man's axe had not been laid at the foot of the pines, and the vast forest was for miles unbroken— the deer and the bear freely roaming its dark solitudes.
Out from the boundaries of Carroll comes this largest tributary, from its cold spring source, away toward the "Twin Mountain" house, and unites with the northern branch at Island Pond. This is not one of Nature's own make of miniature seas, scooped out of the rocky surface, long since, at the time when the "mountains skipped like rams and the little hills like lambs," but an overflow from Yankee thrift and enterprise in the earlier pine lumber days, and was formed by throwing a dam across the river, just below the junction of the two wild streams; and thus at the very outset of their united career are they set to floating the timber and turning the mill-wheels of industry.
Baker Dodge, who moved into Whitefield about the year 1823, and a brother of his wife, Harvey Abbott, were the first to develop this forest-hidden mill-site; but it has passed through many changes and known many owners since that pristine period.
It was from the top of Cherry mountain that Timothy Nash, one of the solitary hunters of this region, in 1771, first discovered the old Indian pass, now famous as the "White Mountain Notch." Up one of the rivulet paths he had tracked a moose, and finding himself near the highest point, in his eagerness for an unobstructed view, he climbed a tall tree, and from this birchen look-out he saw, away to the southward, what he at once surmised must lie the hitherto unknown defile. Steering with the acquired precision of an old woodsman, for the desired point, he had the satisfaction of realizing the truth of his surmises; for it was indeed the rocky pass.—the gateway of the mountains. Admitting to his secret a fellow-hunter, by the name of Sawyer, together they repaired to Governor Wentworth, at Portsmouth, who, after sufficient and novel proof of the fact of the discovery, gave to the fortunate hunters a grant of land, since known as the "Nash & Sawyer" location. Nash was also one of the original grantees of the town of Whitefield, but whether by purchase or in consideration of services rendered, is not known.
All along the pathways of the world's history, there are scattered monuments to the memory of its men of mark—pioneers in its enterprises, foremost in its leading events, great captains in the onward march of improvement. Around the headwaters of John's and Israel's rivers, in those days, between the departure of the Indians and the coming of the white man, settled Colonel Joseph Whipple. He was a brother of that General William Whipple whose illustrious name goes down to posterity along with those others of the framers and signers of that "immortal instrument" which gave us our liberties. They were successful merchants in the town of Portsmouth, and acquired large landed estates north of the White mountains. Most of them, doubtless, as reward for valuable service, both civil and military, rendered the state. Colonel Whipple's title to these Jefferson meadows, followed that of Colonel John Goffe, the first owner after the extinction of the Indian titles, and by him named Dartmouth. What particular incentive brought Colonel Whipple hither so early as 1773, it would be satisfactory to know. A luxurious home by the sea-side, exchanged for a wild haunt among the mountains; the enjoyments of civilization, for the deprivations of the wilderness. Was it an inborn love for adventure to be gratified, or really the acquisition of more wealth and power in the development of his broad acres? Or was it the allurements of the grand old mountains themselves, and he
"A lover true who know by heart.
Each joy the mountain dales impart."
The settlement of the Colonel lying in the track of the Indians, as they passed from the valley of the Saco to the Connecticut, by way of the Notch
