The Heart of the White Mountains, Their Legend and Scenery

Thorough but unavailing search was made for the savages. They had disappeared, after applying the torch to their village. Silently and sadly the rangers performed the last service for their fallen comrades, and then, turning their backs upon the mountains, commenced their march homeward.

The next day the absence of Lance was remarked; but, as he was their best hunter, the rangers made no doubt he would rejoin them at the next halt.

Chocorua was not ignorant that the English were near. Like the vulture, he scented danger from afar. From the summit of the mountain he had watched the smoke of the hostile camp-fires stealing above the forest. The remainder of the tribe had buried themselves still deeper in the wilderness. They were too few for attack, too weak for defence.

One morning the chief ascended the pinnacle, and swept the horizon with his piercing eye. Far in the south a faint smoke told where the foe had pitched his last encampment. Chocorua’s dark eye lighted with exultation. The accursed pale-faces were gone.

He turned to descend the mountain, but had not taken ten steps when a white hunter, armed to the teeth, started from behind the crags and barred his passage. The chief recoiled, but not with fear, as the muzzle of his adversary’s weapon touched his naked breast. The white man’s eyes shone with deadly purpose, as he forced the chieftain, step by step, back to the highest point of the mountain. Chocorua could not pass except over the hunter’s dead body.

Glaring into each other’s eyes with mortal hate, the two men reached the summit.

“Chocorua will go no farther,” said the chief, haughtily.

The white man trembled with excitement. For a moment he could not speak. Then, in a voice husky with suppressed emotion, he exclaimed,

“Die, then, like a dog, thou destroyer of my family, thou incarnate devil! The white man has been in Chocorua’s wigwam; has counted their scalps – father, mother, sister, brother. He has tracked him to the mountain-top. Now, demon or devil, Chocorua dies by my hand.”

The chief saw no escape. He comprehended that his last moment was come. As if all the savage heroism of his race had come to his aid, he drew himself up to his full height, and stood erect and motionless as a statue of bronze upon the enormous pedestal of the mountain. His dark eye blazed, his nostrils dilated, the muscles of his bronzed forehead stood out like whip-cord. The black eagle’s feather in his scalplock fluttered proudly in the cool morning breeze. He stood thus for a moment looking death sternly in the face, then, raising his bared arm with a gesture of superb disdain, he spoke with energy:

“Chocorua is unarmed; Chocorua will die. His heart is big and strong with the blood of the accursed pale-face. He laughs at death. He spits in the white man’s face. Go; tell your warriors Chocorua died like a chief!”

With this defiance on his lips the chief sprung from the brink into the unfathomable abyss below. An appalling crash was followed by a death-like silence. As soon as he recovered from his stupor the hunter ran to the verge of the precipice and looked over. A horrible fascination held him an instant. Then, shouldering his gun, he retraced his steps down the mountain, and the next day rejoined his comrades.

The general and front views of the Sandwich group, which may be had in perfection from the hill behind the Chocorua House, or from the opposite elevation, are very striking, embracing as they do the principal summits from Chocorua to the heavy mass of Black Mountain. There are more distinct traits, perhaps, embodied in this range than in any other among the White Hills, except that incomparable band of peaks constituting the northern half of the great chain itself. There seems, too, a special fitness in designating these mountains by their Indian titles – Chocorua, Paugus, Passaconnaway, Wonnalancet – a group of great sagamores, wild, grand, picturesque.[2 - No tradition attaches to the last three peaks. Passaconnaway was a great chieftain and conjurer of the Pennacooks. It is of him the poet Whittier writes:Burned for him the drifted snow,Bade through ice fresh lilies blow,And the leaves of summer glowOver winter’s wood.This noted patriarch and necromancer, in whose arts not only the Indians but the English seemed to have put entire faith, after living to a great age, was, according to the tradition, translated to heaven from the summit of Mount Washington, after the manner of Elias, in a chariot of fire, surrounded by a tempest of flame. Wonnalancet was the son and successor of Passaconnaway. Paugus, an under chief of the Pigwackets, or Sokokis, killed in the battle with Lovewell, related in the next chapter.]

