Gorham is situated on the Grand Trunk Railway, between Paris and Berlin, with Milan just beyond—names a trifle ambitious for villages with the bark on, but conferring distinction upon half a hundred otherwise obscure villages scattered from Maine to California.
Gorham is also situated in one of those natural parks, called intervales, in an amphitheatre of hills, through which the Androscoggin flows with a strong, steady tide. The left bank is appropriated by Mount Hayes, the right by the village—a suspension bridge giving access from one to the other. This mountain rises abruptly from the river to a broad summit-plateau, from which a wide and brilliant prospect rewards the climber. The central portion of Gorham is getting to be much too busy for that rest and quietude which is so greatly desired by a large class of travellers to the mountains, but, on the other hand, its position with respect to the highest summits is more advantageous than that of any other town lying on the skirts of the mountains, and accessible by railway. In one hour the tourist can be at the Glen House, in three on the summit of Mount Washington. Being at the very end of the great chain, in the angle where its last elevation abuts on the Androscoggin, the valley conducting around the northerly side of the great eminences, through the settlements of Randolph and Jefferson, furnishes another and a charming avenue of travel into the region watered by the Connecticut. As the great tide of travel flows in from the west and south, Gorham has profited little by the extension of railways furnishing more direct communication with the heart of the mountains.
Mount Hayes is the guardian of the village, erecting its rocky rampart over it, like the precipices of Cape Diamond over Quebec. The hill in front is called Pine Mountain, though it is only a mountain by brevet. The tip of the peak of Madison peers down into the village over this hill. I plainly saw the snow up there from my window. To the left, and over the low slope of Pine Mountain, rise the Carter summits, which here make a remarkably imposing background to the picture, and in conjunction with the great range form the basin of the Peabody. I saw this stream, making its final exit from the mountains, throw itself exhausted with its rapid course into the Androscoggin, half a mile below the hotel. North-west of the village street, drawn up in line across the valley, extend the Pilot peaks.
The Carter group is said to have been named after a hunter. According to Farmer, the Pilot Mountains were so called from a dog. Willard, a hunter, had been lost two or three days on these mountains, on the east side of which his camp was situated. Every day he observed that Pilot, his dog, regularly left him, as he supposed in search of game; but toward nightfall would as regularly return to his master. This at length excited the attention of the hunter, who, when nearly exhausted with fatigue and hunger, decided to commit himself to the guidance of Pilot, and in a short time was conducted by the intelligent animal in safety to his camp.
My first morning at Gorham was a beautiful one, and I prepared to improve it to the utmost by a walk around the northern base of Madison, neither knowing nor caring whither it might lead me. Spring was in her most enchanting mood. A few steps, and I was amid the marvels of a new creation, the tasselled birches, the downy willows, the oaks in gosling-gray. Even the gnarled and withered apple-trees gave promise of blossoming, and the young ferns, pushing aside the dead leaves, came forth with their tiny fists doubled for the battle of life. Why did not Nature so order it that mankind might rest like the trees, or shall we, like them, come forth at last strong, vigorous, beautiful, from that long refreshing slumber?
Leaving the village, at the end of a mile and a half I took the road turning to the left, where Moose River falls into the Androscoggin, at the point where the latter, making a remarkable bend, turns sharply away to the north. Moose River is a true mountain stream, clear and limpid, foaming along a bed of sand and pebbles.
From this spot the whole extent of the Pilot range was unrolled at my right, while at the left, majestic among the lower hills, Madison and Adams were massed in one grand pyramid. The snows glistening on the summits seemed trophies torn from winter.
About a mile from the turning, at Lary’s, I found the best station for viewing the statuesque proportions of Madison. The foreground a swift mountain stream, white as the snows where it takes its rise. Beyond, a strip of meadow land, covered with young birches and poplars, just showing their tender, trembling foliage. Among these are scattered large, dead trees, relics of the primeval forest; the middle ground a young forest, showing in its dainty wicker-work of branchlets that beady appearance which belongs to spring alone, and is so exquisitely beautiful. Above this ascends, mile upon mile, the enormous bulk of the mountain, ashen-gray at the summit, dusky olive-green below. Stark precipices, hedged about with blasted pines, and seamed with snow, capped the great pile. Over this a pale azure, deepening in intensity toward the zenith, unrolled its magnificent drapery.
After the ascent of Mount Hayes, which Mr. King has fittingly described as “the chair set by the Creator at the proper distance and angle to appreciate and enjoy” the kingly prominence of Mount Washington, the two things best worth seeing in the neighborhood are the falls of the Androscoggin at Berlin, and the beautiful view of the loftiest of the White Mountain peaks from what is called here the Lead Mine Bridge. To get to the falls you must ascend the river, and to obtain the view you must descend a few miles. I consecrated a day to this excursion.
With a head already filled with the noise of half a hundred mountain torrents, water-falls, or cascades, I set out after breakfast for Berlin Falls, feeling that the passage of a body of water such as the Androscoggin is at Gorham, through a narrow gorge, must be something different from the common.