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 LAKE WINNIPESAUKEE AND MOUNT BELKNAP 
 
New England River Series 
 
 The River of Broken Waters: 
 The Merrimack 
 
 The Romance, Tradition, History, Folklore, Scenery 
 People, Literature and Industry of “The 
 Busiest River in the World.” 
 
 By George Waldo Browne 
 
 Author of “The St. Lawrence River,” “The Far East 
 and the New America,” “Picturesque Land,” Etc. 
 
 Illustrated by Frank Holland and Others 
 
 1918 
 
 STANDARD BOOK COMPANY 
 
 MANCHESTER, N. H. 
 
New England River Series 
 
 Now Ready: 
 
 The River of Broken Waters: The Merrimack — 
 
 George Waldo Browne. 
 
 In Preparation: % 
 
 The River of a Hundred Waterfalls: The Contoo- 
 cook — E mma Burnham Warne. 
 
 The Franconian Gateway: Region of Lost River — 
 
 Makion Glendower. 
 
 To Follow: 
 
 The Riv r er of Romance: The Connecticut. 
 
 The Grand Highway : The Horicon and Lake Cham- 
 plain. 
 
 The River from the Frozen Fountain: The Saco. 
 
 (Copyright, 1918, Geokge W. Browne.) 
 
 m 
 
 O’NFILl library 
 
 MAY 2 1 
 
Leading Topics 
 
 Pages 
 
 Romance, History and Scenery - 5-33 
 
 Boating Days on the Merrimack - 34—42 
 
 The Stone Age - -- -- -- - 43-58 
 
 The Picturesque Land ------ 52-60 
 
 Literary Associations of the Merrimack - - 59-84 
 
 Scenes Along the Picturesque River (Insert) - 81-84 
 
 Mills of Manchester ------- 85-92 
 
 At the Falls of Amoskeag (Poem) - - - 97-104 
 
 Pictures from a Picture Land (Headwaters) - 105-108 
 A Jaunt Along the Lower River - 109-130 
 
 Appendix : 
 
 Gone — An Illustrated Poem (Insert) 
 
 Indian Legends of the Merrimack - - - - 1-33 
 
 Over Fifty Illustrations and Inserts. 
 
From a painting by Frank Holland 
 
 HON. SAMUEL BLODGET 
 The Pioneer of Progress in the Merrimack Valley 
 
Ct)c Wfyitt fountains; 
 
 By John Greenleaf Whittier, 
 
 WHITTIER has been called the Poet of Freedom, 
 He was more than that ; he was the Poet of Nature. 
 And nowhere has he given us finer examples of 
 his loving touch than in his exquisite pictures of 
 the Granite Hills, with “their sentinel sides and 
 cloud-crowned brows,” which he painted in rare 
 word-coloring. This was but the natural expres- 
 sion of the true artist, for the mountains ever breathe of freedom, and 
 their grandeur finds a hearty appreciation in him who has the sin- 
 cere veneration for the deeply religious thoughts they awaken, and 
 the divine lessons they teach to the honest searcher after adibing 
 truth. In the following beautiful verses our Poet most happily ex- 
 emplified his masterful genius.— Editor. 
 
 p RAY searcher of the upper air ! 
 
 There’s sunshine on thy ancient walls- 
 A crown upon thy forehead bare — 
 
 A flashing on thy water-falls — 
 
 A rainbow glory in the cloud, 
 
 Upon thy awful summit bowed, 
 
 Dim relic of the recent storm ! 
 
 And music, from the leafy shroud 
 Which wraps in green thy giant form, 
 
 Mellowed and softened from above, 
 
 Steals down upon the listening ear, 
 

 
 
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2 
 
 THE WHITE MOUNTAINS 
 
 Sweet as the maiden’s dream of love, 
 
 With soft tones melting on her ear. 
 
 The time has been, gray mountain, when 
 Thy shadows veiled the red man’s home ; 
 And over crag and serpent den, 
 
 And wild gorge, where the steps of men 
 In chase or battle might not come, 
 
 The mountain eagle bore on high 
 The emblem of the free of soul ; 
 
 And midway in the fearful sky 
 Sent back the Indian’s battle-cry, 
 
 Or answered to the thunder’s roll. 
 
 The wigwam fires have all burned out — 
 
 The moccasin hath left no track — 
 
 Nor wolf nor wild-deer roam about 
 The Saco or the Merrimack. 
 
 And thou that liftest up on high 
 Thine awful barriers to the sky, 
 
 Art not the haunted mount of old, 
 
 When on each crag of blasted stone 
 Some mountain-spirit found a throne, 
 
 And shrieked from out the thick cloud-fold, 
 And answered to the Thunderer’s cry 
 When rolled the cloud of tempest by, 
 
 And jutting rock and riven branch 
 Went down before the avalanche. 
 
 The Father of our people then 
 Upon thy awful summit trod, 
 
THE WHITE MOUNTAINS 
 
 3 
 
 And the red dwellers of the glen 
 
 Bowed down before the Indian’s God. 
 There, when His shadow veiled the sky. 
 
 The Thunderer’s voice was long and loud, 
 And the red flashes of His eye 
 
 Were pictured on the o’erhanging cloud. 
 
 The Spirit moveth there no more, 
 
 The dwellers of the hill have gone, 
 
 The sacred groves are trampled o’er, 
 
 And footprints mar the altar-stone. 
 
 The white man climbs thy tallest rock 
 And hangs him from the mossy steep, 
 Where, trembling to the cloud-fire’s shock, 
 Thy ancient prison-walls unlock, 
 
 And captive waters leap to light, 
 
 And dancing down from height to height, 
 Pass onward to the far-off deep. 
 
 * Oh, sacred to the Indian seer. 
 
 Gray altar of the days of old ! 
 
 Still are thy rugged features dear, 
 
 As when unto my infant ear 
 
 The legends of the past were told. 
 
 Tales of the downward sweeping flood, 
 
 When bowed like reeds thy ancient wood, — 
 Of armed hand and spectral form, 
 
 Of giants in their misty shroud, 
 
 And voices calling long and loud 
 In the drear pauses of the storm ! 
 
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4 
 
 THE WHITE MOUNTAINS 
 
 Farewell ! The red man's face is turned 
 Toward another hunting ground ; 
 
 For where the council-fire has burned, 
 
 And o’er the sleeping warrior’s mound 
 Another fire is kindled now: 
 
 Its light is on the white man’s brow ! 
 
 The hunter race has passed away — 
 
 Ay, vanished like the morning mist, 
 
 Or dew-drops by the sunshine kissed, — 
 And wherefore should the red man stay ? 
 
‘THE BEAUTY OF THE WILD, FREE WOODS AND FLOODS” 
 
Qtty Merrimack Ctiber 
 
 The Romance, History, Scenery and Industry of the “River 
 of Broken Waters.” 
 
 j&gf HE Merrimack River was a noted stream among the 
 aborigines long before the appearance of the North- 
 ^ men upon the sedgy shores of Old Vinland. Among 
 the traditions of the Abnakis was one of a “ river of broken 
 waters,” expressed in their tongue in the form of the un- 
 couth word, as it is spoken by us, of Kaskaashadi. Upon 
 its banks rival tribes had for many generations contended 
 for the supremacy. Another legend, told among the Algon- 
 quins of the valley of the St. Lawrence, was to the effect 
 that beyond the “ great carrying-places” ran a swift river 
 filled with fish, and forever guarded at its northern gateway 
 by “an old man with a stone face,” whose environments 
 were grounds to them too sacred to be trod by warrior foot. 
 As early as 1604, that adventurous voyager from Old 
 France, Sieur du Monts, wrote in his accounts of dis- 
 coveries and settlements that the “ Indians speak of a 
 beautiful stream far to the south called by them Merremack .” 
 The first white man who is credited with having seen this 
 
 A silver band, the Merrimack 
 
 Links mountain to the sea; 
 And as it runs this story 
 
 It tells to you and me. 
 
 — Nellie M. Brorwne. 
 
 5 
 
6 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 river was that intrepid explorer and pioneer of New France, 
 Samuel de Champlain, who, while sailing along the coast of 
 New England in the summer of 1605, discovered a river on 
 the 17th day of July, which he named “The Riviere du 
 Gaust,” in honor of his patron, Sieur du Monts, who held a 
 patent from the King of France for all of the country to 
 the north and east. This stream, discovered by Cham- 
 plain, has been claimed by many to have been the Merri- 
 mack, though his own records would seem to show con- 
 clusively that it was the River Charles. The traditions of 
 the Norsemen, in the Saga of Edric, speak of a river whose 
 descriptions indicate that they saw the Merrimack, but their 
 pages are too vague to be accepted without a doubt. So 
 the name of the first European to gaze upon its swift waters 
 has not been recorded beyond dispute. 
 
 According to the practice of a people without a written 
 language, several names were given the river by the abo- 
 rigines, each denoting some particular feature of that 
 section. The following are among the best known, with 
 their primitive derivations : 
 
 First “ The Merrimack,” which has outlived the others, 
 from menu, swift ; asquam, water; ack or auke , place ; that 
 is, “swift water place.” In the pronunciation of this word 
 or phrase the syllables “ asquam” became abbreviated to the 
 sound of one letter — “m.” This seems to have been a 
 frequent practice among the Amerinds, which many writers 
 have explained erroneously by saying that a letter or sound 
 had been “thrown in for euphony’s sake.” An uneducated 
 people may curtail an expression, but they never add any- 
 thing for effect. This name was probably applied originally 
 to that portion of the river between Garvin’s Falls in Bow, 
 N. H., and Pawtucket Falls at Lowell, Mass. 
 
 Another term, which has already been mentioned, and 
 was probably applied to the section first named, was that of 
 Kaskaashadi, in its completeness meant literally “ the place 
 of broken water.” 
 
SAMUEL De CHAMPLAIN. 
 
 From the O’Niel copy of the Hamel Painting. 
 
THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 7 
 
 Another designation applied, says Judge Potter, to 
 that part of the river extending from Turkey Falls in Bow 
 to the Souhegan River in Merrimack, N. H., was Namas- 
 ket. This was derived from names , fish ; kees } high ; et , a 
 place ; that is, “high fish place,” or “high place for fish.” 
 This word has been spelled as many as fifty different ways, 
 its easiest transition being from Namasket to Namoaskeag, 
 to e Amoskeag, which survives as the name of the highest 
 falls of the river. 
 
 On account of the great number of sturgeons to be 
 found at certain periods of the year, the river was also called 
 Cabassauk : from cabass , a sturgeon ; auk , place ; that is, 
 “place of the sturgeon.” Dr. Drew gives the orthography 
 of this word as cobbossee. This term was also applied to a 
 portion of the Kennebec River. 
 
 Certain places of the river where the waters ran more 
 gently were known as Wampineauk : from wampi, clear or 
 sunny ; nebe, water ; auk, place ; that is, “ place of clear 
 water,” or, as we might say, “sunny river.” 
 
 Yet another poetical designation was that of Moniack : 
 from mona , island ; ack, place ; that is, “ place of the 
 islands.” This name was given the stream toward its 
 mouth, though the poet makes it extend to greater limits : 
 
 “ Deep in the vale old Moniack rolls his Tides, 
 
 Romantic prospects crown his reverend Sides ; 
 
 And thro’ w r ild Grotts and pendent Woods he strays, 
 
 And ravished at the sight, his Course delays. 
 
 Silent and calm — now with impetuous shock 
 
 Pours his swift Torrent down the impetuous Rock ; 
 
 The tumbling waves thro’ airy channels flow, 
 
 And loudly roaring, smoke and foam below.” 
 
 There is no doubt that the Indians had a strong at- 
 tachment for this river, which afforded them such good 
 facilities for fishing, and whose wooded banks were retreats 
 for the deer and other four-footed denizens of the wild- 
 woods. Thus it became the debatable ground between rival 
 tribes of the warriors of the wilderness. In this valley 
 was fought many a sanguinary battle by the Mohawks and 
 the Abnakis, and by both against the more peaceful Pena- 
 
8 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 cooks. Upon the “brave lands” just above where the city 
 of Concord, N. H., now stands, the last-named met their 
 Waterloo, though so desperately and effectually did they 
 make their final defense that it does not appear as if their 
 long-time enemies rallied to renew the war against them. 
 This great battle, or series of battles, with possibly one ex- 
 ception, another contest waged by the Mohawks against the 
 Sokokis, was the most sublime ever fought by the natives 
 in early New England. It seems to have taken place about 
 fifty years before the advent of the Pilgrims at Plymouth 
 Rock. 
 
 One of the consequences was the removal of the chief 
 lodgment of the Penacooks to the smooth bluff overlooking 
 the Merrimack within sight of Amoskeag Falls. From here, 
 a few years later, their sachem, the noble Passaconnaway, 
 formed his seat of government at Pawtucket. It was here 
 Eliot found him, and, converted to Christianity, the saga- 
 more counseled peace towards the whites among his fol- 
 lowers. It is possible that the chief may have considered 
 this the only safe policy, as in addition to the disasters of a 
 long warfare with the enemy from the West, his people had 
 been greatly reduced in numbers through the ravages of a 
 terrible disease which had swept over the aboriginal tribes 
 of New England a short time before the coming of the 
 Europeans, but there was nothing in his whole course of 
 action to throw suspicion upon his sincerity. Among the 
 prominent leaders of his unfortunate race he stands as one 
 of Nature’s noblemen, and his influence upon his followers 
 was of lasting good to the English. The fate of this 
 sachem is involved in conjecture, as no one knew where or 
 when he disappeared from the scene of action, though it 
 was not until he had lived more than a hundred years. There 
 is a tradition, very vague and uncertain for even a tra- 
 dition, that says he sought, when he felt that his end was 
 near, the shore of Lake Massabesic, and entering his frail 
 canoe drifted out over the placid water to return no more. 
 
THE INDIAN CHIEF. PASSACONA WAY. 
 Statue in Edson Cemetery, Lowell, Mass. 
 
THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 9 
 
 What a picturesque sight was presented by the tall, erect 
 figure of this aged chieftain, standing upright in the centre 
 of his fragile craft, while it was slowly wafted by the rip- 
 pling tide away from the pine-fronded landscape which 
 swiftly vanished before the incoming of the pale-faces, but 
 whose going out was slower than the disappearance of that 
 race of which he was a grand representative. 
 
 Passaconnaway was succeeded by his son Wannalan- 
 cet, who proved worthy to wear the mantle of his proud 
 father. After a few years he departed from the Merrimack 
 valley with the remnant of his tribe to join the Indians 
 from Maine and elsewhere who had sought the protection 
 of the French at the missionary settlement of St. Francis, 
 in New France. There is nothing to show that these 
 warriors, to any extent, aided the French in their move- 
 ments against the English. Wannalancet himself soon re- 
 turned to visit the scenes of his earlier life, where he finally 
 died and was buried, it is believed, in the private cemetery 
 of the Tyng family, in the present town of Tyngsboro, 
 Mass. It is pleasant to note that the Massachusetts 
 Society of Colonial Dames have placed upon one of the 
 boulders lying near the colonial mansion house occupied by 
 Colonel Jonathan Tyng, where the last of the Penacook 
 sachems passed his closing years, a memorial tablet properly 
 inscribed. In the Edson cemetery of Lowell is a statue 
 with granite base erected to the memory of his father, 
 Passaconnaway. 
 
 Though a solitary red man, from time to time, returned 
 to look with mournful gaze upon the disappearing forests of 
 his forefathers as late as 1750, without grievous license 
 years before this the poet could exclaim : 
 
 “ By thy fair stream 
 
 The red man roams no more. No more he snares 
 
 The artful trout, or lordly salmons spear ; 
 
 No more his swift- winged arrow strikes the deer.” 
 
 The foremost of that race which was to prove the con- 
 querors of his people settled in the Merrimack valley seven 
 
10 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 years after the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. 
 While springing from the same source as the other colony, 
 this band was ushered in upon the primeval scene under 
 more favorable auspices, and was destined to become more 
 prosperous and far-reaching in its enterprises. While the 
 former was composed of men who had never enjoyed the 
 advantages of wealth and opulence, but were of austere 
 principle, among these last came some of the best blood of 
 England. They were men of education, talent, good 
 standing, who had been able to obtain official recognition 
 from the Court of London at the outset. Having associ- 
 ated themselves together as “ The Massachusetts Colony,” 
 their charter granted March 19, 1627-8, by the Royal Coun- 
 cil, fixed their boundary as all of that “part of New Eng- 
 land, in America, which lyes and extends between a great 
 river there commonly called ‘ Monoack’ alias ‘ Meremack,’ 
 & a certain other river called Charles river, being in the 
 bottom of a certain bay here commonly called Massachu- 
 setts bay & also all and singular those lands and heredita- 
 ments whatsoever lying within the space of three English 
 miles on the south part of said Charles River, &c. And 
 also all & singular the lands and hereditaments whatsoever 
 which lye, & be within the space of three English miles to 
 the Northward of said river called ‘ Monomack,’ alias 
 * Merrymack,’ or to the northward of any and every part 
 thereof : And all lands & c lying within the limit aforesaid 
 from the Atlantic Ocean to the South Sea.” 
 
 Vague and imperfect as this boundary must appear to 
 the careful reader, it proved too misleading to safeguard the 
 interests of the colonists settled in the territory named, and 
 for many years the boundary line was a “ bone of conten- 
 tion” between certain factions that came into existence in 
 the provinces. It was taken for granted at this period that 
 the Merrimack came from the west its entire course. 
 
 Among the immigrants attracted to the new country 
 only ten years after the beginning of the colonization was a 
 
THE FRENCH FLAG IN THE TIME OF CHAMPLAIN 
 
THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 11 
 
 little company of farmers, smiths, carpenters, and weavers, 
 counting sixty families, who came from Western England in 
 1637, and builded a cluster of homes in Rowley, Mass. 
 While the husbandmen busied themselves about their 
 clearings in the wilderness, the smiths and carpenters 
 erected a mill, and here the weavers wove the first cotton 
 cloth in the colonies. 
 
 As early as this the colonists began to complain that 
 they were “straitened for want of land.” Hubbard, the 
 historian of those times, says that Ipswich was so overrun 
 with people that they swarmed to other places. Out of the 
 demand for “further farms” came an order from the Massa- 
 chusetts courts in 1638 to explore the Merrimack River to 
 its source, supposed to have been fixed by the charter given 
 the company. This, the first survey of the Merrimack 
 River, was made by a man named Woodward, with four 
 companions, one of whom was an Indian, and another a 
 youth of fifteen, who was the author of the first map of the 
 region explored in the autumn of 1638. The young map- 
 maker was named John Gardner, and the brave little party 
 which he accompanied penetrated the trackless wilderness 
 of the Merrimack valley nearly as far as Lake Winnepesau- 
 kee. Upon this survey were based the calculations of that 
 better known and more permanent work performed by a 
 commission appointecl by the Massachusetts courts in 1652. 
 This was composed of Captain Symon Willard and Captain 
 Edward Johnson, both men of prominence in those days, 
 the latter being the author of “ Wonder Working Provi- 
 dence of Zion’s Savior in New England.” These commis- 
 sioners selected as assistants, Jonathan Ince, a graduate of 
 Harvard College only two years before, and John Sherman, 
 a surveyor of note, and great-grandfather of Roger Sher- 
 man, one of the signers of the Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence. While there is a doubt expressed as to whether the 
 first commission really reached the headwaters of the Merri- 
 mack, and its bounds were only claimed to have been 
 
12 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 marked by a spotted tree, Captain Willard’s party left a very 
 substantial monument of their work in what has become 
 known as “Endicott Rock,” which stands at the Weirs, in 
 the town of Laconia, preserved and protected by a special 
 appropriation from the state of New Hampshire. 
 
 Upon reaching the forks of the Pemigewassett and 
 Winnepesaukee rivers, which unite their offerings brought 
 from mountain and lake to form the Merrimack, the com- 
 missioners were doubtful as to the true stream for them to 
 follow. They referred the matter to the Indians, who de- 
 clared that the real Merrimack was the easterly branch 
 flowing from “ the beautiful lake of the highlands.” If this 
 was the conclusion of the aboriginal inhabitants of the 
 country, the westerly fork is none the less deserving of de- 
 scription, and certainly has a good claim to being considered 
 a part of the main river. Its source is a sheet of crystal 
 water springing from the heart of the White Hills, far up 
 on the eastern slope of what is still an unexplored wilder- 
 ness. Running around natural barriers strewn along its 
 pathway by a prodigal hand, this mountain rivulet pursues 
 its lonely course for a few miles, when it is joined by 
 another stream, which is also the outlet of a beautiful lake- 
 let. Now one this happy twain leap cascades, dash around 
 boulders, loiter in cool retreats, overhung by leafy bowers, 
 fit retreats for the naiads of the forest fastness, receiving 
 tributary after tributary until it has increased in volume 
 and becomes dignified by the name of “ river.” For forty 
 miles it flows through massive gateways, shut in by moun- 
 tain walls that lift high their granite fronts in a country 
 wild and picturesque almost beyond the power of descrip- 
 tion, when, at the foot of the famous Franconia Notch, it 
 suddenly bursts into sunlight and into the world dazzled and 
 dazzling. 
 
 In its bewildering career it has scaled “Grand Falls,” 
 rightly named as the most magnificent waterfall in New 
 England ; it has run the gantlet of that stupendous 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
WHERE THE ROCKS ARE FRINGED WITH SNOWY LACEWORK." 
 
THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 13 
 
 gorge known as “The Flume;” flies the frown of “The 
 Old Man of the Mountains and fringes with snowy lace- 
 work the rim of “Agassiz Basin,” said by the red men to 
 have been the bathing pool where the goddess of the moun- 
 tains sought seclusion in the days when the gods wed with 
 the daughters of m,en. This branch of the Merrimack, 
 the Pemigewasset, passes through or touches and drains in 
 part or all, over thirty towns, an area of nearly nine hun- 
 dred square miles. 
 
 The Pemigewasset is joined just above Plymouth vil- 
 lage by the historic stream known as Baker’s River, so 
 named in honor of Captain Thomas Baker of Northamp- 
 ton, Mass., who penetrated into this region with a scouting 
 party in the summer of 1719 or 1720. Near the junction 
 of this stream and the Pemigewasset Captain Baker and his 
 men had a short but sharp fight with a body of Indians 
 hunting in that vicinity. Though repulsing the red men in 
 the opening battle the whites, acting under the advice of 
 their guide, a friendly Indian, beat a retreat towards the 
 Connecticut River, which they had ascended in reaching 
 this country. Another border incident, worthy of note, 
 was the surprise and capture by Indians of John Stark, 
 afterwards of Revolutionary fame, but then a young man 
 hunting for pelts ^ith three companions, one of whom 
 named William Stinson was killed, one escaped, while the 
 third was taken captive with Stark. In the days of 
 aboriginal occupancy of the country by the Amerinds 
 this river, known to them as “ winding waters,” was a 
 noted trail followed by many a hunting party and bands of 
 warriors in their transit between the valley of the Merri- 
 mack and the northern country. The north branch of this 
 river, for like most of these mountain streams it is formed 
 of two forks, has its source in the Moosehillock heights, 
 from whence it flows through Warren to join its mate com- 
 ing from the west, continuing southerly through Rumney 
 and a section of Plymouth. It is thirty miles in length. 
 
14 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 The eastern branch of the Merrimack, known by the 
 name of the beautiful “lake of the highlands,” which is its 
 source, drains in part or entirely fifteen towns and with the 
 lake receives the drainage of over 560 square miles. It has 
 a descent of 235 feet before joining the Pemigewasset at 
 Franklin, and affords excellent water privileges. It flows 
 between Laconia and Gilford, forms that beautiful sheet of 
 water, Lake Winnesquam, divides Tilton and Belmont, cuts 
 off a corner of Northfield and another of Tilton before los- 
 ing its identity in uniting with its sister stream to form the 
 true Merrimack. 
 
 The principal tributaries of the Merrimack call for the 
 mention of the Contoocook River, which rises near the 
 Massachusetts line, and after flowing in a northerly course 
 for about eighty miles empties into the Merrimack at Pen- 
 acook. This stream affords excellent water privileges at 
 Jaffrey, Peterborough Harrisville on the Nubemensit, 
 Bennington, Antrim, Hillsborough, Henniker, Contoocook 
 and Penacook, and flows through thirty-two towns, parts of 
 two states, five counties, and drains a territory of over 
 seven hundred square miles. 
 
 On the left bank of the Merrimack, as it winds down- 
 ward to the sea, the first tributary of note is Turkey River, 
 which finds its source in Loudon and Gilmanton and enters 
 the main river just above Garvin’s Falls, from whence 
 Manchester Traction, Light and Power Co. has equipped 
 one of the best plants in New England. This stream is the 
 one down which Hannah Dustin fled in her canoe upon her 
 memorable escape from the Indians at that spot now 
 marked by a monument at East Concord. 
 
 Another stream that joins the Merrimack a little below 
 is the Suncook, whose name in the Indian tongue meant 
 “place of the loon.” The true source of this river is a 
 pond in Gilford and Gilmanton, from whence it flows in a 
 southerly direction for about thirty miles, receiving the 
 waters of several other ponds on its way, among them the 
 

 
 
 * 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 15 
 
 Suncook Pond in Northwood, and Pleasant Pond in Deer- 
 field. It drains a basin of one hundred and thirty miles, 
 and has a utilized capacity of over three thousand horse 
 power. 
 
 The next in order, but entering upon the right bank 
 less than a mile below the falls of Amoskeag, is the Piscat- 
 aquog River, which has its principal source in the southern 
 part of Henniker and the northwesterly section of Deer- 
 ing. This stream flows in a southeasterly direction, and 
 its rapid current affords considerable motive power for ma- 
 chinery. 
 
 Just below the mouth of this tributary, and entering 
 upon the opposite bank, the Cohas brook, which flows in a 
 westerly course for about five miles, joins the Merrimack 
 at Goffe’s Falls, furnishing at this bustling village the 
 power for the mills located here. If brief in its career this 
 stream is the outlet of the largest body of water in south- 
 ern New Hampshire, Lake Massabesic, famous in the days 
 of the aborigines as the best fishing ground in this vicinity, 
 and noted now as a summer resort. Many an Indian le- 
 gend clusters about this charming and picturesque lake, 
 known to them in their romantic associations as “ the eyes 
 of the sky.” 
 
 Next in importance is the Souhegan, having its source 
 in a pond in Ashburnham, Mass., and after flowing north- 
 erly for thirty-five miles joins the Merrimack in a town by 
 the name of the latter river. It drains in whole or part of 
 eleven towns and an area of one hundred and fifty thous- 
 and acres of country. Its power affords life for the manu- 
 factories of New Ipswich, Greenville, Wilton, Milford and 
 Merrimack, all in New Hampshire. 
 
 The Nashua River, which gives its name to the third 
 city in the state, is another tributary which finds its source 
 in the watershed of northern Massachusetts, about midway 
 between Rhode Island and New Hampshire. It follows a 
 northerly course until reaching the state line, when it 
 
16 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 makes a sweep and runs for several miles in an opposite di- 
 rection to that of the larger river which receives its waters 
 at Nashua. Next to the Contoocook, this is the most im- 
 portant tributary to the Merrimack, and drains historic 
 ground. Where the truthfulness of details becomes dim 
 and history uncertain, legend and tradition blend, lending to 
 the tangible shadows of the past the romance of reality. 
 This river was beloved by the Indians ; here they fished 
 and hunted to their unbounded gratification ; here they 
 tilled their fields of maize and melons ; and here they laid 
 their rude hearthstones, held their councils of primeval 
 government, wooed their dusky mates, kept their festivals, 
 and vanished before the coming of the white settlers. 
 This river furnishes the power for the mills of Fitchburg, 
 Clinton, Shirley and Peppered, Mass., and those of Nashua, 
 N. H. 
 
 Salmon River is a smaller stream rising in Groton, 
 Massachusetts, to enter the Merrimack a little above the 
 city of Lowell. Within this city yet another river, if not 
 large as it is traced upon the map, yet great in historic in- 
 terest, the Concord, formed of two streams which unite in 
 the town which gives it a name, finds the Merrimack. 
 The Spicket River, rising in Hampstead and Derry, N. H., 
 flows southerly through Salem and Methuen, where it af- 
 fords good water privileges, becomes a tributary to the 
 Merrimack at Lawrence. Little River has its source in 
 Plaistow and Atkinson, N. H., to enter the larger river at 
 Haverhill, where it furnishes excellent water power. The 
 Powow, immortalized by the poet of the Merrimack, Whit- 
 tier, has its source in a cluster of beautiful gems of water in 
 Kingston, N. H., flows through a corner of East Kingston 
 into South Hampton, and falls into the Merrimack between 
 Amesbury and Salisbury, Mass., after favoring the former 
 place with a fine water power. The Amesbury Ferry, noted 
 for its Revolutionary associations, begins at the rough stone 
 bridge spanning the Powow. A chain ferry in the “ days 
 
“MOORED ON ITS CALM SURFACE AN ISLAND” 
 
THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 IT 
 
 that tried men’s souls ” found a terminus here, with a tav- 
 ern and hostelry for the accommodation of the traveller. 
 The old house is still standing, an interesting relic of by 
 gone days, while the road branches into two, one leading in- 
 to the thriving village of Amesbury Mills, and the other 
 seeking the north bank of the Merrimack winds up to Hav- 
 erhill. Washington crossed this ferry in 1789, upon his 
 visit to New England, and he stopped to rest at the old 
 tavern mentioned. The wharf has become grass-grown, 
 and only a pile of stones carpeted with greensward remains 
 to speak of the primitive way of crossing the river. 
 
 Below the bustling manufacturing town of Amesbury, 
 which was taken from Salisbury in 1668, there is much 
 fine scenery, and historic memories cluster about every 
 section of the country. Salisbury is noted for its beautiful 
 beach, and originally bore the same name as the river 
 which forms its southern boundary, the Merrimack. It re- 
 ceived its present name in 1640, having been known for the 
 previous year as Colchester. In 1643, with the plantations 
 of New Hampshire, Hampton, Exeter, Portsmouth and 
 Dover, it helped form with Haverhill, Mass., the territory 
 of Old Norfolk County. It was the shire town of the 
 county until New Hampshire was again separated and 
 formed into a royal government, in 1679. 
 
