USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Warren > The history of Warren; a mountain hamlet, located among the White hills of New Hampshire > Part 32
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About this time occurred the last moose hunts in Warren. A Mr. Webster, who lived over the Height-o'-land, one autumn was out hunting for moose. He started one in Piermont, and followed him by Tarleton lake into Warren. Here he took an easterly course, evidently designing to cross over the lower ranges of mountains and make for Moosehillock. When he reached the summit of Webster slide the dogs came up with him and pressed him so hard that he took a southerly course upon the top of the mountain till he arrived upon the edge of the precipice. The dogs were close upon him, and as he turned they made the attack.
* Bears .- Mr. George Bixby once killed a bear on Beech hill, with a good stout cane. It had been an excellent season for berries of all kinds, and the bear was so fat that it could hardly walk.
A bear followed Mr. Samuel Knight and his wife as they were going home. There was a figure-four trap near where is now Levi F. Jewel's mill. The bear looked into it and got caught, Mr. K. and wife being not six rods away at the time.
Bears, more or less, are caught every year iu Warren, even at the present time. The principal bear catchers now living in Warren are Joseph Whitcher, E. Bartlett Libby, Amos L. Merrill and Isaac Fifield.
373
THE LAST OF THE MOOSE.
It was a hard fight. As they leaped at him, the antlered monarch of the New England forest tossed one upon his horns, and when he fell it was over the precipice. Another dog caught the moose by the throat, and a third seized him on the flank. Round and round they went, the noble animal in vain trying to shake them off. They neared the very edge of the precipice. The rock on the brink was slippery, and the hoofs would not cling to it. Back ! Back! A hoarse panting, a dire swinging to and fro, and then the rock was standing naked against the sky; no living thing was there, and moose and hounds lay shattered far below.
Webster followed to the edge of the precipice and saw the place of encounter. He was not long in determining the result, and half an hour later he found them all dead at the foot among the boulders and debris. From this circumstance the huge cliff rising sharp from Wachipauka pond received its name - Webster slide .*
Early in the spring of 1803 the last of these animals ever known in this section was killed. Joseph Patch's supply of moose beef had run short, and he tried his grown up sons, Joseph and Daniel, to go with him after more; but as they refused, he took his son Jacob, then about seventeen years old, who wanted to go. At the East-parte Stephen Flanders joined them, and the three on snow shoes, for the snow was four feet deep, proceeded through the forest, up the Asquamchumauke on the north bank. They crossed the Big brook near where the bridle-path up Moosehillock crosses it now, and half a mile beyond on the plain through which rushes Gorge brook, they found where moose had browsed. Fol- lowing the trail they crossed the latter stream, now buried in snow, and Patch sent his son and Captain Flanders around the spur of the mountaint after more browse, and following on they all came together on the crest where they found " floats."
It was now late in the afternoon, and the little party stopped to consult. They were far in the woods, and young Jacob thought it was a lonesome place to spend the night. Looking about he saw rabbit tracks in the snow; he heard black-cap titmice sing " chick-
* Mr. George Libby says that the above story is not exactly correct, that Mr. Webster came very near falling down the mountain face himself, and afterwards gave a gallon of rum to have the mountain named for him.
t Sometimes called Black hill.
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HISTORY OF WARREN.
adee " in the leafless branches, the sweet note of the brown creeper, as spirally he climbed the huge trunks of the great spruces, and a hairy woodpecker rattling on an old dead hemlock. Just then a flock of pileated woodpeckers flew by, screaming as their scarlet red heads flashed over the snow, and then it was still for a moment.
From the appearance of the "floats," Joseph Patch knew that they were in the immediate vicinity of the moose, and for fear of frightening them they did not dare to build a camp nor light a fire. So they made a large bed of evergreen boughs, thick and warm, and when night came on, they wrapped their blankets about them and with their dogs lay down to sleep. Nice bed, beautiful place, and splendid night. What if it had happened to snow or a south- ern rain come on? But it did not, and the hunters lay on their sweet smelling couch, and listened to the wind singing through the leafless branches and the evergreens and saw the northern lights flash blue and red up to the zenith, pouring their crimson dyes upon the frozen snow. As the night wore away the north star looked down upon them, and Andromeda, Cassiopea, and the Great Bear, wheeling around the pole, shone bright through the crisp, frosty air. Jacob Patch said in his old age that he never enjoyed a night's rest better in his whole life than that one in the winter snow, and that he ate his breakfast from their almost frozen provisions with as keen a relish as he ever knew.
