USA > New Hampshire > To Monadnock; the records of a mountain in New Hampshire through three centuries > Part 10
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167
TO MONADNOCK
III
From the Familiar Letters of Henry David Thoreau. This letter, to Harrison Blake, is dated Concord, Nov. 4, 1860. Published by Houghton Mifflin 1894 and 1906, and by their permission here republished.
I am glad to hear any particulars of your excursion. As for myself, I looked out for you somewhat on that Monday, when, it appears, you passed Monadnock; turned my glass upon sev- eral parties that were ascending the mountain half a mile on one side of us. In short, I came as near to seeing you as you to seeing me. I have no doubt that we should have had a good time if you had come, for I had, all ready, two good spruce houses in which you could stand up, complete in all respects, half a mile apart, and you and B. could have lodged by your- selves in one, if not with us.
We made an excellent beginning of our mountain life. You may remember that the Saturday previous was a stormy day. Well, we went up in the rain,-wet through,-and found our- selves in a cloud there at mid-afternoon, in no situation to look about for the best place for a camp. So I proceeded at once, through the cloud, to that memorable stone "chunk yard" in which we made our humble camp once, and there, after putting our packs under a rock, having a good hatchet, I proceeded to build a substantial house, which Channing declared the hand- somest he ever saw. (He never camped out before, and was, no doubt, prejudiced in its favor.) This was done about dark, and by that time we were nearly as wet as if we had stood in a hogshead of water. We then built a fire before the door, directly on the site of our little camp of two years ago, and it took a long time to burn through its remains to the earth be- neath. Standing before this, and turning round slowly like
168
THOREAU AND CHANNING, 1860
meat that is roasting, we were as dry, if not drier than ever, after a few hours, and so at last we "turned in."
This was a great deal better than going up there in fair weather, and having no adventure (not knowing how to appre- ciate either fair weather or foul) but dull, commonplace sleep in a useless house and before a comparatively useless fire, such as we get every night. Of course we thanked our stars, when we saw them, which was about midnight, that they had seem- ingly withdrawn for a season. We had the mountain all to our- selves that afternoon and night. There was nobody going up that day to engrave his name on the summit, nor to gather blue- berries. The genius of the mountains saw us starting from Concord, and it said, There come two of our folks. Let us get ready for them. Get up a serious storm, that will send a-packing these holiday guests. (They may have their say an- other time.) Let us receive them with true mountain hospi- tality,-kill the fatted cloud. Let them know the value of a spruce roof, and of a fire of dead spruce stumps. Every bush dripped tears of joy at our advent. Fire did its best, and re- ceived our thanks. What could fire have done in fair weather? Spruce roof got its share of our blessings. And then, such a view of the wet rocks, with the wet lichens on them, we had the next morning, but did not get again !
We and the mountain had a sound season, as the saying is. How glad we were to be wet, in order that we might be dried! How glad we were of the storm which made our house seem like a new home to us! This day's experience was indeed lucky, for we did not have a thunder-shower during all our stay. Perhaps our host reserved this attention in order to tempt us to come again.
Our next house was more substantial still. One side was rock, good for durability; the floor the same; and the roof
169
TO MONADNOCK
which I made would have upheld a horse. I stood on it to do the shingling.
I noticed, when I was at the White Mountains last, several nuisances which render traveling thereabouts unpleasant. The chief of these was the mountain houses. I might have sup- posed that the main attraction of that region, even to citizens, lay in its wildness and unlikeness to the city, and yet they make it as much like the city as they can afford to. I heard that the Crawford House was lighted with gas, and had a large saloon, with its band of music, for dancing. But give me a spruce house made in the rain.
An old Concord farmer tells me that he ascended Monadnock once, and danced on the top. How did that happen? Why, he being up there, a party of young men and women came up, bringing boards and a fiddler; and, having laid down the boards, they made a level floor, on which they danced to the music of the fiddle. I suppose the tune was "Excelsior." This reminds me of the fellow who climbed to the top of a very high spire, stood upright on the ball, and hurrahed for-what? Why, for Harrison and Tyler. That's the kind of sound which most ambitious people emit when they culminate. They are wont to be singularly frivolous in the thin atmosphere; they can't contain themselves, though our comfort and their safety require it; it takes the pressure of many atmospheres to do this; and hence they helplessly evaporate there. It would seem that as they ascend, they breathe shorter and shorter, and, at each expiration, some of their wits leave them, till, when they reach the pinnacle, they are so light-headed as to be fit only to show how the wind sits. I suspect that Emerson's criticism called "Monadnoc" was inspired, not by remembering the in- habitants of New Hampshire as they are in the valleys so much as by meeting some of them on the mountain top.
