USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > Lyndeborough > The history of the town of Lyndeborough, New Hampshire,1735-1905 > Part 11
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CHAPTER V.
PHYSICAL FEATURES.
I. Geology .- Having glanced at the settlement of Lynde- borough it will now be in place to notice some of its physical features. Its territory was indeed a broad and noble domain, with marked variety of "hills and woods," "sweeping vales and foaming floods," shaded nooks and sunbright knolls, well adapted for the homes of stalwart and thrifty husbandmen. Under the hand of careful cultivation, some of the finest fruits of our temperate zone are now produced in luxurious abun- dance upon its fertile soil.
Professor C. H. Hitchcock in his Geology of New Hamp- shire writes of the Temple Mountain Range,* "The map shows a line of elevations from Lyndeborough to New Ipswich, whose similar topographical features suggest identity of geological character. The Lyndeborough mountains rise abruptly from the comparatively flat ground of New Boston and Francestown ; and the rocks change as quickly as the elevation. Gneiss is exchanged for mica schist." .
. Again in describing the Hooksett range of quartz, he wrote of its disappearance in New Boston and adjacent towns, and of its discovery again at a "hill east of J. Haggett's in the east part of Lyndeborough." " There is said to be a little quartz by a saw-mill a quarter of a mile north of the natural place for the line of outcrop to cross the stream, but the rock appears near E. N. Patch's. Irregu- larities in direction are to be expected in Lyndeborough, since the trend of the rock at Patch's if continued, would carry the ledge a mile below its next outcrop, west of J. F. Holt's. It continues south of west, and makes the hill near the glass works at South Lyndeborough." . " The first railroad cut west of the station barely touches this bed of quartz." .
" By the eye this range can be followed over the large hill east of Burton pond, on the town line between Lyndeborough and Wilton."t
" Between the Pinnacle and Pack Monadnock mountains is a deep valley, cut down by Stony Brook, and the place where the railroad passes from Wilton to Greenfield. For two miles or
* Geol. Vol. II, p. 580.
t Geol. II, pp. 540, 541.
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PHYSICAL FEATURES
more, the mica schists are well exposed along the axis of the mountain ranges."*
"On the west side of Badger pond the rock is like the Con- cord granite, and is used extensively in the neighborhood for underpining. The dips about Lyndeborough centre are high to the northwest. It has a similar character two miles to the southwest, near S. S. Cumming's. A hard granitic gneiss oc- cupies the country in the valley of Stony brook for about two miles west of South Lyndeborough. The range runs through the northwest part of Wilton to Temple."t
"Fig. 90," facing p. 545, " illustrates the rocks from South Lyndeborough to the west part of Milford, through East Wilton."# "In the south edge of the village, follow- ing the carriage road instead of the railroad, the next interest- ing rock is a granite like the Concord in general appearance, but full of small, distinct crystals of feldspar."
Again after referring to the phenomena of potholes at Man- chester on the Merrimack, one of which was 12 feet in diameter and 25 deep, he continues, "The 'Purgatory,' on the line of Lyndeboro and Mont Vernon, shows other potholes. The stream - 10 feet wide -winds spirally through a narrow chasm, and then falls 15 or 20 feet into a large pool. Both the spiral course and the pool are to be classed with potholes, and there, are several small examples above the main cataract. A cave, below is thought to have originated from ordinary disintegra- tion through freezing."§
The formation known as Glacial Drift is described as follows : " The ice accumulated in the St. Lawrence valley so as to flow over New England, possibly preceded by a southwest current. 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 towards the ocean. This was the period of the formation of the lower till, and of the great terminal moraines of lower New England." l
The lenticular hills of the Glacial Drift form an interesting subject of study, and parts of Lyndeborough, as well as that section of Wilton detached from Salem-Canada, furnish fine examples of these formations. In the eastern part of Green- field also, "they are finely developed. Two miles northeast of Russell's crossing, till lies in rounded masses on the northwest slope of Lyndeborough mountain. It also forms a smooth
* Geol. II, p. 580 t Geol. II, p. 551. # Id., p. 546. || Geol. III, p. 250. § Vol. III, p. 337, 2.
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HISTORY OF LYNDEBOROUGH
area of several acres near its southwest summit, and is spread in extensive sheets on its southeast side.">* . . They occur also " upon Perham hill, in the northeast corner of Wilton ; " again "a mile to the northwest in the edge of Lyndeborough," and at North Lyndeborough.
