mentioned now has the closest association with this Lodge of anyone-Lennie Ellingwood Cole, wife of Ira Cole, who was the son of Woodbury Cole, mentioned earlier. Lennie, who was the prototype of everything a New England housewife should be and who had all the ability and versatil- ity of a pioneer woman, first looked after the writer's sister and took care of him and his bride on their first trip together at Camp. Year after year she came and she holds today (for she is still living in Colorado) the admiration and real affec- tion of every member of the writer's family.
The modern country doctor who whizzes all over the North Country in his car is a worthy replacement of the old type doctor who covered his sick list by sleigh, on horseback, and even on snow shoes. They may have been rough and ready, but they got there, and vast was their experience. Heading the list, and the writer's admirable acquaintance, was the late William H. Leith, who was the perfect example of the good country doctor. He died a few years ago and many a good fishing trip with him has been enjoyed by members of the writer's family. Other doctors of the past were O'Brion and Hight of Groveton. Steve Crawford's great nephew, Rollin Webb, is now among the oldest practitioners in Lancaster. He and the writer did chores at camp together in 1900.
In the list of Waterside cooks is noted a Mrs. Jackson, usu- ally referred to as Aunt Susan or Sister Jackson. She was one of a family of at least six sisters, all of whom were born
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across the river in an old farm house which must be 150 years old today. Their maiden name was Robbins and they were related in some degree to the north country criminal who is the central figure in the book "Gaut Gurley, or the Trappers of Umbagog." The real name of this villain was Vene Rob- bins. Curiously enough, Mrs. J. W. Emery is some relation to the Errol trapper whose name was Cloudman and who appears in the book as Codman, one of its heroes. The first of these sisters to come to Waterside was Aunt Judith Potter who was of a melancholy disposition and weighed in her prime 240 pounds. She cooked, washed and ironed and did all the housework for the then small lodge for a dollar a day and was delighted to get it. To see her backing down the loft ladder carrying a heavy slop pail and turning occasionally to participate in the general living room conversation was some- thing to remember. It was from this that we knew that she wore white stockings. She was a fluent speaker. Her choice of words was not always commendable. "Do you want your beef done leathery, or do you want blood on the platter?" is an example. Mrs. Potter was very pious and one summer entertained us constantly with tales of a new Baptist minister at Stark. On the next trip she was asked how he was getting along. She replied: "Come to find out he wa'n't no real Bap- tist at all. He come to baptize somebody and asked her if she wanted to be dipped, or just poured. Now he's a 'carpen- terin'' and a 'joinerin'' down to Berlin."
The writer has seen Sister Jackson, the skinny sister, seize a wash tub two-thirds full of water and empty it over the porch rail. She turned and said: "There, Maxie, 'Im 70 years old and hain't I staout?" Another sister was Aunt Charlotte Sawyer, the grandmother of Mrs. John Pepau and her numer- ous brothers and sisters. Still another was Aunt Hannah Green, spouse of Uncle Ben Green, referred to earlier. Still another was Aunt Lucy Brooks, who in her old age reverted toward savagery and lived in a shack at the little logan, still called "Lucy's Bog." It is alleged that the prototype of Gaut Gurley had Indian blood in him and certainly it showed up in the Robbins family here and there, both in physical appearance and the above conduct of Mrs. Brooks. All of these sisters were large and portly except Mrs. Jackson, but the largest by
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far was Sister Abbott, who was the mother of Calvin, Aram and Sylvester Benjamin Silas Abbott, he being named for the three town selectmen at the time of his birth. There was always great curiosity as to how much Sister Abbott really weighed, but this she would never disclose. Once a group of the ladies of Stark village while waiting for the noon train all got on the hay scales and the reading was somewhere between one thousand and two thousand pounds. During the dinner hour one of the ladies had an inspiration and she sent her small son to all the houses involved, save that of Mrs. Abbott. These ladies gathered quietly at the station by devious routes, got on the hay scales, weighed themselves en masse, and sub- tracted that total from the previous one. "And how much did she weigh?" the writer asked Mrs. Alvah Cole, who was a girl at the time. "She weighed 250 pounds" was the reply.