The highway now skirted the margin of Chocorua Lake, a lovely little sheet of water voluptuously reposing at the foot of its overshadowing mountain. I cannot call Chocorua beautiful, yet of all the White Mountain peaks is it the most individual, the most aggressively suggestive. But the lake, fast locked in the embrace of encircling hills, bathed in all the affluence of the blessed sunlight, its bosom decorated with white lilies, its shores glassed in water which looks like a sheet of satin – ah, this was beautiful indeed! Its charming seclusion, its rare combination of laughing water and impassive old mountains; above all, the striking contrast between its chaste beauty and the huge-ribbed thing rising above, awakens a variety of sensations. It is passing strange. The mountain attracts, and at the same time repels you. Two sentiments struggle here for mastery – open admiration, energetic repulsion. For the first time, perhaps, in his life, the beholder feels an antipathy for a creation of inanimate nature. Chocorua suggests some fabled prodigy of the old mythology – a headless Centaur, sprung from the foul womb of earth. The lake seems another Andromeda exposed to a monster.

A beautiful Indian legend ran to the effect that the stillness of the lake was sacred to the Great Spirit, and that if a human voice was heard upon its waters the offender’s canoe would instantly sink to the bottom.

Chocorua, as seen from Tamworth, shows a long, undulating ridge of white rising over one of green, both extending toward the east, and opening between a deep ravine, through which a path ascends to the summit. But this way affords no view until the summit is close at hand. Beyond the hump-backed ridge of Chocorua the tip of the southern peak of Moat Mountain peers over, like a mountain standing on tiptoe.

The mountain, with its formidable outworks, is constantly in view until the highway is left for a wood-road winding around its base into an interval where there is a farm-house. Here the road ends and the ascent begins.

Taking a guide here, who was strong, nimble, and sure-footed, but who proved to be lamentably ignorant of the topography of the country, we were in a few moments rapidly threading the path up the mountain. It ought to be said here that, with rare exceptions, the men who serve you in these ascensions should be regarded rather as porters than as guides.

In about an hour we reached the summit of the first mountain; for there are four subordinate ridges to cross before you stand under the single block of granite forming the pinnacle.

When reconnoitring this pinnacle through your glass, at a distance of five miles, you will say to scale it would be difficult; when you have climbed close underneath you will say it is impossible. After surveying it from the bare ledges of Bald Mountain, where we stood letting the cool breeze blow upon us, I asked my guide where we could ascend. He pointed out a long crack, or crevice, toward the left, in which a few bushes were growing. It is narrow, almost perpendicular, and seemingly impracticable. I could not help exclaiming, “What, up there! nothing but birds of the air can mount that sheer wall!” It is, however, there or nowhere you must ascend.

The whole upper zone of the mountain seems smitten with palsy. Except in the ravines between the inferior summits, nothing grew, nothing relieved the wide-spread desolation. Beyond us rose the enormous conical crag, scarred and riven by lightning, which gives to Chocorua its highly distinctive character. It is no longer ashen, but black with lichens. There was little of symmetry, nothing of grace; only the grandeur of power. You might as well pelt it with snow-balls as batter it with the mightiest artillery. For ages it has brushed the tempest aside, has seen the thunder-bolt shivered against its imperial battlements; for ages to come it will continue to defy the utmost power that can assail it. And what enemies it has withstood, overthrown, or put to rout! Not far from the base of the pinnacle evidence that the mountain was once densely wooded is on all sides. The rotted stumps of large trees still cling with a death-grip to the ledges, the shrivelled trunks lie bleaching where they were hurled by the hurricane. Many years ago this region was desolated by fire. In the night Old Chocorua, lighting his fiery torch, stood in the midst of his own funeral pyre. The burning mountain illuminated the sky and put out the stars. A brilliant circle of light, twenty miles in extent, surrounded the flaming peak like a halo; while underneath an immense tongue of forked flame licked the sides of the summit with devouring haste. The lakes, those bright jewels lying in the lap of the valleys, glowed like enormous carbuncles. Superstitious folk regarded the conflagration as a portent of war or pestilence. In the morning a few charred trunks, standing erect, were all that remained of the original forest. The rocks themselves bear witness to the intense heat which has either cracked them wide open, crumbled them in pieces, or divested them, like oysters, of their outer shell, all along the path of the conflagration.

The walk over the lower summits to the base of the peak occupied another hour, and is a most profitable feature of the ascent. On each side a superb panorama of mountains and lakes, of towns, villages, and hamlets, is being slowly unrolled; while every forward step develops the inaccessible character of the high summit more and more.