"A railroad cut in South Lyndeborough, two miles west of the station exhibits three layers in the till. The top is the familiar loose ferruginous earth, such as universally covers the ground-moraine. Next, b is a good example of the lower till, full of glaciated pebbles, porphyritic and granitic gneisses, mica schist, etc., 5 feet, and in one case six feet long. The laminated appearance arising from compression is clearly de- fined. Beneath this is a coarser mass, reaching to the bottom of the cut, so very compact that a pick had no effect when struck into it by the workmen ; only gunpowder or a stronger explosive could excavate it, and it was necessary that the holes should be bored horizontally near the surface to become effec- tual in removing the earth."t
Finally, our author wrote :
"In Lyndeborough there is an establishment fitted up for the manufacture of glass based upon the presence of one of the beds of quartz," already mentioned, as so common in the south- ern counties of the state. "Although milky-white, the quartz contains a small percentage of iron and is therefore apt to impart a green color . . . to the vessels manufactured from it. There- fore it is best to eliminate the iron as completely as possible, so as to secure a better quality of glass. The rock is put into a kiln and burnt, just as if it were limestone being converted into lime. The rock becomes friable, so that it can be readily crushed and pulverized, and the iron is converted into the magnetic oxid. After pulverization, the quartz-flour is made to fall in a stream over magnets set like bristles on the surface of cylinders. The magnets instantly attract the iron sand, which. is thus perfectly removed from the quartz by several repetitions of the process of falling over the revolving cylinder. Had not the fire removed the water and a portion of the oxygen from the iron ore, the magnets could not purify the quartz . .. which is now ready to be put into crucibles. A very large business is done at Lyndeborough."§
Alas! this last statement, true when published in 1878, re-
* III, p. 297. + Geol. III, p. 283, Illustration.
# See Vol. I, p. 509. § Geol. I, p. 509 and III, Part, V, p. 89, combined.
LENTICULAR HILLS, NORTH LYNDEBOROUGII.
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PHYSICAL FEATURES
mains so no longer. The glass-factory is a thing of the past, and the flourishing business once done here, is now a reminis- cence. Traces and traditions of it still remain as one of the branches of manufacture which gave our town more than a local reputation, furnished employment to many hands, made money more plenty, and nearly all other industries of the popu- lation more thriving.
2. Mineralogy .* Minerals .- It has been written that the world might be said to be built upon crystal foundations because quartz comprises one-half or more of the mineral formation of the globe. It might be said truly of Lyndeborough, for a quartz ledge, or chain of quartz ledges having a N. E. trend extends through the town. Many of them, the Lucas, Gilmore, Putnam, and Hartshorn ledges, have been worked to a greater or lesser extent. Quartz and granite (the latter composed of quartz, feldspar and mica) predominate among the minerals of our town. I have found the following list, some of course very sparingly :
Actinolite
Albite (soda feldspar)
muscovite
Arsenopyrite, mispickel, arseni- cal iron pyrites
biotite
Bog iron ore
schist
Cairngorm stone
Petrified wood
Clay
Quartz 66 aventurine
Copper (just a trace)
Dendrite
drusy
Feldspar, several var.
ferruginous
Garnet
false topaz
Gneiss
granular
Granite
milky
porphyritic
66
rose
garnetiferous
66
smoky
Selenite
66 black micaseous
Syenite
Granulite
Graphite, plumbago, black lead
Hornblende
Tourmaline, black Tremolite Water
Iron pyrites
Talcose schist (named for me by Professor Dana of Yale)
graphic
rock cristal
hornblendic
albitic
Jasper rock Mica
Black tourmaline, rose quartz and tremolite are found on Pinnacle Mt. A peculiarly soft, argillaceous slate containing granular quartz is found on land of J. A. Johnson.
*Mineralogy furnished by Mrs. E. A. Putnam.
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HISTORY OF LYNDEBOROUGH
TOPOGRAPHY.
BY J. A. WOODWARD.