When the Percy Summer Club was started a crippled Irish- man named Patrick J. O'Connor was the station agent and he so remained for many years. He had at least 8 children of his own. However, inasmuch as he had a free and fairly ample home, he adopted no fewer than four more and raised them all to be worthy citizens. Several of them became teleg- raphers. He and his family were in the van of the movement which built the little Catholic Church, called "The Church of the Holy Angels," at Percy. It later fell into disrepair, but a few years ago was entirely renovated through the generosity of some generous Catholics and all the campers who could make the trip were at the impressive re-dedication. It has been an agreeable experience to cross the lake and descend the hill in the mist of early morning and attend mass there. Very often the celebrant has been the Very Reverend Arthur A. O'Leary, S.J., former President of Georgetown University and beloved of all campers, Protestant and Catholic alike. When the writer was a boy the bells of two churches pealed through the little valley. It is a pleasant sound today to hear one of them again, summoning the faithful to worship. The Methodist Church at Stark holds services only occasionally.
Back we go to Steve Crawford: He quarreled with most of the nearby residents but in those days he had unusual powers of patronage and he got away with it. He did more or less as he pleased toward the end of his service.
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I have told of his differences with his brother, Ethan, whom he would praise in one breath and describe as "a fish hog" in the next. The writer wishes that authors of modern angling books could have seen Steve when he was out to get a mess of trout for arriving campers. Anchored, usually in the "Pork Barrel" (which he had named) he sat on the middle thwart. In each fist was a hand line, and propped out from the boat like spinnaker-booms were two fourteen-foot bamboo poles. If the trout were biting, there was never a dull moment. He gave them no play but snagged them into the boat, unhooked them and threw them alive onto the bottom.
About 1930, as has been stated, the writer had a pleasant afternoon visit with William Crawford, the sole surviving brother. William remarked that he and his nephew Fred used to come up to the lake to help Steve take trout from the spawning beds for propagation purposes. . "We were supposed to put them in a rearing pond," chuckled the ancient William, "What we done was to box them all up and send them down to George P. Rowell to eat in New York." His remarks con- cluded with the characteristic Crawford chuckle, which was more like a cackle.
The writer's first trip after pickerel was taken at the age of thirteen with Steve. We walked along the Ammonoosuc river whose banks were then very much more open than they are today and at the end of a long afternoon Steve had eleven fine fish, all taken by skittering an ordinary pork rind which he himself had cut from his barrel of pork. The writer, al- though he had a master to imitate, took no fish whatever. Steve would fish for trout for friends from morning to night, or cheerfully boat them, but he disliked trout to eat and once in a long while would go off on a pickerel orgy.
The writer can remember the last big coaching parade held in Lancaster. These were features for years of the various mountain centers. There were Concord coaches, buckboards, horsemen and fox hounds and it was all very wonderful, espe- cially the four-, six- and even eight-horse teams. He went with Steve and Effie Spreadbury in Steve's buggy. As a par- ticularly fine team came by, managed by the old whip Free- man. Lindsay, the boy exclaimed in admiration. Steve, who loathed Ethan, popped out with, "My brother Ethan can drive six hosses as well as any man in New Hampshire!" Steve
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and the writer for years had a date to climb Mt. Washington on foot together, but they never got around to it. He was really too old, though spry, and the writer too fat and too lazy.
"Could this be an equinoctial storm?" asked the artist who painted his picture. "Sartin, sartin. We git lots of them equinoctial storms every summer."
It was Steve, as far as the Campers know, who christened the slicks, which all waters have, "logging roads." Seated on top of the Giant's Grove and looking down on the lake, he told an inquisitive and pestiferious young man (Princeton '89) that these showed where logs had been hauled over the ice in the preceding winter-and the student believed him!
Steve had been a cook in the Civil War and it is doubted if he ever smelled powder. The late Henry Clay Evans, U. S. Commissioner of Pensions, visited Camp in 1899. Steve promptly invited him to go on a lengthy boat ride during which he persuaded Mr. Evans to increase his war pension. Steve overlooked few bets.