Having strayed from the path to gather blueberries, my companion set me again on the march by pointing out where a bear had been feeding not long before. Yet, while assuring me that Bruin was perfectly harmless at this season, I did not fail to remark that my guide made the most rapid strides of the day after this discovery. While feeling our way around the base of the pinnacle, in order to gain the ravine by which it is attacked, the path suddenly stopped. At the right, projecting rocks, affording a hold for neither hand nor foot, rose like a wall; before us, joined to the perpendicular rock, an unbroken ledge of bare granite, smoothly polished by ice, swept down by a sharp incline hundreds of feet, and then broke off abruptly into profounder depths. To advance upon this ledge, as steep as a roof, and where one false step would inevitably send the climber rolling to the bottom of the ravine, demands steady nerves. It invests the whole jaunt with just enough of the perilous to excite the apprehensions, or provoke the enthusiasm of the individual who stands there for the first time, looking askance at his guide, and revolving the chances of crossing it in safety. While debating with myself whether to take off my boots, or go down on my hands and knees and creep, the guide crossed this place with a steady step; and, upon reaching the opposite side, grasped a fragment of rock with one hand while extending his staff to me with the other. Rather than accept his assistance, I passed over with an assurance I was far from feeling; but when we came down the mountain I walked across with far more ease in my stockings.[3 - Something has since been done by the Appalachian Club to render this part of the ascent less hazardous than it formerly was.]

When he saw me safely over, my conductor moved on, with the remark,

“A skittish place.”

“Skittish,” indeed! We proceeded to drag ourselves up the ravine by the aid of bushes, or such protruding rocks as offered a hold. From the valley below we must have looked like flies creeping up a wall. After a breathless scramble, which put me in mind of the escalade of the Iron Castle of Porto Bello, where the English, having no scaling-ladders, mounted over each other’s shoulders, we came to a sort of plateau, on which was a ruined hut. The view here is varied and extensive; but after regaining our breath we hastened to complete the ascent, in order to enjoy, in all its perfection, the prospect awaiting us on the summit.

Like Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister, it is among mountains that my knowledge of them has been obtained. I have little hesitation, then, in pronouncing the view from Chocorua one of the noblest that can reward the adventurous climber; for, notwithstanding it is not a high peak, and cannot, therefore, unfold the whole mountain system at a glance, it yet affords an unsurpassed view-point, from which one sees the surrounding mountains rising on all sides in all their majesty, and clothed in all their terrors.

Let me try to explain why Chocorua is such a remarkable and eligible post of observation.

One comprehends perfectly that the last high building on the skirts of a city embraces the largest unobstructed view of the surrounding country. This mountain is placed at the extremity of a range that abuts upon the lower Saco valley, and therefore overlooks all the hill-country on the east and south-east as far as the sea-coast. The arc of this circle of vision extends from the Camden Hills to Agamenticus, or from the Penobscot to the Piscataqua. The day being one of a thousand, I distinctly saw the ocean with the naked eye; not merely as a white blur on the horizon’s edge, but actual blue water, over which smoke was curling. This magnificent coup-d’œil embraces the scattered villages of Conway, Fryeburg, Madison, Eaton, Ossipee, with their numerous lakes and streams. I counted seventeen of the former flashing in the sun.

In the second place, Chocorua stands at the entrance to the valley opening between the Sandwich and Ossipee chains, and commands, therefore, to the south-west, between these natural walls, the northern limb of Winnipiseogee and of Squam, which are seen glittering on each side of Red Hill. In the foreground, at the foot of the mountain, Chocorua Lake is beyond question the most enticing object in a landscape wonderfully lighted and enriched by its profusion of brilliant waters, which resemble so many highly burnished reflectors multiplying the rays of the sun. I was now looking back to my first station on Red Hill, only the range of vision was much more extensive. It is unnecessary to recapitulate the names of the villages and summits seen in this direction. Over the lakes, Winnipiseogee and Squam, the humid peaks of Mount Belknap and of Mount Kearsarge, in Warner, last caught the eye. These two sections of the landscape first meet the eye of the climber while advancing toward the peak, whose rugged head and brawny shoulders intercept the view to the north, only to be enjoyed when the mountain is fully conquered.