The original township of Salem Canada was a tract of land six miles square, situated near the centre of Hillsboro County, New Hampshire. It contained 23,040 acres of land with 1018 acres allowed for water (which was probably largely in excess of what there really was). It was neither a square nor a rect- angle. Rev. Mr. Clark says, "it was nearly square with the ex- ception of a corner missing toward Boystown or New Boston. The south-east corner was a little north of the Dea. Bartlett place on the road to Milford. The south line running from that point west, passed back of the Congregational Church, Wilton, crossed the Forest road near Mr. Levi Putnam's mill, running past the old north burying ground, Wilton, and a little to the south of the old county farm, to a point south west and near the Benjamin Whiting house in Temple, about half a mile from the old County farm."*
The west line extended north to within a short distance of Greenfield village. The north line extended north of the Pin- nacle to the New Boston line. Afterward the land added to the township to make up for what was taken to help form Wilton or No. 2, made the west line extend nearly to Driscoll Hill, Francestown. The north line ran from that point near where the Nehemiah Epps blacksmith shop stands, to the New Boston line. The "History of Francestown" throws no light on the question of where this north line was; nor does it give the size or shape of the tract of land called Lyndeborough Addition. But from the fact that the petitioners asking to be allowed to join Francestown lived on Driscoll Hill and vicinity, and as the map of Society land, published in 1753, gives a straight line running east from this hill three and one-half miles as the north line of Salem-Canada, it would seem that the above description must be true.
This township of Salem-Canada was emphatically a land of mountains, hills and valleys, and figuratively speaking, there were few places in it where a wagon would stand without "trig- ging the wheels." It was a well watered, attractive country, sightly and healthful.
The shape of the Lyndeborough of to-day bears little resem- blance to that of Salein-Canada, owing to the inroads which
*Rev. F. G. Clark, Salem-Canada-Lyndeboro', p, 18.
PINNACLE MOUNTAIN, FROM STEPHENSON'S HILL.
-
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PHYSICAL FEATURES
other towns have made on its territory. It is bounded on the west by Temple and Greenfield, on the north by Francestown, on the east by New Boston and Mont Vernon and on the south by Milford and Wilton. Its boundary lines are very irregular, and have many angles and corners.
It was undoubtedly very heavily timbered originally, with pine and spruce and hemlock, with hard wood ridges covered with forests of oak, maple, beech, birch, ash, &c. It is said that the balsam fir was never plentiful in Lyndeborough. There is very little of what is called "pine plain " land in Lynde- borough, that section in North Lyndeborough east and north of John H. Goodrich's being the only land of that kind in town. The old stump fences in that vicinity show what the original growth was there.
The land, as New England land goes, was and is fertile and strong, and the farms compare very favorably with any of those of the hill towns of New Hampshire. The early settlers evi- dently could not tell just what land could be most easily brought into an arable condition, owing to its covering of leaves and humus, and sometimes the burnings revealed the fact that they had located on stony ground, and they soon removed to more favorable localities. This partly accounts for the many cellar holes in town.
While the highest elevations of land in town are generally known as the Lyndeborough Mountains, there are four distinct peaks, viz .: Pinnacle, Rose, Winn and Piscataquog. They are all of the Pack Monadnock range. Rose Mouutain was named after Abram Rose, who first settled on its eastern slope. Winn Mountain was named for persons owning land on its summit, and it is unknown who gave the name Pinnacle to the second high- est elevation. Nearly every hill has a name handed down from early times.
3. Elevations .- Rose Mountain, 1710; Pinnacle, 1680 ; Winn Mountain, 1075; Piscataquog Mountain, 1262 (commonly. called Scataquog) ; Stephenson's Hill, 985 ; elevation back of No. 9 schoolhouse, 1407 ; Lyndeborough Centre, 880; South Lynde- borough, 649; Badger Pond, 800; Burton Pond, 840 ; Hadley's Hill, 1321 .; Bradley Tay's house, 1280; hill back of the Dol- liver place, 1271 ; summit of new road, 1100; Buttrick's mills, 787 ; road from the Wilder place to D. B. Whittemore's, 800 to 900 ; road from the Ryerson place to No. 5 schoolhouse, 800
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HISTORY OF LYNDEBOROUGH
to 950 ; Putnam Hill, 800 ; roads in Johnson's Corner, 700 to 800.
From a point on the summit of Hadley's Hill (1321) may be seen the following mountains. Looking from east to west they are nearly in the order named : Joe English, Uncanoonucs, Paw- tuckaway, Saddle-back, Nuts Mt., Nottingham Mt., Fort Mt., McCoy's Mt., Brush Hill, Catamount, Straight-back, Belknap Mt., Ossipee Mts., Mt. Chocorua, Mt. Paugus, Mt. Passacona- way, Mt. Whiteface, Tripyramid, Mt. Washington, Sandwich Dome, Mt. Israel, Pemigewasset Mt., Profile Mt., Mt. Stinson, Moosilauke Mt., Mt. Carr, Mt. Kearsarge (Warner) Stewart's Peak, Sunapee Mts., Lovetts Mt., Croydon Mt., Crotchet Mt. and Knight's Hill. The view of the Grand Monadnock is hid- hen by the Pinnacle from this place, but otherwise the view- point is rather better than the Pinnacle, although the latter is the higher elevation.
