Merrimack

“ My dripping locks,—they would become an elf,
Who in a beaded coat does gayly go.
The Pinnacle is a small wooded hill which rises very abruptly to the height of about two hundred feet, near the shore at Hooksett Falls. As Uncannunuc Mountain is perhaps the best point from which to view the valley of the Merrimack, so this hill affords the best view of the river itself. I have sat upon its summit, a precipitous rock only a few rods long, in fairer weather, when the sun was setting and filling the river valley with a flood of light. You can see up and down the Merrimack several miles each way. ”

“ Not long after this we saw the Piscataquoag, or Sparkling Water, emptying in on our left, and heard the Falls of Amoskeag above. Large quantities of lumber, as we read in the Gazetteer, were still annually floated down the Piscataquoag to the Merrimack, and there are many fine mill privileges on it. Just above the mouth of this river we passed the artificial falls where the canals of the Manchester Manufacturing Company discharge themselves into the Merrimack. They are striking enough to have a name, and, with the scenery of a Bashpish, would be visited from far and near. ”

“ So old are we; so young is it.
We were thus entering the State of New Hampshire on the bosom of the flood formed by the tribute of its innumerable valleys. The river was the only key which could unlock its maze, presenting its hills and valleys, its lakes and streams, in their natural order and position. The Merrimack, or Sturgeon River, is formed by the confluence of the Pemigewasset, which rises near the Notch of the White Mountains, and the Winnepisiogee, which drains the lake of the same name, signifying "The Smile of the Great Spirit." ”

“ One half the world knows how the other half lives.
About noon we passed a small village in Merrimack at Thornton’s Ferry, and tasted of the waters of Naticook Brook on the same side, where French and his companions, whose grave we saw in Dunstable, were ambuscaded by the Indians. The humble village of Litchfield, with its steepleless meeting-house, stood on the opposite or east bank, near where a dense grove of willows backed by maples skirted the shore. ”

“ They were bordered by green meadows, and graceful trees leaned over to gaze into their bright mirrors. Our shallow tidal creek was the only river I had known, except as visioned on the pages of the "Pilgrim's Progress," and in the Book of Revelation. And the Merrimack was like a continuation of that dream.
I soon made myself familiar with the rocky nooks along Pawtucket Falls, shaded with hemlocks and white birches. Strange new wild flowers grew beside the rushing waters,—among them Sir Walter Scott's own harebells, which I had never thought of except as blossoms of poetry ”

“ For though the country seemed so new, and no house was observed by us, shut in between the banks that sunny day, we did not have to travel far to find where men inhabited, like wild bees, and had sunk wells in the loose sand and loam of the Merrimack. There dwelt the subject of the Hebrew scriptures, and the Esprit des Lois, where a thin vaporous smoke curled up through the noon. All that is told of mankind, of the inhabitants of the Upper Nile, and the Sunderbunds, and Timbuctoo, and the Orinoko, was experience here. Every race and class of men was represented. ”

“ We now had a guide, as well as a hunter, and threw this burden wholly on him. Our course lay up a long ridge of hard bound clay and chert soil, in the direction of the sources of the Marameg, or, as it is now universally called and written, Merrimack. After travelling about four miles we suddenly descended from an acclivity into a grassy, woodless valley, with a brisk clear stream winding through it, and several lodges of Indians planted on its borders. ”

“ We noticed several other sandy tracts in our voyage; and the course of the Merrimack can be traced from the nearest mountain by its yellow sandbanks, though the river itself is for the most part invisible. Lawsuits, as we hear, have in some cases grown out of these causes. Railroads have been made through certain irritable districts, breaking their sod, and so have set the sand to blowing, till it has converted fertile farms into deserts, and the Company has had to pay the damages. ”

“ It is a wild and antiquated looking graveyard, overgrown with bushes, on the high-road, about a quarter of a mile from and overlooking the Merrimack, with a deserted mill-stream bounding it on one side, where lie the earthly remains of the ancient inhabitants of Dunstable. We passed it three or four miles below here. You may read there the names of Lovewell, Farwell, and many others whose families were distinguished in Indian warfare. ”