Upon the cap-stone crowning the pinnacle, supporting myself by grasping the signal-staff planted on the highest point of this rock, from which the wind threatened to sweep us like chaff, I enjoyed the third and final act of this sublime tableau, in which the whole company of mountains is crowded upon the stage. Hundreds of dark and bristling shapes confronted us. Like a horde of barbarians, they seemed silently awaiting the signal to march upon the lowlands. As the wind swept through their ranks, an impatient murmur rose from the midst. Each mountain shook its myriad spears, and gave its voice to swell the sublime chorus. At first all was confusion; then I began to seek out the chiefs, whose rock-helmed heads, lifted high above their grisly battalions, invested each with a distinction and a sovereignty which yielded nothing except to that imperial peak over which attendant clouds hovered or floated swiftly away, as if bearing a message to those distant encampments pitched on the farthest verge of the horizon.

At my left hand extended all the summits, forming at their western extremity the valley of Mad River, and terminating in the immovable mass of Black Mountain. The peaks of Tripyramid, Tecumseh, and Osceola stretched along the northern course of this stream, and over them gleamed afar the massive plateau-ridge of Moosehillock. From my stand-point the great wall of the Sandwich chain, which from Tamworth presents an unbroken front to the south, now divided into ridges running north and south, separated by profound ravines. Paugus crouched at my feet; Passaconnaway elevated his fine crest next; Whiteface, his lowered and brilliant front; and then Black Mountain, the giant landmark of half a score of towns and villages.

Directly at my feet, to the north-west, the great intervale of Swift River gleamed from the depths of this valley, like sunshine from a storm-cloud. Following the course of this little oasis, the eye wandered over the inaccessible and untrodden peaks of the Pemigewasset wilderness, resting last on the blue ridge of the Franconia Mountains. About midway of this line one sees the bristling slopes of Mounts Carrigain and Hancock, and the Carrigain Notch, through which a hardy pedestrian may pass from the Pemigewasset to the Saco by following the course of the streams flowing out of it. Besides its solitary, picturesque grandeur, Carrigain has the distinction of being the geographical centre of the White Mountain group. Taking its peak for an axis, a radius thirty miles long will describe a circle, including in its sweep nearly the whole mountain system. In this sense Carrigain is, therefore, the hub of the White Mountains.

Having explored the horizon thus far, I now turned more to the north, where, by a fortunate chance, Chocorua dominates a portion of the chain intervening between itself and the Saco Valley. I was looking straight up this valley through the great White Mountain Notch. There was the dark spire of Mount Willey, and the scarred side of Webster. There was the arched rock of Mount Willard, and over it the liquid profile of Cherry Mountain. It was superb; it was idyllic. Such was the perfect transparency of the air, that I clearly distinguished the red color of the slides on Mount Webster without the aid of my glass.

From this centre, outlined with a bold, free hand against the azure, the undulations of the great White Mountains ascended grandly to the dome of Mount Washington, and then plunged into the defiles of the Pinkham Notch. Following this line eastward, the eye traversed the mountains of Jackson to the half-closed aperture of the Carter Notch, finally resting on the pinnacle of Kearsarge. Without stirring a single step, we have taken a journey of three hundred miles.

Down in the valley the day was one of the sultriest; up here it was so cold that our teeth chattered. We were forced to descend into the hollow lying between the northerly foot of the peak and the first of the bald knobs constituting the great white ridge of the mountain. Here is a fine spring, and here, on either side of this singular rock-gallery, is a landscape of rare beauty enclosed by its walls. Here, too, the mutilated pyramid of the peak rises before you like an antique ruin. One finds, without effort, striking resemblances to winding galleries, bastions, and battlements. He could pass days and weeks here without a single wish to return to earth. Here we ate our luncheon, and perused the landscape at leisure. Before us stretched the long course of the Saco, from its source in the Notch to where, with one grand sweep to the east, it takes leave of the mountains, flows awhile demurely through the lowlands, and in two or three infuriated plunges reaches the sea.

I do not remember when I have more fully enjoyed the serene calm of a Sabbath evening than while wandering among the fragrant and stately pines that skirt the shores of Lake Chocorua. Indeed, except for the occasional sound of hoofs along the cool and shady road, or of voices coming from the bosom of the lake itself, one might say a perpetual Sabbath reigned here. Yonder tall, athletic pines, those palms of the north, through which the glimmer of water is seen, hum their monotonous lullaby to the drowsy lake. The mountains seem so many statues to Silence. There is no use for speech here. The mute and expressive language of two lovers, accustomed to read each others’ secret thoughts, is the divine medium. Truant breezes ruffle the foliage in playful wantonness, but the trees only shake their green heads and murmur “Hush! hush!” A consecration is upon the mere, a hallowed light within the wood. Here is the place to linger over the pages of “Hyperion,” or dream away the idle hours with the poets; and here, stretched along the turf, one gets closer to Nature, studying her with ever-increasing wonder and delight, or musing upon the thousand forms of mysterious life swarming in the clod under his hand.

