Down East Latch Strings/Chapter 20
The mountains are more grand and inspiring when we stand at the proper distance and look at them, than when we look from them.—Starr King.
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e now turned our faces northward. Returning to Bethlehem Junction we stepped into a second train of narrow-gauge cars and in ten minutes (for it is only a couple of miles) were set down at The Maplewood, in the edge of Bethlehem township, one of the largest and most modern of the New Hampshire summer hotels. In fact, it will soon be a sort of village by itself, for there are so many annexes, cottages, private houses and parks, in the near neighborhood, that the name even now covers much more than a hotel. And what a hotel! Piled up in architecture, like a gentleman's villa rather than a public stopping-place, it is capacious enough to hold 500 guests comfortably, and after that can overflow into annexes which accommodate nearly as many more; and to great size and external beauty it adds many interior luxuries. This is the growth of a few years. "In 1875," records Samuel Drake, "I found a modest hostelry accommodating sixty guests; five years later a mammoth structure…had arisen like Aladdin's palace, on the same spot. Instead of our little musical entertainment, our mock trial, our quiet rubber of whist, of an evening, there were readings, lectures, balls, masquerades, theatricals, musicales, for every day of the week." Prue went into ecstacies over the pretty Ayrshire and Breton cattle at the stockfarm, and Baily and I agreed that the observatory, on a hill half a mile or so distant, where you saunter along a broad, smooth path, was about the best place in the world to sit and smoke an evening pipe, with the rolling valley at your feet and the grand White Hills to rest your eyes upon. Almost the whole horizon was dotted with familiar peaks, from the Presidential range to the Green mountains, and from Lafayette to where Mr. Starr King and his fellows "struck their javelins up the azure." This observatory-path leads on into the carriage-road up Mt. Agassiz. This mountain (alias Round Top) is 2,390 feet high, and has an observatory on its summit whose outlook sweeps the rolling, copse-dotted warm valleys of the Amonoosuc and Connecticut, more beautiful than ever, now That evening, at The Maplewood, the last hop of the season was given. People came over in carriages and by rail from the Profile House, from the Forest Hills hotel at Franconia, from Littleton and Lancaster, Whitefield, Jefferson, and all the houses down the "P. & O." besides the big home-contingent from Bethlehem. We were all in "full fig," and if anywhere in the world a crowd had a better time, or the pearly electric lights shone down upon the happy denouements of more summer flirtations, I have not heard of it.
The next morning, in sunshine sparkling through an almost frosty air which animated our blood and went to our heads like wine, we strode away up the "street" and walked pretty much all over the town of Bethlehem, for neither our spirits were weary, like Rosalind's, nor our legs like Touchstone's. It was with what Baily calls an almost hay-feverish excitement that we went tramping around this summer town, which is so new and shiny that the whole place fairly smells of paint and fresh mortar.
"But this newness which you at first resent…is an evident effort to render the place attractive by making it beautiful. Good taste generally prevails.…We walk here in a broad, well-built thoroughfare, skirted on both sides with hotels, boarding-houses and modern cottages, in which three or four thousand[1] sojourners annually take refuge. All this has grown from the 'one small hotel' of a dozen years ago. Shade-trees and grass-plots beautify the wayside. An immense horizon is visible from these houses, and even the hottest summer days are rendered endurable by the light airs produced and set in motion by the oppressive heats of the valley. The sultriest season is, therefore, no bar to out-door exercise for persons of average health, rendering walks, rambles or drives subject only to the will or caprice of the pleasure-seeker. But in the evening all these houses are emptied of their occupants. The whole village is out-of-doors enjoying the coolness or the panorama with all the zest unconstrained gratification always brings. The multitudes of well-dressed promenaders surprise every newcomer, who immediately thinks of Saratoga or Newport and their social characteristics. Bethlehem, he thinks, must be the ideal of those who would carry a city, or at least, suburban life, among the mountains, who do not care a fig for solitude but prefer to find their pleasure still connected with their home life. They are seeing life and pleasure at the same time."
The older writers, therefore, have little to say about Bethlehem as such. The name comes from the religious persuasion of the hardy people who settled there and constituted a Bethlemite church. The sect still exists and has erected a neat church.
The growth of the Bethlehems (under the skilful management of a few far-sighted men of energy, wealth and good taste) has been due in no small degree to the immunity the locality enjoys from that very distressing catarrhal difficulty called rose-cold or hay-fever, to which so many persons are subject in midsummer on the coast. This is not a peculiar possession, however, for visitors at Gorham, in the Glen, at Jefferson and its vicinity, at the Twin Mountain House, and in many other elevated localities, are equally free from the malady, wherever Ambrosia artemesiafolia, the weed to whose exhalations it is considered due, is not permitted to flourish in the dooryard. In Bethlehem, however, is quarantined the headquarters of that society of fugitives called the Hay-Fever Association, which counts upon its rolls so many distinguished names, and makes as merry over its escape from the woes suffered by those who are less fortunate as did the gay guests of Boccacio while Florence was wasting under the plague.
From Bethlehem, it is only a comfortable morning's walk across to Littleton, or you can take one of the frequent stages which run back and forth. Some expensive and beautiful villas are built along this very notable road, whose windows survey magnificent scenery. At Littleton are plenty of good hotels and less conspicuous boarding-houses. This village is a historical place, and now a centre of busy manufacturing. It can be reached in half an hour from Bethlehem Junction by the way of Wing Road. From Wing Road the railroad runs northeast through wild hills to Whitefield Junction, whence the Whitefield & Jefferson Railroad runs down to Jefferson.
