12 July 1858 – 18 July 1858

Monday. It having cleared up, we shoul- dered our packs and commenced our descent, by a path about two and a half or three miles to carriage-road, not descending a great deal. The prevailing under-plants at first, as we descended, were Oxalis Acetosella (abundantly in bloom), Cornus Canadensis, Clintonia borealis, chiogenes, Vaccinium Canadense, gold-thread, Listera cordata, Smilacina hi- folia. Solidago thyrsovdea, large and prevalent, on more open and grassy parts, from top of ravine to base of mountain, where it was in prime, three feet high and spikes eighteen inches long. Trees, at first, fir and spruce; then canoe birches' increased, and after two miles yellow birch began. Half-way down the moun- tain, on the road, saw a whiteweed and one Alsine Grenlandica. It [is] surprising how much of that white froth, the nidus of an insect, there was on the grass and weeds on and about the mountains. They were white with it. Carex trisperma (?), three-quarters down. Hear the oven-bird near base. Dined by Peabody River, three quarters of a mile south of Glen House. Found Lonz- cera ciliata in fruit there ? and saw a little white pine, and Alnus incana was common, and that large, fragrant Aster macrophyllus (?) was budded. I had noticed that the trees at the ravine camp — fir and spruce — did not stand firmly. Two or three of us could have pulled over one thirty feet high and six or seven inches thick. They were easily rocked, lifting the horizontal roots each time, which reminded me of what is said about the Indians sometimes bending over a young tree, burying a chief under its roots, and letting it spring back for his monument and protection. W. said they had found the fir the best material for bridge plank- ing in his town, outlasting other woods!

Tuesday. This morning it rained, keeping us in camp till near noon, for we did not wish to lose the view of the mountains as we rode along. We dined at Wood’s tavern in Randolph, just over Randolph Hill, and here had a pretty good view of Madison and Jefferson, which rose from just south the stream there, but a cloud rested on the summits most of the time. As we rode along in the afternoon, I noticed that when finally 1t began to rain hard, the clouds settling down, we had our first distinct view of the mountain outline for a short time. Wood said they had no spruce but white spruce there, though IJ called it black, and that they had no white pine nor oak. It rained steadily and soakingly the rest of the after- noon, as we kept on through Randolph and Kilkenny and Jefferson Hill, so that we had no clear view of the mountains. We put up at a store just opposite the town hall on Jefferson Hill. It here cleared up at sunset, after two days’ rain, and we had a fine view of the mountains, re- paying us for our Journey and wetting, Mt. Washington being some thirteen miles distant southeasterly. South- westward we looked down over a very extensive, unin- terrupted, and level-looking forest, which our host said was very valuable on account of its white pine, their most valuable land, indeed. Over this the fog clouds were rolling beneath us, and a splendid but cloudy sunset was preparing for us in the west. By going still higher up the hill, in the wet grass north of the town house, we could see the whole White Mountain range from Madi- son to Lafayette. The alpine, or rocky, portion of Mt. Washington and its neighbors was a dark chocolate-brown, the extreme summits being dark topped or edged, — almost invaria- bly this dark saddle on the top, — and, as the sun got lower, a very distinct brilliant and beautiful green, as of a thick mantle, was reflected from the vegetation in the ravines, as from the fold of a mantle, and on the lower parts of the mountains. They were chiefly Washington and the high northern peaks that we attended to. The waifs of fog-like cloud skirting the sides of Cherry Moun- tain and Mt. Deception in the south had the appear- ance of rocks, and gave to the mountainsides a precipI- tous look. I saw a bright streak looking like snow, a narrow bright ribbon where the source of the Ammonoo- suc, swollen by the rain, leaped down the side of Mt. Washington from the Lake of the Clouds. ‘The shadows on Lafayette betrayed ridges running toward us. That brilliant green on the northern mountains was reflected but a moment or two, for the atmosphere at once became too misty. It several times disappeared and was then . brought out again with wonderful brilliancy, as it were an invisible writing, or a fluid which required to be held to the sun to be brought out.