170
THOREAU AND CHANNING, 1860
After several nights' experience, Channing came to the con- clusion that he was "lying outdoors," and inquired what was the largest beast that might nibble his legs there. I fear that he did not improve all the night, as he might have done, to sleep. I had asked him to go and spend a week there. We spent five nights, being gone six days, for C. suggested that six working days made a week, and I saw that he was ready to decamp. However, he found his account in it as well as I.
We were seen to go up in the rain, grim and silent, like two genii of the storm, by Fassett's men or boys; but we were never identified afterward. . . Five hundred persons at least came on to the mountain while we were there, but not one found our camp. We saw one party of three ladies and two gentlemen spread their blankets and spend the night on the top, and heard them converse; but they did not know that they had neighbors who were comparatively old settlers.
171
TO MONADNOCK
IV
By William Ellery Channing, Thoreau: the Poet-Naturalist, published 1873.
Before he [Thoreau] set out on a foot journey . . . he made a list of all he should carry,-the sewing materials never for- gotten, as he was a vigorous walker and did not stick at a hedge more than an English racer; the pounds of bread, the sugar, salt and tea carefully decided on. After trying the merit of cocoa, coffee, water and the like, tea was put down as the felicity of a walking "travail,"-tea plenty, strong, with enough sugar, made in a tin pint cup; when it may be said the walker will be refreshed and grow intimate with tea leaves. With him the botany must go too, and the book for pressing flowers (an old "Primo Flauto" of his father's), and the guide-book, spy- glass and measuring tape; and everyone who has carried a pack up a mountain knows how every fresh ounce tells. . . He com- mended every party to carry "a junk of heavy cake" with plums in it, having found by long experience that after toil it was a capital refreshment. . .
He ascended such hills as Monadnock or Saddleback Moun- tain by his own path, and would lay down his map on the sum- mit and draw a line to the point he proposed to visit below, perhaps forty miles away in the landscape, and set off bravely to make the short cut. The lowland people wondered to see him scaling the heights as if he had lost his way, or at his jump- ing over their cow-yard fences, asking if he had fallen from the clouds. . .
On a walk like this he always carried his umbrella; and on this Monadnock trip, when about one mile from the station, a
172
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MONADNOCK FROM STONE POND, MARLBOROUGH, N. H.
From a lithograph not before 1860, perhaps 1870 (the drawing by A. E. Dolbear, the lithograph by Milton Bradley) owned by the Peterborough Historical Society and photographed through their courtesy (by Mr. C. T. Johnson of Jaffrey).
THOREAU AND CHANNING, 1860
torrent of rain came down, the day being previously fine ; when, without his well-used aid, his books, blankets, maps and pro- visions would all have been spoiled, or the morning lost by delay. On the mountain, the first plateau being reached per- haps at about three, there being a thick, rather soaking fog, the first object was to camp and make tea. . . He spent five nights in camp, having built two huts to get varied views. . . Flowers, birds, lichens and the rocks were carefully examined, all parts of the mountain being visited; and as accurate a map as could be made by pocket compass [was] carefully sketched and drawn out, in the five days spent there, with notes of the striking aerial phenomena, incidents of travel and natural history. Doubtless he directed his work with the view to writing on this and other mountains, and his collections were of course in his mind. Yet all this was incidental to the excursion itself. . .
The opportunity of the wild, free life, the open air, the new and strange sounds by night and day, the odd and bewildering rocks among which a person can be lost within a rod of camp; the strange cries of visitors to the summit ; the great valley over to Wachusett with its thunder storms and battles in the cloud, to look at, not fear; the farmers' back-yards in Jaffrey, where the family cotton can be seen bleaching on the grass, but no trace of the pigmy family; the rip of nighthawks after twilight putting up dorbugs, and the dry, soft air all the night; the lack of dew in the morning; the want of water, a pint being a good deal,-these and similar things make up some part of such an excursion. It is all different from anything, and would be so if you went a hundred times. The fatigue, the blazing sun, the face getting broiled, the pint cup never scoured, shaving un- utterable, your stockings dreary, having taken to peat,-not all the books in the world, as Sancho says, could contain the ad- ventures of a week in camping.
