“About one o’clock,” says the journal, “we reached the house of T. G. Crawford, where we must remain till we can ascend Mount Washington. These Crawfords are not such giants as I had been led to suppose. We have not, however, seen Ethan, the most celebrated of the race.
“Last night we had a thunder shower, with sharp lightning. The thunder sounds heavy, and rumbles or echoes among the mountains with a very impressive effect. Just at evening we visited a beautiful cataract called the Flume, about half a mile from the house, and took the finest shower-bath I ever enjoyed. To-day the weather is doubtful, and we shall not attempt the ascent till to-morrow. There is enough in this immediate neighbourhood to occupy a week. The variety and magnificence of the scenery in every direction would satisfy the most ardent lover of the picturesque. Crawford is a fine fellow: his house is excellent, his trout delicious, and his neighbours perfectly quiet! The album kept here is an amusing omniana of nonsense and astonishment, sentiment and piety.
“After dinner walked over to Ethan Crawford’s, and saw the celebrated ‘Keeper of the White Mountains.’ Expected to find him a giant, but were disappointed: he is a large man, and strong in muscle, but I have seen fifty larger and stronger in my own town. There is nothing remarkable in his manners or conversation. His voice is stentorian, and his style is marked by a rude bluntness and an apparent consciousness that something original is expected of him. On our return had a fine view of Mount Washington and his fellow-peaks. The monarch’s head was capp’d with clouds, while all the others stood bare, as if uncovered for respect.”
Another traveller thus speaks of the scenery of this spot:—“We rode six miles farther, and came to a farm occupied by a man named Crawford. Here the mountains assumed the form of an immense amphitheatre, elliptical in its figure, from twelve to fifteen miles in length, from two to four in breadth, and crowned with summits of vast height and amazing grandeur. Compared with this scene all human works of this nature, that of Titus particularly, so splendidly described by Gibbon, are diminished into toys and gewgaws. Here more millions could sit than hundreds there; every one of whom could look down with a full view on the valley beneath.
“The south-eastern extremity of this form was, some years since, the scene of a melancholy circumstance. A young woman, who had been employed at Jefferson, in the service of Colonel Whipple, had fallen deeply in love with a young man in the service of the same gentleman. At the close of autumn they agreed to go together to Portsmouth. On some occasion or other she was induced, before the time fixed for their departure, to go over to Lancaster. When she returned, she found him unexpectedly gone, and determined to follow him. December was already advanced, the snow had fallen deep, and there was not a house for thirty miles on the road. She set out on foot, and walked twenty-three miles from the house she had left, and then, overcome probably with fatigue, wrapped herself in her cloak, and lay down under a bush, where she was found a month afterwards, stiffened with frost.”
WILKESBARRE—VALE OF WYOMING.
This beautiful town is situated on the eastern bank of the Susquehanna, opposite the village of Wyoming, celebrated in the “Gertrude” of Campbell. Like all the towns in this picturesque valley, it possesses fine points of picturesque beauty, and exhibits the thrift and agricultural prosperity which, all over the United States, contrast so strongly with the recent and unforgotten tales of the primitive wilderness.