At the earliest dawn they started on the trail, keeping their dogs quiet behind them, and traveling two miles they found the moose in a large yard beside a little mountain stream. There were three of them, a bull, a cow and a calf. Patch shot the calf, Flan- ders fired at the bull and missed, when Patch fired again and killed him. The cow started off at a fast trot down Baker river. The dogs followed, a bull dog and a hound,* yelping, yelling, and baying, till the woods rang with echoes, and the men running after
* They used to have good dogs in those days. Esq. Abel Merrill once had a dog and a pup, and wanted to sell one of them. A man came to buy, and Abel said the old dog, Bose, was as good a dog as ever was in the world. Then said the man, I will take the puppy. "But, but," said 'Squire Abel, " the puppy is a little mite better."
" " Bose is the best dog in the world, but the puppy is a little mite better," was a by- word in Warren for a long time after .- Anson Merrill's statement.
375
THE AMERICAN CARIBOU.
as fast as they could. A mile away, and the old moose turned to fight the dogs and Patch coming up first, shot her.
As they were dressing them, three other men, who by a sin- gular coincidence were hunting in the valley, came up and claimed the moose. Patch was a little covetous, and as his neighborly hunters from over the mountain were exceedingly saucy, he would not give them a bit of the meat. But our hunter and Captain F. had to stay and watch their captured game while young Jacob went for sleds and help with which they brought home the pro- duct of their morning work. Thus perished the last of that race of animals in our mountain valley, so many of which at one time lived about Moosehillock mountain.
In old times it was a common thing for the best hunters to station themselves behind a tree or rock by Rocky falls on Patch brook or Waternomee falls on Hurricane brook. Then they would send men with their dogs sweeping across the sides of Mt. Carr to start wild animals, and often deer and moose would come flying down the beds of the streams, when the hunter in ambush would shoot them.
Chase Whitcher once got behind the great rock at the foot of Waternomee falls, and sent John Marston with a hound on to the mountain. The latter, on snow shoes, climbed up near the very top of Mt. Carr, and there started his game. But it was only for a moment that he saw it,- a giant deer, beautiful beyond anything he had ever seen before.
That deer was of the variety called the American Caribou,* the fiercest, fleetest, wildest, shyest, and most untameable of the deer tribe in the whole world, and are only shot by white hunters through casual good fortune. The hound bayed and followed; but it was a useless chase, for the Caribou's feet were like snow shoes, and he ran as no other animal could. One might as well think to pursue the hurricane as to follow him. He seemed like the ship of the winter wilderness outspeeding the winds among his native pines and firs.
Whitcher heard the baying of the hound far up the mountain,
* The Caribou averages from fourteen and a half to fifteen hands high, is taller than ordinary horses, and is more than a match for a wolf or a panther in a fight. ( ? )
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HISTORY OF WARREN.
then crouched close behind his rock. As he waited the sun shone out clear, lighting up the frosting of ice on the great rocks, and making the fantastic icicles hanging pendant on the birch and spruce to throw forth a thousand brilliant shades and hues, and to sparkle like gems.
Soon he heard the mighty beast flying down the bed of the torrent, and he involuntarily cocked his gun, and a moment after held his breath as he saw the great antlers of the bull flash through the trees.
The Caribou paused on the cliff, hesitating to jump; then catching the fresh scent, snuffed the air, dilated his flashing eyes, shook his branching horns, and gathered himself up to bound away on the right.
It was too late, the sharp crack of Whitcher's rifle awoke the echoes, and the Caribou shot forward far over the brink, and fell dead at the foot of the falls.
Whitcher had seen tracks of this fleetest, wildest deer, on other occasions, but never before or since has a white hunter shot a Caribou in Warren.
Deer have always been more or less plenty in Warren, and hardly a winter passes, but that a few are caught. In early times they were seen in the fields almost every day. Joseph Patcht used to relate how as he was coming home from the East-parte soon after the road was built, a deer stood drinking by Silver rill at twilight, a will-o'-the-wisp playing around his branching horns. Patch gave a low whistle, the buck snuffed the air for a moment then bounded away in the darkness.