 “ Ould Newberry,” the mother of towns, situated upon 
 the south bank of the Merrimack, was settled by the 
 whites in the spring of 1635. The Indians had long kept a 
 lodgment here known as Quasacunquen, signifying in their 
 tongue a “waterfall.” West Newbury, a good farming 
 town, was separated from Newbury in 1819. A little over 
 half a century before, in 1764, that one-time port of for- 
 eign trade, which was carried on here quite extensively, 
 Newburyport, situated at the mouth of the Merrimack, had 
 been similarly favored. Shipping has been seriously im- 
 peded by the bar at the outlet of the river, which like the 
 “great river” of China seems determined to protect itself 
 
18 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 from the sea, but fishing and ship building have received 
 considerable attention. Manufacturing has been followed 
 to a considerable extent. This is probably the smallest 
 town in area in the United States, being about two miles 
 in length and one-fourth of a mile in breadth, in its popu- 
 lated territory, and contains barely one square mile in its 
 entire extent. This town became noted a hundred years 
 ago for its ship-building, being especially well situated for 
 this enterprise. It is claimed that a hundred vessels have 
 been in progress of construction at its piers at one time. 
 
 As noted as this vicinity is for its remarkable coast 
 scenery, one of its most prominent features is the sand 
 bar thrown across the mouth of the river by that busy 
 builder itself, as if it would seek protection from the hun- 
 gry ocean forever seeking to devour it. This exposed out- 
 post, barely half a mile in width, extends for over nine 
 miles parallel with the coast. A few adventurous home- 
 seekers have built their houses upon its inhospitable shores, 
 but it is almost entirely without tree or shrub, and its suf- 
 fering vegetation lies half smothered in the parti-colored 
 sands, which are continually drifting over it and as con- 
 stantly fleeing away as much at the mercy of the wind as 
 the snows of winter. One shrub, the beach plum, which 
 gives name to the island, braves the elements to an extent 
 which attracts crowds to the place in the early autumn, 
 seeking its fruit which is very palatable. The wind has 
 kneaded and worked over the fine particles composing this 
 remarkable plot of terra Jirma , which does not deserve in its 
 fullest sense this term, into many fantastic shapes. It has 
 builded on its shores, at their greatest altitude not over 
 twenty feet, miniature bluffs of most grim aspect, and scal- 
 loped from its lean banks graceful hillsides and long ridges 
 of sand, curved and twisted like the spines of so many 
 monsters of the deep. Over these naked places a species 
 of sea moss modestly twines its tremulous drapery, while 
 the delicate beach pea, looking sweeter for its dreary set- 
 
THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 19 
 
 ting, flings a mantle of green over the gray sand. But, 
 if treated niggardly by nature, this island has been espec- 
 ially fortunate in having for its admirers such chroniclers 
 as Whittier and Thoreau. 
 
 There is good reason for believing that the original 
 course of the Merrimack after reaching Lowell, where it 
 now makes a sharp bend toward the north and east, was 
 more southerly than at present, and that it entered the sea 
 near where Boston is now built. The change was due to 
 obstructions filling in the old channel, and making it easier 
 for the great volume of water of that period to cut a new 
 passage than to clear the old. This doubtless took place at 
 or near the close of the glacial epoch. 
 
 As it runs to-day, including its tributaries, the Merri- 
 mack drains a territory in New Hampshire and Massachu- 
 setts of nearly five thousand square miles, and forms one 
 of the most important river basins in the United States, 
 the density of its population being equalled only by the 
 valleys of the Delaware and the Housatonic. The number 
 of its inhabitants according to the latest official returns is 
 approximately three-fourths of a million (750,000) or 150 
 persons to a square mile. The river and its tributaries has 
 improved water privileges amounting to one hundred thous- 
 and horse power, of which more than one half is in New 
 Hampshire. It is claimed that its waters turn more ma- 
 chinery than any other river in the world. Its importance 
 as a manufacturing factor is shown in the estimate that 
 one-sixth of all the cotton and woolen carpets; one-fifth of 
 all the woolen and cotton and woolen goods ; and over one- 
 fourth of all the cotton fabrics, manufactured in the United 
 States, are made in the valley of the Merrimack and 
 its tributaries. Of the eleven cities, most benefited by 
 the river, we find that their interest reaches enormous fig- 
 ures, divided in round numbers, as follows, the first five be- 
 ing’located in New Hampshire: Laconia, $2,389, 202; Frank- 
 lin, $1,708,889; Concord, $5,357,408 ; Manchester, $26,607,- 
 
20 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 600; Nashua, $11,037,676; Lowell, $44,772,525; Law- 
 rence. $44,703,278; Haverhill, $24,937,073; Amesbury, $3,- 
 898,251 ; Newburyport, $5,685,768. Of course, it is to be 
 understood that all of the power to carry on this great 
 stroke of industry is not furnished directly by the Merri- 
 mack, but that river is the direct stimulus which has caused 
 these places to become the great manufacturing centers 
 they now are. As is the case with New Hampshire, Mas- 
 sachusetts has many smaller places scattered along the 
 Merrimack and its tributaries which have become manu- 
 facturing centers, where many thousand dollars’ worth of 
 goods are annually made. 
 
 We find the history of the Merrimack and its basin eas- 
 ily divided into two periods, the period of the pioneers and 
 that of progress in manufacture. The first was fruitful of 
 incidents enough to fill a volume that would read more like 
 romance than history. A few years following of the Mas- 
 sachusetts Bay colonists, in the vicinity of Salem, a little 
 company of men from Yorkshire, England, plain, industri- 
 ous tillers of the soil, came to New England to try their 
 fortune in the great untrodden wilderness reaching from 
 the outlet to the source of the Merrimack. With the ex- 
 ception of a collection of the red men here and there upon 
 the lower section of the river, either part of or belonging to 
 thePenacook Indians, the valley was free from the presence 
 of the dusky hunter or fisher. The principal lodge of these 
 aborigines was at Pawtucket, just above Lowell and these 
 the new-comers placated with gifts and deeds of kindness. 
 So the hardy Yorkshiremen went onward with their work 
 of colonization, until here and there a little meeting house 
 arose in this primeval wilderness, surrounded by stockades 
 of smooth, strong poles driven into the ground and stand- 
 ing about twice the height of a tall man. Around these 
 humble places of worship gathered the rude cabins forming 
 the first homes of the Merrimack valley. 
 
 The simple sons of the forest vanished from the pathway 
 of these new-comers like dew before the morning sun. 
 
FROM MOUNTAIN TO SKA 
 
THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 21 
 
 Wannalancet, the last great sachem at Pawtucket, finally 
 withdrew the remnant of his flock to the rendezvous at St. 
 Francis, in Canada. There were left then the wandering 
 tribes of warriors, incited to bitterness against the English 
 by the French, to be met and overcome in hand-to-hand 
 grapples, where cunning more often than strength was 
 pitted in the fray. The first settlement made within the 
 valley as far north as the line of New Hampshire, was made 
 in what became known as Old Dunstable, and from this 
 settlement, upon Salmon Brook, was not only a lookout es- 
 tablished, but from this outpost scouting party after party 
 was sent to hunt down the enemy, that never seemed to 
 sleep from the beginning of King Philip's war, in 1675, to 
 the closing of the cruel drama upon the meadows of the 
 Saco, when Lovewell and his men found victory in defeat, 
 May 8, 1725. 
 
 The Indian wars practically closed in the lower section 
 of the river, that bitter contention between the white colon- 
 ists of the two provinces, Massachusetts and New Hamp- 
 shire, known as the “ boundary dispute,” opened in earnest, 
 and lasted until 1741. This dispute arose over the miscon- 
 ception already mentioned, thinking that the Merrimack 
 arose directly in the west and flowed continuously toward 
 the east. During t-he “boundary war” Massachusetts 
 granted several townships in what is now the territory of 
 New Hampshire, but these were finally lost to the grant- 
 ees. 
 
 At this time, and for fifty years or more later, the build- 
 ing of homes and the clearing of the wilderness for farms 
 were the prevailing thoughts. As it had been the favorite 
 hunting ground of the red men, so did it hold exceptional 
 advantages and promises to the husbandman. No one then 
 dreamed of the latent power in its rapids and waterfalls. 
 But already the coming factor in the progress of mankind 
 had made its beginning. At the same time the courts of 
 the rival provinces were finally coming to an amicable set- 
 
THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 22 
 
 tlement of the boundary dispute, manufacturing was be- 
 gun at Manchester, England, and machinery for the man- 
 ufacture of cotton and woolen goods invented. The 
 first patent for a spinning machine was given in 1738, 
 in England, to Lewis Paul ; then followed ten years 
 later his invention of cylinder carding machine. In 1769, 
 Richard Arkwright received a patent for his spinning 
 frame, and in 1785 the Rev. Samuel Cartwright took out 
 his patent for a power loom. Four years later steam power 
 was first applied to manufacturing purposes. These inven- 
 tions were preceeded and followed by others of scarcely 
 less importance, until a system of factory enterprises came 
 to revolutionize the situation in the Merrimack valley, and 
 give it that place in the industrial world to which it right- 
 fully belongs. Cotton manufacture was begun in Beverly, 
 in 1785, while manufactures of this kind started elsewhere in 
 the United States. But it was not until 1793, when Eli 
 Whitney gave to the world his cotton gin, that the manu- 
 facture of cotton was begun in earnest. The first manu- 
 facturing in the Merrimack Valley, properly speaking, seems 
 to have been inaugurated in 1801, by Moses Hale. 
 
 Before I speak more fully of the growth of manufac- 
 ture on the Merrimack I wish to refer to another industry 
 that was attracting considerable attention. This was boat- 
 ing upon the river. That was a period of rapid improve- 
 ment. Boston was becoming a thriving town of twenty 
 thousand inhabitants, and there were suburbs that only 
 needed the stimulus of trade to give them power and pros- 
 perity. The valley of the Merrimack, far up into New Hamp- 
 shire, even if sparsely settled, promised a rich harvest of 
 trade to the centers which could draw it. Better means of 
 communication was thus the vital question. Turnpikes were 
 builded through the country, but while these were an im- 
 provement over the poor roads hitnerto existing, slow-going 
 ox-teams were the main dependence for power of transit. 
 Transportation thus not only became tedious, but it was 
 expensive. 
 
THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 23 
 
 At this time the Hon. James Sullivan projected the 
 Middlesex canal, which offered easy connection between 
 Lowell and Boston, by following almost identically the 
 course believed to have once been the pathway of the river. 
 
 Among the foremost men of the period, who stood for 
 the development of the country, was the Hon. Samuel 
 Blodget, a native of Woburn, but at this time in 
 business in Haverhill. He had already foreseen that the 
 Merrimack was possible of becomming a maritime highway 
 certain to benefit not only the producer and the consumer, 
 but was sure to bring the promoter a handsome reward for 
 his investments and exertions. Though now a man who 
 had arrived at an age when most men are laying aside the 
 burdens and responsibilities of business, he formed his 
 plans with the sanguineness of a young man with all the 
 world before him. He conceived the purpose of making 
 the river navigable as far, at least, as Concord, with a pos- 
 sibility that it might be opened to the lake. In order to do 
 this the falls must be surmounted by canals, the greatest 
 of which would be that at Amoskeag, which has a perpen- 
 dicular measurement of forty- five feet. Upon May 2, 1793, 
 he began work on the canals at that place, meeting with 
 obstacles that must have disheartened a less courageous 
 heart ; exhausting his own means, and calling upon others 
 for assistance, so that on May 1, 1807, he completed his 
 noble work. Other canals were built, though of less size, 
 and the river was opened as far as Concord, N. H., to be- 
 come the most popular route for moving merchandise be- 
 tween Boston and the towns of the north. With the river 
 boatmen sprang into service a new phase of life, exciting, 
 profitable and strenuous, building up a set of characters 
 noted for their hardihood. Passenger packets beginning to 
 run from Lowell to the sea during this period, the last of 
 these disappeared about 1838. 
 
 Judge Blodget died in September, 1807, but he has left 
 the impress of his energetic power upon the locality where 
 
24 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 he had spent his last years. He, with General John Stark 
 of Revolutionary fame, built the first saw mill above the 
 falls, and seeing possibilities of the waterfall he laid the 
 foundation toward building up that great manufacturing in- 
 terest later entered into by the great company known the 
 world over as the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company. He 
 suggested the coming city should be named after that al- 
 ready growing center of industry, Manchester, England. 
 
 In the midst of the growing business of both river and 
 turnpike, a new motor of transportation appeared upon the 
 scene, when, in 1842, the iron horse came up the valley 
 puffing and shrieking like mad, to the surprised beholders, 
 but a conqueror of time and speed. With the success of 
 the railroad the remarkable progress of the string of 
 manufacturing cities on the Merrimack continued with in- 
 creasing prosperity. Since 1850, only a few years more 
 than half a century, Manchester, Nashua, Lowell, Law- 
 rence, Haverhill, to say nothing of the remaining cities, 
 have flourished beyond what could have been the prediction 
 of the most sanguine person. In this same period the steam 
 engine has pushed its way steadily out from the main river, 
 until now it runs along the banks of all but three of its trib- 
 utaries, following on almost to their sources. Of the hun- 
 dred or more towns in New Hampshire that are drained by 
 these streams there is scarcely a dozen which is not banded 
 by the iron rails, while the total length of these roads in 
 this state is over five hundred miles. Massachusetts has 
 been even more fortunate in this respect. In addition to 
 this, the electric motor has found its way as far north as 
 the valley of the Pemigewasset, except for a link soon to 
 be built between Nashua and Manchester, N. H., making 
 an endless chain from the sea to the mountains. Trolley 
 lines have penetrated into many of the adjoining towns, 
 bringing them within close touch of the river of progress. 
 
 Besides being a manufacturing district, the Merrimack 
 Valley is a beautiful agricultural country, and some of the 
 
LOOKING NORTH FROM HOOKSETT PINNACLE 
 
THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 25 
 
 finest homesteads in New England have been developed 
 from the clearings of the pioneers one hundred and fifty 
 years ago. Its scenery of hills and vales, lakes and moun- 
 tains, entwined with bands of silvery streams, is equal to 
 any found upon the slopes of the Appalachian chain of high- 
 lands. And the chief attraction to-day, as it was at its 
 period of its primeval glory, is the red man’s Merrimack, 
 “river of broken waters,” the busiest, merriest, noblest 
 water-way in New England. Dashing with child-like glee 
 from whence 
 
 “ The pine-trees lean above its cradle, laid 
 Deep under tangled roots and mossy sod, 
 
 Where mountains lift their faces unafraid 
 Thro sun and starlight to the face of God,” 
 
 gliding swiftly over pebble-strewn beds, winding through 
 rich meadows like a silver thread in the green vestment of 
 Nature, flinging its legions of snowy caps tossed high in 
 the air over rocky stairways, making a descent of six thou- 
 sand feet in two hundred miles, it seeks the sea and rests 
 with the calmness of old age. The constant song of its 
 rushing current is the eternal melody of industry ; the un- 
 ending roar of its waterfalls, the voice that calls men to work 
 in thunder tones. It turns more factory wheels, lights more 
 forge fires, swings more hammers, keeps busy more hands of 
 art and toil than any other river that runs to the sea. The 
 products of its looms have been sent to every clime ; its cot- 
 ton cloths and woolen goods have been the raiment of many 
 races of men ; its iron and steel the building material of city 
 and country ; its tools and machinery the strong helpers on 
 farm and in work shop, at home and abroad ; stout ships 
 plow the watery highway of the deep laden with its com- 
 merce, while the triumphant whistle of the iron horse 
 has awakened the solitude of far-distant lands. 
 
'Cf )c Jpirgt ^urbep of tfje J^Errimacfe 
 
 FEW years since a most interesting document 
 was found among the old papers of Essex county, 
 which is undoubtedly the oldest map or plan of 
 the Merrimack valley in existence. 
 
 It is inscribed as follows : 
 
 “Plat of Meremack River from ye See up to Wenepe- 
 soce Pond, also the Corses from Dunstable to Penny-cook. 
 Jno. Gardner.” 
 
 While without date or explanatory papers, it is evi- 
 dently the plan of the first survey of the Merrimack River 
 from the sea to its source. This survey was probably made 
 in 1638, as May 22, 1639, we find the court allowing one 
 Woodward the sum of three pounds “for his journey to 
 discover the running of the Merrimack,” while four others 
 who went with him were allowed “5s. a day apiece.” The 
 Governor and his deputies, evidently thinking the principal 
 in the affair had been insufficiently paid, ordered him ten 
 shillings more. This is in accordance with an order of the 
 General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, made in 
 July, 1638, which authorized the above-mentioned Wood- 
 ward, with three others besides an Indian guide, “to lay 
 out the line three miles northward of the most northermost 
 part of Merrimack.” 
 
 The name of John Gardner does not appear in either 
 order, but the identity of the surveyor and his important 
 connection with the expedition is clearly shown by the local 
 records. He was the son of Thomas Gardner, who was 
 born in 1 592, and whose ancestral home was evidently in 
 
 26 
 
THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 27 
 
 Dorsetshire, Eng., though it has been claimed that he came 
 to this country from Scotland. 
 
 For further particulars of the connection of these fam- 
 ilies see Dr. Gardner’s valuable article published by the 
 Salem Institute, Historical Collection, Vol. XXXVII, en- 
 titled, “ Thomas Gardner, Planter, and Some of His De- 
 scendants.” 
 
 He had connected himself with a body of men in Dor- 
 chester, known afterward as “The Cape Ann Planters,” 
 but styled then as “The Dorchester Company,” who had 
 organized to settle a colony on Cape Ann. This company 
 landed in 1624, on the west side of what is now known as 
 Gloucester harbor, but it proved that the soil and the advan- 
 tages of the place were unequal to forming a successful 
 plantation. The leaders of the company, who were still in 
 England, discredited the unpopular report, and secured in 
 Roger Conant a new manager for the colony. 
 
 But he soon came to dislike the place as much as the 
 others, and in 1626 our Thomas Gardner obtained permis- 
 sion to remove the little disheartened colony to the mouth 
 of Naumkeag river. Some of the most discouraged re- 
 turned in their disappointment to their native land, but the 
 boldest and most sanguine, under the efficient leadership of 
 Thomas Gardner, entered upon their new venture with 
 earnest purpose, and this hardy little band became the 
 founders of Salem. As has been aptly remarked, scant 
 credit has been bestowed upon them by the historians of 
 early New England. In his capacity as overseer of the 
 plantation at Cape Ann, Thomas Gardner was in truth the 
 first man in authority within that territory, since widely 
 known as “The Massachusetts Bay Colony.” He was one 
 of the original members of the first church in Salem; he 
 was made a free man in 1637, and also elected a deputy to 
 the General Court. For many years prominent in the 
 affairs of the growing commonwealth, he died in 1674, leav- 
 ing an estate of several hnndred acres of land, considerable 
 of it obtained from grants received for public services, 
 
28 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 His wife is supposed to have been a sister of the famous 
 Puritan divine, Rev. John White. 
 
 John Gardner, the surveyor and justice, was born in 
 1624, of this parentage, in the year of the landing of the 
 Cape Ann Planters in the new country. This was four 
 years before the coming of Endicott. The first mention of 
 his name was made in the records of the General Court at 
 Boston, in 1639, when “The treasurer was ordered to pay 
 John Gardner 20s for witness charge & carrying Goodman 
 Woodward his instruments to Ipswich.” It will thus be 
 seen that he early became acquainted with that work he so 
 often undertook later in life. This, it will be observed, was 
 the year following the survey of the Merrimack, and it is 
 quite certain that young Gardner was a chain bearer for 
 Surveyor Woodward, upon that first survey of the Merri- 
 mack, though his name is not mentioned. This does not 
 destroy the evidence, however, as the names of Woodward’s 
 companions are not all given in the records. If one were 
 omitted it would be most likely that of the boy of the expe- 
 dition, though that same lad was to become afterwards the 
 means of perpetuating the results of that undertaking. 
 
 In the following years the name of John Gardner 
 appears quite frequently in the records of those times as 
 surveyor, juror, selectman and as justice of the peace for a 
 long period. He lived for many years in a house standing 
 on what is now Essex street, well down toward the water. 
 He married Priscilla Grafton, daughter of Joseph Grafton 
 of Salem, and a prominent family in Colonial days. She 
 was the mother of six daughters and one son, dying, it is 
 believed, in 1717. 
 
 John Gardner died in 1706, full of years and honors, 
 and was buried in the burial ground on “Forefathers Hill,” 
 near the present pumping station. According to Dr. Gard- 
 ner’s article, already referred to, “ the original gravestone is 
 still in existence, but is kept at present in the old Coffin 
 house known as the ‘horse-shoe house.’ ” This stone, which 
 had marked the spot for seventy-five years, was removed for 
 
From a painting by Frank Holland. 
 
 Moonlight on the Merrimack, Showing the Flight of Hannah Dustin. 
 
THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 29 
 
 preservation in 1881, and was replaced by a substantial 
 granite stone with the following inscription, a copy of the 
 original: “Here lyes buried ye body of John Gardner, Esq., 
 aged 82 who died May, 1706.” 
 
 Having said so much of the actors in the affairs, let us 
 glance at the situation and the causes which led to the sur- 
 vey. Endicott, already selected by the London Company 
 to be Governor of the colony, arrived in 1628. The Gen- 
 eral Court of London had anticipated the permanent organ- 
 ization of the colonists by declaring: “That thirteen of 
 such as shall be reputed the most wyse, honest, expert and 
 discreet persons, residents upon the Plantaceon, shall have 
 the sole managing and ordering of the government and our 
 affairs there, who to the best of their judgment are to 
 endeavor to settle the same as they may make most for the 
 Glory of God, the furtherance and advancement of this 
 hopeful Plantaceon, the comfort, encouragement and future 
 benefit of us and others, the beginners and promoters of 
 this so laudable worke.” 
 
 Unfortunately the records of those early years are 
 lost, but future events show conclusively that the colo- 
 nists lived fully up to the demands and expectations of the 
 promoters of the settlement. The choice of John Endicott 
 for governor proved a happy one, and no doubt insured 
 much toward the ultimate success of the enterprise. It has 
 been well said that “possessing positive traits of character, 
 unflinching firmness united with great executive ability, he 
 overcame difficulties that beset him on every side, and suc- 
 ceeded in the accomplishment of the most important trust 
 ever entrusted to any one person, the laying of the founda- 
 tion and shaping the institutions of the New World.” 
 
 As paradoxical as it may seem at this day, in the course 
 of a decade the colonists represented themselves as 
 “straightened for the want of land.” Hubbard, the his- 
 torian of those times, says that Ipswich was so overrun 
 with people that they swarmed to other places. Out of the 
 demand for “further farms ” came the order by the courts in 
 
30 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 1638 to explore the valley of the Merrimack river to the 
 limits of the northern boundary supposed to have been 
 fixed by charter granted to the Massachusetts Bay Com- 
 pany. According to the records of the company this was 
 as follows : 
 
 “Bounds of that part of New England, in America, 
 which lies and extends between a great river there com- 
 monly called ‘Monoack’ alias ‘Meremack’ & a certain 
 other river there called Charles river, being in the bottom 
 of a certain bay here commonly called Massachusetts bay 
 & also all and singular those lands and here diaments what- 
 soever lying within the space of three English miles on the 
 south part of said Charles River, & c. 
 
 “And also all singular the lands and pereditaments 
 whatsoever which lie, & be within the space of three Eng- 
 lish miles to the Northward of said river Called ‘Mono- 
 mack,’ alias ‘Merrymack,’ or to the northward of any and 
 every part thereof : And all lands &c. lying within the limit 
 aforesaid, &c., &c.” 
 
 As yet the colonists could have had only the most 
 vague conceptions concerning the course of the river which 
 had been selected to become the continuous guide by which 
 to establish the northern boundary. That it was necessary 
 to carry out such a survey is evident, and the inhabitants of 
 Naumkeag were especially anxious to further this explor- 
 ation, as well as the survey of the unknown regions beyond 
 them. That it was an undertaking fraught with danger did 
 not for a moment cause those adventurous spirits to hesi- 
 tate. Already had new plantations been established as far 
 as Agawam, now Springfield, on the west, and Casco Bay 
 settlement on the east. The only thing to hinder them 
 from laying out new plantations in the desirable territory 
 of the Merrimack valley was the settlement of the line. 
 Accordingly, in answer to a petition from them, the Gen- 
 eral Court at Boston, on July 6, 1638, voted that “Good- 
 man Woodward, Mr. John Stretton, with an Indian and two 
 others appointed by the Magistrates of Ipswich, are to lay 
 
BY THE SHORES OF INLAND WATERS 
 
THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 31 
 
 out the line 3 miles northward of the most Northermost 
 part of Merrimack, for which they are to have 5s a day a 
 piece.” 
 
 The survey, which occupied about two weeks of time, 
 was doubtless performed early in the fall of the same year, 
 but unfortunately no special account of the journey through 
 the trackless wilderness has been handed down. That it 
 was filled with arduous labor and accomplished to the satis- 
 faction of the court there is no doubt. The brave little 
 party penetrated so far north that the shore of Lake 
 Winnipesaukee is marked in the plan or plot, the earliest 
 drawing of the Merrimack, with its taibutaries. 
 
 From this plan the committee selected to pass upon 
 the settlement of the matter fixed the northern line at a big 
 pine tree standing three miles north of the Winnipesaukee 
 and Pemigewasset rivers. This tree became known as 
 Endicott’s Tree, and as late as 1737, during the vexatious 
 trial at the noted court at Salisbury, August 8, the conclu- 
 sions of the evidence rested upon “3. certain tree commonly 
 known for more than seventy years past by the name of 
 Endicott’s Tree, standing three miles northward of the part- 
 ing of the Merrimack river,” to establish the boundary. 
 Notwithstanding this no one ever seemed to be able to tell 
 just where it stood, and as a matter of fact it was of little 
 if any account as a bound. 
 
 Even allowing this to be the case, it does not diminish 
 the value of this survey, for upon this was based the calcu- 
 lations leading to the better known and more permanent 
 work performed by men composing the expedition of 1652, 
 when it became necessary to repeat this survey by the four 
 whose names have been handed down to history as the suc- 
 cessful operators of an undertaking not removed from dan- 
 ger and difficulty at this date. No doubt at this the Wood- 
 ward survey was reviewed and the old plan brought forth 
 from its pigeon hole. Some claim the plot now in existence 
 is a copy of the original made as late as 1668 or 1669, but 
 does it not seem probable that it was made at this time, 
 
32 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 granting it is a copy? It being done by John Gardner 
 shows that he must have been familiar with the subject, 
 and it does not seem at all reasonable that he accompanied 
 the party, as young as he was at this time, a boy about fif- 
 teen. It is certain that he had already been an assistant to 
 Goodman Woodward, and whom would the latter be more 
 likely to take as a companion and helper on this trip than 
 the nimble, brave-hearted lad that we know John Gardner 
 to have been ? Be it as it may, the work of a boy or a man, 
 it shows commendable accuracy and completeness of detail. 
 
 A reference map shows that the first tributary is that 
 of “ Samon Brook.” I follow the original spelling and cap- 
 italization, while what is known as Nashua river is given as 
 “ Canister river.” The next stream marked is Nanticook 
 in Merrimack, which is spelled here “ pennychok,” while a 
 little above the Souhegan is indicated under its correct 
 orthography. One of the several minor tributaries coming 
 from Litchfield is here set down under the name of “ Nay- 
 cancoke,” which today is called Messenteau. Above this 
 is “Cakusek,” which can be made to stand for Cohas, while 
 the Massabesic pond is indicated in the distance. This, as 
 far as I know, is the first official mention of the name as 
 applied to this body of water. The Piscataquog is very 
 well traced under the name of “Perscataquay.” Two coni- 
 cal shapes in the distance mark the “ occonanauch ” moun- 
 tains, which may or may not be construed to read Unca- 
 noonuc mountains. The falls of the Merrimack is noted 
 under the name of “ Amuskeeg,” and a little above is Black 
 brook. Above this is traced a small stream without a name, 
 while beyond the latter the bold escarpment at the present 
 town of Hooksett, now known as the “lookout,” was indi- 
 cated by a name difficult to decipher, but which may have 
 been intended to mean “Lone Hawk Hill.” A little above 
 this, on the right, Suncook river is marked unmistakably 
 under the spelling of “Sunckeok.” Then, again on the 
 right, is given the small stream rising in Turtle pond, East 
 Concord, the source of thisbrook being marked. On the 
 
j?:;.. .jw 
 
 Drawn for the Granite State Magazine By ELMER H. BERLUND 
 
 THE GARDNER SURVEY OF THE MERRIMACK RIVER, 1638 
 (Reduced one-half from original) 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 V, i&K a 
 
 .H f '{H h. itat? *tiha;i.'; rf»r «v.iiU 
 
 mi'HA fl'A 3HT HO V3V IIW >U3V: Jrt/. ' : HT 
 
 b, ., ,5ft 
 
 
 
THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 33 
 
 left, a little above this, is given the small stream that con- 
 nects Horse Shoe pond with the Merrimack. Just above 
 the junction of another small stream, which was evidently 
 that forming the outlet of Penacook pond, is found the 
 word “ Penychook,” which may have been intended to 
 denote the site of the old ancient Indian settlement in this 
 vicinity, of the brook. Then comes under the spelling of 
 “ Pacuneshu,” “Contoocook River,” traced to two sources, 
 one of these being marked simply “ mountains,” and the 
 other on the north designated as “Carasaga mountain.” 
 This last no doubt meant what is now meant as Kearsarge 
 mountain, and from this word is now claimed to have come 
 the present name. A place that might apply to the plains 
 of Boscawen is dignified with the designation of “ brave 
 land,” a spot so associated with the memory of the ancient 
 Amerinds for some especial reason. A few miles above 
 this place the Winnipesaukee and Pemigewasset rivers is 
 marked, the last traced for some distance, while the former, 
 designated as “ Winepisocke River,” is followed to the great 
 lake, here set down as “ Winp. Pond.” 
 
 These constitute the configurations of the outline map, 
 there being no white man’s hamlet to note on the entire 
 distance, but only an unbroken wilderness and its primeval 
 features. Such in brief comprises the accounts of the first 
 survey of the Merrimack. All calculations in regard to 
 the country must have been based upon this survey, until 
 on May 31, 1652, the court ordered Captains Willard and 
 Johnson to undertake their work in establishing the north- 
 ern line of the Massachusetts jurisdiction. 
 
lioating W>ap$ anil ftiber /p^en 
 
 O PERIOD in the history of the busy Merrimack 
 from the morning of July 17, 1605, when it was 
 discovered by De Champlain, to the present date, is 
 fraught with more exciting interest than the boat- 
 ing days of the first half of this century and immediately 
 preceding the appearance on its banks of the iron horse, 
 which was to bring such a revolution in the methods of 
 traffic. Boston had already become a promising metropolis 
 of twenty thousand inhabitants, while all along the north- 
 ward course, as far north as Concord, N. H., thriving vil- 
 lages had come into existence, demanding increased busi- 
 ness facilities and better and cheaper means of transporta- 
 tion than were afforded by the slow-moving ox trains, or the 
 desultory rafting on the river practiced to uncertain extents 
 at occasional intervals. But before the stream could be 
 successfully utilized as an inland maritime highway, the pas- 
 sage of its falls must be rendered feasible by locks, and the 
 rocky shallows and devious windings escaped by artificial 
 waterways. 
 
