In 1812 a general account of the White Mountains was published by Dr. Belknap, in the last volume of his history of New Hampshire. This was make up in part of communications from Dr. Cutler, but contains also interesting original information, which has been already referred to. There does not appear to be any reason to suppose that the historian himself penetrated the wild parts of the mountains, but the name of Mount Washington was first published in his work. Up to this time no thorough survey of the Natural History of the Mountains had been carried out. We have seen the beginnings of an acquaintance with the plants. And Mr. Maclure, and George Gibbs, Esq., had each made more than one visit to different parts of the region, with a view to the examination of its geology and its minerals. But Dr. Bigelow's " Account of the White Mountains of New Hampshire," published in 1816, from explorations made during the same season, determined in great measure the phænogamous botany of our Alps, while it furnished also a statement of all that was known of their mineralogy and zoology. Dr. Francis Boott, Mr. Francis C. Gray, and the venerable Chief Justice Shaw, were members of this party, which accomplished, from barometrical observations, perhaps the most satisfactory determination of the height of Mount Washington that has been made; assigning to it an altitude above the sea of 6225 feet. Dr. Boott returned to the mountains in the next month, (August,) and added a "considerable" number of species to the botanical collection. Dr. Bigelow entered the mountains by the Eastern Pass, and followed Cutler's River, making the passage of the dwarf firs by a way opened a few years before by direction of Col. Gibbs.* The knowledge of these journeys has now disappeared from the neighborhood, with the early inhabitants. But in 1840, all was still remembered, from Cutler's time, down, at the solitary house of D. Elkins, in the Pinkham woods; and I found it easy, in the company of the late Harrison Crawford, an honest man, and one who knew thoroughly his native hills, to trace again the old way of ascent. In 1819, Abel Crawford opened the footway to * Account, &c., in New Eng. Journal of Med. and Surg. Nov. 1816. Mount Washington which follows the southwestern ridge from Mount Clinton; and three years later Ethan Allen Crawford, who had succeeded to his grandfather Rosebrook's farm in Nash and Sawyer's Location, opened his new road along the course of the Ammonoosuck.* These two became now the common ways of ascending the mountains, and the wilderness of the Eastern Pass was rarely disturbed. Botanists were gainers by this change, at least those whose researches were carried on without camping out. The southwestern ridge and Mount Washington together afford a better view of the whole vegetation than is obtainable by the eastern paths; and two points on this ridge, the Lake of the Clouds, and especially the ravine called Oakes's Gulf, between Mount Washington and Mount Monroe, are peculiarly rich in rare plants; the latter possessing indeed almost all the alpine plants of the mountains, and two (the Eyebright and the Rhinanthus) which are found nowhere else; and Ethan Crawford's road by the Ammonoosuck, passed, as it struck up the peak of Mount Washington, close by the hanging gardens of the Great Gulf. In 1820, Messrs. A. N. Brackett and J. W. Weeks of Lancaster, with Ethan Crawford as guide, ascended the southwestern ridge by the new path, from the head of the Notch, and explored the summits of the whole range as far as Mount Washington; estimating the heights of the seven highest points by means of a spirit level, and giving the names to these points which they have since borne.† The interesting account of this visit may be found in the New Hampshire Historical Collections for 1823. The path over Mount Clinton had been advertised, and that following the Ammonoosuck had attracted still more attention from its appearing to promise facilities for a carriage road of some seven miles toward Mount Washington, and visit E. A. Crawford's Hist. of the White Mountains, pp. 42, 49. † Some doubt having been entertained within a few years, as to which is Mount Adams and which Mount Jefferson, and an error in the use of these names having even found its way into the first edition of Mr. Bond's map,-it was corrected in the second,-it seems proper to copy the definite language of Messrs. Brackett and Weeks, who gave the names. "Mount Adams is known by its sharp terminating peak, and being the second N. of Washington," and "Jefferson is situated between these two." And the writer heard Col. Brackett say that this was just as his party understood it. ors, aiming mostly at the ascent of the summit, began more frequently to find their way to the inns of the west side. But the inner solitudes of the mountains were very seldom entered. Now and then a naturalist, or a lover of woods and hills, penetrated the forest, or climbed the dark steeps; or an angler (not a man with a "fishpole” hooking trout, but a hearty admirer of nature and her clear brooks, who catches his dinner for his soul's health as well as his body's) followed the streams; but rare enough it was that such hills and streams could tempt to more than a brief day's delay, with all their visible glories and balsamic airs. Many alpine plants, and it is what adds manifestly to their interest, are confined to very small areas. And the most promising botanical regions, in mountains of the height and general character, and in the degree of latitude of ours, are the secluded and difficult banks of alpine rivulets which descend the steep slopes of the hidden southeastern ravines, and the little hanging gardens, sometimes all but inaccessible, which these runnels form, on favoring shelves of rock. Thus it was not to be expected that any single survey of the botany of the higher region of the mountains, however careful, should do more than give the general features of vegetation, with such part only of the special and exceptional ones as the good luck of the occasion might bring into view. A considerable number of peculiarly interesting species has been added to the flora of the White Mountains since Bigelow first delineated their botanical geography, and there is little doubt that more remain to be found. Benjamin D. Greene, Esq., collected the plants of the southwestern ridge in 1823, and Mr. Henry Little, a student of medicine, explored this part of the mountains the same year. In 1825, William Oakes, Esq., and Dr. Charles Pickering, made, together, extensive researches, adding some species, new to the flora, of much interest; and the former returned, and continued his investigations, the follow "Les aires fort restreintes sont plus nombreuses que les aires très vastes. Il y a beaucoup d'espèces qui, par leur rareté, sont exposées à disparaître de la scène du monde." A. De Candolle Geogr. Bot. I. p. 588. ing year. Dr. J. W. Robbins explored, with much care, the whole range, in 1829; descending into and crossing the Great Gulf, and traversing for the first time, at least so far as scientific interests were concerned, all the eastern summits;—and also made important addıtions to the flora of the mountains; while before this, the practised eye of Mr. Nuttall had detected several species, of such rarity, that few have seen them since. But the longest of these were short visits, too short for a loving acquaintance with the mountains, or a satisfying experience of their wealth of wholesome enjoyment. S. A. Bemis, Esq., was perhaps the earliest to delay longer, and return oftener,-to make a home for the time of the White Hills; and certainly the sunny valley of Mount Crawford, and its cheerful views, and the then sufficient neighboring streams, might well attract an admirer of nature; nor has the attraction yielded yet, after more than thirty years; or the example failed to win others to the same untiring pleasures. The writer of these pages first visited the White Mountains in 1837. It was then a secluded district, the inns offering only the homely cheer of country fare, and the paths to Mount Washington rarely trodden by any who did not prize the very way, rough as it might be, too much to wish for easier ones. But it was not long before the Crawfords turned foot-paths into bridle-paths, and in 1840, a party, it included Dr. Charles T. Jackson, then occupied in the Geological Survey of New Hampshire, who delayed long enough at the mountains to ascertain some altitudes,-reached Mount Washington on horseback by the way from the Notch. This introduced all the changes that have followed, and the various appliances of luxury which now meet the visitor to the White Hills. NOTE. From the Life of Dr. Belknap (N. Y. 1847, p. 102,) it appears that both he, and Dr. Fisher of Beverly, were of the party which visited the mountains in 1784, though neither of them succeeded in reaching the summit. "Dr. Fisher," we are further told, 66 was left behind at the Notch, to collect birds, and other animal and vegetable productions." There were seven persons in all in the party, which, we can well believe, "was the subject of much speculation," as it passed through Eaton and Conway. |