“ Rising at an equal height with the Connecticut, the Merrimack reaches the sea by a course only half as long, and hence has no leisure to form broad and fertile meadows, like the former, but is hurried along rapids, and down numerous falls, without long delay. The banks are generally steep and high, with a narrow interval reaching back to the hills, which is only rarely or partially overflown at present, and is much valued by the farmers. Between Chelmsford and Concord, in New Hampshire, it varies from twenty to seventy-five rods in width. ”

“ Rivers from the sunrise flow, Springing with the dewy morn; Voyageurs ’gainst time do row, Idle noon nor sunset know, Ever even with the dawn.
Belknap, the historian of this State, says that, “In the neighborhood of fresh rivers and ponds, a whitish fog in the morning lying over the water is a sure indication of fair weather for that day; and when no fog is seen, rain is expected before night.” That which seemed to us to invest the world was only a narrow and shallow wreath of vapor stretched over the channel of the Merrimack from the seaboard to the mountains. ”

“ As we passed under the last bridge over the canal, just before reaching the Merrimack, the people coming out of church paused to look at us from above, and apparently, so strong is custom, indulged in some heathenish comparisons; but we were the truest observers of this sunny day. ”

“ We found a convenient harbor for our boat on the opposite or east shore, still in Hooksett, at the mouth of a small brook which emptied into the Merrimack, where it would be out of the way of any passing boat in the night,—for they commonly hug the shore if bound up stream, either to avoid the current, or touch the bottom with their poles,—and where it would be accessible without stepping on the clayey shore. ”

“ The Merrimack, in whose valley we were thus entangled, is the prime outlet of the various streams of the mine country, where Renault, and Arnault, and other French explorers, expended their researches during the exciting era of the celebrated illusory Mississippi scheme.
The next day we crossed an elevated arid tract for twelve miles to the village of Carondalet, without encountering a house, or an acre of land in cultivation. On this tract, which formed a sort of oak orchard, with high grass, and was a range for wild deer, Jefferson Barracks have since been located. ”

“ When, in travelling toward Haverhill through Hampstead in this State, on the height of land between the Merrimack and the Piscataqua or the sea, you commence the descent eastward, the view toward the coast is so distant and unexpected, though the sea is invisible, that you at first suppose the unobstructed atmosphere to be a fog in the lowlands concealing hills of corresponding elevation to that, you are upon; but it is the mist of prejudice alone, which the winds will not disperse. ”

“ Our course this morning lay between the territories of Merrimack, on the west, and Litchfield, once called Brenton's Farm, on the east, which townships were anciently the Indian Naticook. Brenton was a fur trader among the Indians, and these lands were granted to him in 1656. The latter township contains about five hundred inhabitants, of whom, however, we saw none, and but few of their dwellings. Being on the river, whose banks are always high and generally conceal the few houses, the country appeared much more wild and primitive than to the traveller on the neighboring roads. ”

“ There are numerous falls in the New Hampshire portion. Though not equal to the Connecticut for fine scenery, the Merrimack is a noble and beautiful stream. Its waters are pure and salubrious, and on its borders are many flourishing towns. Its name in the Indian language signifies a sturgeon. Its width varies from fifty to one hundred and twenty rods; it receives many minor streams and rivers, which form the outlet of several small lakes. Its obstructions have been partly remedied by locks at different places, and there is a good navigation for vessels of two hundred tons to Haverhill. ”

“ According to the gazetteer, the descent of Amoskeag Falls, which are the most considerable in the Merrimack, is fifty-four feet in half a mile. We locked ourselves through here with much ado, surmounting the successive watery steps of this river's stair-case in the midst of a crowd of villagers, jumping into the canal to their amusement, to save our boat from upsetting, and consuming much river water in our service. Amoskeag, or Namaskeak, is said to mean "great fishing place." It was hereabouts that the Sachem Wannalancet resided. ”