 The first step in this direction was the building of the 
 Middlesex canal, which was projected by Hon. James Sulli- 
 van and begun in 1794, to be completed in 1803. This 
 waterway stopped at what is now known as Middlesex vil- 
 lage, about two miles above Lowell, and was twenty-seven 
 miles in length. Immediately upon its completion other 
 companies and individuals, aided more or less by the Middle- 
 sex corporation, undertook to continue the work of making 
 the river navigable by building locks, dams and canals 
 wffiere needed, until a point two miles north of Concord was 
 
 34 
 
THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 35 
 
 reached — fifty-two miles in length — Judge Samuel Blodget 
 fitly completing the great scheme of engineering by his 
 canal of Amoskeag, which was formally opened on May 
 Day, 1807. That part of the system below Amoskeag, 
 comprising the dams and locks at Merrill’s Falls, near 
 Granite bridge, and Griffin’s Falls below, was done by the 
 Union Lock and Canal Company, superintended by Isaac 
 Riddle of Bedford. 
 
 To Superintendent Riddle belongs the credit, in 
 association with Major Caleb Stark of Dunbarton, of con- 
 structing the first canal boat that ever plied on the Merri- 
 mack. The work was done at Bedford Center, and the boat 
 was so different from anything the people had seen as to 
 call forth numerous expressions of surprise and often of 
 ridicule. The nearest approach to its style of construction 
 that we have now is the flat-bottomed scow used to bring 
 brick down the river from Hooksett. This odd craft, when 
 completed, was drawn to Basswood Landing on the Piscat- 
 aquog, near the bridge, by forty yoke of oxen, and launched 
 amid the tremendous cheering of a large crowd of curious 
 spectators. This boat, appropriately named the “Experi- 
 ment,” was promptly loaded with lumber and started on its 
 pioneer trip to Boston, where it was hailed with greater 
 demonstration than at its starting point, the firing of can- 
 non mingling with the “shouts of the spectators. The news- 
 paper of the day, the Boston Centinel and Federalist , had the 
 following notice concerning the arrival of Captain Riddle’s 
 boat: 
 
 “Arrived from Bedford, N. H., Canal Boat Experiment, 
 Isaac Riddle, Captain, via Merrimack River and Middlesex 
 Canal.” 
 
 This was in the fall of 1812, and Captain Riddle imme- 
 diately found himself beset with orders for the shipment of 
 large contracts of lumber and merchandise. His business 
 increased so rapidly that in 1816 a store and boat house was 
 built at Piscataquog bridge, and two years later locks were 
 built just above the island at the mouth of the river. 
 
36 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 While I haven’t the data at hand to describe the inci- 
 dent, I am well assured that a boat was built and launched 
 at Nashua at about the same time, possibly a little earlier 
 than Captain Riddle launched his “ Experiment.” Even 
 before his boat had made its initial trip, the Merrimack 
 Boating Company had been organized in Boston to trans- 
 port freight from that place to Concord and way stations 
 through Middlesex canal and Merrimack river. The first 
 boat belonging to this corporation was taken up the river in 
 October, 1814, and commenced on regular trips the follow- 
 ing June. From the beginning of operations by this com- 
 pany thirty years of uninterrupted and successful boating 
 followed on the Merrimack. It is true passengers had to 
 depend, as before, on the stage coaches, but all the products 
 of the country were taken to market, and such merchandise 
 as was needed brought up on the return trip to the places 
 along the route. The granite in Quincy market building 
 was transported from Concord by these boats. 
 
 In 1817 steam power was unsuccessfully applied and 
 the project abandoned after one trial. But later a steamer 
 called the “ Herald” was built above Pawtucket Falls, 
 launched in 1834, and made regular trips between Lowell 
 and Nashua, when Lowell had but fourteen thousand inhab- 
 itants and Nashua only a few hundred. In 1838 she was 
 lengthened to ninety feet, and would carry five hundred 
 passengers. In 1840 she was floated over the falls to 
 Newburyport and thence taken to New York, where she 
 was run as a ferry boat between New York city and 
 Brooklyn.* 
 
 The boating season opened as soon as the river was 
 clear of ice in the spring and continued until cold weather. 
 Five days were consumed in the upward trip and four days 
 in going down the river. Twenty tons were considered an 
 average load as far as Lowell, and fifteen tons above that 
 point, except during low water, when not more than half 
 that burden could be carried. At the beginning, Si 3 - 5 ° 
 
 *G. B. Griffith. 
 
WITH WIND AND CURRENT 
 
 BOAT ENTERING LOCKS 
 
 MOVING UP THE RIVER 
 
THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 37 
 
 was the charge for up freight to the extreme landing in 
 Concord, and $8.50 for down transportation; but these 
 prices were gradually reduced, until in 1838 only $5 and $4 
 were the respective charges. The total amount of business 
 done during the years 1816-1842 was $468,756, going up- 
 ward, and $220,940 downward. Before the boating began 
 $20 a ton was charged by teams for the entire route. 
 
 The Merrimack Boating Company was succeeded by 
 the Concord Boating Company in 1823, and that in turn 
 gave up business in 1844. The largest number of boats 
 believed to be on the river at any one time was twenty. 
 These boats, built to meet the peculiar requirements of 
 river navigation, were not less than forty-five or over 
 seventy-five feet in length, and from nine to nine and one- 
 half feet in width at the middle. Those on the Merrimack 
 were generally of the greatest length, nine feet wide at 
 midway, but a little narrower toward the ends, flat-bottomed 
 across the center but rounded up at bow and stern, so that 
 while they were three feet deep at mid-length the sides 
 were barely a foot high at the extremities. Two-inch pine 
 planks were used in their construction, these being fastened 
 to three-by-four-inch cross joints and side knees of oak, 
 with cross timbers of the same wood at the ends. The 
 seams were calked with oakum and pitched. No cross 
 thwarts were needed, but a stout plank nailed across from side 
 to side about a foot forward of midway served the double pur- 
 pose of strengthening the boat and affording support to a 
 mast raised to carry a square sail attached to a cross-yard, 
 and which under favorable circumstances could be made to 
 assist in the propulsion of the heavily loaded boat. These 
 spars varied somewhat in length, being from twenty to 
 twenty-four feet long and six inches in diameter at the foot. 
 A rope running through a single block at the top enabled 
 the boatman to hoist or lower the sail at will. 
 
 The main means of propulsion against the current 
 were the setting poles in the hands of two strong bowmen, 
 who were assisted, at such times as his attention was not 
 
38 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 occupied in steering the unweildy craft, by the skipper in 
 the stern. These poles, commonly called pike poles, were 
 fifteen feet long, two inches in diameter and made round 
 and smooth out of the best ash wood, with the lower end 
 armed with an iron point. At intervals, between the canals, 
 when a favoring breeze made it practical, the sail was run 
 up and gave material aid ; but after all it was the muscle of 
 the brawny pike men that carried the heavily laden barge 
 onward and upward toward its destination. 
 
 The peculiar method of propulsion is thus described 
 by one who was familiar with the work : “To propel the 
 boat by poling, a bowman stood on either side of the bow, 
 with his face toward the stern, and thrusting the pike end 
 of his pole down beside the boat in a slanting direction 
 toward the stern until it struck the bottom of the river, he 
 placed his shoulder against the top of the pole, and, with 
 his feet braced against the cross timbers in the bottom 
 of the boat, he exerted the strength of his body and legs 
 to push the boat forward. As it moved, he stepped along 
 the bottom of the boat, still bracing his shoulder firmly 
 against the pole, until he had walked in this manner to the 
 mast board — or, rather, until the movement of the boat had 
 brought the mast board to him. He then turned around 
 and walked to the bow, trailing the pole in the water, thrust 
 it again to the bottom of the river and repeated the pushing 
 movement.” It must be understood that the cargo was 
 piled along the middle of the boat so as to allow of a 
 narrow passageway on each side. 
 
 The passage down the stream was of course easier and 
 more rapid, the men relying principally on scull oars for 
 means of propulsion, these oars being about the same 
 length as the poles, with six-inch blades on the lower por- 
 tion. The oarsmen stood close to either side of the boat, 
 and about six feet from the bow, each working his oar 
 against a thole pin fastened on the opposite gunwale, and, 
 the oar handles crossing, it was necessary that they be 
 worked together, which moved the craft evenly on its way. 
 
THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 39 
 
 The steering oar was nearly twenty feet long, and 
 secured at the middle to a pivot on the stern cross timber. 
 The blade was about twenty inches in width, and this like 
 the others was made of the toughest and strongest ash. 
 The steersman at his post in the stern had his pike pole and 
 sculling oar at hand to lend such assistance as he could to 
 the bowmen, whenever he was not occupied in guiding the 
 boat along the laborious course. 
 
 The agent at Concord lower landing hired the men 
 making up the crews of the company, from $16 to $26 a 
 month being paid. A large proportion of these boatmen 
 were from Manchester and Litchfield. Brought up in the 
 knowledge and experience of fishing at the Falls and raft- 
 ing lumber down the river, they were superior boatmen. 
 Among them was Joseph M. Rowell, who had been a rafts- 
 man, and of whom it is related as a specimen of what might 
 be required of a man in that capacity, that he rafted in one 
 day two lots of lumber from Curtis eddy, nearly opposite 
 No. 5 Amoskeag Mill, to Litchfield, nine miles, and walked 
 back each time with a forty-pound scull oar on his shoulder. 
 For this day’s double work he got three dollars. Despite 
 the hardships of his earlier life, Mr. Rowell lived to a good 
 old age. 
 
 Among the best known of the river men was Capt. 
 Israel Merrill, who had the distinction of being pilot of the 
 steamer that made its “experimental” trip up the river in 
 1817. He was a tall, powerful man, of whom many remi- 
 niscences of bravery and hardihood are still related. He re- 
 ceived a gold medal for saving two men from drowning in 
 the river, at the imminent risk of losing his own life. John 
 McCutchens, afloat on a raft of lumber above Eel Falls, 
 and finding it getting beyond his control, leaped into the 
 water to attempt to swim to the bank. Unable to do this 
 he was carried over the dam built just above the falls, but 
 managed to catch upon a wooden pin on the top of the 
 planking. Captain Merrill, seeing his perilous situation, 
 swam down to the place and pulled him to a rock, from 
 
40 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 which they were rescued soon after by some men in a boat. 
 Matthew McCurdy fell into Pulpit stream and was swept 
 down against a jam of logs, where he clung until Captain 
 Merrill swam to his assistance. It was the same redoubt- 
 able captain who made the long-talked-of race with another 
 boatman from Concord to Boston, coming in at the end of 
 this eighty-one-mile stubbornly contested trial a boat’s 
 length ahead of his rival, who paid for his folly by the loss 
 of his life from over-exertion. 
 
 The quickest trip of which there is record was made in 
 1833 by Samuel Hall, John Ray, and Joseph M. Rowell, 
 who started with a boatload of men from the mouth of 
 Piscataquog river at eight o’clock on the morning of June 
 30, went to Medford, into Medford river, back into Mid- 
 dlesex canal and into Boston, got a load of goods and 
 reached home on the evening of July 3, having been only 
 four days on the trip and return. The last boat on the 
 Middlesex canal made its final trip in 1851. 
 
 As a rule travel was suspended at sunset, the men 
 planning so as to be near one of the convenient stopping- 
 places along the route at nightfall. The passage of the 
 Middlesex canal consumed one day; another enabled them 
 to reach Cromwell’s Falls, fifteen miles this side; the third 
 took them through Amoskeag locks ; and the fourth, every- 
 thing proving exceptionally favorable, found them at their 
 destination. The rendezvous at Amoskeag was the old 
 Blodget house, kept respectively by Samuel P. Kidder, 
 “Jim ” Griffin, and Frederick G. Stark. 
 
 Samuel P. Kidder was the first agent appointed by the 
 boating company to superintend the Union canals and col- 
 lect tolls, continuing until his death in 1822, when he was 
 succeeded by Frederick G. Stark, who held the position to 
 1837. The books kept by both these agents are now in 
 the possession of Frederick G. Stark, of Manchester, a 
 nephew of the first named. Through his courtesy the 
 writer has examined the several volumes, and gives the fol- 
 
BOATING DAYS AND RIVER MEN 
 
 41 
 
 lowing extract to illustrate the methods and amount of 
 business : 
 
 “No. 97 Daniel Jones 
 
 
 18 Shotts. 
 
 “ July 8, 1829 
 
 
 
 
 “Bow Canal 103M Pine Lumber and Timber 
 
 at 34 
 
 35.02 
 
 
 “62M Shingles 
 
 at 03 
 
 1.86 
 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 #36.88 
 
 “ Hooksett Canal 103M Pine Lumber and Timber 
 
 
 
 
 at 18 
 
 18.54 
 
 
 “62M Shingles 
 
 at 2 
 
 1.24 
 
 19.78 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 “ Amoskeag Canal 103M Pine Lumber and Timber 
 
 
 
 
 at 50 
 
 5 X * 5 ° 
 
 
 “62M Shingles 
 
 at 6 
 
 372 
 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 55.22 
 
 
 
 
 $m.88 
 
 “ Paid July 28th.” 
 
 
 
 
 The amount of business for the 
 
 month 
 
 of October, 
 
 1821, was $759.80 ; while for the same month in 1831 
 
 it was 
 
 $1,598.65, having more than doubled in the decade. 
 
 Accidents were less common than might have been ex- 
 pected. One boat capsized at Goffe’s Falls, and Edward 
 Killicut was killed. Another was carried over Amoskeag 
 Falls, a yoke of oxen attached to it being saved from the 
 same fate by the presence of mind of Joseph M. Rowell, 
 who rushed into the water and cut the rope that held them. 
 
 In the midst of the bustle and hard-earned success of 
 these stalwart sons of old-time progress came the announce- 
 ment of that new power which was to rob them of their 
 means of livelihood. Naturally this aroused bitter opposi- 
 tion on their part, and as an illustration of the reluctance 
 of the spirit of the times to accept the new way for the old, 
 the Boston Transcript of September 1, 1830, said: “It is 
 not astonishing that so much reluctance exists against 
 plunging into doubtful speculation. The public is itself 
 divided as to the practicability of the railroad.” A member 
 of the Massachusetts legislature was on record as saying : 
 “ Railroads, Mr. Speaker, may do well enough in the old 
 countries, but will never be the thing for so young a coun- 
 
42 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 try as this. When you can make the rivers run back it will 
 be time enough to make railways.” The waters of the 
 Merrimack continued to run according to the laws of gravi- 
 tation, but the railroad, in spite of all human opposition, 
 came, and, like an avenging Nemesis, followed almost identi- 
 cally in the tracks of the skeleton of departed greatness, — 
 the canals, which had made its coming possible. 
 
 There is no doubt that the adventurous lives led by the 
 boatmen tended to bring out the rougher element of their 
 natures, and a considerable number drank, gambled and 
 entered zealously into the more boisterous sports ; but they 
 were always faithful to duty, kind-hearted to a fellow-being 
 in distress, and many of them carried beneath their coarse 
 jackets more than an average allowance of real manhood. 
 They belonged to a very necessary class of citizens in their 
 day, but which in the evolution of the swiftly following 
 years has been supplanted by another, and only a memory 
 of their usefulness remains. The shriek of the car whistle 
 ended the boatman’s song, while his inspiring watchword, as 
 he toiled laboriously toward the upper waters of old Amos- 
 keag, ** One more stroke for old Derryfield,” found its death 
 knell in the heartless snort of the iron horse, which threw 
 at once those hardy men out of the only employment they 
 knew. Here and there some shattered landmark dimly re- 
 mains to remind us of them and their gigantic work, but 
 the wooden dams and locks have long since crumbled away, 
 the canals have been filled and their banks leveled, while 
 the icy floods of spring have played such sad havoc with 
 the granite abutments that even they fail to stand as their 
 monument. 
 
'Cfce ^tone 3Ege 
 
 Dark as the frost-nipped leaves that strew the ground, 
 The Indian hunter here his shelter found ; 
 
 Here cut his bow and shaped his arrows true, 
 
 Here built his wigwam and his bark canoe, 
 
 Speared the quick salmon leaping up the fall, 
 
 And slew the deer without the rifle ball ; 
 
 Here the young squaw her cradling tree would choose, 
 Singing her chant to hush her swart papoose ; 
 
 Here stain her quills, and string her trinkets rude, 
 
 And weave her warrior’s wampum in the wood. 
 
 — Brainard. 
 
 jOWEVER antiquarians may differ in regard to a 
 settlement of the question, and whatever may 
 have been the origin of the race of people inhab- 
 iting North America at the time of the arrival of Europeans, 
 there is evidence to show that the Amerinds presented 
 varying types of humanity. Owing to the utter lack of any 
 fixed boundary, and the occasional intermarriage of mem- 
 bers of different tribes, many have been led to believe that 
 they sprang from a common parentage, so it is only on 
 philological grounds that any division can be made. A 
 prominent writer upon this subject (Dr. R. G. Thwaites) 
 makes four branches, with as many distinct languages, sub- 
 divided into innumerable dialects, of the races inhabiting the 
 country east of the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic 
 
 43 
 
44 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 Ocean, and from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico. 
 The most numerous of these, and at one time the most 
 powerful, were the Algonquins, holding the territory from 
 the Gulf of St. Lawrence westward to the Mississippi 
 River, and from the “debatable ground,” on the banks of 
 the Ohio River northward to the shore of Hudson Bay. 
 Taken together, or singly, the tribes or families making this 
 great body of aborigines occupy a larger place in our early 
 history than all others. While this fact was due largely to 
 their situation, which brought them first into combat with the 
 pale-face invaders before the fire and ardor of primitive life 
 had been sapped by contact with the enervating influences 
 of civilization, it was also owing to their warlike disposi- 
 tion. Unlike the “Five Nations” of the Genesee valley, 
 they lacked the unity of strength obtained by confederation, 
 and often the tribes making up their vast numbers were at 
 war with each other. It has been estimated that they num- 
 bered, altogether, from fifty to one hundred thousand. 
 Against them all, whether living in the valley of the St. 
 Lawrence or along the smaller streams of New England, 
 the fiery Iroquois were arrayed for many generations.* - 
 With the above declaration it is, perhaps, unnecessary 
 to say that the Indians of the Merrimack valley belonged 
 to this numerous clan. If, as a whole, the tribes of New 
 England failed to unite in any sort of a confederacy, four 
 families living in the Merrimack valley and adjacent formed 
 a tribal union. These comprised the Nashuas, dwelling 
 along the river which perpetuates their name ; the Squam- 
 
 * The Iroquois league numbering over ten thousand persons and two thousand warriors, 
 consisted originally of a confederacy of five kindred tribes, the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, 
 Cayuga and Seneca, in what is now the state of New York. To these were added the cognate 
 Tuscarora alter their expulsion from Carolina, about 1715. The name Iroquois, by which 
 they were known to the French, is supposed to be a derivative from some Indian term. To 
 the English they were known as the Five, afterwards the Six, Nations. They called them- 
 selves by a name commonly spelled Hodenosaunee, and interpreted “ People of the Long 
 House.” Of this symbolic long house the Mohawk guarded the eastern door, while the Seneca 
 protected the western, according to “American Ethnology,” Vol. IX. From their position it 
 will be seen that it was natural that the Mohawks, the most warlike of all these clans, should 
 become the invaders of New England. — Editor. 
 
IN THE TWILIGHT OF THE STONE AGE 
 
THE STONE AGE 
 
 45 
 
 scotts, a small inland family located where is now Exeter ; 
 the Newichawannocks, on the Piscataqua River, and the 
 Penacooks, living in the valley of the Merrimack and num- 
 bering about three thousand, being the ruling tribe. Their 
 most noted chief or sagamore was Passaconnaway. 
 
 This small confederacy of wildwood hunters and war- 
 riors maintained a certain form of government for a longer 
 period than there is even tradition to show, and were in 
 truth the pioneers of aboriginal progress. Occupying one 
 of the most favorable regions for fishing and hunting, and 
 located upon the debatable ground between the fiery Mic- 
 macs of the East and the lordly Mohawks of the West, 
 they were frequently called upon to brave the battle against 
 powerful foes. Here was sounded the wild alarum of con- 
 quest from enemies that never slept ; here, from the high- 
 lands of the River of Broken Waters to the Isles of Mona, 
 was borne aloft the tocsin of war; here wound the wartrails 
 of dusky nations that fought, bled and perished in the 
 same cause which has wrung tears from the old earth since 
 it was young. This was in truth the Thessaly of olden 
 New England. 
 
 From out of the misty background of tradition rise the 
 stalwart figures of that period not inaptly styled the Stone 
 Age of the Merrimack. ^ Among them appears the stately 
 Kenewa, mustering his dusky legion, to lead it forth to 
 anticipated conquest, only to be swallowed up by the hun- 
 gry wilderness as was Varus and his Romans in the old 
 Germanic forest. Then the valiant Winnemet rallied 
 around him his gallant followers in his desperate endeavor 
 to stem the tide of his Waterloo upon the Brave Lands of 
 Penacook, falling at last encircled by the slain of his “ old 
 guard” of the Penacooks. Now the magnanimous Passa- 
 connaway, reading in the signs of the times the destiny in 
 store for his people, taught them it was better to condone 
 the wrongs of a stronger race than to combat a hopeless 
 fate. Here, the curtain fallen on the closing scene of 
 pagan warfare, Wannalancet, the last great sachem of the 
 
46 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 Stone Age, called about him his few scattered followers, to 
 lead them to that rendezvous under the French protection 
 upon the bank of the St. Lawrence, returning a few years 
 later that his dust might mingle with the ashes of his father. 
 Here, sacrificing every hope and ambition for his race, 
 brave Merruwacomet fought and fell in the interest of an 
 alien people, his heroic deeds unsung. Here, too, in the 
 gloaming of that long day, came the lonely Christo, to con- 
 secrate with the tears of a warrior the graves of his sires, 
 the ashes of his race, No mean knights of chivalry these, 
 sons of the Stone Age, every hero of them worthy to stand 
 shoulder to shoulder with the best of the Old World 
 champions. 
 
 This is no place to discuss the rights or wrongs of the 
 races, though there can be no harm in reminding the con- 
 queror that not so very many generations ago his own 
 ancestors lurked sullenly in the caverns of the earth, and 
 came forth clad in the skins of wild beasts. It was related 
 by one of the pioneers of the Merrimack valley that, while 
 abroad one night upon the river bank, he discovered an 
 Indian approaching upon his hands and knees. A friendly 
 motion of the hand of the dusky scout caused the white 
 man to wait his approach. With his fingers upon his lips 
 to enjoin silence, the latter whispered: 
 
 “ Me watch to see the deer kneel.” 
 
 Then it occurred to the narrator that it was Christmas 
 Eve, and he realized that in the simplicity of his new-found 
 belief the red man was expecting at that sacred hour to see 
 the deer come forth from the forest to fall upon their knees 
 in silent adoration of the Great Spirit. Truly that race 
 cannot be lost to Omnipotent justice who, in its honesty of 
 faith, looks through Nature’s eyes up to God. 
 
 The glory of the Stone Age was at its zenith in the 
 early reign of Passaconnaway. It had begun its decline a 
 little prior to the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, 
 when a terrible epidemic swept over the tribes of New 
 England, in many cases reducing populous communities to 
 
RELICS OF THE STONE AGE 
 
THE STONE AGE 
 
 47 
 
 little bands of forlorn survivors. But the people of the 
 Stone Age in all probability would have recovered from 
 this calamity, in the due course of time, as they had rallied 
 from other disasters. From the fell power of the enervat- 
 ing influences of the white man there was no hope. So the 
 period begins beyond the twilight of tradition and ends with 
 the rising of the sun of civilization. While it makes a dark 
 page on the historic scroll of the ages, it was not wholly 
 lost to light and intelligence; while primitive in its results 
 as compared to the present, it was almost as far from 
 primeval effort as the age which had preceded it. If the 
 research of the philologist has not been in vain, they but 
 followed an inferior race, as they were succeeded by one 
 superior, and if passing from the scene monumentless, yet 
 they did leave behind them traces and names which shall 
 live as long as the American Republic may stand, while 
 that other aborigine left not even an arrow head to show to 
 coming races how dim are the footsteps of human progress. 
 
 Personally, the sons of the Stone Age were men of tall, 
 straight figure, dusky-hued skin, coal-black hair, beardless 
 faces, high cheek bones, a nose long and prominent, eyes 
 small but dark and piercing, capable of watching the eagle’s 
 flight under the glare of the midday sun without flinching. 
 They moved silently ahchswiftly along the dim aisles of the 
 forest archways, by placing one foot directly in front of the 
 other, swerving neither to the right nor left. Their cos- 
 tumes consisted mainly of deer skin leggins, skin robes or 
 hunting shirts in winter, and moccasins, also of deer skin, 
 the primitive garb made more picturesque by fringes along 
 the seams and ornaments painted in bright hues upon the 
 garments. Their principal weapon was a long stout bow of 
 hornbeam or some equally strong wood, which sent an 
 arrow with flint or stone head a great distance, and in their 
 hands with unerring accuracy. For closer attack and 
 defense they made a spear or lance, with shaft of stout 
 wood finished at the end with a sharp rock-point. If the 
 engagement became hand-to-hand they were armed with 
 
48 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 the tomahawk made of a small flat stone, attached to a 
 stout handle of wood. These weapons, with a knife of 
 stone, sometimes of bone or flint, comprised their principal 
 weapons and utensils of war and chase. But along with 
 these came many other implements and instruments of 
 manufacture and invention worthy of description. 
 
 For their own protection, if not from social motives, 
 and there is no proof to show that the American Indians 
 were not a social people, the inhabitants of the Merrimack 
 valley in the period of the Stone Age lived mainly in 
 groups or lodgments along the banks of their cherished 
 river. By this it must not be supposed that, at some time 
 or other, every section of the state was not penetrated by 
 these people, and the finding of relics of their use in the 
 most remote parts of the state shows that they dwelt there 
 for a time of greater or less extent. 
 
 Living in villages or towns, as we should know it, 
 these warriors became banded together, had their regular 
 leaders and a rude form of government. Their towns were 
 usually built with regard to a favorable position for fishing, 
 hunting, clearings for agriculture and where they could be 
 best protected from an enemy, which was likely to sweep 
 down upon them at any hour. There were few if any days 
 when scouts were not on the lookout for the appearance of 
 strangers who might be looked upon with distrust. 
 
 Their dwellings, called wigwams, derived from wig-was, 
 meaning “bark dwelling,” were built by setting small sap- 
 lings or branches of trees in the ground in a circular form, 
 the tops bent so as to meet and form a conical wall. This 
 rough framework was then covered with bark or mats o 
 skins, except at the crest, where a small aperture was left 
 for the smoke of the fire within to escape through. The 
 doorway, a skin answering the purpose of a door, was an 
 opening upon the sunny side of this primitive structure, 
 usually an opening on the opposite side being made so tha 
 in case the wind blew from the other course it might be 
 opened and this one closed. 
 
SCRAPERS, KNIVES AND DISH 
 
THE STONE AGE 
 
 49 
 
 As among the men of to-day, there seem to have been 
 different grades of dwellings, and the sachem usually dwelt in 
 a more pretentious abode. Skins of greater value adorned 
 his couch, and linings of mats hung upon the walls of his 
 house. These were also ornamented with cunning devices 
 wrought by the deft fingers of his squaw, as well as the 
 fruits of many a chase or wartrail. The capital or chief 
 village of the confederation of the Merrimack valley was 
 near the “ Brave Lands ” of the Penacooks, until they were 
 routed there by the fiery Mohawks, their long-timeenemies, 
 and forced to move lower down the river. 
 
 The roads of the sons of the Stone Age were con- 
 cealed paths, denominated trails, rather than open high- 
 ways, for these would prove of advantage to those enemies 
 around them. They always sought, when they could, 
 some waterway leading in that direction. Thus their 
 light skiff, usually made of birch bark, and which has 
 become known as the “canoe,” was their favorite means 
 of travel. These canoes were made of bark taken from 
 the birch, and sometimes, but seldom, from the elm, 
 and were often made with a delicate mechanism that a 
 white man would be puzzled to imitate. They were as light 
 as an egg shell and as airy as a feather. Despite this fact 
 they unhesitatingly setTorth upon long and perilous jour- 
 neys, stemming the rapids of some turbulent stream or 
 daring the dangers of an inland sea. 
 
 In winter the Indians resorted to a cunning device, 
 claimed to have been invented by a woman, and which has 
 been given the name of snow shoes. By means of these 
 they were enabled to thread the dim old forest with ease in 
 the midst of winter snows. In fact, it was then, when the 
 undergrowth and broken-down trees were banked under the 
 snow, that they were able to make their longest journeys. 
 
 The artisan of the Stone Age displayed great ingenu- 
 ity in the manner in which he performed his tasks of mak- 
 ing those implements needed by him. Usually the mate- 
 rial from which he obtained his object was selected with 
 
50 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 care in regard to its fitness for his purpose. The ham- 
 mer, possibly the first tool he designed, was made from 
 a stone not only of a desired shape but of a finer and harder 
 texture than those he would secure to be beaten and pol- 
 ished to answer other ends. The hammer made to his liking, 
 he then fastened a handle to it by means of a narrow strip of 
 deer thong or a small, tough withe, and went on with his 
 work, evolving one after another of those utensils meeting 
 his needs, with the patience and stoicism of his race. 
 
 KNIVES 
 
 There were several varieties of implements which 
 might be considered under this head, and among them 
 were the scrapers, flakers, celts and fleshers. The most 
 simple of these was the flaket, which was often made by a 
 single blow from a pebble against a rock inclined to split 
 apart. The piece of stone thus obtained, with usually more 
 or less “finishing,” became a handy tool for various pur- 
 poses. It was, in fact, a rude sort of a knife, and so far as 
 it was capable of being used it took the place of the other. 
 A great many knives have been found chipped mostly on 
 one edge until the desired quality of an instrument to cut 
 was secured. These instruments were not often straight 
 along the edge line, but slightly curved from one end to 
 the other. The red men had another knife somewhat re- 
 sembling the “chopping knife” of our own mothers. 
 These seem to have been made mostly by a rude grinding 
 or scraping against a harder surface. This was no doubt a 
 woman’s tool. Sometimes the knife was hafted, and became 
 a very good carving knife for cutting meat and other sub- 
 stances found at the primeval feast. 
 
