The history of the First Mountain Forest in Shelburne, New Hampshire mirrors the history of our nation as a whole, and cannot be adequately told without relating the larger history of the Androscoggin River Valley and the history of the State of New Hampshire at the same time.
To
understand this history, it is important to know the geography of the
Androscoggin River Valley, and the limitations that the physical features
imposed upon English development of Shelburne and its valley. The source
of the Androscoggin River, which winds through and defines the narrow valley
at Shelburne, is Lake Umbagog, or more properly, the confluence of Lake Umbagog
and the Magalloway River. The Androscoggin is actually an extension of the
Magalloway, just below where that river flows into Lake Umbagog.
Lake Umbagog is one of a number of lakes comprising the Rangeley Lake system in western Maine, and it alone straddles the Maine-New Hampshire border. The headwaters of the Androscoggin flow primarily from those lakes in Maine, and the river makes only a brief passage through the state of New Hampshire before it turns east and back into Maine for its eventual journey to the Atlantic Ocean through Merrymeeting Bay. Any unwary explorer of Merrymeeting Bay would most likely miss the entrance to the Androscoggin River, as that entrance is no more distinguishable than any of a number of other small inland streams on the tidal bay. Merrymeeting Bay drains into the Atlantic through a seventeen mile portion of the Kennebec River, and gives no indication that any river other than the Kennebec passes into the deeper interior of Maine.
The Androscoggin River valley was scoured by glacier during the last ice age, and after the glacier's retreat more than 15,000 years ago, consisted of a number of lakes linked by short river passages. As the lakes dried during a 15,000 year period, a rich alluvial field of intervale soil was left behind, through which the river channel now flows.
When white settlers first encountered the Androscoggin River, they believed it to be the most powerful river in North America, which it was at that time, as the western rivers were still many years from discovery. The river drops 1,500 feet in elevation over its 165 mile length, with over half of that drop in the 60 miles between Lake Umbagog and Shelburne at the Maine border. At the time of colonial discovery the river had numerous waterfalls and cascades along its entire length. The river was then not navigable, except by birch bark canoe. Even though 344,000 acres of New Hampshire watershed still drain into the Androscoggin, the dams and hydro stations have now eliminated the dramatic cascades and falls and have made the river only a shadow of its former self.
Before it reaches Shelburne, the Androscoggin River makes an abrupt change of course from its southerly flow toward the White Mountains, turning then eastward and back into Maine. The narrow Shelburne valley through which it cuts is hemmed in by steep mountain ranges on both the north and the south. The rugged Mahoosuc Range of mountains rise dramatically on the north side of the intervale, while the Carter Moriah Range of White Mountain summits presents a south wall to the valley. First Mountain, with its summit elevation of 1,685 feet, is the largest and highest of the very front range of mountain summits on the north side of the valley.
The Androscoggin River valley in Shelburne is only a half mile wide at its widest point and seven and one-half miles in length overall, but the narrow little valley offers some of the most fertile soil in New Hampshire. The valley elevation varies from 705' to 743', while the steep walls on both sides of the intervale rise dramatically to over 3,000 feet elevation within two miles of the river's bank. The Shelburne valley offered fertile farm sites on both sides of the river to the colonial settlers, but would remain blocked from settlement for many years by the imposing White Mountains and nearby Mount Washington just twelve miles to the south.
On its passage through the Shelburne intervale, the river is filled by streams from both sides of the valley. Major streams from the Mahoosuc Range include Leadmine Brook, Peabody Brook, Mill Brook, and Lary Brook. Rain and snow melt from First Mountain drains from the west slope into an un-named stream east of Peabody Brook, off the northeast slope into the Austin Mill Brook, and from the east slope into Gate's Brook. Below the mountain's granite cliffs facing south to the river, a small spring fed brook makes its way through the First Mountain Forest and into Gate's Brook in the intervale below, and on to the Androscoggin.
Major streams draining from the Carter-Moriah and White Mountains include Pea Brook, Rattle River, Clement Brook, and Connor Brook. During the spring melt and heavy rains, those streams often force the Androscoggin out of its banks and flood much of the bottom land in the fertile intervale. During spring melt those normally placid streams swell into torrents called freshets by the pioneers, and would destroy mills, bridges, or other structures built on or alongside the streams. None of those structures exist today. Just to the northwest of First Mountain is a waterfall on the Peabody Brook called Giant Falls, which thunders in a wall of cascading water a half mile long in the spring. At other times the Peabody is a modest bubbling brook.
The first residents or visitors to the Androscoggin River Valley in Shelburne, of which there is any record, were the Rocomeca and Anasagunticook Indians of the Algonquin and Eastern Abenaki Indian Nation. Those Abenaki tribes were typical of the other New England tribes in that they lived primarily on the lakes and rivers of the region. Unlike the southern and western Abenaki, the Anasagunticooks were little involved in agriculture and lived their lives traveling up and down the river with the changing of the seasons.
When inhabited only by the native Indians, the Androscoggin River bore individual names for each of the seven sections that were separated by major falls. The Shelburne section was called "Aurcongamunticook" and the native Indians called the whole river "Amascoggin", which meant "fish country in springtime" or "place of fish spearing".