173
A COLLEGE PRESIDENT AND MONADNOCK
From the Life of Hosea Ballou, 2d, D.D., by Hosea Starr Ballou, through whose courtesy this excerpt is published. See also On Monadnock in June, supra page 76. Hosea Ballou, 2d, the first president of Tufts College, died May 27, 1861.
[To his brother's house at North Orange, Mass.] Hosea Ballou came every summer, coming often unannounced, to re- main a week, perhaps two weeks, for many years. [He] always brought a few good books lately from press to read; and late in life especially, his strength exhausted, he would sit in the great armchair and read and fall into a doze, and after a few minutes, suddenly rousing himself, he would walk up and down, back and forth, in front of the house, with the splendid panorama spread out before him. .. He was refreshed and delighted with this view. Then back to the great armchair and his books for an hour, when the promenade was repeated. With a clear atmosphere the view from the Levi Ballou house of Mount Monadnock, twenty miles away, from the summit down to the white "Halfway House" and on down to its very base, is superb. Grand Monadnock was the first high mountain that Hosea Ballou, 2d, ever climbed ; as a child he knew it, and he always felt a certain gratitude toward it for arousing in him a grand enthusiasm for rugged mountain scenery.
174
MONADNOCK AND THE COAST SURVEY, 1861
From a field report of 1861 to the U. S. Coast Survey at Washington, D. C. A photostat copy of this report (in manu- script) was very kindly furnished by the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey.
Monadnock Mt. was occupied as a geodetic and magnetic station during the months of July and August, 1861. It is situate in Cheshire County, N. H., and on the boundary line between the towns of Dublin and Jaffrey. It is about 3200 feet above the level of the sea, and from the summit downwards, in a circle of a radius of 1500 feet, it is bare rugged rocks with occasionally a few dwarfed spruces growing in the crevices where the soil has collected. The lower slopes and ravines are covered with a stunted growth of spruces, birch and fir. The Camp was pitched on the southern slope about 2500 feet from the Mountain House, on a plateau very near the upper edge of the wood.
The geodetic station [latitude 42° 51' 41".174 and longitude 72° 06' 30".776] is marked by a copper bolt in the rock, with cross lines on the head of it, the intersection of said lines being the station point; and further, in order to distinguish it from numerous drill holes in the surrounding rock, a triangle with sides about 8 inches long was cut around it.
The road up the mountain as far as the Mountain House, kept by Moses Cudworth, is the one used by persons visiting the mountain, and is quite easy of access. From the Mountain House to the camp a road was made by Mr. McDonnell of the U. S. Coast Survey, over which all the instruments and camp equipments were hauled. From the camp to the summit, a distance of 2500 feet, a good path has been made, stone steps having been arranged in all very steep places.
175
TO MONADNOCK
From the summit the view on a clear day embraces the dis- tant peaks of Mounts Washington [distant 104.5 miles], Lafayette and Moosehillock, together with the near ones of Ascutney, Kearsarge, Gunstock, Patucawa, Unkonoonuc, Blue Hill, Wachusett, Bald Hill, Mt. Tom, Holyoke, Greylock and the range of the Green Mountains. The Bunker Hill monu- ment may also be distinctly seen.
About a mile and a half from the base of the mountain, in a south-easterly direction, is Monadnock Mineral Spring on the road to the village of Jaffrey. It is on the land owned by Mr. Hartwell and about twenty feet from the road. The waters are slightly impregnated with carbonate of iron and sulphuret of soda. Where it issues from the earth, yellow ochre collects in considerable quantities. The water also is of such an even temperature that it has never been known to freeze over, though exposed to the air in an open cistern.
NEWS FROM MONADNOCK, 1861
From Thoreau's Journal, by courtesy of Houghton Mifflin Company.
Young Macey, who has been camping on Monadnock this summer, tells me that he found one of my spruce huts made last year in August, and that as many as eighteen, reshingling it, had camped in it while he was there.
[For later news see post, 1869.]
176
MONADNOCK FROM WACHUSETT [1862]
By John Greenleaf Whittier; through the courtesy of Houghton Mifflin Company.
I would I were a painter, for the sake Of a sweet picture, and of her who led, A fitting guide, with reverential tread, Into that mountain mystery. First a lake Tinted with sunset ; next the wavy lines Of far receding hills; and yet more far, Monadnock lifting from his night of pines His rosy forehead to the evening star. . .