 THE SCRAPER 
 
 A writer upon this subject ventures the assertion that 
 “The scraper and its brother, the flaked knife, followed 
 next after the hammer in the tide of evolution. Whether 
 
INDIAN SNOW-SHOES 
 
THE STONE AGE 
 
 51 
 
 his environment were stone, bone or shell, wherever his- 
 toric man has left his traces, these most useful of tools are 
 found.” The scraper was not only made to separate softer 
 substances, but it was more frequently used as a rasp to 
 smooth and work into shape the object upon which the 
 designer may have been at work. Were it a piece of stone, 
 then he used it as a polisher; if a skin that he was prepar- 
 ing, it became a rubber to soften and make flexible the 
 object, somewhat as we should use a piece of glass to 
 smooth wood, horn or bone. It was also handy with the 
 dusky cook in enabling her to remove the meat from the 
 bone, and otherwise to assist in preparing the food. One 
 face was made flat, while the other was raised, the end 
 pointed like an arrow-head. It was sometimes hafted and 
 became a handy instrument in removing skins from ani- 
 mals, becoming a good separator as well as a tool for cut- 
 ting. It was used, too, for the purpose of removing arrow- 
 heads from wounds. 
 
 DRILLS 
 
 Next to the knife in importance among the sons of the 
 Stone Age was the instrument for perforating or drilling. 
 There were two kinds of these drills or augers, the most com- 
 mon form of which was the pointed piece of rock, which, after 
 patient and careful drilling, made a conical perforation in 
 the object. Usually these bores were made from opposite 
 sides of the stone being drilled, the holes meeting at an 
 angle near the center. Sometimes the bore was made 
 entirely from one side. 
 
 CELTS 
 
 The celt, from celtis , a chisel, was ope of the most 
 prized tools among the Amerinds, and upon this stone 
 instrument the aboriginal craftsman gave his most cunning 
 skill and painstaking care. He first rough-hewed the stone 
 into something like the shape desired, following which he 
 
52 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 devoted days of patient work to smoothing and polishing 
 his favorite tool. It was sometimes made oval shape or 
 flat, but usually round, with a sharp blade, formed symetri- 
 cally from both sides. Occasionally they were grooved, 
 but rarely so. Sometimes a wooden handle carefully fash- 
 ioned was perforated at one end, and the stone tool, made 
 smaller at that part, was driven into it far enough to 
 become firm in its socket There seem to have been many 
 uses for this handy tool, such as rubbing down skins, 
 smoothing wood, shaping the bow and arrow, and kindred 
 uses, besides the legitimate calling of a chisel. In this 
 capacity it may have been pushed by the hand, but there is 
 evidence to show that it was often used just as our mechanic 
 pounds his chisel with vigorous blows from his mallet. It 
 has been well said by a writer upon the subject that 
 “ Working with no guide but his eye, no tool but a stone 
 hammer, and no measure but his hand, one is amazed to see 
 how perfect some of these objects have been made.” 
 
 GOUGES 
 
 Similar to a certain extent, and next in importance 
 to the red men was the gouge. These of necessity were 
 made of extremely hard stone, and were either grooved or 
 ungrooved, with one face flat and the other rounded, some- 
 times acutely. They were hollowed out on the flat surface, 
 and brought to almost a semi-circle. It is believed that 
 these tools were used to a considerable extent in hollowing 
 out canoes from trees. 
 
 Allied to the gouge was the adze, the last having a 
 helve ingeniously fashioned by two ridges making a raised 
 groove for helving. This handy tool had a sharp edge, the 
 blade curved slightly on the sides. 
 
 PESTLE AND MORTAR 
 
 That student of Indian life, Schoolcraft, very vividly 
 pictures a Penacook squaw pounding corn in a mortar placed 
 
THE INDIAN’S PRIMITIVE MILL 
 
THE STONE AGE 
 
 53 
 
 in a position directly under the branch of a tree from which 
 a pestle hung suspended by a stout strip of deer thong. 
 Here, seated upon the ground, this industrious spouse of a 
 red man, while she chants some ditty, possibly a love song, 
 performs her task of grinding the golden grain into a fine 
 flour by the assistance of the tree, the rebound of the limb 
 with each successive blow lifting the primitive crusher to a 
 sufficient height to admit of a smart stroke directed by her 
 right hand. It is possible the historian partook somewhat 
 of the character of a romancer in depicting this scene, but 
 the fact remains that it was not improbable. The Amer- 
 ican Indian was nothing if not of an inventive turn of 
 mind. The Indian woman was a considerable factor in the 
 manufacture of the implements of the Stone Age, and it 
 may be readily imagined that she made most of those which 
 applied to her use. That the men made certain of the 
 instruments and weapons needed by them in war and chase 
 is obvious, but even in these the cunning hand of woman is 
 evident. 
 
 Pestles have been frequently found in the Merrimack 
 Valley, but do not appear to have been made with so much 
 diligence as some of the other utensils. They were seldom 
 polished, except from long use. Sometimes, after having 
 been pecked into fine^ shape, a hole would be drilled in the 
 lower end and a piece of stone of a harder nature inserted, 
 fitting so nicely into the perforation that years of use failed 
 to loosen it. The mortar was frequently made of hard 
 wood, and perhaps as often of stone scooped out to hold 
 the grain. The pestle and mortar, if a very primitive mill, 
 were important utensils in the simple household of the 
 aborigines. 
 
 If other objects might be omitted from the catalogue 
 of implements used by the sons of the Stone Age, the pipe 
 could not be overlooked. Whether a blessing or a curse, it 
 is the one legacy which he left his conquerors that is likely 
 to remain with the memory of him. He beyond doubt 
 looked upon the cloud of tobacco smoke curling lazily 
 
54 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 above his dusky visage as an incense wafted reverently to 
 his invisible god. When he smoked, he first invoked the 
 divine blessing, in his untutored mind, by sending a whiff 
 of the fragrant vapor to the four points of the compass, 
 and finished by sending a fifth upward toward the throne of 
 the Most High. War between tribes was frequently pro- 
 claimed by means of a pipe adorned with red feathers. 
 The struggle over treaties of peace and, it may be, alliance 
 were sealed in solemn compact by the smoking among the 
 contracting parties of the pipe of peace. Seldom, if ever, 
 were these compacts broken. For more than one to smoke 
 a pipe in succession meant terms of brotherhood and social 
 alliance. 
 
 Pipes of various patterns have been found in the 
 valley, some of them grotesquely carved with the image of 
 some creature, it may have been a raven or a hideous imp 
 of unknown species. The raven in the traditions of the 
 Algonquin Indians took very much the same position that 
 the dove does in the Jewish legends of the days of the 
 flood. 
 
 In his weapons of offense and defense, living as he did 
 mainly by the chase, and ever haunted by the grim skeleton 
 of war, it was natural the red man should give his best 
 specimens of skill as an artisan to the manufacture of those 
 weapons needed in his most active periods. 
 
 THE BOW AND ARROW 
 
 The bow and arrow afforded the dusky warrior his 
 most trusted implement of the chase of game or on the 
 war-trail of his enemies. The arrows, though sometimes 
 headed with wood or bone, jasper or flint, were usually 
 tipped with sharp points of stone chipped into the proper 
 shape. In the manufacture of these, a work usually rele- 
 gated to the women, he showed considerable skill, though 
 it is not certain how he generally performed the task. 
 Owing to the number used it must have called for frequent 
 hours of patient toil. Evidently such material as could be 
 
THE STONE AGE 
 
 55 
 
 found, often quartz cobbles, was split into thin layers with 
 their stone hammers, assisted by stone wedges. A writer 
 who has made considerable study of this subject says : 
 “Possibly they were heated in pits and split by cooling 
 suddenly with water. Partly made implements were often 
 buried in considerable quantities. It is supposed that these 
 stones were thus softened and rendered more tractable.” 
 Caches of these finds have been unearthed in several places 
 in the Merrimack Valley. The layers of rock, when not 
 treated in this manner, were slowly chipped into the de- 
 sired shape and thickness by repeated blows from the stone 
 hammers of small size. The writer already quoted believes 
 that bone or horn was used as a chisel driven in with the 
 hammer to break off little flakes from either side. These 
 implements were designated as arrow flakers, specimens of 
 which have been found. The granite found in New Hamp- 
 shire no doubt made excellent material for the arrow and 
 spear-head maker. Archaeologists have considered these 
 points, whether notched so as to be hafted, which have 
 been found so plentifully on the banks of the Merrimack, 
 to be arrow tips when under two inches in length, spear 
 heads when of greater length, until reaching a size suffi- 
 cient for a knife. There is a distinguishing feature about 
 the style or manner in-which these are made, as well as in 
 the difference of material between one section of the 
 country and another. Made, perhaps, more for the chase 
 than for war, the Penacooks showed more than common 
 skill in the making of arrow-heads, as they did of nearly 
 everything else. There were also two styles of arrows 
 used even by them. One of these was the war-points, 
 which were made to be inserted into the shaft loosely, so 
 as to remain in the wound of the victim, and thus were not 
 notched or tanged. The arrows of the hunter, on the 
 other hand, were carefully inserted into the shaft and 
 fastened in place by aid of the tang. These could easily 
 be removed from the wounded animal, and the arrow intact 
 made to do duty many times over. 
 
56 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 THE SPEAR 
 
 Spear-points were made of hard stone, pecked and 
 smoothed by the hammer and chisel until brought to a 
 sharp end. It was tanged for hafting, and was attached to 
 its handle after the manner of the arrow to its shaft. The 
 spear or lance was a handy instrument, and used for vari- 
 ous purposes in both war and hunting. Oftentimes the 
 maker exercised his skill to a high degree in its making, 
 and no doubt looked upon this as a favorite instrument of 
 defense or aggression. 
 
 Space forbids me from entering into the detail of 
 description of the many and varied articles made by the 
 sons of the Stone Age, or even to give a complete list of 
 them. Besides those briefly mentioned, the Amerinds of 
 the Merrimack made among others, either for ornaments or 
 industrial purposes, the plummet or sinker, used in fishing, 
 amulets and banner stones worn for personal protection 
 from real or imiginary evil, totems to distinguish his family, 
 polishers to assist him in the manufacture ot other instru- 
 ments, perforators to aid him in piercing stones or other 
 objects, trinkets of almost unending sorts as personal 
 adornment. 
 
 I trust sufficient has been said to awaken an interest 
 in a subject that really deserves greater attention than has 
 been given to it. These vestiges of prehistoric man are 
 rapidly disappearing, and it is only seldom now one picks 
 up a find of this nature. But enough have been found and 
 kept to prove to coming generations that they were far re- 
 moved from savagery, and that even they lived in an age of 
 progression. Not only did they develop a remarkable adept- 
 ness in the art of skilled labor, where the word meant more 
 than it expresses to-day, until they left us, their successors, 
 those stone relics, silent yet speaking of centuries of patient 
 progression in a craft which called for more than ordinary 
 capacity to work on and upward, but they became the slow 
 and sure agent by which was evolved from small begin- 
 
RELICS OF THE STONE AGE 
 
THE STONE AGE 
 
 57 
 
 nings certain products of the soil. From the tasteless 
 gourd climbing its rocky bed in the heart of the mountains 
 of the West they developed the savory melon, which was 
 so much prized, not only by them, but by us. From a 
 small berry growing wild they obtained the bean. Through 
 their assiduous cultivation for a period of years they im- 
 proved the wild apple, until several of the varieties that we 
 raise to-day came down to us from them as heirlooms. Of 
 greater importance than either of these achievements 
 through centuries of cultivation and propagation they devel- 
 oped from a wild, coarse grass known as maize, and growing 
 upon the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, that golden grain 
 more priceless to us than even the mines of the Garden 
 of the Gods. Civilization has been aided by the destructive 
 forces of air and earth to destroy the vestiges of these peo- 
 ple who deserve more of us than we have been willing to 
 acknowledge, but let us garner into our storehouses of 
 treasures the best that we find of them. The wigwam has 
 vanished with the smoke of their council fire, the warwhoop 
 long since died out in the valleys, the tocsin of war faded 
 two centuries and more ago from our mountain peaks, but 
 the etymologist traces their boundary lines in the names 
 upon our rivers arid hills, their fishing places upon our 
 ponds and lakes, their hunting grounds in the vales and 
 sunny slopes that they loved. The earth-eaten arrow-head 
 and tomahawk, the chisel and gouge, with the humbler in- 
 struments of their domestic affairs point to the patient 
 finder the site of their long-lost habitations. Not always 
 are the deeds of the most worthy perpetuated in song and 
 story ; the bards of Greece sang the prais $ of a race no 
 doubt inferior to many others whose triumphs have been 
 lost because there was no fitting poet to immortalize them 
 upon the tablets of time. And though no claim is put forth 
 to place those of this period among the illustrious heirs of 
 history, yet when we think of primitive man as having no 
 language, no shelter but the rocks and caverns of earth, no 
 food save what nature provided in its simple state, no imple- 
 
58 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 ments of work or skill, we find that the sons of the Stone 
 Age of the Merrimack were far removed from such a stage. 
 Above all was exhibited that trait which we should revere 
 as a part of our own nature, freedom, of which the poet, 
 Charles Sprague, has so aptly said : 
 
 “ I venerate the Pilgrim’s cause, 
 
 Yet for the red man dare to plead. 
 
 We bow to Heaven’s recorded laws, 
 
 He turned to Nature for a creed; 
 
 Beneath the pillared dome, 
 
 We seek our God in prayer; 
 
 Through boundless woods he loved to roam, 
 
 And the Great Spirit worshipped there. 
 
 But one, one fellow throb with us he felt; 
 
 To one divinity with us he knelt ; 
 
 Freedom, the self-same freedom we adore, 
 
 Bade him deefnd his violated shore.” 
 
LARCOM 
 
 WHITTIER 
 
 THOREAU 
 
 EMERSON 
 
Uiterarp Associations of tfjc lUerrimack Cltoer 
 
 I 
 
 “Rich thy waves and gentle too, 
 
 As Rome’s proud Tiber ever knew; 
 
 And thy fair current’s placid swell 
 Would flow in classic song as well. 
 
 Yet on thy banks, so green and sweet, 
 
 Where wood nymphs dance and naiads meet, 
 E’en since creation’s earliest dawn, 
 
 No son of song was ever born; 
 
 No muse’s fairy feet e’er trod 
 Thy modest margin’s verdant sod; 
 
 And ’mid Time's silent, feathery flight, 
 
 Like some coy maiden, pure as light, 
 Sequestered in some blest retreat, 
 
 Far from the city and the great, 
 
 Thy virgin waves the vales among 
 Have flowed naglected and unsung.” 
 
 ■^^IVERS are the poets of Nature, singing the songs 
 of the landscape. The song of the Merrimack is 
 a grand epic of industry, the story in rhythm of 
 progress. From whence it babbles its baby lullabies in 
 its mountain cradle to where it yields up its being to the 
 ocean, it sings of constant changes, periods of unrest as it 
 struggles with its rocky environments, days of peace where 
 it lingers longingly in the quiet valleys of its meadows. 
 In its varying moods it always speaks in unmistakable lan- 
 guage of a restlessness and endeavor in keeping with 
 human life. Its fortune and good will have been more 
 
 59 
 
60 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 closely interwoven with those of man than any other river 
 in the world. 
 
 While the grand old Father Nile for centuries unscored 
 has listened with a patient ear to the story of its children, 
 a tale of woe and happiness of that far-away dawn of civi- 
 lization and the ending of the day; the sacred Ganges has 
 often lingered lonely and lovingly to listen to the plaint of 
 its benighted people; the storied Rhine repeated in its 
 many tongues the proud boast of its years and its con- 
 quests, the Merrimack carried in its heart the memory of 
 older and greater monuments than these. It has in truth 
 traced its own autobiography with invisible pencil in 
 unmistakable characters upon tablets of stone that will 
 outlast the printed pages of many races of men. 
 
 The earliest literary association of the Merrimack is a 
 voice coming up from the depths of dusky tradition. The 
 poet was a dark-eyed, plaintive singer whose dreary refrain 
 awoke the heart-throbs of the sympathetic current of the 
 rolling river as no other messenger has. The daughter of 
 some unwritten chieftain she traced upon the flexible tab- 
 lets of memory the picturesque story of her race. 
 
 To him who in the love of Nature holds 
 Communion with her invisible forms, she speaks 
 A various language; for his gayer hours, 
 
 She has a voice of gladness and a smile 
 And eloquence of beauty, and she glides 
 Into his darker musings with a mild 
 And healing sympathy, that steals away 
 Their sharpness ere he is aware. 
 
 From out of the misty background this pathetic singer 
 created an heroic epic grander than Homer, whose stalwart 
 figures belong to the most picturesque race that ever lived. 
 Among them the stately Kenewa appears mustering his 
 dusky legion to lead it forth to anticipated conquest only to 
 be swallowed up by the hungry wilderness as was Varus 
 and his army in the old Germanic forest. Then the valiant 
 Winnemet rallied around him his gallant followers upon 
 the Brave Lands in his desperate endeavor to stem the 
 tide of that disastaous Waterloo that overtook his race. 
 
Drawn tor Granite State Magazine by J. Warren Thyng. 
 
 THE COT IN THE VALLEY 
 
LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS OF MERRIMACK RIVER 61 
 
 Now the magnanimous Passaconaway, reading in the signs 
 of the times the destiny of his people, bade them to meet 
 bravely a hopeless fate, while he launched his frail boat upon 
 
 This swiftly flowing river, 
 
 This silver gliding river, 
 
 Whose springing willows shiver 
 In the sunset as of old, 
 
 and vanished from sight and story, the grandest figure 
 among these Romans of the wilderness. This was, indeed, 
 the Thessaly of olden New England, where 
 
 Green-tufted, oak-shaded, by Amoskeag’s Fall 
 The twin Uneanoonucs rose stately and tall. 
 
 If the dusky hosts that flitted across the misty pages 
 left no Illiad to speak of their dead heroes, of their unwrit- 
 ten deeds, theirs is not all the loss; yours not all the gain. 
 
 For them the woodland songster sang its matin vespers 
 and with them it vanished; for them the bonny deer 
 roamed the pine-clad hills, and with them it sped its eter- 
 nal race; the sleepless eagle, that from its eirie crag 
 watched their stealthy march against their foe, maintains 
 no more its lonely vigil; the catamount, that alone dared 
 to answer their triumphant warwhoop, is forever silent. 
 The merry rivulet that tells its happy secrets to you told 
 the same old story to them in a loftier strain; the deep 
 forest, with its unnumbered arms, protecting them from 
 the cold blasts of winter and the torrid rays of summer, 
 found in the ring of your ax its knell of doom; the cataract, 
 that awoke with its mighty drum-beat the solitude of their 
 surroundings, greet you with rhythm subdued: the myriad 
 of Nature’s voices that stirred the impulses of their wild 
 nature have no awakening chord for you. The song of the 
 river you drown with the dreary monotone of the factory 
 wheel, and the melody of the wildwood with the tumult of 
 your busy marts. 
 
 Leaving this period of aboriginal romance, when 
 
 When the trees were chanting from an open book, 
 
 we find the river a source of joy to all who follow its his- 
 toric and charmed courses, 
 
62 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 With its head hid in the shadow 
 Of mountains crowned with snow 
 With its bosom in the meadow 
 Where the apple orchards grow. 
 
 The first written description was given by the early 
 explorers, who were seeking in a land of romance, as was 
 the aged De Leon seeking in the everglades of Florida for 
 the Fountain of Youth, the solution of many delusions, 
 and wrote of the Merrimack as a “faire large river, well 
 replenished with many fruitful islands; the ayr thereof is 
 pure and wholesome; the country pleasant, having some 
 high hills, full of goodly forests and faire vallies and plaines 
 fruitful in corn, chestnuts, walnuts and infintie sorts of 
 other fruits; large rivers well stored with fish, and environed 
 with goodly meadows full of timber trees.” 
 
 What lonely magnificence stretches around! 
 
 Each sight how sublime; how awful each sound! 
 
 All hushed and serene as a region of dreams, 
 
 The mountains repose ’mid the roar of the streams. 
 
 The historian of the river is beyond dispute the pains, 
 taking Meader, who has traced its many features in their 
 varying lineaments from “the mountain to the sea.” In a 
 volume of over three hundred pages he has described its 
 charms and accomplishment in pleasant language. He 
 says: 
 
 “The existence of the splendid system of waterfalls, 
 such as this alone of all the streams in the land can boast, 
 has cited around them mechanics, artisans and operatives 
 of every degree of skill and ability, and the result is seen 
 in the steady and successful operation of more than one 
 hundred monster cotton and woolen mills, whose massive 
 walls towering on the ‘air line’ toward the clouds, enclose 
 gems of humanity as well as of intricate, delicate and 
 almost intelligent machinery. . . . Anterior to the manu- 
 facturing epoch .... the Merrimack river was the same 
 lovely stream of bright and sparkling water and contained 
 the same noble falls, and was surrounded with a population 
 sturdy and indomitable, which sparse and devoted to the 
 pleasant and profitable pursuits of peace as it was, yet 
 
NEAR TO NATU 
 
LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS OF MERRIMACK RIVER 63 
 
 contributed its full share to the independence, intellect and 
 character of the nation. Looking still further back, to the 
 aboriginal period, the Merrimack and the territory which 
 it drains is replete with interest, different in kind to be 
 sure, but equal and in some respects surpassing that which 
 invests it now. . . . Though races of men may flourish for 
 a season and disappear, others more or less worthy assum- 
 ing their places in turn, the Merrimack river and its grand 
 surroundings can never be involved in these vicissitudes. 
 The grand convocation of majestic mountains which sur- 
 round its source are the fitting emblems of eternal dura- 
 tion and nothing but such terrific convulsions of nature as 
 would produce a universal chaos could move them from 
 their firm bases or mar the unequalled natural beauty of 
 their scenery ord estroy the wonderful features which give 
 them world-wide fame. The Merrimack itself, enduring as 
 the crystal hills which give it birth, will go on forever, 
 leaping from the great mountains in sparkling cascades, 
 meandering through long, shaded avenues of perennial 
 forests, winding its tortuous course around the bases of 
 eternal hills, a robust, rapid river. ... In another age new 
 and improved monuments may be reared, still testifying to 
 its service and its power, long after the chains which now 
 bind it to the wheels of monster cotton mills are rusted and 
 decayed and become relics of the past, or the antiquarian 
 may rescue from the debris of its present glory vestiges of 
 the history of its former, but fallen grandeur — 
 
 “By thirty hills I hurry down, 
 
 Or slip between the ridges, 
 
 By twenty thorps, a little town, 
 
 And half a hundred bridges.’ ” 
 
 Notwithstanding the prophecy of the poet* whose 
 lines introduce our subject, we find that the Merrimack has 
 been the favorite, possibly, of more poets than any other 
 
 ♦William M. Richardson, LL.D., was born in Pelham. January 4, 1774. He graduated 
 lrom Harvard College in 1797; was a member of congress, 1811-14; chief justice of the 
 Supreme Court oi this state, 1816-38. He died in Chester in March, 1838. It will be seen 
 that he lived before the majority of those from whom we quote had begun to sing. — Editor. 
 
64 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 river in America. Associated with its own are the songs 
 of Whittier, Thoreau and Emerson, and a score of others 
 worthy of remembrance. 
 
 Mr. Robert Caverly* devoted an entire volume of 
 eighty pages to an epic poem upon the river. While this 
 effort of Mr. Caverly may never become a classic, it has 
 many places of interest bordering closely upon merit. 
 His heart was with his subject, which gladdens many a 
 defect and enlivens that subject 
 
 Whose praise we sing, 
 
 .... Some grateful measure bring, 
 
 Some note of landscape grand in dale and hill, 
 
 Adorned with glittering lake, cascade or rill, 
 
 With forest wild, with winding wave between 
 The giant groves along the valley green. 
 
 In speaking of the days of the primeval pioneers, he 
 goes on to say in pleasant vein: 
 
 His dripping oar 
 
 Ripples the water never pressed before. 
 
 Leading us quietly through the vale of the passing 
 scenes, he declares: 
 
 Thence this fair vale from mountain to the main 
 In vernal grandeur buds to bloom again, 
 
 And plenteous harvest with her golden ears 
 Crowning the prudence of progressive years 
 Adorns the field, and grace triumphant gives 
 To honest toil. 
 
 The poet quoted at the beginning continues his some- 
 what graphic lines by describing in vivid language the wild 
 tangle of savage warfare, where contending foes — 
 
 This gentle flood 
 
 Bedew with tears and wet with blood — 
 
 and goes on to picture the deeds of brave men none the 
 less true to honor and duty because 
 
 ♦Robert Boody Caverly was born in Strafford, July 19, 1806. He graduated at the Har- 
 vard Law School and practiced law six years in Limerick, Me., and then for many years in 
 Lowell, Mass., where he died in 1898. He left several published works, all of which relate 
 to the Merrimack and its associations. Besides the poem mentioned he was the author of a 
 “History of the Indian Wars in New England,” “Epics, Lyrics and Ballads*” “Battles of the 
 Bush,” with other works. — Editor. 
 
LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS OF MERRIMACK RIVER 65 
 
 No evergreen of glory waves 
 Above the fallen warriors’ graves 
 
 ****** 
 
 No deathless deed by hero done, 
 
 No battle lost, no victory won, 
 
 Here ever waked with praise or blame 
 The loud uplifted trump of fame. 
 
 It matters little if the nameless hero threads the dim 
 aisles of the old forest a mere shadow upon the serolls of 
 tradition, or if he comes and goes like a Csesar of departed 
 greatness, very real yet a vision still. Amerind and Roman 
 alike now march in twain across that other field of Mars, 
 wnere the arrow and the sword have not been taken, and 
 victor and vanquished meet upon a common plane. After 
 all is it not quite as well to remain a living river, a fount of 
 eternal inspiration, as a dead hero? 
 
 Where bounteous spring profusely showers 
 A wilderness of sweets and flower, — 
 
 The stately oak of royal line, 
 
 The spreading elm and towering pine, 
 
 Here cast a purer, happier shade 
 Than blood-stained laurels ever made. 
 
 Another of its admirers* has caught the spirit of its 
 answering voices and, while listening to the wild songs of 
 “broken waters,” makes this stirring apostrophe: 
 
 TO THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 AT THE FALL? OF THE AM-AUH-NOUR-SKEAG 
 
 Roll on, bright stream! 
 
 And ever thus, from earliest time, thou’st leaped 
 And played amid these caverned, sounding rocks, 
 
 When the long summer’s sun hath tamed thy power 
 To gentleness; or, roused from thy long sleep, 
 
 Hast cast thy wintry fetters off, and swept, 
 
 In wild, tumultuous rage, along thy course, 
 
 Flinging the white foam high from out thy path, 
 
 And shaking to their very centre earth’s 
 Foundation stones. 
 
 *Thomas Russell Crosby was born in Gilmanton, October 22, 1816. In 1841 he gradu- 
 ated from both the academical and medical departments of Dartmouth College. He was 
 professor in Norwich University from 1854 to 1864; in Milwaukee Medical College, from 
 1864 to 1871; in New Hampshire Agricultural College, from 1870 to the time of his death in 
 Hanover, March 1, 1892 . — Editor ■ 
 
66 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 And in thine awful might, 
 When terror rides thy wildly heaving wave 
 Or in thy soft and gentle flow, when break 
 The ripples on thy sandy shore, in sweet, 
 
 Delicious music, as of fairy bells, 
 
 How beautiful art thou! 
 
 And, since that first 
 Glad hour, when morning stars together sang, 
 
 Each rising sun, with dewy eye, hath looked 
 On thee. Each full-orbed moon hath smiled to see 
 Herself thrown back in penciled loveliness, 
 
 Mirrored a mimic disk of light, beneath 
 Thy pure and limpid wave, or broken else 
 Into a myriad crystal gems flung high, 
 
 In sparkling jets or gilded spray, towards heaven. 
 
 And long ere on thy shores the white man trod, 
 
 And wove the magic chain of human will 
 Around thy free and graceful flood, and tamed 
 Its power to minister to human good, 
 
 The Indian roamed along thy wooded banks, 
 
 And listened to thy mighty voice with awe. 
 
 He, too, untutored in the schoolman’s lore, 
 
 And conversant with Nature’s works alone, 
 
 More deep, true, reverent worship paid to thee 
 Than does his fellow-man, who boasts a faith 
 More pure, an aim more high, a nobler hope — 
 
 Yet in his soul is filled with earth-born lusts. 
 
 The Indian loved thee as a gift divine 
 
 To him thou flow’dst from the blest land that smiled 
 
 Behind the sunset hills — the Indian heaven, 
 
 Where, on bright plains, eternal sunshine fell, 
 
 And bathed in gold the hills, and dells, and woods, 
 Of the blest hunting-grounds. With joy he drew 
 The finny stores from out thy swarming depths, 
 
 Or floated o’er thee in his light canoe, 
 
 And blest the kindly hand that gave him thee, 
 
 A never-failing good; a fount of life 
 And blessing to his race. And thou to him 
 Didst image forth the crystal stream that flows 
 From “out the throne of God and of the Lamb,” 
 The Christian’s “water of the life divine.” 
 
 Thy source was in the spirit-peopled clouds, 
 
 And to his untaught fancy thou didst spring 
 
LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS OF MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 Fresh from Manitou’s hands — the o’erflowing hand 
 From which all blessing comes, alike to him 
 Whose teaching comes from rude, material things, 
 
 Who worships ’neath the clear blue dome of heaven, 
 
 As him who in a sculptured temple prays. 
 
 And thou, bright river, in thy ceaseless flow, 
 
 Hast mirrored many a passing scene would charm 
 The painter’s eye, would fire the poet’s soul; 
 
 For beauty of the wild, free wood and floods 
 Is yet more beautiful when far removed 
 From the loud din of toil, that e’er attends 
 The civilizing march of Saxon blood. 
 
 And poetry, unversed indeed, and rude, 
 
 But full of soul-wrought, thrilling harmony, 
 
 Hath spoken in thy murmur or thy roar; 
 
 And human hearts, through long, swift-gliding years, 
 Have made the valley thou hast blessed their home, 
 Where they have lived, and loved, and joyed, and hoped, 
 Nay, passed through all that makes the sum of life, 
 
 Of human life, in every clime and age. 
 
 Along thy shaded banks, in grim array, 
 
 Wild bands of “braves,” as fearless and as true 
 As ever sought a deadly foeman’s blade, 
 
 Or battled nobly in a country’s cause, 
 
 With step as silent as the grave, have sped, 
 
 In lengthened files, to strfe, and blood, and death . 
 
 In that sweet dell, where giant trees o’erhang 
 Thy soft, encircling wave, the council fires 
 Have blazed. There silent, stem, grave-visaged men 
 Have sat the magic circle round, and smoked 
 The calumet of peace; or youths, in wild 
 Exciting dance, with battle songs and shouts, 
 
 With flashing arms, and well-feigned, earnest strife, 
 
 Have acted the sad mimicry of war. 
 