Charming, too, are the walks by the lake-side in the effulgence of the harvest-moon; and enchanting the white splendor quivering on its dark waters. A boat steals by; see! its oars dip up molten silver. The voyagers troll a love-ditty. Dangerous ground this colonnade of woods and yonder sparkling water for self-conscious lovers! Love and the ocean have the same subtle sympathy with moonlight. The stronger its beams the higher rises the flood.

IV.

LOVEWELL

Of worthy Captain Lovewell I purpose now to sing.
How valiantly he served his country and his king.

    Old Ballad.
LET us make a détour to historic Fryeburg, leaving the cars at Conway, which in former times enjoyed a happy pre-eminence as the centre upon which the old stage-routes converged, and where travellers, going or returning from the mountains, always passed the night. But those old travellers have mostly gone where the name of Chatigee, by which both drivers and tourists liked to designate Conway, is going; only there is for the name, fortunately, no resurrection. No one knows its origin; none will mourn its decease.

It is here, at Conway, or Conway Corner, that first enrapturing view of the White Mountains bursts upon the traveller like a splendid vision. But we shall see it again on our return from Fryeburg. Moreover, I enjoyed this constant espionage from a distance before a nearer approach, this exchange of preliminary civilities before coming closer to the heart of the mountains.

Fryeburg stands on a dry and sandy plain, elevated above the Saco River. It lies behind the mountain range, which, terminating in Conway, compels the river to make a right angle. Turning these mountains, the river seems now to be in no hurry, but coils about the meadows in a manner that instantly recalls the famous Connecticut Ox-Bow. Chocorua and Kearsarge are the two prominent figures in the landscape.

The village street is most beautifully shaded by elms of great size, which, giving to each other an outstretched hand over the way, spring an arch of green high above, through which we look up and down. At one end justice is dispensed at the Oxford House – an inn with a pedigree; at the other learning is diffused in the academy where Webster once taught and disciplined the rising generation. A scroll over the inn door bears the date of 1763. The first school-house and the first framed house built in Fryeburg are still standing, a little way out of the village. On our way to the remarkable rock, emerging from the plain like a walrus from the sea, we linger a moment in the village graveyard to read the long inscription on the monument of General Joseph Frye, a veteran of the old wars, and founder of the town which bears his name. Ascending now the rock to which we just referred, called the Jockey Cap, we are lifted high above the plain, having the river meadows, the graceful loops of the river itself, the fine pyramid of Kearsarge on one side, and on the other the dark sheet of Lovewell’s Pond stretched at our feet.

It was here, under the shadow of Mount Kearsarge, was fought one of the bloodiest and most obstinately contested battles that can be found in the annals of war; so terrible, indeed, that the story was repeated from fireside to fireside, and from generation to generation, as worthy a niche beside that of Leonidas and his band of heroes. Familiar as is the tale – and who does not know it by heart? – it can still send the blood throbbing to the temples, or coursing back to the heart. Unfortunately, the details are sufficiently meagre, but, in truth, they need no embellishment. Their very simplicity presents the tragedy in all its grandeur. It is an epic.

In April, 1725, John Lovewell, a hardy and experienced ranger of Dunstable, whose exploits had already noised his fame abroad, marched with forty-six men for the Indian villages at Pigwacket, now Fryeburg, Maine. At Ossipee he built a small fort, designed as a refuge in case of disaster. This precaution undoubtedly saved the lives of some of his men. He was now within two short marches of the enemy’s village. The scouts having found Indian tracks in the neighborhood, Lovewell resumed his route, leaving one of his men who had fallen sick, his surgeon, and eight men, to guard the fort. His command was now reduced to thirty-four officers and men.

The rangers reached the shores of the beautiful lake which bears Lovewell’s name, and bivouacked for the night.

The night passed without an alarm; but the sentinels who watched the encampment reported hearing strange noises in the woods. Lovewell scented the presence of his enemy.