Down East Latch Strings/Chapter 4

by Ernest Ingersoll

Chapter IV.

Lake Winnipesaukee.

Till death the tide of thought may stem, There's little chance of our forgetting,The highland Jake, the water-gem With all its rugged mountain-setting.—Milnes.

flavor of the high lands and all the pleasure country in advance, was caught in the very name of the handsome steamer awaiting us beside the wharf-station at Alton Bay, for it was the Mt. Washington – the largest boat on the lake.

"Why it's just like a river," Prue exclaimed, with a shade of disappointment in her tone, as she looked down the narrow inlet leading to the lake, five miles distant.

This was a highway for the French and Indian raiders, who came in canoes; and in the troublous old times a stockade and garrison were placed on one of its boldest headlands, still known as Fort point. Near it another promontory bears the name of Gerrish, and recalls the Cocheco massacre of 1689, when Sarah Gerrish and other miserable captives were dragged bleeding along these shores. Cotton Mather has told the story with a full sense of its horror.

When, after dinner, we returned to the upper deck, we had emerged from Alton bay, and Prue found her "river" expanded into a broad irregular sheet of ruffled water, where tiny white caps were sparkling in the sunlight, and the breeze blew stiff and cool. How refreshing was that wind, chilled by the frosty crags, and fragrant with the vast spruce woods of the north! What promises of joy and vigor it held out to us jaded ones; and how richly were those promises afterward fulfilled!

This western wind hath Lethean powers, Yon noonday cloud Nepenthe showers,The lake is white with lotus-flowers!^[1]

A passing shower—Lake Winnipesaukee. After touching at Wolfeborough (of which more anon), the prow was headed straight up the lake, and our trip really began. On our left was the rough elevation of Rattlesnake island,—to which the snakes are welcome, as Baily remarked—and behind it rose the dark and handsome mass of Belknap mountain, with its regular twin peaks dominating the lateral heights and foothills in Gilford and Alton. The higher of the two peaks reaches 2,394 feet^[2] and is an important station in the service of the Coast Survey, upon whose maps it is designated Mt. Gunstock. The view from this summit, pronounced "one of the richest and most fascinating in New England," embraces not only the whole of the lake region and a host of mountains beyond, but a vast area southward between the sea coast and Wachusett. The regular ascent is made from Laconia by a drive of seven miles to Morrill's farmhouse, whence there is a plain path 1+¹⁄₂ miles long to the summit; or one can drive twelve miles from Alton Bay,

Though there was little sign of humanity on the hills, the shores of the lake, especially on the right, showed many a prosperous farm. One of these homesteads, on a knoll, struck Prue's eye particularly, because of its antique appearance, intensified by the dismantled old windmill, with domed top and shingled sides, which stood near it. (Any means of "raising the wind," it may be whispered aside, interests that young woman—"a creature not too fair and good for human nature's daily" expenses).

"The windmill is played out," Baily observes. "It has been completely beaten by the steam engine."

"This one at least seems to have succumbed," says Prue, demurely, "for it has laid down its arms."

On the whole, however, less cultivation was to be seen than I had anticipated. "The surroundings are scarcely less wild than they were when, in 1652, Captains Edward Johnson and Simon Willard carved their initials, which are still visible, on the 'Endicott rock' near its outlet." This outlet is on the western shore where Long bay and a series of tributary ponds narrow down to the swift current of the Winnipesaukee river, which a few miles southward unites with the wild Pemigewassett, coming from the heart of the Crystal Hills, to form the Merrimac.

At the first narrows of the outlet is The Weirs—keeping in the name the recollection of the fish-weirs which the red men built there every spring. Further down, at the foot of Long Bay, stands Lake Village. These landings are reached by a daily steamboat, and the neighborhood of each is attractive.

Johnson and Willard were the first men to explore the upper part of the Merrimac valley, which early tempted the cupidity of the English, and members of this expedition took up lands in the vicinity that have come down to their descendants. The celebrated million-acre purchase from Mason bordered on the lake (his explorers had a "merry meeting" commemorated in the old name of Alton Bay), but settlement was forbidden by the fact that these sheltered nooks and fishing-waters were overpopulous with Indians, who for more than a century kept their ancient camping-places and namkeeks inviolate.