 To yonder sheltered nook, where, still and calm, 
 
 The chafed and wearied waters rest a while 
 Behind a rocky point, on which the waves 
 Break ever, with a music soft and sweet, 
 
 And ’neath the shadows of tall, sighing pines, 
 
 That, in the fircest noon, create a soft, 
 
 Cool, cloistered light upon the sward beneath, 
 
 The dusky brave, fierce now no more, stolen 
 
68 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 Oft at the twilight hour, and when the young 
 New moon hath tipped with silver bough, and rock, 
 And wave, to murmur into willing ears 
 Love’s witching story, told full oft, yet new 
 As when ’twas whispered in fair Eden’s bowers. 
 
 Sweet Merrimack! For ages thus the stream 
 Of human life ran on with thine, yet not 
 As thine; for thou art as thou wast of old, 
 
 When first the Indian chased along thy banks. 
 
 But where is now the red man, true and brave? 
 
 Alas! where once the child of nature trod, 
 Unquestioned monarch of the land and wave, 
 
 The many towered, busy. city stands! 
 
 Hills that threw back the warwhoop’s fearful peal, 
 When filled was this fair vale with sounds of strife, 
 Now echo to the engine’s shriller scream, 
 
 As swift and strong it flies, with goodly freight 
 Of life and merchandise! 
 
 By thy fair stream 
 
 The Indian roams no more. No more he snares 
 The artful trout, or lordly salmon spears; 
 
 No more his swift- winged arrow strikes the deer. 
 Towards the setting sun, with faltering limb 
 And glaring eye, he seeks a distant home, 
 
 Where withering foot of white man ne’er can come. 
 
 And thy wild water, Merrimack, is tamed, 
 
 And bound in servile chains which mind has forged 
 To bind the stubborn earth, the free- winged air, 
 
 The heaving ocean, and the rushing stream, 
 
 Th’ obedient servants of a mightier will, 
 
 E’en as a spirit caught in earth-born toils, 
 
 As legends tell, and doomed to slave for him 
 Who holds the strong, mysterious bond of power. 
 And thou art now the wild, free stream no more, 
 Playing all idly in thy channels old; 
 
 Thy days of sportive beauty and romance 
 Are gone. Yet, harnessed to thy daily toil, 
 
 And all thy powers controlled by giant mind, 
 
 And right directed, thou’rt a spirit still. 
 
 And workest mightily for human good, 
 
 Changing, in thine abundant alchemy, 
 
 All baser things to gold. 
 
FRIENDLY GREETINGS 
 
Hiterarp Stssociations of tfjc /USerrtmatfe fttber 
 
 ii 
 
 a VOID would be left in the literary associations of 
 the Merrimack was the memory of that gifted 
 worshiper of the White Hills, Starr King,* for- 
 gotten. To his pen more than all others, the kings of 
 northern mountains, 
 
 “Discoursing like sentinels to the sky,” 
 
 owe their immortality in literature. “He discovered them 
 
 *Thomas Starr King was born in New York city December 24, 1824, 
 the oldest child of Thomas F. King, an eloquent minister in the Universa- 
 list church. The father, ^distinguished in his day by his fervid apostolic 
 style of preaching, after several years of service in Hudson and New York, 
 was settled in Portsmouth, N. H., but died in Charleston, Mass. Left at 
 the age of twelve, the sole dependence of his widowed mother, who had 
 five children younger than he, Thomas Starr King was a self-educated, 
 self-placed man. He entered upon his line of duty with that joyous sense 
 of power which characterized his brilliant but brief career. In September, 
 1845, h e preached his first sermon at Woburn, Mass. Never strong, at 
 twenty-three he was broken in health, For twelve years as pastor, preacher, 
 lecturer, literary man and social factor, he gave the best he had to that 
 city, so fortunate in its heritage of admirable men. During those years 
 he sought regularly the clear, bracing atmosphere of the White Hills, 
 which he grew to love so well, there to retain with that undiscovered 
 vitality known to few of frail bodies his fleeting physical power. 
 Finally he felt obliged to seek the milder climate of California, where he 
 died of diphtheria March 4, 1864, in his fortieth year. — Editor. 
 
 69 
 
70 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 in their pristine glory; he left them in a halo of revealed 
 light.” And these mountains are the birthplace of our 
 river. ’Mid its crags and cliffs it was born, and if it 
 spurned with childish wantonness its mother, it carried 
 with it to the sea her memory, her songs of freedom. The 
 poet dreams this when he declares in faultless measure: 
 
 I feel the cool breath of the North 
 Between me and the sun, 
 
 O’er deep, still lake and ridgy earth, 
 
 I saw the cloud shades run. 
 
 Before me, stretched for glistening miles, 
 
 Lay mountain-girdled Squam; 
 
 Like green-winged birds the leafy isles 
 Upon its bosom swam. 
 
 And, glimmering through the sun-haze warm, 
 
 Far as the eye could roam, 
 
 Dark billows of an earthquake storm, 
 
 Bedecked with clouds like foam, 
 
 Their vales in misty shadow deep, 
 
 Their rugged peaks in shine, 
 
 I saw the mountain ranges sweep 
 The horizon’s northern line. 
 
 There towered Chocorua’s peak; and west, 
 
 Moosilauke’s woods were seen, 
 
 With many a nameless slide-scarred crest 
 And pine-dark gorge between. 
 
 Beyond them, like a sun-rimmed cloud, 
 
 The great Notch mountains shone, 
 
 Watched over by the solemn browed 
 And awful face of stone. 
 
 Well did Stirling say, gazing upon such a landscape as 
 borders the matchless Merrimack: 
 
 I looked upon a plain of green, 
 
 That some one called the Land of Prose, 
 
 Where many living things are seen, 
 
 In movement or repose. 
 
 I looked upon a stately hill 
 That well was named the Mount of Song, 
 
 Where golden shadows wait at will 
 The woods and streams among. 
 
LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS 
 
 71 
 
 But most this fact my wonder bred, 
 
 Though known by all the nobly wise, 
 
 It was the mountain streams that fed 
 The fair green plain’s amenities. 
 
 Following the winding Pemigewasset, the main branch 
 of the Merrimack 
 
 Overhung 
 
 By beechen shadows, whitening down its rocks, 
 
 he says: 
 
 “The valley is broader than that of the upper Saco, 
 and the hills do not huddle around the road; the distances 
 are more artistic, and the lights and shades have better 
 chance to weave their more subtle witchery upon the dis- 
 tant mountains that bar the vision — upon the whaleback of 
 Moosilauke and the crags and spires that face each other 
 in the Franconia Notch. The picture of the Pemigewaset 
 is one of prominent pleasure. . . . How briskly it cuts its 
 way in sweeping curves through the luxuriant fields of 
 Campton, and with what pride it is watched for miles of 
 its wanderings by the Welch mountain completely filling 
 the background, from which its tide seems to be pouring, 
 and upon whose shoulders, perhaps, the clouds are busily 
 dropping fantastic shawls of shadows! In this part of its 
 course, the river is scarcely less free than it was in the 
 days which Whittier'-alludes to in his noble apostrophe to 
 the Merrimack: 
 
 Oh, child of that white-crested mountain whose springs 
 Gush forth in the shade af the cliff eagle’s wings, 
 
 Down whose slopes to the lowlands thy wild waters shine, 
 
 Leaping gray walls of rock, flashing through the dwarf pine. 
 
 From that cloud-curtained cradle so cold and so lone, 
 
 From the arms of that wintry-locked mother of stone; 
 
 By hills hung with forests, through vales wide and free, 
 
 Thy mountain-born brightness glanced down to the sea. 
 
 No bridge arched thy waters save that where the trees 
 Stretched their long arms above thee, and kissed in the breeze : 
 
 No sound save the lapse of the waves on thy shores, 
 
 The plunging of otters, the light dip of oars. 
 
72 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 Mr. Nathaniel Berry, in his “Last of the Penacooks,” 
 gives us some pleasant insights into the story of man and 
 river, and added his share to the literature of the valley 
 and its people. A native of Pittsfield, the author knew 
 whereof he spoke in describing scenery, while his imagina- 
 tion flew a felicitous arrow in its flights. The book has 
 become far too scarce, and I have yet to see a third copy, 
 though it was published in recent years and by a house 
 that only a short time since ceased to publish. 
 
 Two authors of local repute, Messrs. Samuel D. Lord 
 and William E. Moore, added their part to the scientific 
 knowledge of the river’s natural features, not to mention 
 the researches of Professor Hitchcock. 
 
 Mr. Francis B. Eaton, in his “Story of Lake Massa- 
 besic,” gives us happy insights into the beautiful biography 
 of that charming sheet of water known to the dusky 
 seekers after eternal light as “The Eyes of the Sky.” 
 This historian waxes eloquent over his subject in a descrip- 
 tion which happily associates the past with the present. 
 “Connecting the white-sanded beaches shores extend, piled 
 high with boulders indicative of oldtime storms and winds, 
 echoes of which to this day greet the luckless voyager who 
 happens to be out in his frail canoe or cranky sailboat. 
 Wooded slopes run down to the water’s edge, luxuriant 
 vines cluster on fine old trees, the wild grape perfumes the 
 autumn groves. Only the other day the bear found his 
 favorite high blueberry in sheltered dells; wild geese rested 
 here in their long flights hither and yon, and great flocks 
 of ducks found free ports of entry in many a safe retreat. 
 Deer browsed in the surrounding forests; the lordly loon 
 trumpeted his defiance in the lee of his chosen island, or 
 disappeared with lightning celerity at the crack of the rifle. 
 Acres of flooded marshlands furnished feeding ground for 
 perch or pickerel. Alewives crowded in shoals up the 
 Cohas in the season, and suckers abounded when the win- 
 ter snows moved off.” 
 
 Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford, who was pleased to 
 
LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS 
 
 73 
 
 lay the scenes of one of her most famous stories upon its 
 shores, says: “Among the lakes of New Hampshire there 
 is one of extreme beauty. A broad, shadowy water some 
 nine miles in length, with steep, thickly wooded shores, 
 and here and there, as if moored on its calm surface, an 
 island, fit for a bower of bliss.” 
 
 The poetess, Mrs. Clara B. Heath, who lived near its 
 beautiful shore for several years, has given us some of her 
 gems of verse in connection with these twin bodies of 
 water: 
 
 Two broad blue bays that stretch out east and west, 
 
 Dotted with fairy isles of living green, 
 
 And midway where the waters seem to rest 
 In narrow bed, two curving shores between, 
 
 A time-worn bridge that long has stood the test 
 Of stormy winds and restless tides is seen. 
 
 The outlet of this lake, Cohas brook, is one of the 
 most fortunate tributaries of the Merrimack. 
 
 No sweeter tribute to the noble river of which we 
 write has been paid it than the poem of Mr. Allen East- 
 man Cross, “At the Falls of Namoskeag.”* 
 
 Three souls shall meet in our gracious river, 
 
 The soul of the mountains, staunch and free 
 The soul of the Indians’ “Lake of the Spirit,” 
 
 And the infinite soul of the shining sea. 
 
 Mr. Nathan Hale, who thought best to sign himself 
 “A Gentleman from Boston,” has left us a felicitous 
 account of an “Excursion to Winnipiseogee.” Its title 
 page bears the date of 1833, and as an example of quiet 
 humor and purity of expression it is difficult to find its 
 equal in this day of Kipling and Londonarian literature 
 (save the mark!). After describing the beginning of his 
 journey, Mr. Hale goes on to say: 
 
 “Noon brought us to Haverhill, on the north bank of 
 the Merrimack, a town no less beautiful from its natural 
 
 ♦This poem was given entire, printed upon one of our linen inserts- 
 pages 97-104, Volume I. — Editor . 
 
74 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 situation than from the aspect of its buildings. Its antiqui- 
 ties and history afford some tragical, and many romantic, 
 incidents for the embellishment of future novels and the 
 catastrophies of future dramatic compositions. The sack 
 of the town by the Indians and French in 1708, the heroic 
 conduct of Mrs. Dustin, the sagacity and address of Hagar 
 the slave, in secreting the two infants, and many other 
 events which are yet fresh in tradition, narrated with truth 
 and embellished with the colors of an imagination that 
 could remigrate a century and a half, would be as interest- 
 ing as it would be novel. 
 
 I dislike historical romances even from the pen of 
 Florian, because they confound history. But those whose 
 bodies are real, and where dress only is fanciful, like the 
 historical plays of Shakespeare, personify the age, assist 
 our conceptions of character and actions, and bring the 
 very fashions and pressure of the times home to our 
 bosoms. 
 
 After dining at the hotel, we stopped the stage on the 
 Exeter road to receive Mr. W., who was to conduct us to 
 the White Hills but, not being ready, he promised to join 
 us to-morrow. 
 
 While the horses stopped to bait, after we left , 
 
 curiosity prompted me to look at the unwashed cheeks of 
 Mrs. . Thirty-seven years had elapsed since a beauti- 
 ful girl of fifteen sat on the knee of Washington at . 
 
 A kiss of Washington could not leave a spot on the charriest 
 maiden’s cheek, and if it had it would always be considered 
 a beauty spot which no fair one would erase. As Wash- 
 ington passed to New Hampshire, he was conducted 
 through this route, to be present at the wedding of his sec- 
 retary, Mr. Lear. 
 
 People of each sex and all ages flocked from every 
 part of the country to see him. Two beautiful girls went 
 on the day previous to their relative’s, where he was to 
 lodge, in order to see the reputed Father of his Country. 
 After the evening levee was ended, they were introduced, 
 
LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS 
 
 75 
 
 with reference, by them jolly relation, to the visit of the 
 queen of a far distant, country to see the glory of Israel. 
 Their modest, gentle and affectionate carriage exceedingly 
 gratified the General and engaged his attention. Nothing 
 tends more to social intercourse than the performance of 
 some little favor. One of Washington’s gloves had a rip — 
 one of the girls, without speaking, took it up, repaired it 
 and silently put it on the sofa. Washington observed the 
 act and, instead of complimenting, took her hand and drew 
 her towards him and impressed a kiss on her cheek. All 
 this was a movement of the heart on the part of both. 
 She declared she would never wash that spot; and I could 
 not help thinking, as I looked upon her, that the rosy blush 
 had not been impaired by time, and that like the immortal 
 amaranth it retained its freshness and beauty, fed by the 
 “sweet contentment of her thoughts.” 
 
 The brightest links in the literature of the Merrimack 
 are formed by that gifted trio, Thoreau, Emerson, Whit- 
 tier, and it were sufficient that a river should have these. 
 
 Among the prose writers Thoreau* has left us the 
 most imperishable monument in his “Week upon the Con- 
 cord and Merrimack River.” To us it seems enough that 
 he should have written this, in some respects his master- 
 piece. Following his happy introduction he goes on to say: 
 “We were thus'entering the state of New Hampshire 
 on the bosom of the flood formed by the tribute of its 
 innumerable valleys. The river was the only key which 
 
 ♦Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Mass., July 12, 1817, 
 aud died where he had lived the last few years of his life, in the old- 
 fashioned dwelling known as the Thoreau-Alcott house, May 6, 1862. 
 Filled with an extraordinary love for nature he devoted his life to its 
 study. Believing in prudent and economical living, he sought to prove 
 his theory, and built a hut upon the shore of Walden pond, where he 
 lived for two years and about which he wove the threads of his most 
 famous book, “ Walden, or Life in the Woods.” The primitive dwelling 
 has gone the way of its builder, but its site is marked with a cairn of 
 stones, growing like his reputation as the years go by with stone upon 
 stone added by admiring visitors to the hallowed spot. — Editor. 
 
76 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 could unlock its maze, presenting its hills and valleys, its 
 lakes and streams, in their natural order and position. The 
 Merrimack, or Sturgeon, river, is formed by the confluence 
 of the Pemigewasset, which rises near the Notch of the 
 White Mountains, and the Winnepisiogee, which drains 
 the lake of the same name, signifying “The Smile of the 
 Great Spirit.” From their junction it runs south seventy- 
 eight miles to Massachusetts, and thence east thirty-five 
 miles to the sea. I have traced its stream from where it 
 bubbles out of the rocks of the White Mountains above 
 the clouds, to where it is lost amid the salt billows of the 
 ocean on Plum Island Beach. At first it comes on mur- 
 muring to itself by the base of stately and retired moun- 
 tains, through moist primitive woods whose juices it 
 receives, where the bear still drinks it, and the cabins of 
 settlers are far between, and there are few to cross its 
 stream; enjoying in solitude its cascades still unknown to 
 fame; by long ranges of mountains of Sandwich and of 
 Squam, slumbering like tumuli of Titans, with the peaks 
 of Moosehillock, the Haystack and Kearsarge reflected in 
 its waters; where the maple and the raspberry, those lovers 
 of the hills, flourish amid temperate dews; — flowing long 
 and full of meaning, but untranslatable as its name Pemige- 
 wasset, by many a pastured Pelion and Ossa, where 
 unnamed muses haunt, tended by Oreads, Dryads, Naiads, 
 and receiving the tribute of many an untasted Hippocrene. 
 There are earth, air, fire, and water, — very well, this is 
 water, and down it comes. 
 
 Such water do the gods distil, 
 
 And pour down every hill 
 
 For their New England men; 
 
 A draught of this wild nectar bring. 
 
 And I’ll not taste the spring 
 Of Helicon again. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HENRY D. THOREAU 
 
Hiterarp associations of tfjc Merrimack SECitocr 
 
 ill 
 
 C 1 
 
 'HOREAU’S vivid description continues in the 
 same strain, in making his passage of the danger- 
 ous section of the river: 
 
 Falling all the way, and yet not discouraged by the 
 lowest fall. By the law of its birth never to become stag- 
 nant, for it has come out of the clouds, and down the sides 
 of precipices worn in the flood, through beaver dams 
 broke loose, not splitting but splicing and mending itself, 
 until it found a breathing place in this low land. There is 
 no danger now that the sun will steal it back to heaven 
 again before it reaches the sea, for it has a warrant even to 
 recover its own dews" into its bosom again with interest at 
 every eye. 
 
 “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers/’ 
 Thoreau’s first book, was not a financial success. I think 
 the entire edition was not far from a thousand copies, of 
 which over nine hundred remained unsold for a long time. 
 He used to remark that his library consisted of about a 
 thousand volumes, of which he wrcte nine hundred. The 
 failure of this work caused him not a little pecuniary 
 embarrassment, and compelled him to give up thoughts of 
 writing for a time and return to his surveying, at which he 
 was skillful. Is it the irony of fate that to-day these 
 same volumes sell for twenty dollars each? 
 
 77 
 
78 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 He was not inclined to associate in mixed company to 
 any extent, remarking at one time, “I had rather sit 
 on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than to be crowded 
 on a velvet chair.” Yet he was a brilliant conversationalist 
 when the company was congenial and he was in the mood. 
 With one of his abstemious manner of living and careful 
 husbanding of his physical resources, it seems incongruous 
 that both he and his beautiful wife should die in the prime of 
 life of that dread scourge of New England. The splendid 
 courage of neither failed until the dread summons came. 
 
 Say not that Caesar was victorious. 
 
 With toil and strife he stormed the house of Fame. 
 
 In other sense this youth was glorious, 
 
 Himself a kingdom wheresoe’er he came. 
 
 Nor is it sufficient that we should mention Thoreau 
 and Emerson* in the associations of the Merrimack and its 
 literature. Others of the Concord immortal galaxy of liter- 
 ary stars helped to link its name with theirs and immortality. 
 
 Again the author catches the latent spirit of the joy 
 of his surroundings and exclaims: 
 
 “Traveling on foot very early one morning due east 
 from here about twenty miles, from Caleb Harriman’s 
 tavern in Hampstead toward Haverhill, when I reached the 
 railroad in Plaistow, I heard at some distance a faint music 
 in the air like an ^Eolian harp, which I immediately sus- 
 
 *Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston, May 25, 1803, and died 
 April 27, 1882, his place of repose in Sleepy Hollow marked by a huge 
 granite boulder. He became a resident of Concord, which seemed the 
 natural center for the circle to which he belonged, in 1835. The “Old 
 Manse” was his abode when he wrote his first book, “Nature,” and it was 
 made yet more famous when Nathaniel Hawthorne and his young bride 
 became its tenants from 1843 t0 1846. “Mosses from an Old Manse,” by 
 the first named, was written here, in a room on the second floor. The 
 noble mansion in Concord, which became Emerson’s earlier home, has rung 
 with the voices of Concord’s famous group, conspicuous among which 
 were Thoreau, the Alcotts, Margaret Fuller, Hawthorne, and others. 
 — Editor. 
 

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 
 
LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS 
 
 79 
 
 pected to proceed from the cord of the telegraph vibrating 
 in the just awakening morning wind, and applying my ear 
 to one of the posts I was convinced that it was so. It was 
 the telegraph harp singing its message through the coun- 
 try, its message sent not by men but by gods. Perchance, 
 like the statute of Memnon, it resounds only in the morn- 
 ing when the first rays of the sun fall on it. It was like 
 the first lyre or shell heard on the seashore, — that vibrating 
 cord high in the air over the shores of earth. So have all 
 things their higher and their lower uses. I heard a fairer 
 news than the journals ever print. It told of things 
 worthy to hear, and worthy of the electric fluid to carry the 
 news of, not of the price of cotton and flour, but it hinted 
 at the price of the world itself and of things which are 
 priceless, of absolute truth and beauty. 
 
 “Still the drum rolled on and stirred our blood to fresh 
 extravagance that night. The clarion sound and clang of 
 corselet and buckler were heard from many a hamlet of the 
 soul, and many a knight was arming for the fight behind 
 the encamped stars. 
 
 Away! away! away! away! 
 
 Ye have not kept your secret well, 
 
 I will abide that other day, 
 
 Those other lands ye tell. 
 
 Has time no leisure left for these, 
 
 The acts that ye rehearse? 
 
 Is not eternity a lease 
 
 For better deeds than verse? 
 
 No mention of the literary associations of the Merri- 
 mack would be complete without including Whittier. In 
 fact, we have already, half unconsciously, quoted liberally 
 from him. While New Hampshire may not claim this 
 gifted poet as a son, she is fortunate in having his name 
 closely connected with her rivers, lakes and mountains. 
 It was equally fortunate, too, that he knew these attrac- 
 tions of nature at their best, ere they had been robbed of 
 the poetry of a primeval past by the prose of the present 
 day, forever pounding with its hammer of toil. 
 
80 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 He knew the Merrimack as “the stream of my fathers,” 
 and glorified it as, 
 
 “Type of the Northland’s strength and glory, 
 
 Pride and hope of our home and race, — 
 
 Freedom lending to rugged labor 
 Tints of beauty and lines of grace.” 
 
 Among the more ambitious offerings made to the liter- 
 ature, none takes higher rank than Whittier’s “Bridal of 
 Pennacook,” written in 1848. This is an Indian legend of 
 great beauty, though marred in places by his abominable 
 nomenclature, and the date ascribed to the story is at least 
 fifty years too recent. In 1662 we have reason to believe 
 that Passaconnaway was at Pawtucket, now Lowell. But 
 leaving these matters, which must be considered trifles 
 with a poet, the poem opens with a fantastic description of 
 a bewildering transposition from where 
 
 “The moon 
 
 Rising behind Umbagog’s eastern pines, 
 
 Like a great Indian camp fire; and its beams 
 Spanning at midnight with a bridge of silver 
 The Merrimack by Uncanoonuc’s falls.” 
 
 We are given a glimpse of the storied era of the 
 dusky days, 
 
 That dim, strange land of Eld, now dying fast; 
 
 And that which history gives not to the eye, 
 
 The faded coloring of Time’s tapestry, 
 
 Let Fancy with her dream-dipped brush supply. 
 
 One of the gifts of a mighty chieftain of the red 
 brotherhood was the gift of sorcery, which the sachem of 
 the Pennacooks possessed to a marked degree, and the 
 poet proceeds to describe, until we learn that the others 
 were so deeply affected by his magic 
 
BIRTHPLACE 
 
LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS 
 
 81 
 
 Nightly down the river going, 
 
 Swifter was the hunter’s rowing, 
 
 When he saw that lodge fire glowing 
 O’er the waters still and red; 
 
 And the squaw’s dark eye burned brighter, 
 
 And she drew her blanket tighter, 
 
 As, with quick step and lighter, 
 
 From that door she fled. 
 
 V 
 
 The proud old chieftain, somehow we like that title 
 better than bashaba or sagamore or sachem, which indi- 
 cated a somewhat lower dignity than Passaconnaway held 
 — let us begin over again. Passaconnaway, according to 
 the poet, was a widower, but this loss was made good by 
 having a very beautiful daughter. 
 
 A lone, stem man. Yet, as sometimes 
 The tempest smitten tree receives 
 From one small root the sap which climbs 
 Its topmost spray and crowning leaves, 
 
 So from his child the sachem drew 
 A life of love and hope, and felt 
 His cold, rugged nature through 
 
 The softness and the warmth of her young being melt. 
 
 We suppose there were really beautiful Indian maids. 
 This dusky heroine, very properly for a story, became the 
 object of the affections of a chief of one of the tribes living 
 lower down the river, He seemed to find the maid an easy 
 victim to his wooing, for soon comes the wedding 
 
 When along the river great wood fires 
 Shot into the night their long red spires, 
 Showing behind the tall, dark wood, 
 Flashing before on the sweeping flood. 
 
82 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 The trapper that night on Turee’s brook, 
 
 And the weary fisher on Contoocook, 
 
 Saw over the marshes and through the pine, 
 
 And down on the river the dance-lights shine. 
 
 The wedding must have been a grand affair, and the 
 feast that followed worthy of so proud an occasion. Fish 
 and game were brought by cunning hands from the four 
 sections of the questland of the dusky hunter 
 
 And drawn from the great stone vase which stands 
 In the river scooped by a spirit’s hands, 
 
 Garnished with spoons of shell and horn, 
 
 Stood the birchen dishes of smoking corn. 
 
 This happy event passing without a shadow to mar its 
 beauty and solemnity, the bride goes to her new home, 
 which is described with minute fidelity. She seems to 
 have been happy in an Indian way, until her father sent a 
 messenger declaring that he would be pleased to have a 
 visit from her; that he pined for her in his loneliness, and 
 hoped she had not forgotten him. Like a dutiful daughter 
 she started for her paternal home, following the road of 
 the wilderness, 
 
 Till rolling down its wooded banks between, 
 
 A broad, clear mountain stream, the Merrimack was seen. 
 
 The visit was a happy one, but when it came time for 
 her to return to her liege lord by the marshes of the lower 
 river, her stern parent failed to offer such an escort as the 
 young husband felt was due her. This created a family 
 breach at once, and stern old Passaconnaway swore by such 
 gods as he knew that she should never return to his upstart 
 of a son-in-law. The latter would not relent and so the 
 poor wife was left to grieve over her unhapppy fate. The 
 summer fled 
 
 And on Autumn’s gray and mournful grave the snow 
 Hung its white wreaths; with stifled voice and low 
 
LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS 
 
 83 
 
 The river crept, by one vast bridge o’ercrossed, 
 
 Built by the hoar-locked artisan of Frost. 
 
 Unable to bear the separation longer, with the break- 
 ing up of the river the following spring, the young wife set 
 out alone upon her return in a frail boat down the river 
 which bore on its angry bosom the ice-ruin of winter. 
 
 Down the vexed center of that rushing tide, 
 
 The thick huge ice-blocks threatening either side, 
 
 The foam-white rocks of Amoskeag in view, 
 
 With arrowy swiftness sped that light canoe. 
 
 No more than the failing arm of the faithful wife was 
 the slight craft equal to the task imposed upon it, and ere 
 the rapids were passed 
 
 Empty and broken circled the canoe 
 
 In the vexed pool below — but, where was Weetamo? 
 
 In close association with Whittier was the work of his 
 protege, Lucy Larcom,* the sweet authoress of the mills 
 of Lowell, while Mrs. Rebecca I. Davis of Haverhill, 
 Mass., left his admirers a beautiful token of her esteem in 
 two modest volumes called “Gleanings of the Merrimack 
 Valley.” 
 
 We cannot better close this rather hasty sketch than 
 by quoting from Mr. George S. Dorr’sf beautiful poem, 
 “The Minstrel’s Summer Home,” and inscribed to the 
 Merrimack’s immortal bard: 
 
 *Lucy Larcom was born in Beverly, Mass., in 1826, and died in Bos- 
 ton in 1893. She worked in the Lowell and Lawrence mills, thus acquir- 
 ing by personal experience many of the descriptions of real life she 
 penned so sweetly. While an operative at the Lowell looms she edited 
 the journal by mill girls since floated as the “The Lowell Offering.” Whit- 
 tier was her staunch friend, and her best-known public works, outside of 
 her work as editor of Our Young Folks , include “An Idyl of Work,” “As 
 It Is in Heaven,” “The Unseen Friend,” and “Poems.” 
 
 tA native of Wakefield and founder of the Carroll County Pioneer , 
 which he has published for several years. — Editor. 
 
84 
 
 THE MERRIMACK RIVER 
 
 Sweet singer of our northern hills, 
 
 Our valleys and our streams, 
 
 You throw around us, by your words, 
 
 The happiness of dreams; 
 
 And each New England heart shall call 
 For thee a blessing down, 
 
 Aad weave a spray of amaranth, 
 
 Within thy laurel crown. 
 
 You love the scent of birch and pine, 
 
 We read it in your song; 
 
 You love the Bearcamp’s winding stream, 
 That gently flow’s along; 
 
 You love the hills of Ossipee, 
 
 You love the elm-tree’s shade, 
 
 And love to worship at the shrine 
 Which nature there hath made. 
 
 And in your pleasant home, beside 
 The smiling Merrimack, 
 
 You hear the call they send to you. 
 
 And gladly answer back; 
 
 In many seasons past and gone, 
 
 Thy feet have wandered there, 
 
 And through the heart there ran a joy, 
 ’Mid verdure soft and fair. 
 
Drawn by Howard Pyle 
 
 THE CAPTAIN’S WELL 
 
 “He would drink and rest, and go home to tell 
 That God’s best gift is the wayside well ! ” 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Qtty fountain /^atD 
 
 By Edna Dean Proctor 
 
 Among the poets of the Granite State, not one has caught with a 
 deeper insight the glory of her hills and valleys, her lakes and rivers, 
 than Miss Proctor, and among her gems of art and nature the follow- 
 ing takes high rank. This gifted singer is a native of Henniker, but 
 has lived much of her life in Brooklyn, N. Y. She has traveled in 
 foreign countries extensively, but this has not taken from her that 
 love for native land which abounds in the heart of every true poet. — 
 Editor. 
 