Our plan of driving through Randolph and Jefferson while we were at Gorham, was interfered with and postponed, the result of which finally was that we did see one of the most inviting regions of the whole state; but Prue had a friend spending the summer at Jefferson Hill, who used to write capital letters, one of which I am permitted to quote for your benefit, omitting the private ejaculations!
Jefferson Hill, N. H., July,1886
My Dear Prue:—
…I am sitting on the piazza of one of the hotels on the slope of Mt. Starr King. The afternoon air is soft and balmy—just the essence of enjoyment,—while the atmosphere is so clear that our vision in every direction is unobstructed, even by the haze which comes in the dog-days. We seem here to be in a vast amphitheatre.
At our feet lie the Jefferson meadows, forming a richly carpeted floor, with its varied colorings of crimson and green, while round-about us on every side are mountains, kings rugged and gray and old, their huge sides scarred and seamed in the "battle of the years" with Father Time, yet, with the green midsummer drapery thrown carelessly over them, softening the sharp angles and hard faces, and giving them for a short time, at least, the beauty and freshness of youth.
In front of us, twelve miles in a straight line, "as the bird flies," is the grand "Presidential" range,—Mt. Washington, as always, in regal splendor stands the monarch of the hills in the centre of his court." Far away to the right, their graceful forms outlined against the sky, rise the lesser, but more beautiful peaks of the Franconia range, from Mt. Lafayette to Mt. Kinsman, terminating at Moosilauke, which guards the southwestern horizon like a grim sentinel. At our left, rising in great dignity, is Starr King mountain—so aptly named—along the foot of which runs to the eastward a road known as the Mt. Adams road. This is a most popular drive from Jefferson, as it gives all along its length an almost unobstructed view of the whole Presidential range. Another fine road leads to Lancaster, seven miles westward, which is quite a resort for the boarders at Jefferson Hill.
Coming over this road one evening towards Jefferson, I saw a sight of such wondrous beauty that words seem powerless to describe it. Back of us the western sky was, of course, radiant, while in front of is the eastern sky was even more wondrously beautiful. Great roseate clouds overhung Mt. Washington, and, moving back and forth with a gentle swaying motion, seemed to sift a glow over the whole range of mountains, and to imbue each one with distinctive color of its own; and these colors seemed to vie with the perfect and gorgeous hues of the rainbow. Jefferson meadows also caught the grand reflection and soon the grass was tinged with purple and carmine, gold and blue, while along the entire length of the Franconia range on the south, great amber and blue clouds shone resplendent. We felt, as we stood and gazed, with senses enthralled, as if we were the inhabitants of another sphere of marvellous beauty and brightness, so completely were "the heavens above and the earth beneath" filled with the glory of it.
Alice J.
At Scotts a railroad diverges westward on its way through Lunenburg and the Concords (in Vermont) to St. Johnsbury and Lake Champlain; but the main line continues from Whitefield, northward, to Lancaster, the county seat of Coös county, on the Connecticut (in reality on Israel's river near its mouth), the largest village within easy distance of the White Mountains, and one of the most attractive.
It was a party of Lancastrians who, in 1820, applied the names they now bear to the peaks of the Presidential range; but this proves more for their patriotism than for either their "culture" or good taste, when it is remembered how many more appropriate ones might have been given, and how many sonorous Indian names were already attached. About Lancaster cluster traditions of early struggles against Indians, wild beasts and every kind of hardship; and, later, of revolutionary campaigning.
The views from the village itself are extensive and gratifying, and several eminences are within walking distance. One drive is to Dalton mountain, three or four miles from Dalton or Whitefield villages, the summit of which is reached by a path half a mile long. On Kimball hill, near Whitefield, is the Howland observatory, (ten miles from Lancaster) whence a view opens worth considerably more than the twenty-five cents it costs, not to speak of the telescope "thrown in." The peculiar possession of Lancaster, however, is the Lunenburg Heights, on the Vermont side of the Connecticut, which afford a fine prospect toward the crowded and supreme mountains southward; of the Pilot range and Androscoggin country; and of the Percy peaks, with other isolated but shapely hills in the more open country northward. Starr King declared himself unable to conceive of any combination of natural scenery more pleasing, more refreshing or soul-inspiring than the mingled harmony of the rich and varied landscape which greets the eye from Lunenburg Heights.
From Lancaster, the railroad runs northward to a junction with the Grand Trunk, at Groveton. From Groveton it is only a few miles down through the picturesque, view-famous river-villages and lumber-sawing communities of Milan and Berlin Falls, to Gorham, and this somewhat roundabout way is one of the regular avenues of passage between the eastern and western sides of the mountain country. Or, from Groveton you can go northward a dozen miles to Stratford, and then, by the daily stage via Colebrook, reach the Dixville notch and cross through it to Umbagog lake and Magalloway river, as explained in chapter XIII.
- ↑ The writer is too modest—at least 10,000 people are said to remain more than a week at a time (many during months) within this town, where nearly all other business is subordinate to that of entertaining summer boarders. A census of the boarding-houses alone, on a pleasant Sunday in August, will show nearly 1,500 guests—but you would be lucky to find ten per cent of them at home.