The Anasagunticook Indians were nomadic, without permanent year round homes, though village sites along the river were used repeatedly. During the spring, they moved their villages to fishing camps along the falls and rapids of the river, taking advantage of the salmon runs. The more southerly tribes remained near the seacoast at Casco Bay to subsist on shell-fish. Agriculture was a very small part of subsistence for these tribes and consisted of hills of corn planted in the intervales, which would be harvested on the Indian's return in the fall.
The intervale at Shelburne was a prime hunting ground for the native Americans, but was considered too wild and remote for settlement even by the native Indians. The Mahoosuc Range and Shelburne intervale, along with the Wild River Forest to the south, provided the most abundant hunting ground in the northeast. The Indians hunted moose, bear, deer, and caribou, but avoided the dangerous catamount, or mountain lion, and the wolf. The larger game provided meat for the winter season, and trapping of the many small fur bearers provided the Indian with his clothing.
The Shelburne intervale marked the upper reaches of exploration and hunting by the Rocomeca and Anasagunticook tribes, but was also the most southern hunting ground for the St. Francis Indians of Canada. The most northern part of the Androscoggin River to see permanent village settlement by the southern tribes was at a site just north of Bethel in Maine, some fifteen miles down river from the Shelburne intervale. It is believed that no tribes made permanent settlements in the Shelburne valley, though village sites were noted north near Berlin.
Though the western Abenaki tribes were frequently raided by the fierce Iroquois, the Anasagunticooks were spared those terrorizing raids due to the long distances and intervening mountain ranges. The native tribes of the Androscoggin River Valley lived in relative harmony with each other, unlike the Iroquois and Huron nations who fought inter-tribal wars for centuries. These "men of the east', as they were called by the other tribes, lived in relative prosperity and in isolation from one another, with the rich river valleys, game bearing forests and uplands, and near-by seashore providing for all their needs.
The White Mountains of New Hampshire were first observed by the Europeans in 1524, when sailors on the exploration voyage of Giovanni de Verrazano saw the snow covered summits from the distant coastal waters of Maine. Verrazano had no contact with the natives, but during the rest of that century other explorers and traders did have sporadic contacts, some involving kidnapping of the natives. Those contacts were not at all favorable to the Indians.
The first recorded voyager to reach New Hampshire was Captain Martin Pring, who sailed 10 miles up the Piscatagua River at Portsmouth in 1603. Pring was followed two years later by the French explorer Champlain, who landed on the New Hampshire coast in 1605. In 1606, King James of England issued a patent for the first Virginia Charter, of which New Hampshire was then a part of Northern Virginia. That patent did not result in any settlement in New Hampshire.
It wasn't until 1620, when the Crown awarded a charter for the Plymouth Company under Captain John Smith, that settlement began in Massachussets, of which New Hampshire was then a part.
The Anasagunticook Indians made their first contact with the English explorers at Merrymeeting Bay in Maine in 1607, more than a hundred years after discovery of the new continent by the Europeans. That meeting saw much distrust on both sides and contact with the white man remained limited for many years thereafter.
Those very early contacts with the Europeans planted the seed of destruction for the Androscoggin Valley tribes, and within eight years of the first contact, a plague decimated the tribes in 1615. The cause of that plague is not known, but it was most likely smallpox or bubonic plague brought from the old country. By 1650, the eastern Abenaki tribes had suffered a 75% mortality rate from the European plagues and diseases, and were reduced to a population of only 3,000 in all of Maine and the Androscoggin River Valley. The tribal medicine men blamed their sufferings on the arrival of the white man, and created more distrust and resentment of the white settlers who were soon to come in greater numbers. The Indians began to abandon some villages on the Androscoggin even before the coming of the white settlers, due to the loss of a great number of warriors and women and children to disease. The threat of the white man was also being recognized and the consolidation of villages served to better prepare the Indians to defend their land from the encroaching whites.
The first colonial settlements did not come until 1628, when Thomas Purchase was granted a tract of land at Brunswick, Maine. Purchase traded extensively with the Anasagunticooks and introduced them to liquor. Additional settlers came and began their slow migration up the Androscoggin from Brunswick. The Indian sachems, or chiefs, traded willingly with the English and were quite happy to sell their lands to the English settlers. The Anasagunticook sachems did not have the same understanding of property rights as the English, and believed that they were besting the foolish English in those trades. The Indians retained hunting and fishing rights to all land that they sold, and had little appreciation of the rights that they were conveying to the English.
English settlement expanded up the river's valleys, with the Indians retreating slowly before them. Though still at peace with the settlers, the Indians became more and more resentful, and became more friendly with the French, who were also establishing relations with the St. Francis Indians in Canada. The French sought trade with the Indian and were more interested in fur trading than farming.
In southern, sea-coast New Hampshire, the first town government was established in 1633. By 1641, New Hampshire, which was then still a part of Massachusetts, had a population of 1000, primarily along the coast. In 1679 New Hampshire became a separate royal province under the reign of King Charles II. By that time settlement had begun to move up the Merrimack River into central New Hampshire and along the Connecticut River into western New Hampshire. Darby Field had already been the first Englishman to explore and climb Mount Washington in 1642, but all further exploration and settlement of the North Country beyond those mountains had been blocked by the White Mountain summits.
