The railway is seen mounting a foot-hill, crossing a second and higher elevation, then dimly carved upon the massive flanks of Mount Washington itself, as far as the long ridge which ascends from the north in one unbroken slope. It is then lost. We see the houses upon the summit, and from the Mount Pleasant House the little cluster of roofs at the base. A long and well-defined gully, exactly dividing the mountain, is frequently taken to be the railway, which is really much farther to the left. The smoke of a train ascending or descending still further indicates the line of iron, which we admit to the category of established facts only under protest.
Sylvester Marsh, of Littleton, New Hampshire, was the man who dreamed of setting aside the laws of gravitation with a puff of steam. Like all really great inventions, his had to run the gauntlet of ridicule. When the charter for a railway to the summit of Mount Washington was before the Legislature a member moved that Mr. Marsh also have leave to build one to the moon. Had the motion prevailed, I am persuaded Mr. Marsh would have built it. Really, the project seemed only a little more audacious. But in three years from the time work was begun (April, 1866) the track was laid and the mountain in irons.[40] The summit which the superstitious Indian dared not approach, nor the most intrepid white hunter ascend, is now annually visited by thousands, without more fatigue than would follow any other excursion occupying the same time. The excitement of a first passage, the strain upon the nerves, is quite another thing.
In a little grass-grown enclosure, on the other side of the Ammonoosuc, is a headstone bearing the following inscription:
IN MEMORY OF
CAP ELIEZER ROSBROOK
WHO DIED SEP. 25
1817
In the 70 Year
Of His Age.
When I lie buried deep in dust,
My flesh shall be thy care
These withering limbs to thee I trust
To raise them strong and fair.
WIDOW
HANNAH ROSEBROOK
Died May 4, 1829
Aged 84
Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. For they rest from their labors
And their works do follow them.
So far as is known Rosebrook was the first white settler on this spot. One account[41] says he came here in 1788, another fixes his settlement in 1792.[42] His military title appears to have been derived from services rendered on the Canadian frontier during the Revolutionary War. Rosebrook was a true pioneer, restless, adventurous, and fearless. He was a man of large and athletic frame. From his home in Massachusetts he had first removed to what is now Colebrook, then to Guildhall, Vt., and lastly here, to Nash and Sawyer’s Location, exchanging the comforts which years of toil had surrounded him with, abandoning the rich and fertile meadow-lands of the Connecticut, for a log-cabin far from any human habitation, and with no other neighbors than the bears and wolves that prowled unharmed the shaggy wilderness at his door. With his axe this sturdy yeoman attacked the forest closely investing his lonely cabin. Year by year, foot by foot, he wrested from it a little land for tillage. With his gun he kept the beast of prey from his little enclosure, or provided venison or bear’s meat for the wife and little ones who anxiously awaited his return from the hunt. Hunger and they were no strangers. For years the strokes of Rosebrook’s axe, or the crack of his rifle, were the only sounds that disturbed the silences of ages. Little by little the circle was enlarged. One after another the giants of the forest fell beneath his blows. But years of resolute conflict with nature and with privation found him at last in the enjoyment of a dearly-earned prosperity. Travellers began to pass his doors. The Great White Mountain Notch soon became a thoroughfare, which could never have been safely travelled but for Rosebrook’s intrepidity and Rosebrook’s hospitality. In this way began the feeble tide of travel through these wilds. In this way the splendidly equipped hotel, with its thousands of guests the locomotive every hour brings to its door, traces its descent from the rude and humble cabin of Eleazer Rosebrook.
X.
THE GREAT NORTHERN PEAKS.
Cradled and rocked by wind and cloud,
Safe pillowed on the summit proud,
Steadied by that encircling arm
Which holds the Universe from harm,
I knew the Lord my soul would keep,
Upon His mountain-tops asleep!
Lucy Larcom.
THUS I found myself again at the base of Mount Washington, but on the reverse, opposed to the Glen. Before the completion of the railway from Fabyan’s to the foot of the mountain I had passed over the intervening six miles by stage—a delightful experience; but one now steps on board an open car, which in less than half the time formerly occupied leaves him at the point where the mountain car and engine wait for him. The route lies along the foaming Ammonoosuc, and its justly admired falls, cut deep through solid granite, into the uncouth and bristling wilderness which surrounds the base of the mountain. The peculiarity of these falls does not consist in long, abrupt descents of perturbed water, but in the neatly excavated caves, rock-niches, and smoothly rounded cliffs and basins through which for some distance the impatient stream rears and plunges like a courser feeling the curb. Imperfect glimpses hardly give an idea of the curious and interesting processes of rock-cutting to one who merely looks down from the high banks above while the train is in rapid motion. It is better, therefore, to visit these falls by way of the old turnpike.
The advance up the valley which has first given us an outlook through the great Notch, on our right, presents for some time the huge green hemisphere of Mount Pleasant as the conspicuous object. The track then swerves to the left, bringing Mount Washington into view, and in a few minutes more we are at the ill-favored clump of houses and sheds at its base.