Of the other four-footed beasts that have lived in the Asquam- chumauke valley, many have been hunted for their furs. The fox has generally been esteemed the best; and the music of baying hounds has been the delight of many a hunter's heart. Trappers in the forest have built culheags and set steel traps for sable, otter, mink, martin, ermine, and muskrat, and old Mr. Vowell Leathers, a gipsy descendant, who lived on Beech hill, used to catch skunks
t Joseph Patch, when advanced in years, followed a deer on snow shoes, all one day, as fast as he could, then at night laid down on the snow without a fire, and got cold. It settled in his hips, and our hunter was lame ever after. He could stand up and swingle flax all day long. He learned the shoemaker's trade, and was good at it; but he never could run on snow shoes in the woods afterwards. Yet he was good at " still hunting " as long as he lived.
377
BIRDS OF WARREN.
to obtain their pleasant odor. He thought it decidedly superior to musk, cologne, or otto of roses, and he once placed one of these sweet smelling creatures under a certain lady town pauper's bed, kindly remarking that it smelt far better than she did, and was much to be preferred by all refined people,- a remark highly com- plimentary to the lady.
Of all the birds that abound in Warren, the black-cap titmouse, sometimes called chickadee, is deservedly the greatest favorite. Why? Because he has a beautiful song, does a great deal of good and no harm, is very plenty, and stops with us all the year round. His feathers are as warm as wool, are immensely thick as com- pared with his whole body, and he is so sprightly that he could not be cold, no matter what might be the weather. A whole flock, clinging, backs down like pirouetting fairies to the breezy tops of the pine trees, swinging in the wind on the outermost end of the slenderest boughs of the birch, singing all the time, chickadee, chickadedee, in the sweetest notes, making a lively party, and music that causes us to love the bright days of winter.
When the low southern sun is hid in murky leaden clouds, and the snow flakes begin to spin round in the freshening gale and the storm spirit is roaring on the mountains, then the white flashing bodies of the snow-buntings, who were hatched on the snowy isles of the frozen ocean, in nests of reindeers' hair, lined with soft down of sea ducks and the warm fur of the white foxes, hurrying before the storm, bring a weird feeling and a sort of a supersti- tious awe to the chilly traveller. Along with them come the gos- hawk, light winged, from Greenland; the snow owl and the Acadian owl, his companions, and the Bohemian chatterer, that incessantly sings when the sun shines on his home, the eternal snows and glaciers about the pole. On mild winter days, in our hamlet, the shrike, cross-bills, mealy red polls, lesser red polls, pine grosbeaks, Arctic woodpeckers, brown creepers, nut hatches, make busy parties in the spruce swamps, while on the borders of the fields, and about the barns, is heard the screaming of jays and the cawing of crows.
Spring brings a host of eagles, hawks, owls, woodpeckers, cuckoos, thrushes, wrens, kingfishers, humming birds, warblers, swallows, orioles, blackbirds, sparrows, finches, buntings, and
378
HISTORY OF WARREN.
many others, among whom is the red-eyed vireo, one of the most welcome of the summer singers, for he sings all day long, no mat- ter how dark the weather or hot the sun.
For the sportsman, the beautiful wood duck, the black duck and. sheldrakes swim in the ponds and river, and in autumn the wild goose crying " hawnk-honck-e-honck," as he flies through the sky, often lights in Tarleton lake. But never yet has sportsman lived in Warren who knew how to hunt upland plover, or the woodcock that breed every year in the meadows of Runaway pond, and along the shores of some of the sedgy streams. That kind of shooting belongs to another generation.
Among the dark firs and thick hackmatacks of the mountains is found the spruce grouse, sometimes called the Canadian grouse. They have a beautiful plumage, but are not considered good eating. They are very remarkable for their manner of drumming. They leap up from the earth and beating their wings rapidly against their sides, rise spirally some fifteen or twenty feet into the air, then slowly descending in the same manner, they all the time pro- duce by the rapid motion of their wings a low rumbling sound like distant thunder which in a still day can be heard nearly a mile away.
The ruffed grouse is a larger bird, much more plenty, is more sought after, and affords the most savory dish for the table. This bird is generally known as the partridge, is very numerous, and in fact cannot be exterminated. Their drumming, which every one has heard, is the call of the male bird to his harem of attendant wives, and is beautifully done. Standing up proudly on an old prostrate log, or flat rock in a spruce copse, he lowers his wings, erects his expanded tail, contracts his throat, elevates the two tufts of feathers on the neck, and inflates his whole body, something in the manner of a turkey-cock, strutting and wheeling about in great stateliness. After a few manœuvres of this kind, he begins to strike his stiffened wings in short and quick strokes, which become more and more rapid until they run into each other, resembling the rumbling sound of very distant thunder, dying away gradually on the ear. Morning and evening in the spring of the year is their favorite drumming time. Warren has had a host of good par- tridge hunters, from Obadiah Clement down to Benjamin Little,
379
FISHING.