The shore Indians themselves belonged to the Winnipesaukee tribe on the west and to the Ossipee on the east; but the lake was neutral-ground and rendezvous for all the natives of the region. Along its shores passed the main trails to the valleys of the Connecticut and upper St. Lawrence; its waters formed an unfailing base of supplies; and its hills were watch-towers whence the savage sentinel could warn his people against hostile approach, or the sachems could easily plan a raid. Many a wild tale lingers yet of fights between the red man and white, or between "heathens" and "praying Indians," up to the time when in 1722 the authorities cut a read through the woods from the Merrimac settlements to its shores, and erected block-houses. In 1726 three townships were surveyed on its eastern side, where settlers soon became numerous, and after the conquest of Canada (in 1760) the lake shore was settled rapidly.

We were now fairly out into the lake, yet seemed in a maze of islands and low capes, which opened and shut, changing position and appearance with every rod of advance. Behind us were Copple Crown and the rounded hills along the Alton shore, with the double pyramid of Belknap towering behind them. On the right, and somewhat ahead, the Ossipee range lay in full view, and ahead the whole north was filled with the peaks of Sandwich and the mountains toward Moosilauke. Few of the islands had shown any life, but now we approached one, at the mouth of Moultonborough bay, where plenty of it appeared—a crowd of people, indeed, waiting upon a wharf. This was Long Island, upon which are farms and several hotels. It is connected by a bridge with the mainland, and is a pretty place.

Among those on the wharf was an aged man, who was so long in bidding farewell to his friends that we had cast off our lines before he got through. Everybody shouted "Don't!" but he crooked his rheumatic knees and hurled himself aboard, amid the plaudits of the spectators. I was sure he’d fall short, and Prue says she knew he'd fly to pieces when he struck the deck. The old fellow did neither, but presently toddled upstairs and sat among us with his knees drawn up and his antiquated silk hat on the back of his head, smoking a short clay pipe and oblivious of the notice he had attracted.

It was after we had swung out from Long Island and were moving straight northwestward toward Centre Harbor, that we began to appreciate the peculiar loveliness of this many-armed, islet-studded, hill-guarded lake of the north. The scene shifted with every turn of the paddle-wheels, now opening to view along lane of water through
Lake Winnipesaukee, from Long Island. the trees, anon shutting it off as some island slipped in between. There are 274 of these scattered green islands, most of them mere knobs of rock densely overgrown with trees, which thrust their branches low down and far out over the water, like boarding-pikes, to resist a landing. Only a few are inhabited or find any utility, except in the charming way they diversify what otherwise would be simply a great plain of water, Some of the largest, whose names are given on the map, support cattle or hayfields, and the farmers bring off the produce in scows called "horse-boats," moved by unwieldy side-wheels revolved by the tramping of a horse in a treadmill amidships.

From watching one of these slow and comical craft we turned to meet, with exclamations of surprise, a most glorious picture in the north. Across a long vista of bushy islets, in a silver setting of placid water, the eye penetrated past dark Ossipee—beyond the fields and fiords of Moultonborough—up to the grand White Hills! Towering over the heads of giants bowing before him, and wearing the radiant crown of royalty, stood Mt. Washington, with Adams, Jefferson and Pleasant by his side.

It was a brief audience, and had we not been on the look out the moment we left the Long Island pier we might have missed it; but how impressive was this our first sight of the monarchs of the range!

