O child of that white-crested mountain whose springs
Gush forth in the shade of the cliff-eagle's wings,
Down whose slopes to the lowlands thy wild waters shine,
Leaping gray walls of rock, flashing through the dwarf-pine!
Whittier.
PLYMOUTH lies at the entrance to the Pemigewasset Valley, like an encampment pitched to dispute its passage. At present its design is to facilitate the ingress of tourists.
I am sitting at the window this morning looking down the Pemigewasset Valley. It is a gray, sad morning. Wet clouds hang and droop heavily over. In the distance the frayed and tattered edges are rolled up, half-disclosing the humid outlines of the hills on the other side of the valley. The trees are budded with rain-drops. Through a lattice of bordering foliage I look down upon the river, shrunken by drought to half its usual breadth, and exposing its parched bed of sand and pebbles. It gives an expiring gurgle in its stony throat. It is one of those mornings that, in spite of our philosophy, strangely affect the spirits, and are like a presentiment of evil. The clouds are funereal draperies; the river chants a dirge.
In this world of ours, where events push each other aside with such appalling rapidity, perhaps it is scarcely remembered that Hawthorne breathed his last in this house on the night of May 18th, 1864. He who was born in sight of these mountains had come among them to die.
In company with his old college mate and loving friend, General Pierce, he came from Centre Harbor to Plymouth the day previous to the sad event. Devoted friends--and few men have known more devoted--had for some time seen that his days were numbered. The fire had all but gone out from his eye, which seemed interrogating the world of which he was already more than half an inhabitant. A presentiment of his approaching end seemed foreshadowed in the changed look and faltering step of Hawthorne himself: he walked like a man consciously going to his grave. Still, much was hoped--it could hardly be that much was expected--from this journey, and from the companionship of two men grown gray with care, each standing on the pinnacle of his ambition, each disappointed, but united, one to the other, by the ties of life-long friendship; turning their backs upon the gay world, and walking hand-in-hand among the sweet groves and pleasant streams like boys again. It was like a dream of their lost youth: the reality was no more.
On this journey General Pierce was the watchful, tender, and sympathetic nurse. Without doubt either of these men would have died for the other.
But these hopes, these cares, alas! proved delusive. The angel of death came unbidden into the sacred companionship; the shadow of his wings hovered over them unseen. In the night, without a sigh or a struggle, as he himself wished it might be, the hand of death was gently and kindly laid on the fevered brain and fluttering heart. In the morning his friend entered the chamber to find only the lifeless form of Nathaniel Hawthorne plunged in the slumber that knows no awakening. Great heart and mighty brain were stilled forever.
While the weather gives such inhospitable welcome let us employ the time by turning over a leaf from history. According to Farmer, the intervales here were formerly resorted to by the Indians for hunting and fishing. At the mouth of Baker's River, which here joins the Pemigewasset, they had a settlement. Graves, bones, gun-barrels, besides many implements of their rude husbandry, have been discovered. Here, it is said, the Indians were attacked by a party of English from Haverhill, Massachusetts, led by Captain Baker, who defeated them, killed many, and destroyed a large quantity of fur. From him Baker's River receives its name.
Before the French and Indian war broke out this region was debatable ground, into which only the most celebrated and intrepid white hunters ventured. Among these was a young man of twenty-three, named Stark, who lived near the Amoskeag Falls, in what is now Manchester. In April, 1752, Stark was hunting here with three companions, one of whom was his brother William. They had pitched their camp on Baker's River, in the present limits of Rumney, and were prosecuting their hunt with good success, when they suddenly discovered the presence of Indians in their vicinity. Though it was a time of peace, they were not the less apprehensive on that account, and determined to change their position. But the Indians had also discovered the white hunters, and prepared to entrap them. When Stark went out very early the next morning to collect the traps he was intercepted and made prisoner. The Indians then took a position on the bank of the river to ambush his companions as they came down. Eastman, who was on the shore, next fell into their hands; but the two others were in a canoe floating quietly down the stream out of reach. Stark was ordered to hail and decoy them to the shore. He obeyed; but, instead of lending himself to the treachery, shouted to his friends that he was taken, and to save themselves. They instantly steered for the opposite shore, receiving a volley as they did so. Stinson, one of those in the boat, was shot dead; but William Stark escaped through the heroism of his brother, who knocked up the guns of the savages as they covered him with fatal aim.