The Heart of the White Mountains, Their Legend and Scenery / Tourist's Edition

by Samuel Adams Drake

The village has a bright, pleasant look, but is not otherwise remarkable in itself. Three hotels, the church, and a score or so of houses, constitute the central portion. But if the village is small, the township is large; and what is the visitor’s astonishment, on opening his eyes some fine morning, to see farms and farm-houses scattered along the very summit of Thorn Mountain, whence they appear to regard the little world below with a lofty disdain. How came they there? is the question one feels inclined to ask; for in this enchanted air he loses the desire, almost the faculty, of thinking for himself. The inhabitants of this little colony seem to prize their seclusion, and only descend to earth at the call of necessity. Their neighbors are the eagles. Surely this is Ultima Thule. Alas! no; the tax-gatherer mounts even here.

The people of Jackson are above all anxious for the development of the mineral resources of the place. They have iron and tin, and claim also the existence of copper and even of gold ores. Yet it is probable that the vein most profitable for them, the one most likely to yield satisfactory returns, is that on which the summer hotels have been located and opened. So far, the mountains refuse to give up the wealth they hoard.

The Wildcat cuts the village in two. It is a perfect highwayman of a stream. The very air is tremulous with its rush and roar. I halted awhile on the little bridge that spans it, from which, looking down the long pathway it makes, I enjoyed a fine retrospect of the Moats, and, looking up, saw the torrent come bounding toward me. Here it makes a swift descent over granite ledges, clean and fresh from constant scrubbing, as the face of a country urchin, and as freckled. See how hard every rod of its course is beset by huge hump-backed bowlders! A river in fetters!

Just above the bridge the stream plunges, two white streaks of water, twenty to thirty feet obliquely down. Now it is dark, now light; sometimes tinged a pale emerald, sometimes a rich amber, where it falls down in thin sheets. For half a mile the ledges look as if an earthquake had ripped them up to make a channel for this tempest of water. It is from these ledges, looking down the course of the stream, that Moat Mountain is so incomparably fine. It stretches itself luxuriously along the rich meadows, like a Sybarite upon his couch of velvet, lifting its head high enough to embrace the landscape, of which itself is the most attractive feature. And the tall pines rise above the framework of forest, as if to look at the beautiful mountain, clothed with the light of the morning, and reclining with such infinite grace.

Sprays of trembling foliage droop or stretch themselves out over the stream in search of the fine dew it sends up. They seem endeavoring to hide the broad scar made through the forest. The clear sun illuminates their green leaves, and makes the cool rocks emit a sensible warmth. It also illuminates the little fountains of water. Ferns and young willows shoot from crevices, delicate mosses attach themselves to the grim bowlders. I found the perfect print of a human foot sunk in the hardest rock; also cavities as cleverly rounded as if pebbles had been taken from the granite. On the banks, under the thick shade of the pines, I gathered a handful of the showy pappoose flower, the green leaves of which are edible. Little mauve butterflies fluttered at our knees like violets blown about by the wind.

The crest of the fall is split, and broken up in huge fragments. The main stream gains an outlet by a deep channel it has cut in the rock; then turns a mill; then shoots down the face of the ledge. Above the high ledge the bed of the river widens to about two hundred feet. Higher up, where it is broken in long regular steps over which fifty cascades tumble, I thought it most beautiful.

Besides Jackson Falls, so called, there is a fine cataract on the Ellis, known as Goodrich Falls. This is a mile and a half out of the village, where the Conway road passes the Ellis by a bridge; and, being directly upon the high-road, is one of the best known. The river here suddenly pours its whole volume over a precipice eighty feet high, making the earth tremble with the shock. I made my way down the steep bank to the bed of the river below the fall, from which I saw, first, the curling wave, large, regular, and glassy, of the dam, then three wild and foaming pitches of broken water, with detached cascades gushing out from the rocks at the right—all falling heavily into the eddying pool below. Where the water was not white, or filliped into fine spray, it was the color of pale sherry, and opaque, gradually changing to amber gold as the light penetrated it and the descending sheet of the fall grew thinner. The full tide of the river showed the fall to the best possible advantage. But spring is the season of cascades—the only season when one is sure of seeing them at all.

One gets strongly attached to such a stream as the Ellis. If it has been his only comrade for weeks, as it has been mine, the liking grows stronger every day—the sense of companionship is full and complete: the river is so voluble, so vivacious, so full of noisy chatter. If you are dull, it rouses and lifts you out of yourself; if gay, it is as gay as you. Besides, there is the paradox that, notwithstanding you may be going in different directions, it never leaves you for a single moment. One talks as it runs, one listens as he walks. A secret, an indefinable sympathy springs up. You are no longer alone.