Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 10.djvu/378

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362

��Moosilmikc.

��It appears on a map published by Thomas Jeffrey- prior to 17G0, and is called by him " Umparamonoosuck R.," a name given it by the Indians. There were three Ammonoosuc rivers in New Hampshire, — the upper, the middle, and the lower or Umparamo- noosufk ; TJmp probably meaning the lower, the same as Um in the word Umbagog, the lower of the chain of lakes from which flows the Andros- coggin river.

Umpamraonoosuck river also ap- pears on a map of New Hampshire, published about l'"G3, in the collection of ina|)s in the state library.

On the map of New York before mentioned it has the name of " Olo- verian's Brook."

Holland's map, 1784, has " Oliv- erian B.," the name the stream has since retained.

Tradition has it that it was so called from the circumstance that in earl}' times a mai] named Oliver and his friend were crossing it on a log ; the first fell in, and the other gave the alarm by crvins; "■ Oliver 's in ! " hence the name Oliverian. This is only tradition, and there may be some other origin of the name.

5. Bakek Rivkr.

The River Baker, or, as modern civilians delight to call it. Baker's river, rises in Deer lake, a little sheet

��scrub, otherwise called by the Indi- ans, as Dr. Belknap says,hakviantaks, which surrounds, like an abalis^ the hioh crest of the mountain ; it is a hundred feet wide at its mouth. Half a mile from the lake it slides and hisses down a precipice 500 feet, into Jobildunc ravine.

The first author that we have been able to find who mentions Baker river is Lieut. Thomas Baker, who killed the Indian chief Waternomee at its mouth, in May, 1712. He calls it "The west branch of Merrimack river." Journal of Massachusetts Legislature, 1712.

Capt. John White, in his " Journal of a Scout to discover Indians in the northern woods, in April and May, 1725," says,—

"19 day. We traveled 11 milds, and then Campt at the lower end of pemichewaset lower eutrevals and sent out skouts.

" 20 day. We lay still by reason of foul wether, and towards nit it cleared up and we sent out skouts and found where Cornel Tyng crost Meremock.*

" 21 day. We traveled 12 milds up pemichevvashet River and found old sines of Indians and we sent out skouts tiiat night and found one new track and we lay that night by the river and made new camps. f The land that lyes by this river is vere ricl) and good- The upland were full

��of water about as large as your hand, of hills and mountains very bad trav- in Deer Lake meadow, between Moos- eling."

��ilauke and its north dome, Mt. Blue. It is a foot wide where it easiW glides (a man has to cut his way through with an axe) under the fir belt or

��This " pemichewashet River" was without doubt the present River Baker, and the stream now known as the Peraigewasset was then the

��* Now called Pemigewasset river. t In the present town of Kunmcy.

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