Russell Merrill, Benj. K. Little, and Amos L. Merrill, who lives in the East-parte region.
Some years wild pigeons are very plenty, and at the com- mencement of the present century flocks miles in length and breadth, darkening the sun, would fly for days over our valley. In autumn when beech-nuts abounded, our hunters and their friends feasted on wild pigeons .*
Warren's streams and ponds abound in fish, and fishermen have always been more plenty than hunters, trappers, or fowlers. Minnows, dace, eels, suckers, pout, pickerel, and trout, swarm the waters in great numbers; but pickerel and trout are the most sought after. The latter were much larger formerly than now. -
Mr. Samuel Merrill, familliarly known as " Uncle Sammy," a man beloved by every body, was one of the first fishermen in the head waters of the Asquamchumauke. He had settled high up on the side of Moosehillock mountain. The woods were thick about his clearing, shutting out the view back of his cabin; but Moose- hillock looked in upon him from the north, and east, the crests of the mountains swept round him in a circle to the south-west. Morning and evening he could hear the roar of the river in the gorge just beyond the eastern edge of the clearing.
He used to tell how a July night of those early times had been showery, and in the morning, rising early, he saw a faint blue line of mist which hovered over the bed of the long rocky ravine, floating about like the steam of a seething cauldron, and rising here and there into tall smoke like columns, probably where some steeper cataract of the mountain stream sent its foam skyward. As the sun came up the mists rapidly dispersed from the lower regions, were suspended for a short time in the middle air in broad, fleecy masses, then melted quickly away in the increasing brightness of the day.
" The fish will bite this forenoon, and I will see the river," he said, "and the land beyond." He had bought his hooks down
Anson Merrill said he saw pigeons, year after year, so thick flying over War- ren that they looked like a black cloud.
Fowling Anecdote .- Joseph and Orlando, sons of Joseph Boynton, who lived on the ridge above Cold brook, once found a partridge sitting on her nest. Orlando got the gun and he and Joseph went out to shoot the bird; but their father think- ing it too bad to shoot a sitting bird, run ahead and scared the partridge up. Or- lando saw him and heard the heavy flight. He was mad and hallooed to Joseph what his father had done. Joseph, he was madder still, and with the most filial
380
HISTORY OF WARREN.
country, his wife had spun him a linen line, and he had buckshot for a sinker. Digging some worms by the path that led to his house, he traveled away over the brook to the northeast, through the thick hemlock woods, a mile and more, to the river bank. At the base of this descent, four hundred feet perhaps below, flowed the dark arrowy stream - a wild perilous water. As clear as crystal, yet as dark as the brown lichens, it came pouring down among the broken rocks, with a rapidity and force which showed what must be its fury when swollen by a storm among the mountains; here breaking into a wreath of rippling foam, where some unseen ledge chafed the current, there roaring and surging white as December's snow among the great round headed boulders, and there again wheeling in sullen eddies, dark and deceitful, round and round some deep rock-rimmed basin.
Going down the bank two beautiful spruce grouse, their scarlet feathers gleaming in the morning sun, clucked, clucked, chur-r-red, and then disappeared in heavy flight down among the great trees of the ravine.
At the water edge he cut a beautiful birchen pole, fastened his line upon the end and adjusted a worm upon his hook. Delicately, deftly the bait danced in the clear water across the foamy, crystal eddy to the hither bank, then again, obedient to the pliant wrist it circled half round the limpid basin, then stopped for a moment in a little mimic whirlpool, where it spun round and round just to the leeward of a gray granite boulder. It was only for a moment, and the gay tail of a trout flashed in the sunshine, then a swirl on the surface, a quick turn of the wrist, the barbed hook was fixed and the most beautiful fish of the northern waters spun round and round for a moment in the air, then quickly unhooked was strung on the forked birch twig cut for the purpose. The hook was rebaited, another and another were caught, then down stream leap- ing on the great round boulders, he stopped again at a second edying basin, adjusted his bait, and hurrying now in the wild excitement, caught brace after brace, taking no note of time till the shadows crept out over the deep gorge and a heavy rumble up
affection, and in the most pions manner, shouted out, "Shoot, shoot the d-d old cuss." His father heard him and mildly said, " Orlando, if you do I'll take your hide off;" and Orlando didn't shoot .- Russell K. Clement's story.
