BY ELLA MILLS.
Dunbarton is a town "set upon a hill which cannot be hid." The highest point of land is on the farm of Benjamin Lord, north of the Center, and is 779 feet above the sea level. From that spot, and from many other places nearly as high, the views of hills and mountains are beautiful and grand beyond description.
The twin Uncanoonucs are near neighbors on the south, Monadnock, farther off on the south-west, and Kearsarge twenty miles to the north west. On the northern horizon are seen Mount Washington and other peaks of the White Mountains.
The longest hill in town is the mile-long Mills hill, and midway on its slope live descendants of Thomas Mills, one of the first settlers. Among other hills are Duncanowett, Hammond, Tenney, Grapevine, Harris, Legache, and Prospect Hills.
No rivers run through the town, but there are numerous brooks where trout fishing is pursued with more or less success.
No body of water is large enough to be called a lake, but Gorham Pond is a beautiful sheet of water and on its banks picnics are held. Stark's and Kimball's Ponds have furnished water power for mills, the latter, owned by Willie F. Paige, is still in use. Long Pond, in the south part of the town, was the scene of a tragedy in 1879, when Moses Merrill, an officer at the State Industrial School, Manchester, was drowned in an ineffectual attempt to save an inmate of that institution.
One portion of the south part of the town is called Skeeterboro, another Mountalona, so named by James Rogers, one of the first settlers, from the place in Ireland from whence he came.[ 1] East of the Center is Guinea, so called because some negroes once lived there. The village of North Dunbarton is also called Page's Corner; and not far away to the eastward is a hill known as Onestack, because one large stack of hay stood there for many years. A brook bears the same name.
Those who know Dunbarton only in the present can hardly realize that 1450 people ever lived there at one time, but that was the census in 1820. The first census, taken 1767, was 271. In 1840 it was 1067; in 1890, only 523. The last census gave about 575.
The first settlement was made in 1740[ 2] by James Rogers and Joseph Putney on the land known as the "Great Meadows," now owned by James M. Bailey. They were driven away by the Indians for a time. A stone now marks the spot where stood the only apple tree spared by the Indians. Probably the first boy born in town belonged to one of these families. James Rogers was shot by Ebenezer Ayer, who mistook him in the dark for a bear, as he wore a bearskin coat. He was the father of Major Robert Rogers, celebrated as the leader of the ranger corps of the French and Indian wars.