177
EMERSON AT 63 AND MONADNOCK [1866]
From the Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, edited by Ed- ward Waldo Emerson and Waldo Emerson Forbes; published by Houghton Mifflin Company 1914; republished by permis- sion of Houghton Mifflin Company.
July 2 [1866]. I went with Annie Keyes and Mr. Chan- ning on Wednesday, 27th June, to Troy, N. H., thence to the Mountain House in wagon, and, with Edward and Tom Ward who had come down to meet us, climbed the mountain. The party already encamped were Moorfield Storey, Ward, and Edward [Emerson's son] for the men; and Una Hawthorne, Lizzie Simmons, and Ellen E. [Emerson's daughter] for the maidens. They lived on the plateau just below the summit, and were just constructing their one tent by spreading and tying India-rubber blankets over a frame of spruce poles large enough to hold the four ladies with sleeping space, and to cover the knapsacks. The men must find shelter, if need is, under the rocks. The mountain at once justified the party and their enthusiasm. It was romance enough to be there, and behold the panorama, and learn one by one all the beautiful novelties. The country below is a vast champaign,-half cleared, half forest,-with forty ponds in sight, studded with villages and farmhouses, and, all around the horizon, closed with mountain ranges. The eye easily traces the valley followed by the Cheshire Railroad, and just beyond it the valley of the Con- necticut River, then the Green Mountain chain; in the north, the White Hills can be seen; and, on the east, the low moun- tains of Watatic and Wachusett.
We had hardly wonted our eyes to the new Olympus, when the signs of a near storm set all the scattered party on the alert. The tent was to be finished and covered, and the knapsacks
178
RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 1866
piled in it. The wanderers began to appear on the heights, and to descend, and much work in camp was done in brief time. I looked about for a shelter in the rocks, and not till the rain began to fall, crept into it. I called to Channing, and after- wards to Tom Ward, who came, and we sat substantially dry, if the seat was a little cold, and the wall a little dripping, and pretty soon a large brook roared between the rocks, a little lower than our feet hung. Meantime, the thunder shook the mountain, and much of the time was continuous cannonade.
The storm refused to break up. One and another adven- turer rushed out to see the signs, and especially the sudden torrents, little Niagaras, that were pouring over the upper ledges, and descending upon our plateau. But everybody was getting uncomfortably wet, the prospect was not good for the night, and, in spite of all remonstrance on the part of the young ladies, I insisted that they must go down with me to the "Mountain House," for the night. All the four girls at last were ready, and descended with Storey and me,-thus leaving the tent free to be occupied by Mr. Channing, Tom Ward and Edward. The storm held on most of the night, but we were slowly drying and warming in the comfortable inn.
Next day, the weather slowly changed, and we climbed again the hill, and were repaid for all mishaps by the glory of the afternoon and evening. Edward went up with me to the summit, up all sorts of Giant stairs, and showed the long spur with many descending peaks on the Dublin side. The rock- work is interesting and grand ;- the clean cleavage, the won- derful slabs, the quartz dikes, the rock torrents in some parts, the uniform presence on the upper surface of the glacial lines or scratches, all in one self-same direction. Then every glance below apprises you how you are projected out into stellar space,
179
TO MONADNOCK
as a sailor on a ship's bowsprit out into the sea. We look down here on a hundred farms and farmhouses, but never see horse or man. For our eyes the country is depopulated. Around us the Arctic sparrow, Fringilla nivalis [junco or snowbird], flies and peeps; the ground-robin [chewink or towhee] also; but you can hear the distant song of the wood thrushes ascending from the green belts below. I found the picture charming, and more than remunerative.
Later, from the plateau, at sunset, I saw the great shadow of Monadnoc lengthen over the vast plain, until it touched the horizon. The earth and sky filled themselves with all orna- ments,-haloes, rainbows, and little pendulums of cloud would hang down till they touched the top of a hill, giving it the appearance of a smoking volcano. The wind was north, the evening cold, but the camp-fire kept the party comfortable, whilst Storey, with Edward for chorus, sang a multitude of songs to their great delectation. The night was forbiddingly cold,-the tent kept the girls in vital heat, but the youths could hardly keep their blood in circulation, the rather, that they had spared too many of their blankets to the girls and to the old men. Themselves had nothing for it but to rise and cut wood and bring it to the fire, which Mr. Channing watched and fed; and this service of fetching wood was done by Tom Ward once to his great peril during the night. In pitching a form- less stump over into the ravine, he fell, and in trying to clear himself from the stump now behind him, flying and falling, got a bad contusion.