 O the Mountain Maid, New Hampshire! 
 
 Her steps are light and free, 
 
 Whether she treads the lofty heights 
 Or follows the brooks to the sea! 
 
 Her eyes are clear as the skies that hang 
 Over her hills of snow, 
 
 And her hair is dark as the densest shade 
 That falls where the fir-trees grow— 
 
 The fir-trees, slender and somber, 
 
 That climb from the vales below. 
 
 Sweet is her voice as the robin’s, 
 
 In a lull of the wind of March, 
 
 Wooing the shy arbutus 
 At the roots of the buddng larch; 
 
 And rich as the ravishing echoes 
 On still Franconia’s Lake, 
 
 When the boatman winds his magic horn, 
 And the tongues of the wood awake, 
 WLile the huge Stone Face forgets to frown 
 And the hare peeps out of the brake. 
 
 The blasts of dreary December 
 But brighten the bloom on her cheek, 
 
 And the snows rear her statelier temples 
 Than to goddess were built by the Greek. 
 She welcomes the fervid summer, 
 
 And flies to the sounding shore 
 Where bleak Boar's Head looks seaward, 
 
 Set in the billows’ roar. 
 
 And dreams of her sailors and fishers 
 Till cool days come once more. 
 

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THE MOUNTAIN MAID 
 
 Then how fair is the Maiden, 
 
 Crowned with the scarlet leaves, 
 
 And wrapped in the tender, misty veil 
 That Indian Summer weaves! 
 
 While the aster blue, and the golden-rod, 
 And immortelles, clustering sweet, 
 From Canada down to the sea have spread 
 A carpet for her feet; 
 
 And the faint witch-hazel buds unfold, 
 
 Her latest smile to greet. 
 
 She loves the song of the reapers, 
 
 The ring of the woodman’s steel, 
 
 The whirr of the glancing shuttle, 
 
 The rush of the tireless wheel. 
 
 But, if war befalls, her sons she calls 
 From mill and forge and lea, 
 
 And bids them uphold her banner 
 Till the land from strife is free; 
 
 And she hews her oaks into vengeful ships 
 That sweep the foe from the sea. 
 
 0 the Mountain Maid, New Hampshire! 
 
 For beauty and wit and will 
 I’ll mate her to-day with the fairest 
 That rules over plain and hill! 
 
 New York is a princess in purple, 
 
 By the gems of her cities crowned; 
 Illinois with the garland of Ceres 
 Her tresses of gold has bound— 
 
 Queen of the limitless prairies, 
 
 Whose great sheaves heap the ground; 
 
 And out by the far Pacific, 
 
 Their gay young sisters say, 
 
 “Ours are the mines of the Indies 
 
 And the treasures of broad Cathay ’ ’ ; 
 And the dames of the South walk proudly, 
 Where the fig and the orange fall, 
 
 And, hid in the high magnolias, 
 
 The mocking thrushes call ; 
 
 But the Mountain Maid, New Hampshire, 
 Is the rarest of them all! 
 
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 THE OLD MILL 
 
Cbe ©lb .(©ill 
 
 By Maurice Baldwin 
 
 An old mill, falling to picturesque ruin, has ever been a subject of 
 peculiar interest to the painter, as well as a favorite theme of the poet. 
 Associations, joyous or sad, blend with the moss and the decay and 
 cling to the relic of years long past. 
 
 Mills like that which our artist and poet have so beautifully pic- 
 tured, have almost become only a memory. Few of the many that 
 the hillside streams once turned, can now be found in the state ; and 
 these are remote from main highways. 
 
 Older residents of Gilford, seeing its likeness, will readily call to 
 mind the old mill that once stood on the brook a short distance beyond 
 the village. Not long ago the last timbers of the ruin fell, and little 
 remains to mark the spoTwhere it stood. — Editor. 
 
 I And its broken wheel is still ; 
 
 On the stream’s untroubled breast 
 
 OSSES cover the Old Mill, 
 
 Spotless lilies rear their crest, 
 But the willows whisper yet 
 
 Things they never can forget — 
 

 
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THE OLD MILL 
 
 Days when all the world was young, 
 Days when happy children sung, 
 Underneath their branches, songs 
 With no burden of life’s wrongs; 
 Days when work, with merry sound, 
 Filled the sun’s unclouded round — 
 
 Stream and Mill are dreaming o’er 
 All the busy days of yore, 
 
 When, with many a creak and strain, 
 They once ground the farmer’s grain, 
 And a half-sad beauty clings 
 To the worn-out useless things, 
 
 O sweet Glamour of Decay, — 
 
 Bloom of things that pass away ! 
 Thou dost lend a tender grace 
 To the Past’s time-softened face; 
 Sweet and dim the old days seem 
 Like our memories of a dream. 
 

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 C 1 
 
 ’HAT country alone is great whose manufacturing 
 advantages are allied with the cunning of the brain 
 and the skill of the human hand. It is true that 
 agriculture is the oldest employment of man and its accom. 
 plishment the foundation of his upbuilding, but it never 
 lifts a timber above the sills of his superstruction. “Home, 
 ward the plowman plods his weary way” empty-handed. 
 The barbarian may be, and often is, an agriculturist, but 
 his feet are earth-bound. The shepherd, tending his flocks 
 on the sunny slopes of some Iverness, may fill an idyllic 
 life, but he is only a dreamer. The range of the Arab is 
 as far-reaching as the ring of his fleet-footed steed; the 
 roof of his tent is as wide as the blue-arched dome of the 
 Persian sky, and his freedom undoubted; but his legacy to 
 posterity is as barren as the sands of Sahara. It is not 
 until man begins to exercise his fertile mind in the inven- 
 tion and making of those things which shall enable him to 
 broaden the scope of his labors that he starts on his 
 upward course. 
 
 Even in this stage of progress, his capacity to do and 
 attempt is helpless until he calls to his assistance the 
 latent powers of nature. Then the river becomes his 
 most potent ally. As an agricultural territory New Hamp- 
 shire could never have become to any extent a noticeable 
 factor in the march of progress or power. But with her 
 
 85 
 
86 
 
 TEXTILE INDUSTRY IN NEW ENGLAND 
 
 excellent water privileges, in proportion to her area, she is 
 in the ranks of the progressive states. And the Merrimack, 
 “the busiest river in the world,” is the source of her great- 
 ness. Not only does this “river of broken waters” afford 
 the power for the majority — the most — of her manufactur- 
 ing industries, but it has given the impetus to the progress 
 and growth of four prominent cities of the Bay State, 
 Lowell, Lawrence, Haverhill and Amesbury. Passing by 
 this quartet of industrial centers, of which we hope to 
 speak later, we will in this number sketch the development 
 of those gigantic manufacturing interests made possible by 
 the falls of Amoskeag. 
 
 This rugged waterfall has a descent of forty-five feet, 
 carrying over its dam, when the water has a depth of one 
 foot above its rim, 3,700 to 3,800 cubic feet every second 
 during the working hours of the machinery that it turns. 
 The current of the river is so slight that a flowage is 
 accomplished which reaches back to the falls of Annabesit.* 
 or Hooksett, a distance of eight miles. The area covered 
 is 443 acres, and the average rise obtained upon October 
 I, 1908, was 3.325 inches. The river above Pawtucket 
 Falls at Lowell has a flowage of eighteen miles. These, 
 with other water privileges of note, help to make the 
 Merrimack the river remarkable for its power. 
 
 It was as noted to the aboriginal inhabitants in its 
 pristine glory for its fisheries as it is to-day for its manu- 
 facturing industries. Amoskeag Falls was especially well- 
 -known among the early pioneers, who little realized 
 the possibilities lurking under the lash of its foaming 
 current, as a “horrible cataract.” Hither came the good 
 Parson McGregor, as early as the summer of 1719, one of 
 the very first of the white settlers in this vicinity, to gaze 
 with awe and pious veneration upon the falls. The first 
 recorded evidence that we have of the place was given by 
 
 *This is an Indian term signifying “little place for fish,” in compar- 
 son to Namaske, or Amoskeag, “great place for fish.” — Author. 
 
THE AMOSKEAG MANUEACTURING COMPANY 
 
 87 
 
 Capt. William Tyng in December, 1703, when that doughty- 
 pioneer led his band of snow-shoe men upon their memor- 
 able wintry march into the “North Country” in search of 
 Indian prey. 
 
 The first man to express his belief in the possibilities 
 of this water power was Judge Samuel Blodget. But his 
 mind and means were engrossed in the subtile undertak- 
 ing of setting at defiance the waterfalls by building his 
 canals. He came upon the scene of action too early to 
 lead the way in this enterprise, as he certainly would have 
 done had he been born a few years later. Thus it was left to 
 a worthy pioneer in New England manufactories, Mr. Benja- 
 min Prichard, to harness the legions of an idle river to the 
 looms of industry. He had served his apprenticeship at 
 Ipswich, where the first cotton mill had been erected in 
 New Hampshire in 1803. After working here six years, 
 this ambitious young man, in conjunction with three 
 brothers named Ephraim, David and Robert Stevens, came 
 to Amoskeag, then a part of the town of Goff st own, and 
 built their mill, the first cotton mill on the Merrimack 
 above Pawtucket Falls. 
 
 The business grew so rapidly that it was soon thought 
 necessary to form a stock company, which was christened 
 “The Amoskeag Cotton and Wool Factory.” This name 
 was changed the following June to “The Amoskeag Cotton 
 and Woolen Manufacturing Company.” The first board of 
 directors consisted of James Parker, Samuel P. Kidder, 
 John Stark, Jr., David McQuestion and Benjamin Prichard. 
 The first-named was chosen president and Jotham Gillis 
 was made clerk and selling agent. He was succeeded in 
 order by Philemon Walcott, John G. Moor and Frederick 
 Stark. Compared with the mills of to-day, this was a 
 primitive affair, having neither picker nor loom, and it 
 made but slow, though deserving, progress along its un- 
 trodden way. No small meed of praise belongs to those 
 sanguine leaders in the industrial world. 
 
 The factory was about forty feet square and two 
 stories high, situated midway between the head and foot of 
 
88 
 
 TEXTILE INDUSTRY IN NEW ENGLAND 
 
 the falls, directly below the west end of Amoskeag bridge. 
 The cotton used was parcelled out to the families living in 
 the neighborhood, to be ginned at four cents a pound. 
 The yarn was woven by hand by women who had looms in 
 their homes. The Rev. Cyrus W. Wallace said in one of 
 his discourses: 
 
 I have examined the accounts kept in the beautiful round hand of 
 Jndge Stark for the month of October, 1813, and for fifteen days in succes- 
 sion. During the month there were manufactured, at Amoskeag, three 
 hundred and fifty-eight skeins per day of cotton yarn. This was about 
 the average amount: the three hundred and fifty-eight skeins at factory 
 price were worth twenty-nine dollars and twenty-two cents. 
 
 After some changes in its management and increased 
 knowledge and capital, in 1826, the old original mill was 
 enlarged and a new one was built upon the river bank, 
 with another upon an island,* which was burned May 14, 
 1840. The second structure raised on the bank was known 
 as “The Bell Mill,” from the fact that a bell there called 
 the operatives to work. Shirtings, sheetings and tickings 
 were now manufactured, the latter commodity winning a 
 wide reputation as the “A. C. A.” tickings. Both of the 
 mills upon the bank were consumed by fire March 28, 1848. 
 
 Until July 13, 1831, the manufacturing was carried on 
 as a private enterprise with varying success according to 
 
 *This island was reached by a bridge that spanned the rapids from the 
 west bank, near where the P. C. Cheney Paper Mills were afterwards built. 
 The fire which destroyed the island mill seems to have been the first fire 
 of special mention in Manchester. A local writer, Mr. E. F. Roper, in 
 the Observant Citizen’s column in the Union , says that in 1846 there were 
 several buildings on the island, namely: a machine shop, foundry, dry 
 house and a large house occupied by three families. Cyrus Baldwin, who 
 afterwards invented the seamless bag loom, was boss of the shops. 
 Among the hands were two who deserve especial notice: S. H. Roper, the 
 builder of the first successful steam carriage, and G. A. Rollins, who later 
 built steam engines at Nashua. The other cotton mills were nearer the 
 village, which it was then believed was to become the heart of the coming 
 city. This was in the days when Farmer owned the old hotel or tavern, a 
 noted resort, and John Allison kept the village grocery. — Author. 
 
THE AMOSKEAG MANUFACTURING COMPANY 
 
 89 
 
 the capital and exprience given it. Upon July i of this 
 year, the state legislature authorized the formation of the 
 Amoskeag Manufacturing Company with a capital limited 
 to a million dollars, a great sum for that day. The incorpo- 
 rators were Oliver Dean, Ira Gay, Willard Sayles, Larned 
 Pitcher, Lyman Tiffany and Samuel Slater. At the first 
 meeting Mr Tiffany was chosen president; Mr. Gay was 
 made clerk, and Oliver Dean agent and treasurer. 
 
 This was the most important meeting ever held in the 
 interest of the company, inasmuch as its counsels and acts 
 laid the foundation of the future of the manufacturing 
 interests of the Merrimack at this place. It was unani- 
 mously agreed that the property of the old firm should be 
 taken for stock in the new company, and it was decided 
 that the new organization should acquire possession by 
 purchase the title to the land on both sides of the river, 
 though it was settled that henceforth the main mills should 
 be located upon the east bank, where the engineers 
 declared it was most feasible to build canals and to utilize 
 the water power. The company, in 1835, acquired the 
 property of the Isle of Hooksett Canal Company, the Bow 
 Canal Company and the Union Locks and Company, 
 located at different points along the river. The following 
 year the Hooksett Manufacturing Company, which had a 
 capital of two hundred thousand dollars, was merged with 
 the Amoskeag. About this time the first brick mill upon the 
 Merrimack was built in Hooksett from brick made near at 
 hand. The falls here have a perpendicular descent of six- 
 teen feet and are capable of carrying one hundred thousand 
 spindles. The Amoskeag Company operated this privilege 
 until 1865, when it sold the franchise to a new corporation 
 with a capital stock of one million dollars, authorized by 
 the legislature. In 1837 the Concord Manufacturing Com- 
 pany became a part of the Amoskeag. 
 
 The Amoskeag Manufacturing Company not only 
 obtained a control of the water power of the Merrimack 
 from Concord to Manchester, but purchased large tracts 
 
90 
 
 TEXTILE INDUSTRY IN NEW ENGLAND 
 
 of land, fifteen hundred acres on the east side, joining 
 upon the river und reaching back into what was then wild 
 country. In 1837 the company made a plan of the future 
 city of Manchester, and laid out the site of a town, with 
 the main street running parallel with the river, and in 1838 
 it sold land divided into lots for building and business 
 privileges. This movement not only brought into the 
 market much land to become valuable in the following 
 years, increasing as time passed by, but it opened the way 
 to the coming city. This wise foresight is seen to-day in 
 the well-arranged streets and commons that are such a 
 blessing to our city, making it one of the best-regulated in 
 New England. 
 
 In the meantime the company had been active in its 
 own direct business. The wooden dam across the river, 
 built a few years before, was repaired in 1836, and the fol- 
 lowing year the construction of a wing dam of stone, with 
 guard locks, was begun on the east side. This was com- 
 pleted in 1840. In 1838 the rights, site and water privi- 
 leges, for a new company, incorporated as the Stark Mills, 
 were sold which corporation exists to-day. The first 
 building erected on the east side was the Stark Mills 
 counting room, a part of which was used for a time by the 
 land and water power department of the Amoskeag Manu- 
 facturing Company. The first mills built on the east side 
 were Nos. 1 and 2 of the Stark Corporation, and were 
 erected in 1838 and 1839, respectively. 
 
 After the burning of the Island Mill in 1840, the 
 Amoskeag Company built two new ones just below the 
 Stark Mills, and added to these as their demands increased. 
 A machine shop was built in 1840 and in 1842 a foundry to 
 meet the requirements of the increasing business. In 
 1845 they sold land for a new corporation, known as the 
 Manchester Print Works, and erected mills for the new 
 company. This corporation, after over fifty years of suc- 
 cessful operation, in 1905 was absorbed by the Amoskeag 
 Company and its mills are to-day a part of the property 
 
THE AMOSKEAG MANUFACTURING COMPANY 
 
 91 
 
 and business of that company. In 1859 the manufacture 
 of the famous Amoskeag steam fire engines was begun. 
 
 During this period of constant growth of its industry 
 the original idea of the development of a city was ever 
 prominent in the purposes of the company. Tenements 
 and boarding-houses for their operatives and those working 
 for the other corporations were erected, and land sold for 
 business sites and dwelling houses. In the matter of 
 public buildings a generous and beneficial policy was car- 
 ried out, land being given for sites of churches and public 
 buildings. 
 
 These founders of the Amoskeag Manufacturing 
 Company, and incidentally the founders of Manchester, 
 deserve a large meed of credit for their sagacity and enter- 
 prise. It must be remembered, when an account of their 
 work is taken into consideration, that their undertaking 
 was entirely along an unmarked path. The manufacture 
 of the goods they purposed to put on the market was 
 in the infancy of its growth even in England, then in the lead 
 of the manufactures of the world. There were no practical 
 mechanics in the country to accomplish any design they 
 might invent. It was only a short time before their organ- 
 ization that it had been found expedient to manufacture raw 
 cotton into finished cloth in the same mill, and thus two 
 distinct branches Ead been carried on to accomplish one 
 result. The power loom was the means to revolutionize the 
 outcome and it has been claimed, with what seems good 
 authority, that Phinehas Adams, Sr., was the first man in 
 America to successfully run the power loom. No prouder 
 monument to their success is needed than the great indus- 
 try and prosperous city which has sprung up on the 
 unsightly sandbanks overlooking the scene of their labors. 
 
 This, in brief, is the story of the rise and progress of 
 the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, giving employ- 
 ment to over 15,000 persons and having an annual output 
 of about 200,000,000 yards of cotton cloth and 20,000,000 
 yards of worsted cloth. The mills have a floor space of 
 
92 
 
 TEXTILE INDUSTRY IN NEW ENGLAND 
 
 no acres and have 600,000 spindles with 19,000 looms 
 The weekly pay-roll is $ 112,000 and the amount of capital 
 invested is $5,760,900. What is termed as the quick cap- 
 ital is at $10,412,521.19, which represents the assets. The 
 land and water power is valued at $400,000; the mills and 
 machinery, $2,550,000; reserve, $10,000; bag mill, $40,000; 
 plant, $3,000,000. The report of the treasurer at a recent 
 meeting of the stockholders showed that during the past 
 year the company has spent $500,000 in the purchase of 
 new machinery, and that the profit and loss is placed at 
 $1,924,993.44. The cotton goods on hand June 30, 1907, 
 were valued at $512,911.41; cost of manufacture, $14,969,- 
 932.94; interest, $13,265.04; guarantee, $52,648.46; profit 
 for twelve months, $1,250,655.49; total, $16,799,413.34; 
 goods sold, $16,109,124.75; goods on hand June 30, 1908, 
 $690,288.59; total, $16,799,413.34. In the worsted goods 
 department there were on hand a year ago, dyed and 
 finished, 980,253 yards, while there has been finished dur- 
 ing the year, 12,301,687% yards; total, 13,281,940 yards. 
 
 This company at least has avoided the common 
 mistake made by Americans in many lines of industries, 
 where a person is allowed to come to the front poorly 
 equipped for the responsibility that he has to fill. The 
 Amoskeag Company believes that no man, however keen 
 in his perception, can master a trade in a short time, and 
 this is at least one place where skill is fostered and experi- 
 ence counts above a passing claim to utility. The result is 
 evident to the most casual beholder. Employing a high 
 grade of labor and having a management conducted upon 
 principles of integrity and fair dealing, the Amoskeag 
 Manufacturing Company has moved steadily and smoothly 
 on in the industrial sphere whether the tide of business 
 ebbed or flowed. 
 
 Herman F. Straw is the present clerk of the corpora- 
 tion, and the board of directors elected are T. Jefferson 
 Coolidge, George A. Gardner, George Dexter, Charles 
 W: Amory, George Von Meyer, T. Jefferson Coolidge, Jr., 
 
Drawn for this Magazine by J. Warren Thyng 
 
‘Its pines above, its waves below, 
 The west wind down it blowing.” 
 
<®ur fttber 
 
 By John Greenleaf Whittier 
 
 The following beautiful tribute was written for, and read at, a summer 
 festival held at “The Laurels,” on the banks of the Merrimack, in 1878. 
 
 NCE more on yonder laurelled height 
 The summer flowers have budded; 
 Once more with summer's golden light 
 The vales of home are flooded; 
 
 And once more, by the grace of Him 
 Of every good the Giver, 
 
 We sing upon its wooded rim 
 The praises of our river: 
 
 Its pines above, its waves below, 
 
 The west-wind down it blowing, 
 
 As fair as when the young Brissot 
 Beheld it seaward flowing, — 
 
 And bore its memory o’er the deep, 
 
 To soothe a martyr’s sadness, 
 
 And fresco, ia his troubled sleep, 
 
 His prison-walls with gladness. 
 
 We know the world is rich with streams 
 Renowned in song and story, 
 
 Whose music murmurs through our dreams 
 Of human love and glory: 
 
 We know that Arno’s banks are fair, 
 
 And Rhine has casled shadows, 
 
 And, poet-tuned, the Doon and Ayr 
 Go singing down their meadows. 
 
 But while, unpictured and unsung 
 By painter or by poet, 
 
 Our river waits the tuneful tongue 
 And cunning hand to show it, — 
 

 . 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 ( n;rl gnm^uo I)fiA 
 
OUR RIVER 
 
 We only know the fond skies lean 
 Above it, warm with blessing, 
 
 And the sweet soul of our Undine 
 Awakes to our caressing. 
 
 No fickle sun-god holds the flocks 
 That graze its shores in keeping; 
 
 No icy kiss of Dian mocks 
 The youth beside it sleeping: 
 
 Our Christian river loveth most 
 The beautiful and human; 
 
 The heathen streams of Naiads boast, 
 
 But ours of man and woman. 
 
 The miner in his cabin hears 
 The ripple we are hearing; 
 
 It whispers soft to homesick ears 
 Around the settler’s clearing: 
 
 In Sacramento’s vales of corn. 
 
 Or Santee’s bloom of cotton, 
 
 Our river by its valley born 
 Was never yet forgotten. 
 
 But blue skies smile, and flowers bloom on, 
 And rivers still keep flowing, — 
 
 The dear God still his rain and sun 
 On good^and ill bestowing. 
 
 His pine-trees whisper, “Trust and wait!’’ 
 His flowers are prophesying 
 That all we dread of change or fall 
 His love is underlying. 
 
 And thou, O Mountain-born! — no more 
 We ask the Wise Allotter 
 Than for the firmness of thy shore. 
 
 The calmness of thy water, 
 
 The cheerful lights that overlay 
 Thy rugged slopes with beauty, 
 
 To match our spirits to our day 
 And make a joy of duty. 
 
\ 
 
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 • ■ 
 
Bt tfje Jfalte of ^amosfceag 
 
 By Allen Eastman Cross 
 
 When Samuel Blodget predicted that ancient Derryfield was one day “destined to 
 become the Manchester of America,” he stood by the falls of Amoskeag. There was the 
 power that made possible a great manufacturing city. It has seemed to me that there was no 
 theme more vital to the growth of the city of Manchester, or more poetic in its suggestiveness, 
 than these same falls. I have, therefore, woven their legend and history into verse, calling 
 them by their former Indian name, the Falls of Namoskeag. — Author . 
 
 Three souls shall meet in our gracious river, 
 
 The soul of the mountains, stanch and free, 
 The soul of the Indian, “ Lake of the Spirit,” 
 And the infinite soul of the shining sea. 
 
 One hath its birth by the granite mountain, 
 
 Where a mighty face looks out alone, 
 
 Across the world and adown the ages, 
 
 Like the face of the Christ in the living stone. 
 
 One flows from the water of Winnipesaukee, 
 Bearing ever where it may glide, 
 
 As the Indians named that beautiful water, 
 
 “ The smile of tire Spirit” upon its tide. 
 
 And the soul of the sea is at Little Harbor, 
 
 Or Strawberry Bank of the olden time, 
 
 Where first DeMonts and his dreaming voyageurs 
 Sailed in quest of a golden clime. 
 
 ' Tis said that Power is the soul of our river, 
 Plunging down from the gulfs and glooms 
 Of its mountain valleys to fall in splendor, 
 
 Or drive the belts of the myriad looms. 
 
 To some the soul of the stream is Beauty. 
 
 That pours from its beautiful lake above 
 In silver ripples and golden eddies, 
 
 Like the seer’s stream from the throne of love. 
 
 97 
 
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AT THE FALLS OF NAMOSKEAG 
 
 99 
 
 And once, to this stream with its double burden, 
 There came a soul akin to his own ; 
 
 The heart of the river was in his preaching ; 
 
 The voice of the ripples was in his tone ; 
 
 And he stood by the falls in the golden weather, 
 
 Under the elm leaves, mirrored brown 
 In the pictured waters, and told his hearers 
 
 How the Heart of the stars and the stream came down, 
 
 As a little child to its mother’s bosom, 
 
 With a wonder at hatred in his eyes, 
 
 And an image of peace from the one Great Spirit 
 Like the light in the stream from the glowing skies. 
 
 And e’en while he spake, as the stream in its flowing 
 Takes tints of the twilight and jeweled gleams 
 
 Of the oak and maple, on Eliot’s spirit 
 Lay heavenly visions and starry dreams, 
 
 And with only the chant of the falls in the silence, 
 While the nets and the spears uncared for lay, 
 
 Again as of old the Christ was standing 
 By the lodges of Passaconaway. 
 
 • 
 
 * * * 
 
 An hundred times had the glistening salmon 
 Flashed in the falls since that sunset hour; 
 
 An hundred times had the black ducks flying 
 Followed the stream ; and the Spirit of Power 
 
 That sleeps in the river, still waited to welcome 
 A heart like its own to reveal again, 
 
 As Eliot uttered its beautiful spirit, 
 
 Its soul of power to the souls of men. 
 
 The wands of the willow are deeper amber, 
 The coral buds of the maple bloom ; 
 
 The alders redden, the wind flowers blossom, 
 And sunshine follows the winter’s gloom. 
 
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AMOSKEAG FALLS IN WINTER 
 
AT THE FALLS OF NAMOSKEAG 
 
 101 
 
 The smile of the spirit is still on the waters, 
 
 The chime on the stones of the Namoskeag fall, 
 
 But the soul of the hills as it leaps to the ocean 
 To freedom and valor seems to call. 
 
 At the door of his mill, by the swirl of the rapids, 
 Feeling the spirit that subtly thrills, 
 
 From the spray of the falls like an exhalation, 
 
 Is resting our hero of the hills. 
 
 He had won the name when he ran the gantlet, 
 Bursting the Indian lines in twain, 
 
 Or made his foray to save his comrades 
 
 Through the frozen forests of far Champlain. 
 
 Now the swish of the saw and the creak of the timber, 
 And the swirl of the rapids alone he heard, 
 
 When sudden — a clatter of hoofs down the river — 
 
 A horseman, a shout, and the rallying’word 
 
 Of yesterday’s fighting by Concord river, 
 
 Of the blood on the green of Lexington — 
 
 That was all! yet the mill gate fell, and the miller, 
 
 Left the saw to rust in the cut, and was Jgone, 
 
 ’Twas the word of" the Lord through the Merrimack valley, 
 From Derryfield down to Pawtucket’s fall, 
 
 That rang from his lips, to rise and to follow, 
 
 As the leader thundered his rallying’call. 
 
 ’ Twas the sword of the Lord from the leader’s scabbard 
 That flashed in defiance of British wrong, 
 
 As the rallying farmers galloped after 
 Riding to Medford a thousand strong. 
 
 * * * 
 
 A golden cycle of years has vanished 
 
 Since the Derryfield minute-man left his mill 
 To lead the patriots down the valley 
 To “the old rail fence” on Bunker Hill. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
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AT THE FALLS OF NAMOSKEAG 
 
 103 
 
 The years flow on and sweep in their flowing 
 Legend and life to the infinite sea — 
 
 A city stands by the grave of the hero, 
 
 Where the lodges and camps were wont to be. 
 
 Unchanged and changeless flows the river, 
 
 But blended now with its ceaseless chime 
 Is the rhythmic beating of mighty hammers, 
 
 And a hum like the bees in summer time. 
 
 But the hum of the looms and the clank of the hammers, 
 Will hush to the chime of the Sabbath bells, 
 
 While the soul of the stream from the Lake of the Spirit 
 The story of Eliot’s Master tells. 
 
 The years flow on like the flowing river, 
 
 With peaceful eddies and daring falls 
 But if ever the life of the state is perilled, 
 
 If duty summons or country calls, 
 
 The soul of the hills and the stream will waken 
 As it woke in the ancient minute-men, 
 
 And the hearts of the sons like the hearts of the fathers 
 Will bleed for their country’s life again. 
 

 
 
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 AMOSKEAG FALLS 
 
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EARLY VIEWS ALONG THE MERRIMACK 
 
 CONCORD, IN 1855 
 
Contort) 
 
 C ONCORD is the oldest capital in New England. 
 Here in the misty days of the primeval power of 
 the Pennacooks, long before the historian rises to 
 describe an empire wider and more far-reaching than the 
 territory belonging to the state to day, it was the seat of 
 power. It seemed eminently fitting, therefore, that the 
 conquerors of this race, which passed as the leaves of the 
 forest, should look upon the spot as the site of their capi- 
 tal. Concord is most fortunately situated for the center of 
 power in a state. It does not seek the distinction of its 
 sister cities in the Merrimack Valley, and it is well that it 
 does not. 
 
 Tradition says that the first settler in what was then 
 known as Pennacook was Capt. Ebenezer Eastman, who 
 built a block-house here in 1727 and moved into it with his 
 family. The territory was granted by Massachusetts Jan- 
 uary 17, 1725, to Benjamin Stevens and ninety-nine others, 
 and it was laid out the following year seven miles square. 
 Captain Eastman was one of these grantees. At first the 
 Indians, who were Pennacooks, were friendly, but for 
 nearly twenty years^ from 1744 to 1762, almost constant 
 alarm from the Indians kept the inhabitants awakened to a 
 sense of their dangerous situation. In 1746 as many as 
 seven garrisons were built to protect the homes of the 
 families. Despite these precautionary movements an 
 attack from the Indians took place August n, 1746, when 
 five men were killed and two carried off as captives. At 
 the time of the Revolution Concord contained 1,052 inhab- 
 itants, and the town proved its faithfulness to the cause in 
 no uncertain manner. The convention which framed the 
 State Constitution in 1783 met here, and in 1805 it became 
 the permanent seat of State Government. 
 