Then come into full view, one after another, the long file of noble mountains in the north, of which we have already caught glimpses,—Chocorua, Paugus, Wannalancet, Passaconaway, Whiteface and many more, enticing in their names alone, recalling legend and the heroic age of New England! Look at Chocorua, on the extreme right, overtopping his fellows with that peak, as clean-cut and sharp as the tip-top spray of one of his own pines; Paugus with his sinuous scar; Passaconaway, tallest of the line, ragged and massive, hiding Washington behind him! Every artist and poet who knows the lake insists upon the supreme beauty of this picture. The gifted Starr King is never tired of extolling it, and makes it a text for an eloquent sermon upon the reality of the charm we find in landscape, and the duty of training one’s eye and opening his heart to appreciate nature’s beauty in such a treasure-house of if as this lake really is. "If half a dozen pictures," he exclaims, "could be seen in an Art Gallery of New York or Boston, with perspective as accurate, with tints as tender, with hues as vivid and modest, with reflections as cunningly caught, with mountain slopes as delicately pencilled, as the lake exhibits in reality, fifty times in the summer weeks, what pride there would be in the artistic ability, and what interest and joy there would be in seeing such master-pieces from mortal hands!"

The "Crystal hills," as the early men happily called them, were cut off somewhat as we approached Centre Harbor; but pleasure enough remained. Read what numberless enconiums have been bestowed by

men of taste upon this bit of inland water. Dr. Timothy Dwight ex

Black Mountain, from Moultonborough Bay, Lake Winnipesaukee. pressed just surprise, that in his day, Lake George was annually visited by people from the coast of New England while "Winnipesaukee, notwithstanding all its accumulation of splendor and clegance, is almost as much unknown to the inhabitants of this country, as if it lay on the eastern side of the Caspian."

The excuse for that, in 1813, lay in its comparative inaccessibility, but this has been corrected, and "the most exquisite jewel in the lake-necklace of New England," as Oakes styles it, is now not only within easy reach, but maintains abundant means for comfort and amusement on its shores.

It was with deep satisfaction that we landed at Centre Harbor, the village at the northern extremity of the lake, and walked up to one of the hotels, where we lost no time in removing the dust of travel and making ready to enjoy ourselves.

A glimpse at Lake Winnipesaukee.

There was et time for a drive, and the direction mattered little, for it would be difficult to go amiss in this region,

Where your chambers ope to sunrise,The mountains and the lake.

One drive follows the historic old Conway stage-road into the Notch, as far as West Ossipee, a station on the Boston and Maine Railroad, and affords "one of the finest panoramic views in this region," the main feature of which is the bristling Sandwich mountains, best visible about eight miles from Centre Harbor, where they stand in the order: Israel, Sandwich Dome, Whiteface, Passaconaway, Paugus, Chocorua, with Mt. Whittier near at hand on the right. This is a daily stage-route, and is, in facet, an old-established line of travel to the White Mountains, new, of course little used, compared with the railways, but still taken by knowing ones, and excursion tickets can be arranged in Boston which shall include it as a part of the round tour.

Another impressive view of the same nobly modeled range—one of the most muscular, so to speak, in all New Hampshire,—is gained from Shepard hill, (on the road to Plymouth) where the Asquam House overlooks its labyrinthine lake. Stages also run daily up to Ossipee Park,—a modern hotel and cottage-station high upon the shoulders of that fine central height so conspicuous from every part of the lake country.

But the drive of drives, to which a whole day should be given, is that passing around Squam lake,—a small body of water, northeast of Winnipesaukee,—which comes as near to lacustrine perfection as anything in New England.

The road followed is that to Centre Sandwich. It traverses a pleasant series of valleys for four or five miles before "the bright waters of Squam lake are Seen, and the road soon descends towards their level, running near a thicket-fringed strand, with wooded islets off-shore.”

Before me, stretched for glistening miles, Lay mountain-girdled Squam;Like green-winged birds, the leafy isles Upon its bosom swam.

After a time, the highway is left for a road which takes you to Chick’s Corners, an elevated hamlet fifteen miles (by this route) from Centre Harbor, and thence returns (7 miles) along the purple ridges of the Squam hills, through the notch between the main range and a double-headed spur called Rattlesnake mountain, and thence either over or around Shephard hill. The latter part of this drive is hilly, and at every rise gives some new modification of the amazingly pretty mixture of water, meadow-land and "peaked towers," which composes the landscape.