[Two other members of this party, William Ellery Channing and Edward W. Emerson, wrote later about this outing. See post, 1871 and 1896.]
180
MONADNOC FROM AFAR
These two poems or fragments of poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson were not published until after his death. (By cour- tesy of Houghton Mifflin Company.)
I
Dark flower of Cheshire garden, Red evening duly dyes Thy sombre head with rosy hues To fix far-gazing eyes. Well the Planter knew how strongly Works thy form on human thought ;
I muse what secret purpose had he To draw all fancies to this spot.
II
A score of airy miles will smooth. Rough Monadnoc to a gem.
181
CHANNING AND SANBORN, 1869
This note by Franklin B. Sanborn is from the Familiar Letters of Henry David Thoreau published in 1894 by Houghton Mifflin Company, with whose permission it is here republished.
[Channing's last visit to Monadnock] was in September, 1869, when I accompanied him, and we again spent five nights on the plateau where he had camped with Thoreau. At that time, one of the "two good spruce houses, half a mile apart," mentioned by Thoreau [1860] was still standing, in ruins,- the place called by Channing "Henry's Camp," and thus de- scribed :
We built our fortress where you see Yon group of spruce trees, sidewise on the line Where the horizon to the eastward bounds,- A point selected by sagacious art,
Where all at once we viewed the Vermont hills And the long outline of the mountain-ridge, Ever-renewing, changeful every hour.
182
MOUNTAIN [1871]
From The Wanderer by William Ellery Channing, published in 1871. Three visits of Channing to Monadnock have been recorded in the preceding pages: the visit of August 1860 with Thoreau, the visit of July 1866 with Emerson, the visit of September 1869 with Sanborn.
Reminded thus
[Of those sad Mountains shining on the west, Blue as philosophy and as far off,] To that point I bent, I with the hermit. .. Strange, a few cubits raised above the plain, And a few tables of resistless stone Spread round us, with that rich, delightful air Draping high altars in cerulean space, Could thus enchant the being that we are! .. These steps inviolate by human art, Centre of awe, raised over all that man Would fain enjoy, and consecrate to one, Lord of the desert and of all beside ; Consorting with the cloud, the echoing storm, When like a myriad bowls the Mountain wakes In all its alleys one responsive roar, And sheeted down the precipice, all light, Tumble the momentary cataracts, The sudden laughter of the Mountain-child! . . In this sweet solitude, the Mountain's life, At morn and eve, at rise and hush of day, I heard the wood thrush sing in the white spruce, The living water, the enchanted air So mingling in the crystal clearness there A sweet peculiar grace from both .. . 1
1
183
TO MONADNOCK
Here haunts the sage of whom I sometime spake [Sage of his days, patient and proudly true], Ample Fortunio. On the Mountain peak I marked him once at sunset where he mused, Forth looking on the continent of hills, While from his feet the five long granite spurs That bind the centre to the valley's side (The spokes from this strange middle to the wheel) Stretched in the fitful torrent of the gale. . . He spoke not, yet methought I heard him say, "All day and night the same; in sun or shade, In summer flames and the jagged biting knife That hardy winter splits upon the cliff- From earliest time the same. One mother And one father brought us forth, thus gazing On the summits of the days, nor wearied Yet if all your generations fade : The crystal air, the hurrying light, the night, Always the day that never seems to end, Always the night whose day does never set ; One harvest and one reaper, ne'er too ripe, Sown by the self-preserver, free from mould, And builded in these granaries of heaven, This ever-living purity of air, In these perpetual centres of repose Still softly rocked." I looked, but he was gone. . .
Fair on the hillside as beseemed the state Of small spruce boughs supported by the ash Whose crimson berries in September's sun Lay sparkling jewels o'er the mountain's breast, There, in a native cot with three stone walls,
184
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING [1871]
I had built out a sort of summer-house (As much to nature's trickery owing As my own), and viewed beneath the lowlands: The little hamlets with their shining roofs When burning noontide fell plumb from the sky; The flicker of the tapers from the night; And clouding lakes and woods; all still, unless, Like battle's brunt, I heard the quarries boom In far Fitzwilliam. . . or the far train sighing. . . There, in the sole unspeaking life of things, Only the sky for answer, or the rocks Stretched out beneath and seeming clouds asleep, . . I never ceased to feel a certain power That o'er me ruled, uplifted in the height Of all the crystal sky and perfect air, Where, but the breath of man were such a thing, I might have thought vitality a crown. ..
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