EARLY VIEWS ALONG THE MERRIMACK 
 
 MANCHESTER, 1805 
 
^ancfjester 
 
 » 
 
 ANCH ESTER was a noted place with the 
 Indians long before the white settlers came, on 
 account of the fisheries at Namaske Falls and 
 around Lake Massabesic, “Place of Much Water.” The 
 first white man to build a cabin within what now comprises 
 the territory was John McNiel, who was sent to the Falls 
 to look after the interests of the Scotch-Irish people in 
 Londonderry. This was probably in 1722. No perma- 
 nent settlement was made, however, until the grant of 
 Tyng Township in April, 1735. From that date a slow but 
 certain growth followed until 1751, when upon September 
 3 a town was incorporated under the name of Derryfield. 
 This name clung to it all through the long and sanguinary 
 years of the French and Indian War, the Revolution, and 
 the Reconstruction and Constitutional period following the 
 strugglefor Independence. In 1810 its name was changed 
 to Manchester, so called after Manchester, England, upon 
 the suggestion of Hon. Samuel Blodget, and its era of pros- 
 perity may be said to have dawned. Blodget’s canal had 
 been completed three years before, and for thirty-five years 
 the Merrimack was-the maritime highway of business enter- 
 prises. Up and down its rocky banks ran the canals along 
 which was moved nearly all of the merchandise for the cities 
 from Pawtucket Falls to Concord, and also for the interior 
 towns of the state. In this stirring period Manchester exer- 
 cised, as it always has, a leading part in the development of 
 the Merrimack Valley. The first saw-mills, built before the 
 opening of the century by Blodget and Stark, were suc- 
 ceeded by the first of the mills that were destined to 
 inaugurate one of the greatest manufacturing industries in 
 the world, which has been instrumental in the upbuilding 
 of the metropolis of New Hampshire. The first car came 
 up the valley in 1842. 
 
EARLY VIEWS ALONG THE MERRIMACK 
 
 NASHUA, IN 1851 
 
^agtfjua 
 
 ASHUA was a part of the old township of Dun- 
 ■ rz sta ble, and became a separate hamlet under the 
 name it now bears in 1803. The date of its set- 
 tlement is uncertain, but must have been as early as 1673, 
 when it belonged to Dunstable. From 1675 to 1725 this terri- 
 tory was constantly threatened by the Indians, and it seems 
 almost miraculous that it should have escaped as lightly as it 
 did, while Exeter, Dover and Portsmouth were ravaged 
 almost yearly. No doubt this fortunate outcome was due 
 largely to the fact that Dunstable held some of the most 
 noted Indian fighters of the day. It was not until the close 
 of the French and Indian Was in 1763 that the inhabitants 
 at last breathed with a feeling of safety. 
 
 Growth developed slowly through the years that fol- 
 lowed. During the Revolution the handful of people 
 (there were 128 in Dunstable capable of bearing arms) 
 was loyal to the cause of liberty. In 1795 there were no 
 dwellings where now stands the city. July 4, 1803, the 
 village, called until then Indian Head, was given the name 
 of Nashua, and the natal day of the future city had dawned. 
 In 1842 that part of the town north of Nashua River was 
 set off by the name of Nashville, but in 1853 it was united 
 with the village on the south, and Nashua obtained its city 
 charter. 
 
 Its water power first attracted the attention of manu- 
 facturers in 1820, and from that time the development of 
 its privileges led to a rapid and healthy growth of popula- 
 tion. The Nashua Manufacturing Company received its 
 charter in 1823, and from this beginning a large class of 
 manufacturing interests succeeded. The number of its 
 inhabitants was approximately ten thousand at the time 
 our artist made the picture accompanying this article. The 
 view was from the tower of Mount Pleasant school-house. 
 
VIEW OF COLBY ACADEMY 
 
SCENES 
 
 ALONG THE 
 
 PICTURESQUE 
 
 MERRIMACK 
 
These cuts used through courtesy ol the B. & M. R. R. 
 
 THE POETRY OF WOODS AND WATERS 
 
comin(Vfroyi the heart of the hills 
 
 BY SINGING WATERS 
 
BELL CASCADE, WOODSTOCK 
 
 PARTING OF THE WATERS 
 
BASTON’S MILL, WOODSTOCK, 
 
Franconia. Mountains and Pemigewasset Fiber 
 
 Pictures from a Picture Land 
 
 By J. WARREN THYNG 
 
 “Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing. 
 They say unto him, we also go with thee." 
 
 O ALL the fortunate ones who, like the school' 
 master, know how to spend the summer vaca' 
 tion, may the joy which floweth as a trout 
 brook from healing springs in the hills be theirs, 
 and the spell never be lifted. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Those were pleasant vacation days when we sat on the 
 piazza of Wildcat Camp, the schoolmaster smoking a rerrt' 
 iniscent pipe and framing bits of landscape in spirals of smoke. 
 The old house stands in a wild glen among the hills ; for miles 
 you may not see the smoke of another chimney. A neglected 
 byroad runs past the door~runs on to deeper solitude and 
 more shameful neglect. On either side of the 
 road a trout brook comes down from the hills; 
 that is why the schoolmaster, the minister and 
 the law- man are here with me. 
 
 One evening Macdonald came up the road 
 that leads through the shadow of the butternut 
 trees down by the haunted schooLhouse. I was 
 copying out these notes and arranging the pic' 
 tures from my sketch-book, when the Highlander 
 
 Old Man of the Mountain 
 
Echo Lake 
 
 said, "I am thinking, schoolmaster, 
 painter may be Scottish himself." 
 
 "Do you think, Macdonald, 
 that because this roof leaks, he 
 would sit out in a Trosachs rain 
 to sketch Loch Katrine?" 
 
 "Not so much that, but I have 
 seen many a loch and burn and gray brig in Scotland like the 
 pictures in his book. The blue haze, common in the high- 
 lands, and in the mountains of Wales, 1 have seen in your 
 mountains; and on the Franconia peaks a rose-light like that 
 which comes in early morning on Ben Lomond." 
 
 "In Scotland, you have the wild folk-lore and traditions 
 of centuries; we have nothing old but the Old Man of the 
 Mountain, and only the geologist's hammer to tell how old he 
 is. He does not talk, Macdonald." 
 
 "He is douce enough, schoolmaster." 
 
 The evening wore on. The Pleiades glis- 
 tened like points of steel so clear was the night. 
 
 The Highlander fared homeward with lighted 
 pipe,fand soon was lost to sight in the shade of 
 the butternut trees down by the haunted school- 
 house. 
 
 To me, the valley of the Pemigewasset 
 is the picture land of the north country, and 
 the view from Woodstock the completest 
 picture in the mountain district of New Hamp- 
 shire. It serves my purpose at this time simply to express a 
 concrete opinion; but were it necessary to generalize, the state- 
 ment could be amply supported by the words of that eminent 
 writer, and recognized authority on the landscape in na- 
 ture and art, Thomas Starr King, whose graceful pen has 
 given us in "The White Hills, Legendary and Picturesque," 
 the only permanent literature of our mountains, lakes and 
 
 rivers. Away back in stage coach 
 days it was the driver's custom to 
 stop near the school-house in 
 Thornton, and direct the attention 
 of passengers to the noble view 
 of river and mountains, and for 
 
 Agassiz Basin 
 
 Mountains from Woodstock 
 
many years the prospect from 
 that point was known as the 
 "Starr King View." The scene 
 is graphically described in his 
 book, ar.d is accompanied by a 
 picture drav\n by Whelock. 
 
 George L. Brown, called "The American Claude/’ in the 
 times when painters were not merely "artists," but were 
 students, held the view of the Franconia Mountains from 
 Woodstock in high esteem. Lucy Larccm's poem, "The 
 School House by the River,” was inspired by the view from 
 Thornton. 
 
 The country is a region of diversified interests; trout 
 brooks are numerous, and many of them are extremely 
 picturesque. Paths, enchanting as fairy land- 
 lead through groves of balsam far into the 
 woods. It is summer, and as you follow a 
 brook with fishing rod, perchance a deer is 
 peeping slyly at you. By and by winter will 
 come, but the deer returns not with the buds of 
 spring. O, wonderful days of Christian civil- 
 ization ! Men whose hands are red with the 
 blood of fawns boast of the lives they 
 have taken ; lives of creatures whose bodies 
 were cleaner than theirs- -lives that were purer 
 than their slayer's. They owed for a few mouthfuls of greens ; 
 the account was balanced by a crimson stain. "It was a 
 glorious Victory.” 
 
 The pictures that lie along every-day paths are too well 
 known to need comment of mine ; Artist’s View naturally at- 
 tracts many visitors, but I am inclined to regard the prospect 
 from Professor Carpenter's villa as by far the better view of 
 the valley and mountains. The stroller about the hamlet of 
 Woodstock will find his way to the 
 interesting geological formation 
 known as Agassiz /Easin, and he will 
 probably puzzle his wits cyphering 
 out the queer problem of Balanced 
 Rock; or if more adventurous he will 
 
 Mirror Lake 
 
follow the guide’s smoking torch through the 
 caverns of Lost River, as Mr. Huse and I did 
 last fall. 
 
 * # # # 
 
 It is a Sabbath evening in the hills; the circle 
 of mountains widens in the ambient air, afar 
 over the tranquil valley to purple peaks remote.. 
 
 Door of Lost Ri^er ^ message of glad tidings comes in the voice 
 of trees and the perfume of the fields, and over all rises the 
 anthem of the pines stirred to sound by the breeze. I have 
 lighted my friendship fire, the minister has read from Isaiah 
 60th, "Lift up thine eyes round about and see; all they gather 
 themselves together, they come to thee." In fancy old friends 
 draw around--the true, the estranged, the false; they who 
 are chilled by the shadows of earth, and they who are cher- 
 ished by its sunshine. 
 
 The shadow on the dial will 
 not wait ; the vacation ends, and au- 
 tumn comes with its glory. 
 
 "Stains and splendid dyes 
 That rival the tiger'moth's deep damasked 
 wing.” 
 
Sunset on jPount ttDasfjmgton 
 
 By George Waldo Brown® 
 
 Standing upon the roof of the great watershed between New 
 England and Canada, the observer gets one of the finest views of 
 country to be found in the world. On the north lies the grand valley 
 of the mighty St. Lawrence, walled in on the farther side by the 
 ancient Laurentides. On the south he looks down the Appalachian 
 slopes, broken by “a thousand hills” and fringed by the broken 
 coast line of the Atlantic. The apex of this lofty position was Mount 
 Washington, the sacred realm of the Amerinds, where it is believed 
 dwelt their god. Much has been said and written of the beauties of 
 a sunrise as seen from this lofty lookout, but these are more than 
 equalled by the splendors of a sunset, when the wounded day lifts on 
 high its tattered banner of light and sends afar its bright javelins of 
 fate. — Author , 
 
 The twilight-watchers ward each dark’ning zone, 
 And, bolder grown, usurp the sunlight’s throne. 
 
 Blow, west wind, blow! ay, set the wild news flying: 
 “The reign of day is o’er — its king is dying!” 
 
 The sun, a broken circle, half concealed, 
 
 Sinks ’neath the glimmer of the golden field; 
 
 A shining halo on the azure space 
 
 Fast flees beyond the walls of light and place. 
 
 Moan, east wind, moan, ay, set the wild news flying: 
 “The reign of day is o’er — its king is dying!” 
 
 HE golden arrows cleave thy snowy crown, 
 
 While thy dark vestments take a deeper brown. 
 
' ■ ' . r '' : rr : 
 
 ■r j: 
 
 - r rc^ ? » r •: * 'V qn 
 
 . •• ■ : .. * \ 
 
 • ' . . - . :■ • ' -l • ;tJ ■ • ' 
 
 i - 
 
 ' ' : • - ; ‘ . ; 
 
 . ... 
 
 ‘ : j •/ ’ • • ■ i.i'j -■ 
 
 ■ : ' . - • ' - ' .;?• ’• ’ \V 
 
 «•••.■ : i • ’ •. ,* . ;•>? • 
 
 • ' • • : . ■ • 
 
 iV> v? I : ii // ,i . j- - . - * i. *'fr ytf !*. S. ./* 
 
 Jri^ncI iii’ti'. f.i. i t. -i.i 1 i . a i * isnr*iiri e? ri^trf 
 
 . i * V *' 1 ! j v y r, T • - -'i I ./ ujsj * 
 
 ,0 ‘ id “."'J ■ »; ••••<'■ > , l - .. r ' 
 
 • ’ . . ; : 
 
 .•jn-yiiir - . erii •' -v ,rv-. - -lobiod . f ,nA 
 
 ' . . •• ■’s : : -ur , . 
 
 i ...li/I i'Ji — 1-’ • • J i) ;* : ! * 
 
 ■ • 
 
 jii'T 
 
 i! nul.- ; tjffjf i'o 
 ) or 
 
 i , r I. 1.: 1 - 'i : 
 
 
 r-r>i 
 
 ' 
 
 if w 
 
 nil ’ 
 
SUNSET ON MOUNT WASHINGTON 
 
 A crumbling castle 'cross the shadowy lands 
 Against the sky now silhouetted stands; 
 
 A bar of bronze and silver at its door 
 
 Now falls the wan day’s purple threshold o'er. 
 
 Sigh, south wind, sigh! ay, set the wild news flying: 
 “The reign of day is o'er — its king is dying!” 
 
 The dusky legions leap o’er castled wall, 
 
 O'er ramparts frowning high, o’er sky, and all; 
 
 The long light from thy hoary summit flees 
 Like spirit hosts across the forest seas. 
 
 Shriek, north wind, shriek! ay, set the wild news flying: 
 “The king is dying!” echo answers “dying!” 
 
 The twilight hangs a curtain day and night 
 Between. Afar and near the stars in might 
 Begin their watch7 while Venus sets on high 
 Her home-light in the window of the sky. 
 
 Swift- winged winds abroad the news have spread: 
 
 “The day is done — its king is dying — dead!” 
 

 
 VipTOXiH-. V.7 T^-UOr-; 7:0 T. 'r /. - : < 
 
 
 . 
 
 T « r ?i\ li ■ ■/ L ■ 1 : ^ / 
 
 
 
 
 
 • it.'o -i • > • 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
-sg PART TWO its- 
 
Sntuan ^Trabttionsi anb JfolMore 
 
 Cfte OaniSfjeb HaceS 
 
 “Like leaves on trees the race of man is found; 
 
 Now green in youth, now withering on the ground; 
 
 Another race the following spring supplies; 
 
 They fall successive and successive rise; 
 
 So generations in their course decay; 
 
 So flourish these when those are passed away,” 
 
 CCORDING to the traditions of the Amerinds, two 
 TT 1 great families of their people, the Lenni Lenape, 
 
 which term meant the “original people,” and the 
 Mengwe or Maqua came from the extreme west to settle in 
 the fertile valley of the Mississippi, “The Father of 
 Waters.” The first-named tribe was soon met in deadly 
 fight by the Alligewi or Allegheny warriors, who made 
 such a resistance that they formed an alliance with the 
 Mengwe to destroy their common enemies. Under the 
 conditions of this league the Mengwes took the country 
 bordering on the great lakes, reaching from Erie to Cham- 
 plain, and northward to the highlands of the Ottawa and 
 the valley of the St. Lawrence. In their onward march 
 the Mengwes overcame or united with them in their con- 
 quests, the Oneidas, Onodagas , Cayugas , and Seneca , 
 later on accepting as an ally the Tuscaroas , who had come 
 up from southland to unite with them. At first known as 
 “The Five Nations,” this league became designated as 
 “The Six Nations,” or in an ethological sense as the 
 Iroquois. If crude in its form, and the different factions 
 forming the league were frequently at war with each other, 
 it was the first semblance of government in this country ? 
 unless it were some race whose civilization has been buried 
 under the ruins of centuries. They were undoubtedly the 
 most crafty, daring and intelligent of the North Amer- 
 Copyrighted, George W. Browne, 1908. 
 
10 
 
 INDIAN TRADITIONS AND FOLKLORE 
 
 ican races. Either separately or together they were the 
 terror of all other families of Amerinds. The five tribes 
 of this clan were stationed in palisaded villages surrounded 
 by great fields of cultivated crops and orchards, extending 
 in a line from the south and east of Erie and Ontario 
 lakes, from which peculiar situation came their name “The 
 People of the Long House.” They have been estimated to 
 number from 15,000 to 20,000, and at no time to be able to 
 muster more than 3,000 warriors. 
 
 Pitted against the Iroquois, though allied by kindred 
 ties, were the Hurons , numbering about 16,000. They 
 dwelt mainly in large settlements situated in a narrow dis- 
 trict comprising a portion of the water-shed of the north- 
 west, between the little chain of lakes running south from 
 Georgian Bay nearly down to lake Ontario, and westward 
 to the lake bearing their name. The Hurons were what 
 might be termed an agricultural people, though they made 
 periodical hunting and fishing trips. They lived in bark 
 cabins, arranged in groups and surrounded by high pali- 
 sades, built to protect themselves from their enemies. 
 Their crops were corn, beans, pumpkins and tobacco. 
 They were sharp traders, and better fighters than the east- 
 ern tribes I am soon to mention, but the Iroquois gradually 
 drove them northward and eastward, down the valley of 
 the St. Lawrence, or “Great River of Canada.” Upon the 
 site of Montreal they founded their ancient capital, Hoch- 
 elega, to be eventually driven from this by their long-time 
 enemies. 
 
 Separated from the Hurons by a wide stretch of 
 unbroken forest on the southwest were the Petuns , Tion- 
 atates , or “Tobacco Nation,” noted for their large fields of 
 this plant, which they ever found in ready demand from 
 other less thrifty tribes. 
 
 To the west of Lake Ontario, dwelling on both sides 
 of the gorge of Niagara, lived a more peaceful tribe than 
 any of these, who on account of their ability to remain on 
 friendly terms with the warlike factions were known as 
 “The Neutral Nation.” 
 
THE VANISHED RACES 
 
 11 
 
 The French first came in contact with the Hurons, 
 who, as early as Champlain, were induced to become their 
 allies. Even that astute explorer and civilizer of the Can- 
 adian wilds believed their friendship of greater moment to 
 his cause than any other, and upon the shore of the lake 
 named in his honor, opened hostilities with the Mengwes, 
 then known as the Mohawks, the leading as well as the 
 oldest of the Five Nations. This attack awakened a deadly 
 enmity, which did not expire with one generation but 
 existed for a hundred years, a heritage of hatred. It was 
 broken only by the iron heel of Frontenac, and then not 
 until new France had become so weakened as to fall an 
 easy victim to her old-time white enemy, the English. 
 
 In the meantime the Iroquois had left their imprints 
 upon every group of Amerinds from the region of the 
 Alleghany, the shores of the great lakes, the rock of 
 Quebec to the valleys of the Merrimack and the Saco 
 rivers. Thus they figure conspicuously in the legends and 
 traditions of the red men of the Granite State. 
 
 It does not come within the province of our purpose 
 to more than mention the other great clans of Amerinds 
 occupying this country before the coming of the white 
 man, who was to destroy that civilization already becoming 
 apparent, under the slow process of evolution, and rear 
 upon its ruins a form which itself had merged from the 
 crushing weight of barbarism. There were the Gherokees , 
 Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks and Seminoles , all natives 
 of a warmer clime, and therefore of a milder temperament, 
 it of a less energetic disposition. They, estimated to num- 
 ber about 50,000, fell in more easily with the agricultural pur- 
 suits of their conquerors, though rapidly fading away like 
 the leaves of a forest. Beyond the Mississippi, with the 
 Rocky Mountains as their bounds on the west, dwelt the 
 fourth of the four great families, the Dacotas or Sioux, the 
 most bitter haters of the white missionaries, hunters, 
 traders, home-builders, and nowhere is to be found a 
 stronger, more heroic or pathetic narrative of colonization 
 and civilization. 
 
12 
 
 INDIAN TRADITIONS AND FOLKLORE 
 
 The Lenni Lenape, or Delawares, chose the country 
 to the south of that taken by their ally, a territory border- 
 ing on the rivers Potomac, Delaware, Susquehanna and 
 Mohawk, the latter called by them Mahicannituck , from 
 whence came a new name for them, Mohican , pronounced 
 by the English Mohegan. Pushing gradually eastward, 
 they eventually spread over New England, forming in 
 reality the most numerous and widely extended of all the 
 native confederations, known to the English under the 
 general term of Algonkin. Taken singly and together, 
 these branches of red men occupy a larger place in our 
 early history than all others. This was due largely to the 
 fact that they were the first to combat their prospective 
 conquerors, and this before the fire and ardor of their 
 primitive life had been sapped by contact with civilization- 
 
 These people, according to Heckewelder, were in 
 possession of the Atlantic coast from Roanoke to Acadia. 
 Their tongue and that of the Hurons embraced the 
 language spoken over sixteen hundred leagues of country 
 and was understood by all others except the Iroquois. 
 It was, too, a more fluent tongue, the Mokaws being desti- 
 tute of labials, while that of the Mohegans abounded with 
 them. 
 
 1 Whatever may have been the origin of the race inhab- 
 iting North America at the time of the arrival of the 
 Europeans, and however antiquarians may differ in that 
 respect, there is evidence to show that the Amerinds pre- 
 sented varying types of humanity. The difficulty to estab- 
 lish the boundaries between these tribes has led some to 
 believe they sprang from a common parentage. This con- 
 dition is due to the frequent migrations of different tribes, 
 to intermarriage and the utter lack of any boundary lines. 
 
 While the term “Mohegan” was in a general sense 
 applied to the “original people” of New England, at the 
 time of the coming of the whites, they possessed distin- 
 guishing attributes in the several sections, so that Gookin 
 makes five principal nations: The Pequots , Marragansetts , 
 Pawkunaykutts , Massachusetts, and Pawtukets. 
 
THE CHIEF’S VISION— MANIFEST DESTINY 
 
THE VANISHED RACES 
 
 The five confederations above named comprised at 
 least twenty-six families, described in alphabetical order as 
 follows: 
 
 INDIAN TRIBES OF NEW ENGLAND 
 
 Abnakis , a name applied to the Indians living between 
 the Pascataqua and Penobscot rivers, and divided into four 
 principal families. 
 
 Agawams , a small clan living about Ipswich, Mass. 
 
 AnnasagunticooJcs , found upon the Androscoggin. 
 
 Canibas , a numerous tribe living upon the Saghadoc, 
 now Kennebec, River. 
 
 Micmacs , occupying Nova Scotia, sometimes called by 
 early writers the Souriquos , or Souriquois. 
 
 Mohegans , or Mohicians , that lived in the country of 
 Windham, Conn., and territory lying to the north nearly 
 to the state line. They numbered about 3,000, and their 
 great chief at one time, was Uncas. The Pequods lived on 
 their south, the Woguns and Podunks on their west, Nip- 
 muncks on the north, and Narragansetts on the east. (See 
 Hubbard’s New England, pages 33, 255, 408.) 
 
 Massachusetts occupied Suffolk, Norfolk, the easterly 
 part of Middlesex and the northerly part of Essex counties. 
 They were numerous atone period, but seem to have suf- 
 fered greatly from the plague in 1617. Their most noted 
 chief was Nanepashemet, whose abode was near the 
 mouth of the Mystic River. 
 
 Marechites , or Armouchiquois , lived along the river 
 St. John. 
 
 Nashuas and JVipnets , or Nipmucks , lived within the 
 the county of Worcester and about the ponds of Orford 
 township. (Hubbard’s Indian Wars, page 257.) The Nip- 
 mucks were subject to the Mohegans. 
 
 Narragansetts occupied nearly all of what is now the 
 state of Massachusetts. At the time of the coming of the 
 Pilgrims at Plymouth, they could muster 5,000 fighting 
 men, had a population of 20,000, and were superior in num- 
 
14 
 
 INDIAN TRADITIONS AND FOLKLORE 
 
 bers and strength to any other tribe in New England, 
 except the Pequods. (See Prince, page 46.) 
 
 JVaticks lived about what is now Dedham, Mass. 
 These were converted and were known as “the praying 
 Indians.” In 1651 they organized into a form of govern- 
 ment, with rulers over lots of fifties and tens. They sev- 
 eral times allied themselves with the English in the eastern 
 wars. (Hubbard’s New England, pages 652-3.) 
 
 Nausites dwelt to the south of Plymouth. The enmity 
 of this tribe was incurred through the kidnapping of seven 
 of their numbers by Hunt. (Prince, pages 99-100) 
 
 N’ehanticks lived along the east bank of the Connecti- 
 cut River, on the site of the town of Lyme. Their famous 
 chief was Ninegret, who fought the Wampanoags and the 
 Mohawks in the conquest of the Long Island Indians. 
 (Holmes’ American Annotations, page 2 77.) 
 
 Newichawannocks , on the upper branches of the 
 Pascataqua. 
 
 Oponangos , supposed to have lived about Passama- 
 quoddy Bay. 
 
 Pequods , claimed the country between the Narragan- 
 setts and Nehanticks. Their central station and villages 
 along the coast at New London harbor. They outrivalled 
 all the other tribes of New England until they were 
 destroyed in 1638 by the English. 
 
 Pewkenawkutts , or Wampanoags , also numerous and 
 powerful, occupied all the western and southern parts of 
 the Plymouth colony. Their sachem lived at Mount Hope. 
 Massasoit was the first chief of which the English had 
 knowledge. His successors were his sons Alexander and 
 the famous Philip, the most noted warrior of his age. 
 Massasoit was able to muster 3,000 warriors. 
 
 Pentuckets , or Abernenians , lived along the Merrimack 
 River, with their capital at Dracut. This tribe at one time 
 contained 3,000 in numbers. 
 
 Pennacooks lived along the Merrimack River between 
 the Nashua and the Pennacook rivers, and numbered about 
 
THE VANISHED RACES 
 
 15 
 
 3,000. Their most noted sachem was Passaconaway. 
 This tribe was quite friendly to the English through the 
 advice and influence of the chief mentioned, (i Collection 
 Massachusetts Historical Society, page 180.) 
 
 Podunks , inhabitants of the region now included in 
 Hartford, Conn. (Morse’s Geography, page 346.) 
 
 Seconnets , situated at Little Compton, above Pocasset 
 or Tivertown A noted leader was a woman known as the 
 “Squaw Sachem,” who was a relative of Philip, and this 
 tribe generally allied themselves with the Wampanoags. 
 (Prince, page 129. Hubbard’s Indian Wars, pages 258-9.) 
 
 JSokokis, who dwelt along the River Saco and adjacent 
 country. 
 
 larratines , inhabitants of the Penobscot, and were 
 one of the three Etechemins Tribes. 
 
 Wavenocks lived about Pemaquid and St. George 
 rivers in Maine, between the Kennebec and Penobscot 
 rivers. 
 
 Wonguns , who lived east of the Pequods in Connecti- 
 cut, where are now the towns of East Chatham and 
 Haddam. 
 
 Four tongues, or dialects, seem to have been spoken 
 by these various families and tribes, as follows: That 
 spoken by the Pawktlnawkutts and the natives west of 
 them, which is supposed to have been the language of the 
 Mohegans. Then the tribes between them and the 
 Newichawannocks on the Pascataqua, which have been 
 called “Abergineans,” or Northern Indians, could all con- 
 verse together, though they could not sound well the 1 and 
 r, giving the sound of n instead. The Indians east of the 
 Pascataqua, however, sounded these letters easily and 
 belonged to a different tribe. These families were also dis- 
 tinct from the Micmacs of Nova Scotia. Captain Francis, 
 the first captain of the Tarratine tribe on the Penobscot, 
 an intelligent Indian, told Williamson, author of the His- 
 tory of Maine (Vol. I., page 460): 
 
16 
 
 INDIAN TRADITIONS AND FOLKLORE 
 
 “All the tribes between the Saco and the Rivers St. 
 John were brothers. The eldest, the Sokokis, lived on the 
 Saco; each tribe, going eastward, was the younger, like 
 the sons of the same father, excepting those on the Passa- 
 maquoddy, the youngest of all. I can understand them all 
 when they speak, as like brothers, but when the Micmacs 
 or Algonkin or Canada Indians talk, I cannot understand 
 what they say.” 
 
 These tribes of Maine appeared to be at war with the 
 tribes in New Hampshire. For this reason largely the 
 chiefs of the latter tribes were encouraged to ally them- 
 selves with the English in order to cope more successfully 
 with their life-long enemies to the east. 
 
 INDIANS OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 P'our tribes, as previously mentioned, the Nashuas, 
 Penacooks (Pentuckets), Newichawannocks, the Squam- 
 scots a small inland family at what is now Exeter, N. H., 
 formed a sort of confederacy. In 1629-30, the Pentuckets, 
 in Massachusetts, were more numerous than the Penacooks, 
 The lodgment of the Newichannocks was at Cocheco, now 
 Dover. Knolles, or Rowles, was for many years their 
 sachem, and his dwelling-place was not far from Quam- 
 peagan Falls, in what is now Berwick, and which was then 
 Kittery. All the Indians in that vicinity were under him, 
 though he was under Passaconaway. He died about 1670^ 
 not far from the death of the former, and his dying mes- 
 sage to his followers was somewhat similar: 
 
 “Being loaded with years, I had expected a visit in my 
 infirmities, especially from those who are now tenants on 
 the lands of my fathers. Though all these plantations are 
 of right my children’s; I am forced in this age of evil 5 
 humbly to request a few hundred acres of land to be 
 marked out for them and recorded, as a public act, in the 
 town books; so that when I am gone, they may not be per- 
 ishing beggars, in the pleasant places of their birth. For 
 I know a great war will shortly break out between the 
 
THE VANISHED RACES 
 
 IT 
 
 white men and the Indians, over the whole country. At 
 first the Indians will kill many and prevail; but after three 
 years, they will be great sufferers and finally be rooted out 
 and destroyed.” 
 
 His successor was Blind Will, his son; and that of 
 Passaconaway, Wonalancet, his son. 
 
 Historian Potter gives the following tribes as ruled in 
 greater or less degree by the Penacooks: Agawams, Massa- 
 chusetts, Wamesits, Nashuas, Souhegans, Namoskeag, 
 Winnepesuakees. Besides these the succeeding tribes 
 acknowleged fealty to the Penacook though not belonging 
 to the confederacy: Wachusets, Winnecowetts, Coosucks, 
 Pascataquakes, Pequakuakes, Sacos, Ossipees, Newiche- 
 wannocks, Squamscotts, Amariscoggins. 
 