“ Uncannunuc Mountain in Goffstown was visible from Amoskeag, five or six miles westward. It is the north-easternmost in the horizon, which we see from our native town, but seen from there is too ethereally blue to be the same which the like of us have ever climbed. Its name is said to mean “The Two Breasts,” there being two eminences some distance apart. The highest, which is about fourteen hundred feet above the sea, probably affords a more extensive view of the Merrimack valley and the adjacent country than any other hill, though it is somewhat obstructed by woods. ”

“ The Merrimack River has a water-shed of about four thousand square miles miles--one fiftieth part of that of the Ohio. It has the Winnipiseogee, Squam, and Newfound Lakes, and hundreds of ponds to fill, that store a large amount of water, before any considerable rise can take place in the river, and then they restrain the flow. No excess of water comes through the Winnipiseogee River, though it is the outlet of a water-shed nearly as great as of the Pemigewasset. ”

“ Its most remote source is the Profile Lake, at the head of the Pemigewasset, over which the "Great Stone Face" mounts guard. Thus writes Thoreau of the Merrimack:
"At first it comes on, murmuring to itself, by the base of stately and retired mountains, through moist, primitive woods, whose juices it receives, where the bear still drinks it and the cabins of settlers are far between, and there are few to cross its stream; enjoying in solitude its cascades still unknown to fame ”

“ The river has done its stint, and appears not to flow, but lie at its length reflecting the light, and the haze over the woods is like the inaudible panting, or rather the gentle perspiration of resting nature, rising from a myriad of pores into the attenuated atmosphere. ”

“ You can see up and down the Merrimac several miles each way. The broad and straight river, full of light and life, with its sparkling and foaming falls, the islet which divides the stream, the village of Hooksett on the shore almost directly under your feet,—so near that you can converse with its inhabitants, or throw a stone into its yards,—the woodland lake at its western base, and the mountains in the north and northeast, make a scene of rare beauty and completeness. ”

“ After leaving this interesting exhibition, where I could have lingered a whole day, I was joined by a friend, an American—a gentleman of great attainments in science—to whose remarks I am indebted for the following scraps. The Merrimac, when low—as when I saw it—is a trifling stream, having a bottom of laminated rock, worn in channels by the stream. At spring and fall, there is ten or fifteen feet of depth ”

“ That was what saved Merrimeg. The wind that sprang up from the wind bags was twice as [9] strong as it has been before. It caught her, and tore her loose, and picked her up, and whirled her up the chimney, right up to the top of it and out.
There she was, standing in the bright sunshine, on the roof of her own house, looking down into the cabbage garden. ”

“ After a few preliminary antics and youthful vagaries up among the White Hills, the Merrimac comes down to the seaboard, a clear, cheerful, hard-working Yankee river. Its numerous falls and rapids are such as seem to invite the engineer's level rather than the pencil of the tourist; and the mason who piles up the huge brick fabrics at their feet is seldom, I suspect, troubled with sentimental remorse or poetical misgivings. ”

“ The Merrimac, beautiful as are its banks along its entire course, nowhere presents more picturesque scenery than where it passes through the deep valley it has worn [Pg 59] for itself between the hills of Amesbury and Newbury, and especially where its tidal current is parted by the perpendicular cliffs of Deer Island. ”

“ And o'er these woods and waters broke
The cheer from Britain's hearts of oak,
As brightly on the voyager's eye,
Weary of forest, sea, and sky,
Breaking the dull continuous wood,
The Merrimac rolled down his flood ”

“ Merrimeg would say, and then she would go on with her sweeping and singing.
She was very happy, but this wasn’t her day to be good; for she was in a great hurry to be out in the garden in the sunshine, and she forgot all about what her mother had said to her; so instead of wasting time on the dustpan, she swept all the dust into the nice clean fireplace, a very large fireplace, big enough to roast a pig in. An iron pot was hanging there, but there wasn’t any fire, and her mother had just cleaned off the hearth so that it was as spotless as new brick. ”