That great critic of White Mountain scenery, the Rev. Thomas Starr King, took especial delight in the Squam (or properly Asquam) lakes, for there are really two of them; and speaks of "Great Squam, singularly striped with long, narrow, crinkling islands, and, like Wordsworth’s river, winding in the landscape 'at its own sweet will,'—and Little Squam, unbroken by islands, fringed and shadowed by thickets of the richest foliage, that are disposed around its western shore in a long sweeping curve-line which will be remembered as a delightful melody of the eye." "The larger one," he remarks in another place, "though not a fourth part so large as Winnipesaukee, is doubtless the most beautiful of all the small sheets of water in New England; and it has been pronounced by one gentleman, no less careful in his words than cultivated in his tastes, more charmingly embosomed in the landscape than any lake of equal size he had ever seen in Europe or America."

A little steamboat runs upon both lakes, and there are several boarding houses in the vicinity. Squam is renowned for its spring fishing.

Of course we walked up Sunset hill to indolently watch the dolphin-colors of the dying day reflected in the mirror of Winnipesaukee, and had much pleasant chat (possibly a trifle sentimental) over the scene and the cigars.

"No doubt," I say (to quote a specimen of our talk), "one can see just as radiant beauty in the sunsets that blaze over the Brighton hills and dye the tide of the classic Charles; or that set Hoboken against a wall of fire and paint the ferry boats of Weehawken in cloud-reflected colors never thought of by their owners; nevertheless, there remains

Red Hill, from Moultonborough Bay, Lake Winnipesaukee.

truth in the paradox that a really much less fine sunset is really a great deal finer up here."

"Well," Prue exclaims, hearing this, "if you're as far gone as that, I think it’s time to go in!"

So we saunter back to the hotel, and dress for a hop; but the music has hard work to keep the dancers in out of the moonlight and the balmy air, which are just fit for tete à têtes.

The final excursion is a sort of summary of the whole—a trip to the top of Red Hill. This was left to Prue and me, however, for Baily hired a boat and went a-fishing.

Red Hill is really a ridge, but has a summit at the northern end over 2,000 feet high, the picture visible from which, as many men who have gazed upon the noted landscapes of the world will tell you, is unequalled in either continent, for that endearing quality which we call loveliness, and which makes us long to return to the place possessing it, as we do not always care to do where scenes of wild, yet desolate, grandeur have stunned our minds by their magnitude and sublimity.

This trip involved a pleasant ride of four miles (but there is a shorter cut for pedestrians), after which, we walked for a mile up the good bridle-path that tourists may ascend on horseback if they choose, noticing, as we went, the moraines and other glacial marks at the base which interested Agassiz so much.

The top is cleared, and forms a coigne of vantage for taking in a prospect that cannot be over-praised. Its extent, alone, is worth noting. Kiarsarge and Monadnock are plainly visible at the southwest; Laconia and the other manufacturing villages smoke beyond Belknap, and in the west, the eye reaches far over the hills toward the Connecticut. Turning to the right, where Squam lake, "with its beautiful green islands fringed with beaches of white sand," is glittering in the foreground of the west, Mt. Cardigan, the hills along the Connecticut, and more to the northward, the immense mass of Moosilauke are seen; then the Franconia mountains, far away over nearer ranges whose names we found on our map. The huge dome of Sandwich cuts off the north for a space, hiding the White Mountains, and their neighbors as far as Carrigain, of which a portion only is revealed, with a part of the slide-marked Tripyramid at its right.

A very circumstantial description of this noble panorama was open to us in Ticknor’s excelent Guide to the White Mountains. "The beautiful valley of Sandwich," says this account, "fills the foreground to the north and northeast with its peaceful farms and pretty hamlets. The long white village of Centre Sandwich is close at hand, with its two church towers and clustering houses. Over this point are the noble peaks of Whiteface, with its marble-like cliffs and deep ravines, and Passaconaway, of about the same height but throwing out its blackish hues in vivid contrast. To the right of the latter, and below, is the symmetrical green cone of Mt. Wannalancet, on whose right are the bare white ledges of Mt. Paugus, over North Sandwich village.…In the foreground, to the right of Centre Sandwich, is the island-gemmed Red-Hill pond, over which is the superb white peak of Chocorua, with a profound ravine running from the west to the base of its northern peaks. To the right of the main peak is a white spur, whence a long ridge runs out to the plains of Tamworth. Over the spur, about quarter of the way from the spur to the end, and over the islands in Red-Hill pond, is the crest of Kiarsarge. To the right of Chocorua are certain of the Green hills of Conway, above the Saco."