In 1672 author and explorer John Josselyn wrote "Beyond the hills Northward is daunting terrible, being full of rocky hills, as thick as Molehills in a Meadow, and clothed with infinite thick woods" describing the land north of the White Mountains. The White Mountains presented an impenetrable wall to settlers moving up the river valleys of the Connecticut and Merrimack in New Hampshire, and the Indian's hold of the territory of the Androscoggin River Valley blocked expansion of settlement through Maine, and for those reasons the Shelburne intervale remained unexplored and unsettled nearly a hundred years after settlement had reached southern New Hampshire. It wasn't until the early years of the American revolution that the Shelburne area was explored or settled.
The Anasagunticook tribes of the Androscoggin River Valley eventually recognized the threat of the colonial expansion and began active resistance to the white settlers. During the period 1675 through 1763, the New England colonies were racked by a number of wars, often referred to as the French and Indian Wars. That period of 88 years saw four wars with nearly forty years of active warfare, and brief periods of peace in between the hostilities.
Those hostilities made for hard times even for the larger settlements of the coast and river valleys, with the fear of hostile raiding parties ever present. For the isolated settlers on their remote farmsteads of the Androscoggin River Valley, the wars were a catastrophe and settlement up the valley of the Androscoggin was halted and even reversed.
Each succeeding war proved a greater loss to the Indians of the Androscoggin River Valley and their numbers decreased while the white settlers continued to come in larger numbers. The largest of the Anasagunticook settlements on the Androscoggin at the Lewiston rapids was burned by the English in 1690. After destruction of that village, the Anasagunticooks joined the Rocomecca further upriver. About 1750 the last Indian village was found on the intervale just north of Bethel, Maine, and in that same year was abandoned as those Indians passed northward through the Shelburne intervale for the final time on their journey to sanctuary with the St. Francis Indians of Canada. With that abandonment in the second half of the eighteenth century, the Androscoggin River Valley was open and white settlers no longer had serious obstructions, other than the ruggedness of the land itself, to settlement of the new land.
The first white explorer of the Shelburne valley was Daniel Ingalls, who led two prospectors there from Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1760. Ingalls had previously explored the Saco River Valley at Fryeburg, Maine, and it was from there that he led the other explorers through the "Wilderness Trail" which passed through the Wild River Wilderness along the present day New Hampshire/Maine border. Ingalls petitioned the King of England for a grant to the land upon his return, but a defect in his request resulted in a denial of his claim.
One of the Portsmouth prospectors of the first exploration, Mark Wentworth, also petitioned the King for a grant, along with Daniel Pierce, Daniel Rogers, and four Rindge brothers. The Township of Shelburne was created in 1769 by a grant to those petitioners from King George III, before the Revolutionary War and the King's widely reported period of madness. Daniel Ingalls shared in the division of the Shelburne Grant, named for the Earl of Shelburne, and in fact, received acreage equal to that of the original grantees combined.
In the early days of colonial expansion, land in the remote wilderness areas had low monetary value until it had been settled and improvements made on the land. The holders of King's Grants were best served by offering land to settlers at low cost, who would in turn develop the township and increase the value of the lands retained by the King's Grantees. Typical King's Grants were of town or township tracts measuring six miles by six miles. Surveying techniques were crude and prone to error, especially in rugged mountain terrain, and the Grant of Shelburne proved to actually measure 6.5 miles by 7.1 miles. The King's Grant required that the Grantees make improvements upon the township, to include building of roads and bridges, and the settlement of no less than twelve families within five years. The Grantees became the Proprietors of the settlement of Shelburne, and even though they did not settle there themselves, were active in the management of the settlement and funded improvements such as roads and schools. The Grantees failed to meet the original conditions of settlement by twelve families within the five year period, but suffered no penalty for their failure and were allowed an extension of time to meet those requirements
Settlement in Shelburne began promptly in 1770, primarily from the towns of Gilead and Bethel, Maine, with the arrival of Hope Austin, followed by Daniel Ingalls and other settlers the same year. Austin had settled in Bethel, Maine some time earlier and had decided that Bethel had become too crowded for him. Many of Shelburne's first settlers came from Gilead and Bethel, Maine, and after the wanderlust struck them again, proceeded on to Shelburne Addition (Gorham) or Maynesborough (Berlin) where the country was still wild and open.
Hope Austin came in the early months of the winter of 1770, up the frozen Androscoggin, and built a cabin and began clearing a plot of land on the north side of the river. During the next year, Ingalls returned to his earlier exploration and began his settlement there along with another family or two. Settlement was much slower than called for in the King's Grant, for Shelburne grew very slowly, and by 1790 only six families resided in the township. One of the early settlers was Johnathon Evans, who came to Shelburne from Plainfield, New Hampshire, after his service in the Revolutionary War. Like many of those settlers, some members of the Evan's family came to the new settlement, while other members stayed in the more settled townships were life was not so hard.
The Revolutionary War and an Indian raid limited the
town's growth, and the population had reached only 205
by the time the town incorporated in 1820. The 1781 Indian raid, led by an
Indian named Tomhegan from the St. Francis Indians in Canada, terrorized
settlers in Bethel and Gilead, Maine, before preying upon the Shelburne settlers.