As a rule the north sides of our mountains and hills are slop- ing, with an easy grade, while the south sides are more or less abrupt and in some places precipitous. Geologists explain this as the action of glaciers during the ice period. And speaking of the ice period, there are several so-called kettle-holes in town. They are circular depressions in the ground, of varying size, with a well defined ridge, or lip. These are said to have been caused by masses of ice broken from glaciers and left stranded, and partially covered with earth and stones. When the ice melted, the result was these curious formations. There is a very well defined one on land of David G. Dickey, near where the writer lives. The trend of the mountain range in Lyndeborough is slightly circular from Piscataquog to Winn Mt., the direction being toward the southwest, with Peterbor- ough, or North Pack Monadnock, next to Winn. It will be seen that the elevation of the "middle of the town " is about the same as that of the road at D. B. Whittemore's place, and that leaving out of consideration the highest mountain land, the average altitude of the town is about 800 feet.
The southeastern end of Lyndeborough mountain proper may be said to be near the old Micah Hartshorn place, later owned by the late Eliphalet J. Hardy. From this there is a gradual rise to the summit of Piscataquog Mt., with a very abrupt descent on the easterly side, which at a point east of the highest elevation known as the " Ledges," becomes precipitous.
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PHYSICAL FEATURES
The elevations are taken from Peterboro Quadrangle of the U. S. Topographic Map, edition of June, 1900.
Lyndeborough is exclusively a farming town, and there are but two villages within its limits. South Lyndeborough is the largest and most closely built, the village at the "Centre" being composed mostly of farm houses with considerable inter- vals between each. These farmhouses, with the church, town house and parsonage compose the village.
The water-shed of the town to the south is into the Souhegan River and thence to the Merrimack, and to the north into the Piscataquog River .*
Lyndeborough abounds in stones of all shapes and sizes, from immense boulders to tiny pebbles, and the early settlers found 110 difficulty in getting material to fence their land. An out- cropping of white quartz extends the width of the town from a point near where Emery Holt lives to the Temple line. No mines of metals, precious or otherwise, have ever been dis- covered within the limits of the town, though mining for them has been carried on, as related in another chapter.
PONDS AND STREAMS OF LYNDEBOROUGH.
BY J. A. WOODWARD.
It would be interesting to compare the brooks of Lynde- borough, as they are in these later days, with the same streams as they were when the town was covered with the primeval forest, as they were when the first settlers came to Salem Canada. While the annual rainfall is probably about the same now as then, notwithstanding the alarming assertions of the "For- estry Commission," the flow of water is not as even as in those early days. The shade of the forest, the leaves and moss and humus on top of the soil, served to retain the moisture, and yield it in a gradual flow through the season. The clearing away of the forest, the conversion of the hillsides into open pastures, has resulted in quick drainage and sudden and violent freshets. The channels or water courses of many of our brooks are growing larger year by year and more boulders are exposed. Dutton Brook and the upper part of Cold Brook show this wearing-away process more than the others. Another result of the cutting away of the forests is the drying up of
*I think we may freely write the name of this river, although it touches but spar- ingly our town. It has been immortalized by our Quaker poet in his "Bashaba's Feast," which was graced by
"Cranberries picked in the Squamscot bog,
And grapes from the vines of Piscataquog."-D.
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HISTORY OF LYNDEBOROUGH
the brooks in summer. It is probable that in the early days these brooks were never dry, and many small brooks were noted for trout forty or fifty years ago wliere no fish have existed for years, owing to the midsummer drouths. The stories and traditions that have come down to us of the privations and ex- posure of the early settlers seem to indicate that the snowfall was much greater then than it is now, but the probabilities are that the spring freshets were not as violent, and the rise and fall of our brooks were not as sudden as at present. While Lyndeborough has few attractions in the way of ponds and lakes, it is greatly favored in the number and beauty of its mountain brooks.
BADGER POND.
Badger Pond is a small sheet of water situated just north of the village at the centre. It was named for David and Robert Badger, who settled near its northern shore. It would require a stretch of the imagination to call it a lovely body of water. Its area is about seventeen acres, but it has been curtailed on the north and west shore by water brush and a growth of reeds and rushes until it is somewhat smaller. Its waters are shallow, nowhere much exceeding five feet in depth with a bottom of unfathomable mud. No one has yet been able to find solid bottom a short distance from the shore. It has been the favor- ite abode of the muskrat and water snake. Numbers of these last repulsive looking reptiles might be seen, sunning them- selves on the hassocks about its edge, a few years ago, but they are about exterminated now and are seldom seen. The muskrat used to build its dome-shaped nest around its shores, and not many years ago as many as a dozen might be seen rising above the ice in winter, like small haycocks, but bitter experience with the trappers who broke open the tops of the nests and set traps therein, taught these cunning animals wisdom and, although they still frequent the pond, they build their winter homes in burrows under its banks, and a muskrat's house has not been seen there for some years.