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381
FIFTY MILES OF TROUT WATER.
in the great basin of the mountains told that a thunder shower was coming on.
A hedgehog had come down by the stream to drink, but he heeded him not. A winter wren, darting quick as a mouse in and out among the roots of a fallen tree, had warbled a trilling fairy song to him ; a white throated finch had sung soft and sweet from the top of a beautiful green spruce that shot up like a cone at the head of a little island where the stream divided and rushed rap- idly down on either side, and just then a great shaggy black bear came from the woods and laying down in the cold water lapped his fill, and sozzled and tossed the clear crystal fluid to his heart's content. Merrill never disturbed him; but with fish, as many as he could conveniently carry, scrambled up the steep bank and hurried away home. In his old age he would tell what a wetting he got going home from his first fishing excursion in the Asquam- chumauke.
Fish have been caught in Glen and Wachipauka ponds, and Tarleton lake, that would weigh over four pounds each,* and I have seen them myself, caught from the Joseph Merrill pond, that would weigh three pounds. Who does not like to fish? In my youth I fished in the dear old mill-pond and tiny Cold brook; but in after years in the wild mountain stream and on the sylvan lake.
There are more than fifty miles of trout streams in our moun- tain hamlet,; any mile of which can be reached and well fished any day, in the season, from Warren common. Patch brook, Hur- ricane brook, Batchelder brook, Davis brook, Libby brook, East- branch brook, the Asquamchumauke, Gorge brook, Big brook, Merrill brook, Berry brook, Black brook, (the Mikaseota,) Ore hill brook, and Martin brook, also the Oliverian, afford more than fifty thousand genuine red-spotted trout with pink sides and silver belly and tri-colored fins, white, black, and red, each year. Who does not love to follow the clear streams running over sandy bottoms
* Wm. H. Fisk, of Manchester, N. H., once caught a trout out of Patch brook that weighed over four pounds. A fish hawk sat on a neighboring tree looking at him and evidently had been watching the same game. When Mr. Fisk bagged the beauty the hawk flew away with a scream, seeming much disappointed.
t Cyrus C. Kimball, in his day, fished a portion of the Asquamchumauke so much that the fish were spring poor all the year round. He amused himself chasing them over the rocks when they wouldn't bite.
382
HISTORY OF WARREN.
where they abound. Your trout delights in cascades, tumbling bays and weirs. Generally he has his hole nnder roots of over- hanging trees, and beneath hollow banks and great boulders in the deepest parts of the stream. The junction of little rapids, formed by water passing round an obstruction in the midst of the general current is a likely point at which to raise a trout; also at the roots of trees, or beside great rocks, or in other places where the froth of the stream collects. All such places are favorable for sport, as insects follow the same course as the bubbles, and are there sought by the fish. Generally they lie head up stream, not even wagging the tail or moving a fin. Thousands of pounds of fish are also taken from our ponds each year, yet they never seem to grow scarce, and each season brings its accustomed product.
Warren has known some pot fishers, real murderers of the finny tribe; and once upon a time, as the fairy stories begin, sev- eral lovers of fat trout resolved to capture every one in Wachi- pauka pond. Dr. Alphonzo G. French, Rev. A. W. Eastman, and Absalom Clifford, Esq., were the principal actors. But they invited their friends John S. Batchelder, Newell Barry, Newell S. Martin, and several other less important personages, to go with them and share in the spoils. Accordingly, armed with wash- tubs, mackerel kits, and syrup holders, one bright summer morn- ing they all repaired to the pond.
The plan was to fill a large stone jug with powder, attach a fuse and sink it in the water; one of the number on a raft should light the fuse, and the others with a rope, should pull him ashore. The explosion would kill every fish in the pond; they would float on the surface and the greedy fishermen could pick them up at their leisure. Absalom Clifford was to touch off the fuse, and Dr. French and Rev. Mr. Eastman were to land him before the explo- sion. The others would get behind great trees in the woods.
The plan is perfected ; the raft is floating on the still water and the rope extends to the shore.
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