In Shelburne, the Indian band captured a number of the settlers there and
killed Peter Poor before returning north to Canada. After the raid upon
Shelburne, the Indians spent the night in the area of Gentian Pond above
First Mountain, and their war whoops could be heard by the then frightened
settlers who had all taken refuge on Hark Hill near the Maine border. That
raid was reported to be the last Indian raid into New Hampshire, and Peter
Poor the last settler in New Hampshire to be killed by raiding Indians. A
stone monument is present at Peter Poor's grave and commemorates his death
and the event surrounding it. The monument sits below an ancient pine near
the Androscoggin River, and may be reached by following a footpath along
the east bank of Mill Brook south from the North Road.
As mentioned earlier in this history, New Hampshire was a part of Massachusetts until made a separate royal colony in 1679, and remained such a colony for almost a century. The border with Maine was established in 1737, and the border with Massachusetts in 1740. The border with Vermont was contentious for a great number of years, with the settlers along the Connecticut River alternately claiming allegiance to Vermont or New Hampshire. That border was never firmly established until resolved by a Supreme Court decision in 1934. The border with Canada was also subject to a great deal of controversy and was not formally agreed to by both parties until 1842. That northern border is 59.9 miles long, but only 33.3 miles by direct course.
New Hampshire was actually the first of the American colonies to draw up its own constitution and provisional government, some seven months before the Declaration of Independence. After the Revolutionary War and the subsequent Constitutional Convention, New Hampshire became the ninth state to enter the union in 1788. At that time there were fewer than five families established in Shelburne. During the first fifteen years of statehood, the extensive area of northern New Hampshire known as the "North Country" was a part of Grafton County. In 1803 all of the "North Country" above the White Mountains became Coos County, as it remains today.
In the early days of the settlement of Shelburne, the conveyance of ownership of land was not well documented. The Grant holders encouraged settlers to make their homes on the Grant, and provided the land at very little cost. Each homestead usually consisted of from 120 to 160 acres or more, and included a smaller tract in the fertile intervale along with a much larger section of upland forest.
The original Proprietor's Map of Shelburne identified Daniel Ingalls as the first recorded owner of the First Mountain tract. Ingalls, the original explorer at Shelburne, settled further down river and nearer to the Maine line. A narrative description of the Tomhegan Indian raid of 1781 notes that no settlement had been made along the Androscoggin River above Mill Brook at that time.
The first settler on the First Mountain tract, along with the intervale land below it, was likely William Newell, who is believed to have settled in Shelburne around the turn of the 19th century. It is unclear whether Newell purchased or leased an interest from Daniel Ingalls. William's brother, Charles Newell, settled a tract along the western bank of Austin Mill Brook, but also lived and worked with William on the tract below First Mountain. William Newell's son, Nathan, reportedly lived on the farm and was to receive ownership from his father after payment of debts, but instead left around 1819 to settle along the Austin Mill Brook, after marrying Charlotte Peabody. The Newell family remained prominent in Shelburne for most of the century and was involved in most of the building and construction along North Road.
Sometime after the year 1810, by matter of chance, Sarah Evans Gates of Plainfield, New Hampshire learned during a discussion with travelers that her father, Johnathon Evans, the revolutionary war era settler named earlier, and mother, were then living in Shelburne. Sarah, along with her husband Bazeleel and son Jefferson, visited her then frail and elderly parents at Shelburne. A few years after that reunion, the Gates family moved from Plainfield to Shelburne and obtained their farm from William Newell in the mid 1820's, becoming the second settlers of the farm that included the First Mountain Forest. William Newell continued to work on the farm and at the nearby mill constructed on Austin Mill Brook. Shelburne had begun to become a civilized village by that time, but the farmers of the intervale were still required to take care to protect their livestock from the wild bear and wolves of the upland forests.
Sarah and Bazeleel's two sons, Jefferson and Caleb, operated adjacent farms on that large tract in the middle of the century, with Caleb farming and living on the western portion which included First Mountain. Caleb married Bathsheba Porter of Shelburne and raised four children there, including Woodbury Gates. Jefferson Gates married Maria Porter of Shelburne and raised six children, including Henry who served in the Civil War and Sarah who was named after her grandmother. The Porter name was first established in Shelburne in 1772, with the arrival of Nathaniel Porter right after Hope Austin and Daniel Ingalls.
In the first half of the 19th century, the Mount Washington area had become a popular tourist area for outdoor enthusiasts who came to hike, climb, and enjoy the mountain air. Most of this tourist activity was centered on the south side of the White Mountains, with some activity on the northern slopes at Jefferson, Randolph, and Gorham. Shelburne benefited from the tourist activity also, and the stage road through the town resulted in a number of inns operating in Shelburne. In 1851 the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railroad completed the portion of the Atlantic to Montreal,Quebec railway that ran from Portland, Maine to Gorham, and greatly altered access to the White Mountains and made thriving tourist towns of Gorham and Randolph, and to a lesser extent Shelburne.