In a town like Stark there are always a few unusual charac- ters, some of them not closely connected with any family. This town has rejoiced in a number of such, all of them in- teresting and some of them most agreeable. When Alvah Cole accepted the offer to become the second Superintendent of The Percy Summer Club in 1901, he brought to Crawford Lodge with him an old man whom none of the campers knew. It developed that his name was Leonard Potter. When asked, Alvah stated that he was no relation and let it go at that. Old Mr. Potter was striking looking, resembling an Old Tes- tament prophet with snowy hair and beard and a beaked nose. He was deaf, gentle, sweet, retiring and, considering his age, industrious. Each day he would row himself slowly across the lake and chop firewood, and by keeping at this almost the year around he supplied the then five lodges. No one knew him well or could draw him out much. After a number of years he died in his 80's. Later the story came out. Alvah's father had died when he was sixteen, leaving him the man of the family with a mother, brothers and sisters to support and a farm to manage. He found it tough going and was greatly and regularly helped by a prosperous nearby farmer, this same Leonard Potter. Many years later, Potter lost all his family and suffered reverses which included the loss of his
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farm. The boy whom he had befriended, then the leading citizen of the town, took him in and old Mr. Potter had a happy and congenial home with Alvah and his wife for as long as the Lord spared him.
Once when the writer, in his youth, was in camp alone with Aunt Louisa Montgomery (Sessions) cooking for him, he surprised old Mr. Potter at the kitchen door. His mouth was very full, and when he had swallowed its contents, he almost blushed and a far away look came into his mild blue eyes. With a smile just like that of a little boy he remarked apolo- getically, "Mother always said I was a gre't hand for cookies." The writer wonders if any human being who ever ate one of Mrs. Montgomery's freshly baked confections would have failed to become at that moment "a gre't hand for cookies."
For years two brothers, both known to most campers, lived more or less in Percy. They were Christopher and Joseph Corum. They never worked if they could help it and sub- sisted largely on pork and fish, including suckers and a little garden produce. Their firewood they obtained partly by the simple expedient of throwing a boom across the river and salvaging the driftwood. They had a camp on South Pond, a disused lumber camp, in which they lived for weeks at a time. They had a house in Percy not much better, in the chicken house of which Joe Corum performed prodigies of home brewing during prohibition. Chris had lately died and Joe got out of town between two suns when the authorities closed in on him. Chris was slow witted and lacked per- sonality, but Joe had real charm. He was huge in size and picturesque in his appearance. His features and coloring showed plainly his French and Indian blood and anyone en- countering him for the first time would get the impression that here was a dangerous man who lived largely on raw meat. As a matter of fact, although he liked to hunt, he cared little for game to eat. His passion was flowers and many a time the writer has seen him walking along the road tenderly holding and pondering a white water lily he had plucked. The writer knew Joe for thirty-five years. Joe may be alive yet. Like many lazy men, he had enormous strength. The writer remembers as a boy seeing a restive horse hitched to a light buggy start prancing in all the preliminaries of a run-away. Joe lacked time to reach the horse's bridle so he grabbed the
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rear axle of the buggy. Every time the horse yanked the buggy forward, Joe yanked both horse and buggy backward until the horse gave up. New Englanders are somewhat famed for their lack of public expression of affection or interest. Years ago the writer saw Chris come in from South Pond. He en- countered Joe in Girard's store and said, "Joe, your brother Chris is in town; thought you might like to know it." "Yes, yes, he amounts to jest about as little as I do," was he reply.
Still alive and still liked and admired by all campers who know him is Hazen Cole. He lived on the North Shore of the river alone with his invalid mother as long as she was alive and took care of her. At this writing he is lame and rather inactive. Hazen in his prime was a remarkable man, both as to his gentleness of disposition and his amazing versa- tility. There was absolutely nothing that that man could not accomplish with his hands. The writer and his sons firmly believe that he could have taken a clock apart and put it to- gether again, using only an ax. He used to grind the ancient millstone, now back of Waterside Lodge, when it was in ope- ration at Crystal Village. He has had a hand in a great many camp projects. The first large motor boat of the Club, pur- chased in 1920, was a disused sailboat. After a year or two it was decided to replace its unsatisfactory one-lung marine engine with a second-hand Ford car engine which Superintend- ent Emery had purchased cheaply. A boat expert assured Jerry that this was an utter impossibility. "Now, good, Jerry; that's jest the sort of talk I love to hear," remarked Hazen, "let's go ahead and put her in," which they promptly did and with foot pedals still sticking out, it ran the boat suc- cessfully for a number of years. Since his mother's death, the campers have seen little of Hazen, but at present he is making his home with Jerry's brother, Amos, on the farm where Jerry was born and helping with the chores as much as he is able. He is welcome wherever he goes.
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