 Northern New Hampshire did not seem to have any 
 particular tribe settled within its territory, but it was over- 
 run periodically by the Canadian Indians, among which 
 predominated the Hurons, judged by the traces they left 
 in the traditions handed down from those days. Further 
 glimpses of these families, as well as of the others in our 
 state, will appear from time to time, in the following tradi- 
 tions, which really afford the only accounts we have of the 
 vanished races. ^ 
 
 The ruling passions of the aborigine were war and free- 
 dom. If in peace he was slothful and indolent, the war- 
 whoop transformed him into another being. Like all 
 uneducated people he then became a strange compound of 
 good and evil. Lescarbet, in his Narrative written in 1609, 
 told a truth that later writers have not refuted: 
 
 “If they (the Indians) do not know God, at least they 
 do not blaspheme him, as the greater number of Christians 
 do. Nor do they understand the art of poisoning, or of 
 corrupting chastity by devilish artifice. There are no 
 poor nor beggars among them. All are rich, because all 
 labor and live.” 
 
 His stealthy step, that did not stir a stick on the 
 ground; his swift vision, that did not fail to detect the 
 
[8 
 
 INDIAN TRADITIONS AND FOLKLORE 
 
 least commotion of the solitude; the hundred silent signs 
 that his white companion could not discern, watching the 
 wind and the shadows, the sun and the clouds, the mist 
 upon the waters, the damp upon the earth. All these were 
 qualities his pale-hued rivals could not imitate. 
 
 A shadow himself, the Amerind believed all alike 
 passed to Spirit Land, where they continued the pursuits 
 begun here. “It was in truth a Land of Shades, where 
 trees, flowers, animals, men, and all things were spirits. 
 
 “ By midnight moons, o’er moistening dews, 
 
 In vestments for the chase arrayed, 
 
 The hunter still the deer pursues. 
 
 The hunter and the deer a shade. ” 
 
 Like a child, he had a mind remarkably acute in one 
 direction, while undeveloped in others. He could grasp 
 but one truth, and that without any great abstract reason- 
 ing. He understood woodcraft in many of its artifices, 
 could build a canoe with skill, make a bow and arrow, 
 was singularly adept in constructing his rude tepee, but he 
 never learned to build a house, could not even wield an ax 
 with any cunning, or acquire any great tact in the arts of 
 civilized life. In short, he was not an imitator. 
 
 But he had two virtues: one, a high sense of honor! 
 the other, a fortitude the most keen suffering could not 
 shake. Expression of pain or pleasure, of sorrow or happi- 
 ness was left for weak women to indulge in. But his mani- 
 festation of rejoicing over a victory won was followed by 
 wild bursts of revelry, or a battle lost was succeeded by 
 bitter wailing and lametation. 
 
 The Amerind was a natural story-teller. Seeing, as 
 he did, an omen in every shifting shade of the clouds, a 
 sign in the changing leaf, a token of beauty or ugliness in 
 the different places of the wildwood, and no rock or river, 
 lake or mountain, valley or hillside, that did not speak of 
 some deed of valor, incident of love or hatred; these stories 
 clung to his tongue and were told and retold to each sue- 
 
THE VANISHED RACES 
 
 19 
 
 ceeding generation, from time immemorial. They were 
 further kept alive by a name applied to the spot which 
 should always hint of the legend connected with it. Thus 
 the “laughing water” of Minnehaha forever reminds the 
 beholder of the tragedy of love enacted in the sparkling 
 waterfall. 
 
 The Indians told their tales of bygone days with 
 lowered voice and anxious mien, each myth fraught with 
 the fantasy of nature’s solitude and each legend bordered 
 with a fringe of the silver foam of superstition. “Speak 
 softly,” warned the dusky boatman to the Jesuit Father 
 Albanel, as he plied the paddles of the canoe under the 
 frowning point of the mountain, of Mistassini Lake, “or 
 the spirit of the peak will be angry with us, send his storm 
 gods to outride our canoe, and drown us all.” “Close your 
 eyes as we pass under yonder rock,” said the Ottawa, as 
 he and his companions guided their canoe down the river, 
 where it made a sharp bend around a sharp angle of rock, 
 to the early whites who penetrated that region, “or you 
 will see the demon who guards the rock, and to look on 
 him is certain death.” “Move swiftly past yon island,” 
 advised the Hurons to Menard, as he was crossing Lake 
 Superior, “nor dare to land on its enchanted shore. See! 
 it moves; now it is near; now it is far away. Now it van- 
 ishes, and we must pass the place before it rises again.” 
 Above island, Michipicaten. “Pass not after nightfall, 
 Tawasendeatha,” whispered the Sokokis chieftain, “lest you 
 disturb the slumbers of the sleeping dead.” In a lighter 
 spirit Father Rasle was besought by his Abnaki neophytes 
 to listen at nightfall, as they passed a certain pine, for the 
 song of the lovers, parted and united by death, as they 
 swept past to seek their old trysting place. 
 
'Cfje Snbian punter 
 
 By Eliza Cook 
 
 This poem, given in the school readers of a generation ago, and set 
 to music and sung by Henry Russell on his concert tours, is an old-time 
 favorite. — Editor. 
 
 Oh, why does the white man follow my path, 
 
 Like the hound on the tiger’s track? 
 
 Does the flush on my dark cheek waken his wrath? 
 Does he covet the bow at my back? 
 
 He has rivers and seas, where the billows and breeze 
 Bear riches for him alone, 
 
 And the sons of the wood never plunge in the flood 
 Which the white man calls his own. 
 
 Then why should he come to streams where none 
 But the redskin dares to swim? 
 
 And why should he wrong the bold hunter one 
 Who never did harm to him? 
 
 The Father above thought fit to give 
 To the white man com and wine, 
 
 There are golden fields where he may live, 
 
 But the forest shades are mine. 
 
 For the eagle and deer have their place of rest, 
 
 The wild horse where to dwell, 
 
 And the spirit that gave to the bird its nest, 
 
 Made a home for me as well. 
 
 Then back to thy home from the red man’s track, 
 For the hunter’s eye grows dim, 
 
 To find that the white man wrongs the one 
 Who never did harm to him. 
 
 20 
 
TIIK LAST OF HIS RACK 
 
II 
 
 Cfje 2?ritie of tfjc l©fnte Canoe 
 
 A Legend of Amoskeag Falls 
 
 > %f^OU may never have heard this legend of the Bride 
 3PJ of the White Canoe; it may never have been told. 
 
 In the storied past it lingers, and somewhere and 
 sometime it will be told as I tell it. The imagery of the snow- 
 white bark and its dusky occupants, pictured in the midst of 
 the waterfall as if the real objects had been caught by some 
 mysterious power and held there in defiance of natural 
 law, is not to be seen now. Peradventure, it vanished with 
 the appearance of that new light which dispelled the 
 brightness of the old. Darker shadows have fled from our 
 forests and rivers witbrthe hosts of yesterday, and the old 
 settler, gray with the gloom of the wilderness, assured me 
 that he had seen it. With the silver of the harvest moon 
 shimmering upon the transparent waters, he had seen and 
 wondered if some fairy yet lived amid these scenes, if some 
 daring canoeist of the race that had vanished had risked 
 his life in a wild ride over the brink and been punished for 
 his folly by being caught upon the rocks, or was it — a 
 noiseless step by his side brought to him a brown-hued 
 tale-bearer, who, as the daylight deepened into twilight 
 and the vision disappeared, told him this story of the 
 long ago: 
 
 It was when Cyclonac was the great sachem of the 
 Penacooks. Then their sun shone with noonday bright- 
 ness. The pines on the hills overlooking the long window 
 
 21 
 
22 
 
 INDIAN TRADITIONS AND FOLKLORE 
 
 of Broken Waters* were not thicker than their wigwam s 
 on the bluffs of Namaske. Then their warriors defied the 
 sons of the West; their hunters never returned from the 
 chase empty-handed. Their burnt clearings reached far 
 and wide, and their women tilled great patches of maize 
 and melons. No feasts were as bountiful as theirs. There 
 was no prophet as renowned as Cyclonac; no princess as 
 fair as Winneona of the White Canoe. 
 
 If the dark corners of the forest had their charms, so 
 did the open heart of Kakaashadi call to the hunter and 
 the warrior when their day’s wild work was over. In the 
 dusky twilight they came to spear the fish that sported so 
 abundantly for them in the foam-fringed flood. Grown 
 weary of the common place, they would set afloat their 
 fire-raft on an autumn night, that the piercing rays of their 
 hundred torches might burn bright pathways into the hid- 
 den caverns of the forest to lure from their sleep into the 
 range of their bows the wondering denizens of the wild- 
 wood. Or it might be under the moonlight the restless 
 pines, flinging their thousand fingers out over the dreamy 
 waters, beckoned them forth for one of those canoe races 
 for which they were noted as far as their wampums had 
 been carried, east and west, north and south. Should the 
 evening be fair and ’twere whispered that Winneona, the 
 Maid of the White Canoe, was to mingle in the pastime, 
 then the water would be dotted with canoe-men and the 
 bank thronged with spectators. 
 
 Bind the grace of the lily to the sweetness of the rose; 
 the brightness of the evening star to the softness of the 
 southern breeze whispering its secrets to the poplar, and 
 you have found the sources of the many charms of Winne- 
 ona. A maid so fair and gentle should have many lovers, 
 and Winneona had hers. One by one she gave them the 
 answer that leaves the heart a fugitive of hope, until it 
 
 ♦Indian name for the Merrimack, expressed in their tongue by the 
 word Kaskaashadi. — Author. 
 
THE BRIDE OF THE WHITE CANOE 23 
 
 came to choosing between Kohass the Pine and Aurayet 
 the Sunbright. Dark as the pine for which he was 
 named, Kohass was known as a brave hunter, whose nimble 
 foot had climbed the Great Hill,* and he had hurled, 
 empty-handed, from the brow of Annabesetf the big, 
 brown bear that had killed six warriors in one foray, and he 
 boasted of having defied the bitter tempest which over- 
 powered three stout braves in a single night. Aurayet was 
 like a ray of sunshine, and there was no day so dark that 
 he could not see the sunshine, no storm so biting that he 
 felt the arrow of selfishness piercing his heart. He had 
 fought alone the big war party of Mohawks under Unca- 
 noonucs’ shadows, coming out of the fray with glory 
 enough for one warrior. 
 
 If Winneona felt any choice between these-lovers, she 
 did not own it, On dark days, when the flowers closed 
 their bright faces and the sun hid its brightness, she must 
 have felt the warm passion of her light-hearted suitor. 
 But when the sunshiny days displayed with happy effect 
 the darker traits of Kohass, then she admired if she did 
 not love him. At other times she feared him, so Kohass 
 was ever with her in spirit. Fear and love are often kin. 
 So I think she loved Aurayet and feared Kohass. It was 
 this fear which made her slow in giving her reply to this 
 twain. 
 
 In this not uncommon situation for a maid, she chose 
 upon a plan which should decide their fate and hers. She 
 would become the bride of him who could outmatch the 
 fleetness of her canoe. Many times had she flown like a 
 wildbird over the playground of the Merrimack, flinging 
 back to her lovers merry taunts of victory over them. It 
 is true Aurayet had once sent back the laugh against her, 
 but this fact did not lessen her hopes or check her from 
 giving forth her bold challenge. ’Twere no serious fear to 
 defy such a daring lover. 
 
 ♦Probably Kearsarge Mountain. — Author . 
 
 tThe bluff overlooking the falls at Hooksett. — Author. 
 
24 
 
 INDIAN TRADITIONS AND FOLKLORE 
 
 So the message went abroad, and merry excitement 
 ran over the lodgment. ’Twere seldom if ever such a 
 challenge had been given, and not only did Kohass and 
 Aurayet hasten to accept the challenge, but others asked 
 and gained permission to join in the race for so fair a prize. 
 So five were added to the twain mentioned. 
 
 The trial was to take place upon the favorite race 
 track of the Merrimack, above the thundering falls, and 
 the time selected was the harvest moon, then near at hand. 
 And, while the rivals began to prepare for the great ordeal, 
 the women of the tribe began to get in readiness the feast 
 that was to follow the race and the marriage. Hunters 
 began to search the game lands for the best they could 
 offer. From the forest were brought long trains of ever- 
 green and the frost flowers of the river bank with which 
 to deck the bridal train and the rich viands of the festival. 
 
 Ay, little can you penetrate the meaning of this canoe 
 race. It promised to overleap all other trials of the kind, 
 and there had been many in the moons gone away. Once 
 rival chiefs had raced for life and death and, what was 
 dearer, honor, the vanquished yielding himself up, without 
 a murmur, to the victor. Once a Mohawk brave rowed 
 here against Nolka, the Penacook giant, with the promise 
 of his freedom if he overcame him. Never did Nolka of 
 the “Magic Paddle” fly over the water as he did on that 
 day. He won, too. But it was only because at the last 
 moment the paddle in the hand of the Mohawk snapped 
 like poorly seasoned wood. Then Nolka showed that the 
 bravest are the most generous, for he plead so earnestly for 
 the brave from the West that the other was spared his 
 life. 
 
 So upon the eve of the harvest moon, while the mis- 
 tress of light climbed in silence the pathless hills of the 
 sky, old and young gathered upon the bank of Kaskaas- 
 hadi to witness the coming canoe race, until such a crowd 
 had never been seen upon the river side. As the time 
 drew near for the race to begin, one after another of the 
 

 THE BRIDE OF THE WHITE CANOE 
 
THE BRIDE OF THE WHITE CANOE 
 
 25 
 
 rival lovers took his position. Then Kohass was seen to 
 sweep his canoe into the center of the water-way, he alone 
 looking confident of victory. Well he might, for he 
 alone of all those present knew that Aurayet, the most 
 dreaded rival, lay among the alders and willows of Anna- 
 beset, silent and motionless. Scarcely two hours since had 
 he tracked him down and sent the arrow that had laid him 
 low. Arrows are silent messengers, but their messages 
 are winged with death. 
 
 Having no thought of this, Winneona, as the time 
 drew near for the opening of the race, glided into position, 
 casting anxious glances hither and thither as she looked in 
 vain for Aurayet. She was to have a path down the 
 center, with those who were to race with her ranged on 
 either side according to the plan of the one in charge of 
 the trial. Kohass came nearest upon her left, while a track 
 had been left for Aurayet upon her right. Only he was 
 lacking to make the arrangements complete. And nowall 
 began to wonder why he came not. 
 
 The moon had no waiting spell for tardy lovers. If 
 they came or went she sped her starry flight, making 
 brighter and brighter the pathway of the rival canoeists. 
 All save Winneona were impatient to start. But she, 
 looking more beautiful than ever it seemed, sitting like a 
 princess in her snow-white canoe, made of the summer bark 
 of the birch, and as transparent as the moonbeams. She 
 fain would have had the race postponed until he should come 
 or word of him be told. But the great chief, bribed no doubt 
 by Kohass, said he had had time to come, and unless he did 
 at the moment set he must be counted out of the race. Cast- 
 ing a furtive glance toward her dark lover, Winneona saw a 
 wicked smile lurking about his mouth. Then the boastful 
 warrior whispered across the water: 
 
 “Winneona to-night becomes the bride of Kohass.” 
 
 Before she could reply, if she would, the great chief 
 raised over his head the dry pine stick whose breaking was 
 to be the signal for the canoeists to start. Then the sharp 
 
*26 
 
 iNDiAtf traditions aMd folklore 
 
 crack of the breaking wood had not fairly rung on the still 
 air when six canoes shot forward like arrows from well- 
 strung bows. Kohass led the way. Winneona hesitated, 
 as if loath to start without Aurayet there with a chance to 
 win. The cry which began with the spectators suddenly 
 ceased when it was seen that she was likely to forfeit the 
 race. 
 
 At that moment, too, though only a few heard the 
 message, Arrowleaf, the Fleet-Footed, appeared upon the 
 scene with the startling word that Aurayet, the Sunbright, 
 had been slain as the wolf falls. This awoke a yell of 
 horror. 
 
 Possibly mistaking the meaning of this outburst for 
 one of derision at her failure to do her part, Winneona was 
 brought back to a realization of her situation. Should she 
 allow Kohass to win the race without an effort on her part, 
 it would be done to her life-long shame. Like a flash of 
 light her white canoe shot over the moon-tinted waters. 
 In the twinkling of a star, it seemed, half of the rival 
 canoeists were overtaken and were swiftly left behind. 
 
 The bank of the Merrimack rang with the wild cheer- 
 ing of the onlookers. Every eye was now fixed upon that 
 noble race — the grandest Penacook had ever looked upon. 
 Never did the moon gaze down upon so fair a picture of 
 life and endeavor. Other waters may have mirrored her 
 image with clearer beauty lines of silver and gold; other 
 forests may have thrown darker shadows across her path- 
 way; but never had she looked upon such a vision of light 
 and shade mingled; of human effort to win heart and 
 honor. The brown deer, slaking his thirst by the river- 
 side, beheld the canoeists with awe, and while he watched 
 and waited forgot his thirst. The prowling wolf, looking 
 down from the distant crag, checked his howl of rage and 
 looked on in silence. The vast throng of people watching 
 and fearing, gazed upon the beautiful sight spellbound. 
 
 If Aurayet had failed to keep his pledge, it only made 
 Winneona more earnest to win. Kohass’ evil smile had 
 
THE BRIDE OF THE WHITE CANOE 
 
 2 ? 
 
 kindled the fear of her heart into hatred. Sooner than 
 keep his wigwam would she become the death-bride of 
 Namaske. With this stern thought in her mind she gave 
 all her skill, all her strength, all her will, to winning the 
 race. Her white canoe flew over the water like a wild 
 bird, the paddles, lighter than feathers in her hands, lend- 
 ing it wings. Now the first, then the second, the 
 third, fourth, fifth of the champions were passed, and only 
 Kohass, the Pine led, fighting the great battle of his life, 
 throwing all of the skill of his hands, energy of his arms 
 and ambition of his heart into this grand struggle with 
 the Maid of the White Canoe. Side by side the twain, 
 maid and warrior, sped down the moonlit way. 
 
 Soon it was seen by the anxious watchers that Winne- 
 ona was beginning to gain upon her rival. The difference 
 was yet slight — so slight that the onlookers dared not 
 cheer. 
 
 In the midst of the great silence, which hung like 
 invisible curtains over the scene, Winneona gained a hand’s 
 span upon her dark rival. The onlookers saw this with 
 wild joy, and their delight was beginning to find expression 
 in shouts of gladness, when suddenly the entire aspect of 
 the race was changed. Sweeping down the course like the 
 white-winged winds of winter, a canoeist sped upon the 
 pathway of the fleeing maid and warrior. The throng of 
 people on the river bank saw him, and the murmur of joy 
 upon their lips changed to a wild outburst of wonder and 
 exultation, — a thunderous applause that rang above the 
 roar of old Namaske, a prolonged cry that was heard that 
 night a deer flight away. Never, it is said, not even when 
 Connepokum won his matchless victory over the Tarra- 
 tines did the river and forest ring with such cries. They 
 were so mighty and overpowering that the canoeists 
 glanced back to see what was meant. 
 
 Winneona saw with pulsing heart Aurayet coming 
 swiftly upon her path and a wild feeling of gladness came 
 into her soul. 
 
28 
 
 INDIAN TRADITIONS AND FOLKLORE 
 
 Kohass saw the rival lover that he had slain sitting 
 erect in his boat, his hands grasping his strong paddle 
 without dipping or raising it, while he was carried on by 
 some strange power with the fleet ness of the wind. Know- 
 ing that it was the spirit of Aurayet that had joined in the 
 race, he uttered a cry of terror and toppled back into the 
 water, leaving his canoe to be caught a moment later in 
 the gathering eddys of the waterfall. 
 
 If Winneona saw the sudden fate of Kohass no one 
 knew. She was seen to hesitate for a moment in her 
 earnest work, though the thunder of the falls was begin- 
 ning to ring in her ears. And then, while all the others 
 looked on with wonder rising to horror, the phantom 
 canoeist glided alongside of the white canoe with its 
 amazed occupant; he reached out an arm and lifted her 
 into his canoe. And, holding her close-locked in his 
 embrace, they were borne on toward the brink of the 
 broken waters. The warning cry the onlookers would fain 
 have uttered froze upon their lips. Speechless, motionless, 
 helpless to save them, they saw the twain carried nearer 
 and nearer the brink until they disappeared in the mist and 
 foam of the raging waters. And as this startling action 
 was going on the notes of a war-song rose above the 
 thunder of the river — the paean so often sung in the hey- 
 day of his victories by Aurayet the Dauntless. 
 
 So the wedding feast was never touched, and with 
 anxious forebodings the Penacooks waited until daylight 
 that they might look for the mangled bodies of the lovers. 
 These were never found, and it was known that Winneona 
 had gone to spiritland to live evermore with her faithful 
 Aurayet. It was said in after years that, with the harvest 
 moon shining clear in the sky, upon that particular hour of 
 of night, the outlines of the falling canoe and its passen- 
 gers, as they shot over the brink, could be seen pictured 
 in the swinging spray of the falling waters. That is all 
 that has been told of the Bride of the White Canoe. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HOW OF THE RIVEN OAK 
 
^fje <©ncf)anteb 25oto 
 
 A Legend of the Suncook 
 
 “Beneath this giant oak, 
 Where oft the dusky wooer met his love.’ 
 
 w 
 
 HERE now the stubborn plowshare finds its way 
 along the sloping side of one of our fair hills, 
 not many arrows’ flight from the valley of the 
 Suncook, stood a mighty oak in days gone by, in the pride 
 and the glory of its ancient years. Many a strange tale 
 could this wildwood monarch have unfolded to the paleface 
 sons when they came, had they known its language and 
 listened to its many tongues. But they passed it unheeded 
 by and its secrets remained locked in its leafy bosom, save 
 for those confessions which, from time to time, it had whis- 
 pered to the maple and birch, which, nodding to one 
 another, passed the gossip to the beech, and the beech to 
 the hazel, and the hazel to the alder and willow, these in 
 turn imparting them to the singing river, which retold 
 them in fresh songs, so they all came to the ears of the red 
 men that dwelt along the silver river.* 
 
 Under its inviting shade at noonday the wild deer had 
 loved to lie, finding restful solace from its distant wander- 
 ings, and at nightfall the stealthy panther had sought the 
 protection of its powerful arms for a brief respite in its 
 nocturnal raids. Beneath one of its gnarled roots the 
 timid fox had made its home, unfearing and unmolested. 
 
 *The Delaware Indians had a legend which resembled this somewhat, 
 while it was told by the Penacooks in other forms. Some said the fox was 
 the spirit of evil instead of that of the warrior’s father. Still others 
 believed it was the raith of the Great Spirit. — Author. 
 
 29 
 
30 
 
 THE ENCHANTED BOW 
 
 Among its lofty coppices the forest songster had built its 
 nest, making the wilderness resound with its musical notes. 
 And here the red man built his council fires and awoke the 
 silence with his war songs and scenes of mimic battles. 
 Here twice within its memory had the dusky foes met in 
 terrific conflict, the twang of the bows, the sighing of 
 arrows and the thud of stone hatchets dulled by the defiant 
 death cries of the bravest of the brave, as the contending 
 foes fought to the bitter end of death. In the sunlight of 
 brighter years the Indian maiden had here her tryst with 
 her dusky lover and plighted the troth of love unto the 
 end. It was then the old oak unbended its sterner self 
 and looked softly down on maid and warrior in the gentle 
 twilight, for afar back in the dawn of more than four cen- 
 times of life, when its own form had none of its present 
 gnarled appearance, but when it uplifted its head with the 
 erectness and suppleness of the young pine, it remembered 
 a companion that relieved its loneliness and touched its 
 heart with the tender glow of sympathetic harmony. But 
 many generations of the kindred of the wild deer, the 
 prowling panther, the timid fox, the merry wildbird, the 
 warlike red man, the trustful maiden and her lover, have 
 come and passed away, aye, even the young oak, with its 
 promise of long years and lasting beauty, succumbed to 
 the wintry blasts of this northern clime. Thus the mon- 
 arch stood lonely in its years. 
 
 At last the mighty oak, which had defied so many 
 times the tempest as it groaned over the plains or hung 
 from the rocky towers of the everlasting hills, read in the 
 lightning scrolls of the leaden-hued sky its doom. That 
 very day it had witnessed the last tryst of Lewana, the 
 proud Penacook brave, and his adored Clematis without 
 unbending its iron arms or touching their brows with its 
 leafy fingers. It had no sympathy with the boastful brave 
 who constantly vaunted his war-like deeds and who sought 
 to win his bride with war songs rather than by lover’s art- 
 ful ways. Clematis did not look with favor on her fiery 
 wooer, and the oak always was the maiden’s friend. 
 
A LEGEND OF THE SUNCOOK 
 
 31 
 
 Not many hours since Lewana breathed his passionate 
 vows and turned away from the spot when dark clouds 
 rolled over the face of the sun and deep mutterings were 
 wafted on the wind, while a thousand arrows of lightning 
 darted from the Great Spirit’s storm bow. Deeper grew the 
 inky mass overhead, louder the peal on peal of thunder, 
 and sharper the flying shafts of lightning. The stout old 
 oak shook, its arms clasped and unclasped and smote each 
 other, until, a brighter flash lighting for an instant its 
 grand form, the monarch stood a shattered wreck. 
 
 As quickly as it had risen the storm cleared away and, 
 as if satisfied with its work, a peaceful smile rested on the 
 landscape, which had been robbed of its noblest figure. 
 Soon Lewana passed that way to note with a warror’s 
 surprise the wreck of the oak. Then as his clear eye 
 glanced at the scattered fragments of bark and splintered 
 branches he uttered a grunt of amazement. Half buried 
 in a heap of the litter he saw a beautifully carved bow, 
 such as the most skilled hand in his tribe had never 
 wrought. 
 
 Not without some dread he stooped and picked it up, 
 joyed to find that it did not slip away from him or resent 
 his touch. He found it to be the smoothest bow he had 
 ever seen, and its string gave the sharpest twang he had 
 ever heard. 
 
 Elated over his prize he hastened home to show it to 
 his brother braves and to the gray-headed chieftain with the 
 wisdom of near a hundred years. This sage gravely shook 
 his head, saying: 
 
 “ ’Tis not for thee, my son. Take it back whence 
 thou didst find it, lest thou anger those who bore it through 
 the storm raging over hill and vale. It is plainly the 
 weapon of those spirits who roam unseen our hunting 
 grounds.” 
 
 But Lewana was loath to give up thus his treasure, 
 and he decided to fit at least one arrow to the bow before 
 he did so. “Surely that will be time enough to return it to 
 the riven oak,” he thought. 
 
32 
 
 THE ENCHANTED BOW 
 
 So the next day Lewana tried his new bow and 
 though, perchance, his hand trembled when he used it, 
 the arrow went straight to the mark. Once he had tried 
 the wonderful bow he was more and more loath to part 
 with it. Whatsoe’er the distance, howsoe’er his aim, the 
 marvelous bow never failed to send the arrow to the heart 
 of the target. 
 
 “Surely,” thought Lewana, “those who fly in trains 
 the track of storm have given me this to win yet greater 
 renown. I will keep it and show them that I am worthy 
 of their trust. It will help me win Clematis, for no hunter 
 can now hope to match Lewana, the long-eyed.” 
 
 So he kept the bow of the lightning riven oak, and 
 with each certain twang he grew famous as a hunter and 
 vaunted louder than ever of his prowess. From the deer 
 ground of old Pawtuckaway to the haunts of the bear 
 under Moosehillock, from the lair of the panther in the 
 caverns of Cyciasoga to the foxland of the Uncanoonucs 
 his fame extended as a hunter, while he grew in importance 
 among the wise men of his tribe, so that he was admitted 
 to their councils. His companions grew to fear him, and 
 none dared to cross his will, for his aim never failed, his 
 arrow never missed its mark. 
 
 In new vain-glory he renewed his suit of Clematis, 
 confident now that she would no longer say him nay. To 
 his angry wonder she was more obdurate than ever. If 
 she had disliked him before she hated him now. 
 
 In the rage of his disappointment he vowed that she 
 should be his, willing or not willing, and with the threat on 
 his lips he went to join the great fall hunt to start that 
 day. Telling his companions that the most required of 
 them would be to bring home the game he should slay with 
 his bow of the riven oak, he proudly led them on their 
 long march. 
 
 On the second day one of the dusky hunters started a 
 silver fox which not only escaped his arrow but eluded it 
 with an ease which provoked him. Then another brave 
 
A LEGEND OF THE SUNCOOK 
 
 33 
 
 saw and lost the wary creature, and then a third, and a 
 fourth, a fifth, aye, every hunter save Lewana met and 
 missed the cunning fox — the handsomest they had ever 
 seen of its kind. 
 
 “Let me get my long eye on the silver fox and his 
 skin shall be the grandest trophy of the chase for me,” 
 said Lewana. “And my triumph will be all the greater 
 that the rest of you have been dishonored by him.” 
 
 His companions shook their heads, one of them 
 saying: 
 
 “He is no mortal fox! Beware of him, lest he bring 
 you much evil.” 
 
 Lewana laughed at his more cautious friend, and even 
 as he did so, lo! the wonderful creature bounded right 
 across his pathway. Then began the wildest chase ever 
 witnessed in the wildwoods of the Land of Granite Hills. 
 All daylong, now dodging to the right, anon darting to the 
 left, in sight now, gone in the twinkling of an eye, bound- 
 ing through the dense swamp where even Lewana of the 
 long eye was obliged to pass around, always luring his pur- 
 suer on but ever eluding him, the silver fox maintained the 
 race. 
 
 Angry that he should be baffled at every turn, Lewana 
 followed until at last a small opening in the woodland was 
 reached, and to the dusky hunter’s joy he saw that the 
 silver fox, as if unable to go farther, had stopped at the 
 foot of a big tree. Failing to notice in his excitement that 
 the hunted creature had paused beside the riven oak, the 
 now exultant warrior fitted an arrow to his charmed bow 
 and let fly his winged shaft. 
 
 To his dismay the string gave back no twang, though 
 the arrow flew on its way, striking the tree with a dull 
 thud, causing the dry branches of the oak to smite them- 
 selves together in a wild manner. The fox? He suddenly 
 vanished, and in this space stood the white wraith of 
 Lewana’s father. 
 
 Finding that their companion did not return from the 
 chase, his friends searched for him until they found his 
 
34 
 
 THE ENCHANTED BOW 
 
 lifeless body under the riven oak, which now stood stark 
 and stern. And they made a grave for Lewana near by, 
 and placed beside him his sheaf of arrows, but with no 
 bow. Neither was any sapling planted above his lonely 
 mound, for none had the hardihood to do it, so the vanity 
 of this life carried a curse for Lewana into the next. This 
 is the story an old chieftain told under the dead oak to the 
 first white man who found his footsteps turned in that 
 direction. 
 

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DATE DUE 
 
 
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