The Gates' families had become successful farmers on the rich intervale land below First Mountain and Mount Crag, and attractive fields and pastures surrounded the farmhouse cottages by the late 1850's, just as the tourist boom was peaking. Jefferson Gates and his wife, Maria, began to take in boarders at their farmhouse during that period and the famous Boston minister and writer, Thomas Starr King, was a frequent guest at the Gates cottage. While a visitor at Shelburne and Gorham, he penned the passages in "The White Hills: Their Legends, Landscape, and Poetry" published in 1864, which vividly describes the views to the White Mountains from the Androscoggin River Valley, and more particularly from the knoll from where the Whitney Farm house sits and the present site of the Leadmine Bridge.
In "The White Hills", Starr King tells a little of the history of the township of Shelburne and also notes that the ravages of bears and wolves at Shelburne were more striking than any other portion of the White Mountains.
King wrote of the view from the Whitney knoll that " Seen in the afternoon light, the Androscoggin and its meadows look more lovely than on any portion of the road between Bethel and Gorham, and more fascinating than any piece of river scenery it has ever been our fortune to look upon in the mountain region". Of the Gates' cottage he wrote "...and we do not know of any farm-house where the view from the door offers so many elements of a landscape that can never tire". Starr King's book was hugely successful and greatly influenced the increase in numbers of visitors to the White Mountains.
In 1861, two young hikers took refuge at the Philbrook farm further east along North Road, and became the first of many tourists to enjoy lodging at what became the Philbrook Farm Inn. The inn continues to be operated by descendants of the original Harvey Philbrook and is now the oldest continuous family run inn in the United States.
During the decade of 1850, Miss Sarah Gates was a young girl not yet in her teens, but learned the business of keeping a guest cottage from her parents Jefferson and Maria. From the simple one story farmhouse, the Gates' Cottage expanded into a large, but still simple, summer boarding house in the 1860's that was a favorite of fashionable Boston guests. One of those frequent guests was Miss Anne Whitney, a noted sculptress whose statutes can be found in many northeast museums and in the national gallery at Washington.
Jefferson Gates continued to farm the intervale and entertain guests with his many stories of the mountains and streams of the Shelburne Valley, until his death around 1866. Mrs. Gates operated the cottage with daughter Sarah's help for the next twenty years, to include the rebuilding of the original cottage in 1875, to better compete with the more modern inns serving summer guests in Shelburne. Most of the work was by Mrs. Gates own hands. In 1887 she succumbed to pneumonia and daughter Sarah Gates continued to run the cottage into the early years of the 20th century.
Miss Anne Whitney, the noted Boston sculptress who was a frequent summer guest at the Gates Cottage, purchased her farm and the First Mountain Forest from the Gates family in 1883. The purchased property included all of what became known as the Whitney Farm tract, consisting of 69 intervale acres along the Androscoggin River and approximately 160 acres of upland on the north side of North Road, which included the First Mountain Forest. That is the tract farmed by Caleb Gates earlier in the century. It is believed that First Mountain was then known by visiting hikers as Mt. Joe and the ledges below First Mountain summit were, and still are, referred to as Joe's Ledges by local residents. Correspondence between Isabella Stone and Marian Pychowska in 1882 also referred to First Mountain as Mt. Joe. It is believed that Joe was a hiking associate of theirs and had made frequent explorations of the mountains in that valley. The hike to the summit of Mt. Joe for a scenic view of the Androscoggin River Valley was then as popular as the current day's hike to Mt. Crag, which provides a similar, though somewhat lower, scenic view point.
Anne Whitney built the Whitney Farm on the intervale land below the mountain and utilized the property as her summer home. She became a major figure in the social and business life of Shelburne at the turn of the century. A number of caretakers managed the farm for Miss Whitney and the lower elevation of First Mountain on the north side of North Road was cleared and in pasture to a depth of nearly 1,000 feet.
A Mr. John Leighton served as one care-taker for Miss Whitney and during that time lived on the Whitney farm proper, later at the residence west of First Mountain Forest now owned by the Judges, and lastly in a cottage that became the Sear's residence on the east side of First Mountain Forest. It is not believed that any residences were ever constructed on what is now First Mountain Forest.
A school house however, known locally as the Whitney School, was present on the First Mountain tract at the southwest corner before the turn of the century. Miss Whitney was disturbed by the noise of the school children and had the school building moved to "Scratch Corner", near the Leadmine Bridge. She had purchased the 12 acre tract of property at Leadmine Bridge around 1898. The schoolhouse was eventually sold and moved to a site on North Road where it is now part of a larger residence. There is now no remnant of the Whitney School on the First Mountain Property, and it is likely that gravel and sand quarrying on the property destroyed any trace of the school.
Miss Whitney donated the Leadmine Bridge property, which eventually totalled thirty seven acres, to the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) in 1897 and 1911. The AMC maintained the property as the AMC Leadmine Bridge Reservation before donating it to the State of New Hampshire for inclusion in the Leadmine State Forest. Miss Whitney's influence in turn of the century Shelburne was considerable, and when she learned that a bridge across the Androscoggin was to be constructed near her Whitney Farm property, offered a $1,000 donation for the construction of the bridge and insured that it was constructed at a more remote location down river.
