Thoreau Country: Location Note
Three days from Henry Thoreau's 1858 trip to the White Mountains,
from Center Harbor to North Conway, New Hampshire
(including Lake Winnepesaukee, Red Hill, Ossipee Mountains, Tamworth, Mt.
Chocorua, the Saco River, the Intervale, and towards Mt. Washington.)
Table of Contents July 4-6, 1858.
Below: July 4 & 5. Winnepesaukee, Center Harbor, Red Hill, Sandwich Range, Ossipee Mountains, to Tamworth.
Second page: July 6 am. Mount Chocorua.
Third page: July 6 pm. Conway, the Saco River, the Intervale, and towards Mount Washington.
[A separate page briefly covers his ascent of Washington July 8-12 on this trip.]
July 4 & 5, 1858. Winnepesaukee, Center Harbor,
Red Hill, Sandwich Range, Ossipee Mountains,
and to Tamworth.
"July 4, 1858.. Camped within a mile south of Senter [sic] Harbor, in a birch wood on the right near the lake [Winnepesaukee]. Heard in the night a loon, screech owl, and cuckoo, and our horse, tied to a slender birch close by, restlessly pawing the ground all night and whinnering to us whenever we showed ourselves, asking for something more than meat to fill his belly with.
"July 5. 1858. Monday. Continue on through Senter Harbor and ascend Red Hill in Moultonboro... [Botanizing.]... On the top we boil a dipper of tea for our dinner and spend some hours, having carried up water the last half-mile.....
[Caption: Aerial view of Lake Winnepesaukee roughly comparable to that Thoreau saw from Red Hill. Center Harbor to left. Ossipee Mountains are at upper left. MV Mt. Washington is at bottom. Black Cat Island is in upper right with bridge.]
Enjoyed the famous view of Winnepiseogee and its islands southeasterly and Squam Lake on the west, but I was as much attracted at this hour by the wild mountain view on the northward. Chocorua and the Sandwich Mountains a dozen miles off seemed the boundary of cultivation on that side, as indeed they are. They are, as it were, the impassable southern barrier of the mountain region, themselves lofty and bare, and filling the whole northerly horizon, with the broad vale or valley of Sandwich between you and them; and over their ridges, in one or two places, you detected a narrow, blue edging or a peak of the loftier White Mountains proper (or so called). Ossipee Mountain is on the east, near by; Chocorua (which the inhabitants pronounce She-corway or Corway), in some respects the wildest and most imposing of all the White Mountain peaks, north of northeast, bare rocks, slightly flesh-colored; some large mountains [Moosilauke] far northwesterly...
[Caption: This map shows Thoreau's journey in the valley from Meredith (lower left) to Conway (upper right). Click on the map or here for a larger map.
Legend: M=Meredith. LW= Lake Winnepesaukee. CH=
Center Harbor. SL= Squam Lake. RH= Red Hill. T= Tamworth. M= Madison. CON=
Town of Conway. The mountains he saw are: WF= Whiteface. P= Passaconaway.
CH= Chocorua. The Ossipee Mountains are as plain as the nose on your face.]
"When I looked at the near Ossipee Mountain (and some others), I saw first smooth pastures around the base or extending part way up, then the light green of deciduous trees (probably oak, birch, maple, etc.), looking dense and shrubby, and above all the rest, looking like permanent shadows, dark saddles of spruce or fir or both on the summits. Jackson says larch, spruce, and birch reach to the summit of Ossipee Mountain. The landscape is spotted, like a leopard-skin, with large squarish patches of light-green and darker forests and blue lakes, etc., etc.
"On the top I found Potentilla tridentata, out a good while, choke-berry, red lily, dwarfish red oaks, Carex Novae-Anglae (?), and a Carex scoparia-like. Apparently the common Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum, and just below, in the shrubbery, the Vaccinium Canadense was the prevailing one. Just below top, a clematis, and, as you descended, the red oak, growing larger, canoe birch, some small white birch, red maple, rock maple, Populus tremuliformis, diervilla (very common), etc., etc. Heard the chewink on the summit...
"Descended, and rode along the west and northwest side of Ossipee Mountain. Sandwich, in a large level space surrounded by mountains, lay on our left. Here first, in Moultonboro, I heard the tea-lee of the white-throated sparrow. We were all the afternoon riding along under Ossipee Mountain, which would not be left behind, unexpectedly large still, louring over your path. Crossed Bearcamp River, a shallow but unexpectedly sluggish stream, which empties into Ossipee Lake. Have new and memorable views of Chocorua, as we get round it eastward. Stop at Tamworth village for the night.
[Caption: "Haying Time." Looking south from Tamworth, this is a
view of Mt. Whittier (apparently the largest) and the other Ossipee
Mountains (the distant range) from "Intermont." This was the summer home of
President Grover Cleveland. (Artist and date unknown.)]
"We are now near the edge of a wild and unsettlable mountain region, lying
northwest, apparently including parts of Albany and Waterville. The landlord
said that bears were plenty in it; that there was a little interval on Swift
River that might be occupied, and that was all. Norcross gets his lumber in
that region, on Mad and Swift Rivers, as I understood; and on Swift River,
as near as I could learn, was the only road [*] leading into it." [End of
this page's journal entry. Please go to next page.]
([*] SFE.: Now, in part, the Kancamagus scenic road.)
Go to next page: July 6 a.m. Mount Chocorua.
Go to third page: July 6 p.m. Conway, the Saco River, the Intervale, and towards Mount Washington.
[A separate page briefly covers Thoreau's ascent of Washington July 8-12 on this trip.]
[Prepared by S. Ells, 2/2002.
See, <http://homepage.mac.com/sfe/henry/index.html>.]