And so the eye is led around to the shapely broadside of the Ossipee. and the circle is complete. What fills this circle as you rest your gaze in the southward? Winnipesaukee—"fashioned with every elegance of figure, bordered with the most beautiful winding shores, and studded with a multitude of islands," as Dr. Dwight expressed it; "liquid silver run into a vessel of unequal surface, as Isaacs fancied it to be; "islands and shores [that] fringe the water with winding lines and long narrow capes of green," as Starr King describes. Then Prue recites softly some lines from Perceval, beginning :—

Embosomed lowMid shadowy hills and misty mountains, allCovered with showery light as with a veilOf airy gauze. Beautiful were thy shores,And manifold their outlines.

Baily had a good report to make of his fishing when we met in the evening; and told us that he had made up his mind to return about the time of the first snow, and go fox-hunting on the Ossipee with the rugged old man who had been his boatman, and had taken him to the right spot in “the basin” to catch pickerel. Our bachelor has the happy faculty of thinking the place he occupies at the moment, the best of all, and will make more serious plans and honest promises about settling there, or at least returning for some special amusement at a later date, than he can remember, for he never carries them out.

"But I thought you'd get some trout," said Prue.

"August is not a favorable month for trout in this part of the lake. By the way, did you know that Winnipesaukee has a species all to itself? It is called the 'symmetrical' in the books, and resembles the lake trout, but is more slender. They are caught through the ice in winter in great numbers, and I mean to have a try at them."

"Then you didn’t have as good sport as you expected?"

"Oh, yes I did—had a jolly time. Good sport? Why there’s nothing in the world to equal the delight of sailing or a row, fishing or no fishing, on this lake. I'll bet I saw more exquisite pictures down here, glancing out from among the little tufts of islands up at the great sunny mountains, than you did with your eyes wandering over half the state. And when you add a trolling-line or a rod—well—"

"It’s just too sweet for anything,” exclaims Prue, making a school-girl’s simper, and the young man subsides, with half a scowl, for he doesn’t like to be made fun of, any better than the rest of us.

Next morning, we boarded the Mt. Washington and went back to Wolfeborough, enjoying every mile of the way. A friend, who though a lawyer is nevertheless a good fellow, packed us into his carriage and drove us off over the hills and through the woods of Wolfeborough and Tuftonborough, telling interesting things by the way. What remains sharpest in my memory is the number of small private cemeteries we saw; and we were told that they were to be met with on the back-roads, and even in the heart of the dense second-growth woods, all over the country, startling the hunter and plaguing the antiquary, for in many cases no trace remains of the families whose names appear upon the rude and fallen headstones.

The legend of Wentworth was repeated for us at the site of his mansion on Lake Wentworth, as the older books call what now is simply Smith's pond,—a reservoir of power for the mills at its outlet. Wentworth’s story is the elegant romance of the region. The family was one of quality and heroic valor in England, and one of its scions came to America as early as 1638, seeking adventures. He found them, and honor and wealth to boot, in the New Hampshire Colony, and it was his descendant (that famous John Wentworth, whose mansion we shall see by and by in Portsmouth, and who was governor of the Province from 1766 to 1775) by whom this country-house was built. It was 100 feet long by 45 broad and had five large barns. Here he entertained like a feudal baron, and among his guests was the young Massachusetts man who afterward became the great Count Rumford of Bavaria. When the war for independence began, the loyal old governor stood by his king and his colors, and was driven out, none too gently, by the colonists. He was given the ruling of Nova Scotia as a reward, and allowed to add to his coat of arms, two keys, in remembrance of his fidelity.