During the Whitney ownership, and the Newell and Gates ownership as well, the First Mountain Forest was logged by the owners, but was not believed to have been extensively logged by commercial interests. Traces of an old horse logging skid trail can be found on the back of the mountain summit, leading from the northeast corner to the center and western side of the summit. Ralph Peabody wrote in his biographical sketch, "Make Your own Fun", of his life in Shelburne from 1873 to 1960. Peabody wrote that he bought "stumpage" rights in 1912 for the timber from Leadmine brook to the Gates Valley, which would include the First Mountain tract, and logged that section over several years. Peabody also described the mountain summits he could see from his farm on North Road and included in that description both a First Mountain and a Mt. Joe, further confusing the issue of our mountain's name. Reading further in the text, it appeared that Peabody was describing another peak with the name First Mountain, which was located next to a peak he called "Red Mountain".
Miss Sarah Gates continued to operate the Gates Cottage during the period that Miss Anne Whitney operated her farm with various overseers. One of Miss Gates' more interesting guests was a Mr. H.B. Moller, and his widowed mother, who spent a number of summers at the Gates Cottage beginning in 1901. Over the next twenty years, Mr. Harry Moller constructed an entire village in miniature in the upland forest just north of the Gates Cottage. The miniature buildings and homes were about as tall as a man and were protected by a barbed wire and thorn enclosure. The eccentric Mr. Moller shared his village only with his mother and a select few friends. It was reported that Mr. Moller moved in Washington, D.C high society and had frequently called upon the White House. After Moller's death in an accident, his mother failed to return to Shelburne and the village was left in the care of Miss Sarah Gates.
In the year 1907, the Appalachian Mountain Club, which had been founded in Boston in 1876, began assuming responsibility for the maintenance and trail clearing for the hiking trails in the White Mountains and also published their first AMC Guide. The Weeks Act passed the congress in 1911, creating the U.S. Forest Service, and in 1912 resulted in the formation of the White Mountain National Forest as one of the nation's first two such forests.
The rugged Mahoosuc Range behind First Mountain had been extensively explored by AMC hikers as early as 1877. The exploration had been conducted by a very famous pair of unusual AMC hikers, Lucia Pychowska and her daughter Marian. The Pychowska women were legends in the AMC and had produced one of the earliest maps of the northern Presidentials and had been leaders in trail building and exploration. They conducted their early explorations in the Mahoosucs from a base at the Gates Cottage, but later became regular summer visitors of Randolph. They presented a report at an AMC field meeting in 1879 which included the follwing description of the Baldcap massive: " ... The central mass of the mountain rises from the river, in four terraces or knobs, each one to the northward higher than the preceding. The heights of these points were approximately ascertained by Mr. Cook {Eugene Cook, brother of Lucia Pychowska and then AMC Councillor of Explorations}with a Cassels aneroid, using the Smithsonian table of Prof. Arnold Guyot. The knob nearest the river is known as 'Mt. Joe' {First Mountain}, and is about 1,670 feet in height (above sea level); the next elevation, having no proper name, was called by us temporarily 'Middle Mountain', and attains an altitude of about 2,000 feet; next follows the bare, ledgy front from which the mountain takes its name, and which is the part usually visited, this measures 2,736 feet." In a further description of their Mahoosuc explorations the Pychowska's wrote " Our usual mode of ascent from the valley was over Joe and Middle Mountain, to the ledgy front top, and in the summer of 1877, Mr. R.S. Chase (AMC),{R. Stuart Chase was a founding member of the AMC) of Haverhill Mass., and his sons cut a path over this route ..." .
The Pychowska name for First Mountain, "Mt Joe" , quickly faded from use, while their interim naming of Middle Mountain stuck. Even though M.F. Sweetser's 1918 "A Guide to the White Mountains" continued to use the name "Mt. Joe" in describing the hike up Baldcap, the AMC's 1917 revised edition of their "Guide to Paths in the White Mountains and Adjacent Regions", used the current name of First Mountain for that peak. In the attached 1917 AMC Shelburne sheet map, the First Mountain summit was clearly marked as First Mountain. A description in the 1917 Guide for an AMC hike from Shelburne village has the hiker walking from the village center to Gates Cottage, for a continued hike onward to the summit of Bald Cap Peak and Dream Lake. The description directs the hiker to climb along a fence line on the west side of the Gates' pasture to reach a blazed trail in approximately one-half mile. The trail, first laid out in 1877 by AMC founder Mr. Chase is still blazed today, and climbs inside the boundary of First Mountain Forest to reach the scenic Joe's Ledges and the back side of First Mountain before continuing across to Middle Mountain. Parts of the original fence line may also still be found. Today, the Middle Mountain trail identified on the U.S. Geological Survey map is again being maintained, but the continuing trail to Baldcap is overgrown and not at all marked. The present owners of First Mountain hope to restore that full trail along with the original described AMC pathway from Gates Cottage. We still seek information on the elusive Gates summer guest, Joe, who for a short time lent his name to our mountain. Follow this link for the full text of the 1879 Pychowska Report.