This pond was doubtless a stopping place for the Indians when they roamed these mountains and valleys. Whether they had a village near its shores will probably never be ascertained, but in 1863 one of the residents in the vicinity, while digging mud near its east shore, unearthed four Indian gouges made of stone. They lay near a small spring and were buried about eighteen inches in the mud. They are made of a kind of
.
BADGER POND, FROM WALKER S HILL.
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PHYSICAL FEATURES
stone not found in Lyndeborough. One of them is in the posses- sion of one of the citizens of the town. This same resident also dug up from the sand knoll west of the pond the bones of an Indian skeleton. He supposed he had encroached on the forgotten grave of some white man, and hastily reinterred the bones, but later learned that Samuel Jones and his son, Clark B., dug up the skeletons of two Indians at the same locality a few years previously - one of which was presented to Frances- town Academy - which would indicate that the Indians had a permanent abiding place in the vicinity. Badger Pond is the favorite resort of the fishermen after pickerel, and is noted for the great number and small size of the catch. It is thought by some that the meadows which extend for a long distance below the pond were once a part of it. It is fed by two small brooks coming in from the north and by numerous springs.
Jonathan Barron was drowned while attempting to cross on the ice one Thanksgiving day. He was a young man living where F. B. Tay now lives, and started to attend service at the church at the Centre. He took the short cut across the pond, but the ice was not strong enough to bear his weight.
BURTON POND.
While Burton Pond is not what is termed a natural pond it is deserving of mention in this history. Most people would never mistrust from a casual examination that it was any other than a pond formed by nature, but hidden away in the woods surrounding it, is the dam built in 1837 by Mr. Otis Smith, which created this body of water. Sewell and Eliphalet Put- nam acquired the right of flowage and had the dam built to forin a reservoir of water to run a bobbin-shop in Wilton. They purchased the flowage rights of Dexter Burton, Isaac Giddings, Ephraim Putnam, and perhaps others.
This body of water, now known as Burton Pond, is situated in the southwest part of the town. It can by no means be called a pretty sheet of water, and yet from some parts of it a beautiful view of the mountains to the west may be obtained. The land flowed was heavily covered with forest growth and as much of this was cut after the pond was formed, it is pretty thoroughly dotted with stumps, and navigation is uncertain. The fisherman finds his scow hard and fast on a submerged snag, and further progress stopped until he can work off. It is also a repository of lost fishing tackle. In shape it is very irregular, in fact, it is almost all coves. While pickerel abound
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HISTORY OF LYNDEBOROUGH
the toothsome but homely horn-pout is its principal product. Its muddy bottom yields hundreds annually. Raccoons and mink abound about its shores, and its roots and snags are the favorite sunning places for the tortoise. The writer once found a pretty wild-flower growing in a hollow of a stump away in the middle of the pond, and speculated much how the seed got there. The pond is said now to be the private property of Dr. Frye of Wilton and many of the stumps were removed during the winter of 1903-4.
COLD BROOK.
Cold Brook has its source in springs on the mountain west of ·
Robt. C. Mason's house. It flows down the mountain in a northeasterly direction until it reaches the Whittemore meadow, where it makes an abrupt turn to the east. At the foot of this meadow it is joined by the waters of a small brook that rises south of the Wilson place. Its course is then almost due east, and with comparatively little fall until it crosses the new road, so called. It has by this time become a pretty good sized stream, and its bed is strewn with immense boulders as it plunges down the steep mountain side, until it emerges into the meadows in New Boston. It enters the Pis- cataquog River a short distance above Paper Mill Village. Its whole length is about three and one-half miles. About sixty rods below where it crosses the new road it plunges through a steep ravine, over ledges, now a pool, now a cascade, forming a scene as wild and grand and withal as beautiful as can be found in southern New Hampshire. Standing at the foot of this ra- vine and looking up, one can see for nearly twenty rods a series of tumbling cascades, mossy ledges and overhanging boulders. This charming place is little known and seldom visited except by trout fishermen, but will amply repay anyone who will take the trouble to find it. It can be most easily reached from the road at C. H. Senter's house.
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