Wednesday. This forenoon we rode on through Whitefield to Bethlehem, clouds for the most part concealing the higher mountains. Found the Geum strictum in bloom in Whitefield; also common flax by a house. Got another fine view of the mountains — the higher ones much more distant than before — from a hill just south of the public house in Bethlehem, but might have got a better view from a higher hill a little more east, which one said was the highest land between the Green and the White Mountains, of course on that line. Saw the Stratford Peaks, thirty or forty miles north, and many mountains east of them. Climbed the long hill from Franconia to the Notch, passed the Profile House, and camped half a mile up the side of Lafayette. Loudon says of the Vaccinium uliginosum that it is “taller than the common bilberry,” 2. e. Vacciniwm Myrtillus, and is “a shrub about 2 ft. high; a native of Sweden, Germany, Siberia, Switzerland, Savoy, Scot- land, and the north of England; as well as in the more northern parts of America, and on its west coast; and on the island of Sitcha, and in the north of Asia, in marshy mountain heaths and alpine bogs.” High on the moun- tains in Scotland. “It is said to cover extensive tracts of land on the west coast of Greenland, along with An- dromeda tetragona. . . . ‘The berries are agreeable, but inferior in flavor to those of V. Myrtilus: eaten in large quantities, they occasion giddiness, and a slight head- ache.” Called “the bog Whortleberry, or great Bilberry.”

Thursday. Continued the ascent of La- fayette, also called the Great Haystack. It is perhaps three and a half miles from the road to the top by path along winding ridge. At about a mile and a half up by path, the spruce began to be small. Saw there a silent bird, dark slate and blackish above, especially head, with a white line over the brows, then dark slate next beneath, white throat and reddish belly, black bill. A little like a nut- hatch. Also saw an F’. hyemalis on top of a dead tree. The wood was about all spruce here, twenty feet high, together with Vaccinium Canadense, lambkill in bloom, mountain-ash, Viburnum nudum, rhodora, Amelan- chier oligocarpa, nemopanthes. As I looked down into some very broad and deep ravines from this point, their sides appeared to be covered chiefly with spruce, with a few bodkin points of fir here and there (had seen two days before some very handsome firs on low A ground which were actually concave on sides es of cone), while the narrow bottom or middle NZ mas of the ravine, as far up and down as trees "NZ, reached, where, of course, there was most ‘1% *-* > water, was almost exclusively hardwood, apparently birch chiefly.

Saturday. Passed by Webster’s place, three miles this side of the village. Some half-dozen houses there; no store nor public buildings. A very quiet place. Road lined with elms and maples. Railroad between house and barn. The farm apparently a level and rather sandy interval, nothing particularly attractive about it. A plain public graveyard within its limits. Saw the grave of Ebenezer Webster, Esq., who died 1806, aged sixty-seven, and of Abigail, his wife, who died 1816, aged seventy-six, probably Webster’s father and mother; also of other Websters, and Haddocks. Now belongs to one Fay [ ?] of Boston. W. was born two or more miles northwest, but house now gone. Spent the noon on the bank of the Contoocook in the northwest corner of Concord, there a stagnant river owing to dams. Began to find raspberries ripe. Saw much elecampane by roadsides near farmhouses, all the way through New Hampshire. Reached Weare and put up at a quiet and agreeable house, without any sign or barroom. Many Friends in this town. Know Pillsbury and Rogers here. The former lived in Henniker, next town.

Sunday. Keep on through New Boston, the east side of Mount Vernon, Amherst to Hollis, and noon by a mill-pond in the woods, on Pennichook Brook, in Hollis, or three miles north of village. At evening go on to Pepperell. A marked difference when we enter Mas- sachusetts, in roads, farms, houses, trees, fences, etc., — a great improvement, showing an older-settled country. In New Hampshire there is a greater want of shade trees, but long bleak or sunny roads from which there is no escape. What barbarians we are! ‘The convenience of the traveller is very little consulted. He merely has the privilege of crossing somebody’s farm by a particular narrow and maybe unpleasant path. ‘The individual re- tains all other rights, — as to trees and fruit, and wash of the road, etc. On the other hand, these should belong to mankind inalienably. The road should be of ample width and adorned with trees expressly for the use of the traveller. There should be broad recesses in it, espe- cially at springs and watering-places, where he can turn out and rest, or camp if he will. I feel commonly as if I were condemned to drive through somebody’s cow-yard or huckleberry pasture by a narrow lane, and if I make a fire by the roadside to boil my hasty pudding, the farmer comes running over to see if Iam not burning up his stuff. You are barked along through the country, from door to door.