In 1915, Anne Whitney's cousin acquired the Whitney Farm after her death and used it to form the nucleus of a much larger land holding. The cousin, Charles Stone, was also from Boston and reunited the Whitney Farm with the Gates Cottage property, and the adjacent Burbank Farm and numerous other tracts on both sides of the river. The Plan of the Whitney and Burbank Farms, Owned by Stone Farm Associates, as recorded in 1919, included nearly 1,500 contiguous acres north of the Androscoggin River, with the First Mountain Forest and Whitney farm parcel at the southwest corner of that tract. When Anne Whitney owned the farm, and at the time of transfer to Charlie Stone, the North Road curved southward toward the river from the point of the Whitney farmhouse east along North Road. The Gates Cottage was on the north side of North Road at that time. North Road was straightened to its course today, resulting in the Gates Cottage site being now located on the south side of North Road.
Mr. Stone, and his Stone Farm Associates, were not able to acquire the Gates Cottage property until after Sarah Gates' death in 1925. The deed of that transfer shows the property being conveyed by heirs of Thomas J. Gates. It is believed that Thomas J. Gates was Jefferson Gates, named in honor of Thomas Jefferson, who would have been President at the time of Mr. Gates' birth.
Mr. Stone raised Morgan horses and Welsh ponies at the property along with a sizable cattle herd , with most of the development in the intervale along North Road. The property was managed as a show place estate by an overseer, just as in Miss Whitney's time. The front acreage of the First Mountain tract remained cleared and in pasture for several hundred feet north of the road. The miniature village constructed on the Gates' property by Mr. Moller was removed by Mr. Stone, as he considered the buildings a fire hazard and a magnet for vandals.
Mr. Stone brought his family members to the estate for the summers and on holidays during the first several years of his ownership, but eventually lost interest in managing such a large estate. Parts of the large land holding were then sold to local timber companies during the remainder of Mr. Stone's lifetime, including the tract north and northeast of the First Mountain Property, which was owned by Oxford Paper Company , a subsidiary of Mead Paper, until sale to Bayroot LLC in the year 2004.
The large Mill Brook Farm along Austin Mill Brook, now part of the Millbrook Trust, was sold to a Mr. Downing P. Brown, from the Berlin Mills Brown family. Mr. Brown added additional farms and extensively landscaped the property and built a nine hole golf course on the farm. Mr. Brown left Shelburne in the early 1940's smetime after the "great depression" and the property was subsequently purchased by Dr. Lowell Reed in 1942. Mr. Reed, who was President of John Hopkins University, also purchased the upland portion of the farm in 1951 and created the Millbrook Trust, insuring that the property would not be further developed after his death.
The history of ownership of the large farms surrounding First Mountain was, after original settlement, one of large estates managed by hired hands and enjoyed by the owners in the summer season. Many of those owners were prominent citizens of the Boston area.
In the 1920's, railroad travel to Gorham became less attractive to tourists as the motor car became more popular. Travel by motor car dispersed the touring visitors over a greater area of New Hampshire, causing Gorham to begin its decline as a favored travel destination. Tourism in the Shelburne intervale had always been popular, but modest by Gorham standards, and was little effected by the changing trend. In fact, automobile travel opened the area to three season tourism.
As tourism was becoming more popular, agriculture in northern New Hampshire and all of New England was dying. The farms began to be abandoned shortly after the civil war, and abandonment accelerated further during the first thirty years of the twentieth century. The short growing seasons and rocky soils of New England could not compete with the fertile soils and better growing conditions of the midwest and the plains.
Even though Charles Stone eventually broke up the large holdings created by Stone Farm Associates, a remaining and still substantial part of Stone Farm Associates, including the Whitney and Gates Farm, were left as an estate after his death. Those properties were inherited by Mr. Stone's niece, Marion Stone Hince, in 1948. Mrs. Hince and her husband Hugh lived in Newton, Massachusetts, but continued to use the Whitney Farm as a summer home. She was a noted poet and evidenced a strong love and attachment for the land of the Androscoggin River Valley.
Mrs. Hince continued the dissolution of the large Stone Farm Associates, conveying parts of the property as early as 1949. The Gates Cottage and Gates Farm property were sold to Stan Gutowski of Boston in 1953. The Gutowski family lived in the Gates Cottage for a period of time, but eventually left the town and abandoned the house to the elements. In 1994 the town of Shelburne burned the abandoned house, and only a pile of rubble remains at the site. The tract of land is still owned by Gutowski, consisting of the 130 acres of upland forest surrounding Gates Brook and the intervale tract along the river.
During the late 1950's or early 1960's, a major timber harvest was conducted over the more accessible parts of the First Mountain Forest. Though other parcels were broken into smaller tracts and sold, the Whitney Farm remained intact and was managed as a working farm.
After she became a widow, Mrs. Hince conveyed four acres of intervale land in 1981 to her attorney, John DeCoff of Boston. It wasn't until 1984 that the original Whitney Farm began to be broken into parcels. In that year, Mrs. Hince conveyed the cottage and barn, across from the main Whitney Farm and on the north side of North Road, to Shelburne neighbors, William and Phyllis Sears. That parcel consisted of 5.6 acres of Whitney Farm upland.