Wolfeborough (named after the hero of Quebec), began to be settled, here in the heart of the "king's woods," about 1770; but the next year the Province cut a road thence along the western shore of the lake and through Plymouth to Dartmouth college. In 1774 the people attacked Wentworth House, which was so badly abused after its seizure that it fell into decay, and in 1820 was burned.

Besides the fishing and shooting {in their proper seasons) which attract many to Wolfeborough, there is much here at all times for the tourist to enjoy, and excellent hotels for his accommodation. Beyond the main village of some 3,000 people, there are a number of closely neighboring hamlets, the most important of which is Mill Village on Smith's pond, where half a million dollars' worth of blankets and woolen yarns are made annually.

The view from the higher points of the village is always fine. Ossipee and Belknap lose none of their majesty by being close at hand, while a score of entrancing lake-pictures present themselves. Two lesser mountains are within easy reach, Tumble Down Dick and Copple Crown, the latter of which we climbed. We heard the usual yarn about the origin of the first name, and listened politely, but incredulously, owing to the fact that there are half a dozen Tumble-down-dicks in New England. More novel and interesting was the history of Copple Crown, wherein it appears that a generation or more ago a wealthy man of the neighborhood built at his own expense a carriage read to the summit, which was partly cleared. He bequeathed this road and the summit park to the public, on condition that it should be kept in repair, and for a time the injunction was attended to, but lately nothing has been done upon the road, which is fast disappearing.

Six or seven miles of interesting driving take you to the mountain, after which it is an easy walk of a mile, along a good forest-path, to the top. Though only 2,100 feet high, Copple Crown, by its isolation, is not only itself splendidly conspicuous throughout this whole region, hut commands a wide and notable view. Even the Isles of Shoals can be seen on the southeastern horizon, if the day be very clear; and in the south, over Merrymeeting pond and the "Twin Breasts" (as the Indians called Uncanunucs), Wachusett and Monadnock sit low upon the horizon.

"Why!" exclaims Prue, as we pick these out. "From Monadnock you can almost see the State House; so that it’s only about two looks from here to Boston!"

"Just about."

"And those three mountains—Monadnock, Wachusett, and Uncanunucs—though they don’t amount to a great deal in size and can hardly be seen from Concord, have inspired more good poetry in the sages of that wonderful settlement—Emerson, Thoreau and those fellows, you know—than any other hills in the whole Union."

It was the New Yorker, of course, who made these disrespectful allusions, and his remark started talk about bigness and nearness not being necessary, but perhaps even objectionable, in poetic subjects, all of which interested us, but don’t belong here.

Westward the eye catches far-away glimpses of the Green mountains, and finds the the Kiarsarge near at hand over the rough shoulders of Belknap. Coming round to the shining plain of the lake, we reverse the view we got from Red hill and duplicate its loveliness, with the irregular spires and domes of the Sandwich range, and many a dim, nameless crest behind them,

Where the gray rocks strikeTheir javelins up the azure.

Moat mountain, opposite North Conway, is seen just at the right of Chocorua, who is—

The pioneer of a great company That wait behind him, gazing toward the east,— Mighty ones all, down to the nameless least.

And over Moat, "fifty miles away on the horizon, a little west of north, is the stately cone of Mt. Washington, with parts of Adams and Madison, Monroe and Pleasant, flanked on the right with all the heights between them and Kiarsarge. Far to the north can be seen even the hills that look upon the Rangely lakes, and westward the upland sloping down to Sebago. We were like Moses upon Pisgah, looking over upon the promised land of our journeys to come; but with this advantage over the weary patriarch, that we crossed our Jordan, went into this Canaan, and possessed It for you, gentle readers.

---

1. Prue, happening to look over my shoulder at this page of manuscript, warns me that if I don’t put quotation marks about this stanza, readers who don’t happen to recall the verses will think they’re mine instead of Mr. Whittier’s! This is rather hard on the supreme poet of New England landscape; and I may as well declare, once for all, that I shall in no ease enter into competition with him, or any lesser rhymer, and therefore can safely omit the unsightly marks from all quotations of poetry.
2. All the heights given are reckoned as above mean sea-level, unless otherwise stated.