In 1984, Marion Stone Hince transferred the remaining tract of the Whitney Farm, and the remainder of the Stone Farm Associates properties, to her reported niece, Anne Conner of Quechee, Vermont. A warranty deed was prepared by attorney DeCoff and transferred the property before Mrs. Hince's death. The deed has a recorded tax stamp indicating a sales price of $100,000. At the time of the transfer, all of the parcels conveyed held a conservative joint value of $750,000 or more. That transfer was the last of the family transfers of the First Mountain Forest land. From Anne Whitney the property had passed to a cousin, next to the cousin's niece, and finally to the cousin's niece's niece.
Anne Conner is not believed to have displayed an interest in actively managing or using the inherited properties and in 1985 sold an additional 22.5 upland acres of the Whitney Farm to the Sears, to increase their holding to 28+ acres of the original Whitney farm upland. The Sears bought that additional acreage to protect the large hemlock forest behind and surrounding their 5.6 acre tract from the timber operation to be conducted under Anne Conner's ownership in 1988. Unfortunately, the Sears provided no permanent protection for that forest and it would come under the threat of an even more drastic clear-cut many years later. The former show place Whitney Farm was allowed to remain vacant, the buildings abandoned, and the pastures in the intervale allowed to revert to forest.
During 1987 through 1989, Anne Conner allowed commercial harvesting of the Whitney Farm upland (First Mountain Forest), and over 200,000 board feet of timber, primarily eastern hemlock, was harvested from the interior below the summit's cliffs. During the intervening years, Anne Conner slowly subdivided and sold off most of the remaining land holdings of Stone Farm Associates. Four building lots of eight to nine acres each were subdivided from the Gates Farm land on the north side of North Road, just east of Gates Brook. Those tracts have all been sold. Mrs. Conner had also sold large tracts of forest land on the north side of the US 2 highway, including large parcels sold to the U.S. Forest Service for inclusion in the White Mountain National Forest.
In 1994, Anne Conner sold the First Mountain tract, consisting of the remaining 130 acres of Whitney Farm upland, to Larry Ely and Jennifer Lawson, who then resided in Indianapolis, Indiana. This tract included 22 acres on the mountain's summit and the scenic overlook known locally as Joe's Ledges. The remaining 69 acres of Whitney Farm intervale land were purchased by Bill Weichert and his wife in November, 1996. The Weicherts, formerly of Chatham, New Jersey, had previously maintained a summer cottage in Shelburne near the Whitney Farm for many years. The Weicherts now live on the Whitney Farm and have returned the fields to open pasture, restored the original buildings, and recreated the grandeur that existed on the farm at the turn of the century. They use the restored Whitney summer house, with its grand Starr King described view, as their summer residence and retreat to the larger farmhouse as the fall weather chills.
Mr. William Sears died in late 1997 or early 1998, and his widow shortly thereafter sold their two tracts totalling 28+ acres of Whitney Farm upland to Jack Terrill, who moved back to Shelburne from New Mexico after nearly 30 years away from the town where he was raised. The Terrills remained there for only two years and cleared parts of the joint stream boundary before selling the property to the Henrich family in the summer of 2000. The back 22 acre mature Hemlock forest was in serious danger of being clearcut while the Terrills were marketing the property, but Bill Weichert found a buyer among his friends in New Jersey who were prepared to keep the forest intact. The Henrichs continue to live in New Jersey, maintaining the Shelburne property as a retreat.
The owners of the First Mountain tract now live both in nearby in Falmouth, Maine and at the new cottage on First Mountain. The cottage site lies atop a knoll overlooking the Whitney Farm intervale land, at a viewpoint that the late Mrs. Hince had declared a perfect spot for a new home. They are managing their property with the intention of maintaining a healthy forest and a protected wildlife habitat, while also utilizing the land as a recreational area for hiking and cross-country skiing. They are restoring the 1917 AMC trail which originated at the Gate's Cottage, and are expanding additional hiking and ski trails throughout the property while still preserving the essential wildness of the land.
Note: This historical record was written and compiled by Larry Ely through research and review of the below identified sources. Where those sources provided conflicting data, this writer chose to use those facts that most closely agreed with other confirmed findings. Material herein may be quoted in part subject to identification of this source. This history is updated as new information is obtained.
Updated - January, 2006
References:
"Shelburne, New Hampshire: Its First Two Hundred Years""The Androscoggin River Valley: Gateway to the White Mountains" - D.B. Wight
"The Wild River Wilderness" - D.B. Wight
"Evolution of a Valley: The Androscoggin Story" - Page Helm Jones
"The White Hills: Their Legends, Landscape, and Poetry" - Thomas Starr King
"American Indians Northeast Vol. 15 " - Bruce G. Trigger
"Writings of Mrs. Roswell P. Peabody - Published in Mountaineer"
"AMC White Mountains Guide - 1917 "
"An Informal History of Millbrook Farm" - Margarett Merrell
"Mountain Summers" - Peter & June Hammond Rowan
"Appalachia - Volume 2 (1879-1881) " - Report by Lucia & Marian Pychowska
"A Guide to the White Mountains" - M.F. Sweetser (1918)
"Make Your own Fun" - Ralph Peabody (1960)
Plan of the Whitney and Burbank Farms as Recorded 1919
Deed Records of Coos County Recorder
More Information On These Subjects:
More Information
About Anne Whitney
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