Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 2.djvu/335

 NEW LONDON CENTENNIAL ADDRESS.

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��the past, inhabited these regions, are forgotten and have passed away for- ever, and we can only draw upon our imaginations to picture the races of men, the modes of living, the habits, pursuits and characteristics of the peo- ple who may at some distant day in the far past, have lived and labored, loved and hated, enjoyed and suffered, in these places which we now occupy.

What has been going on within the limits embraced in this single town- ship during the long ages of the past, extending far back to the times of Greece and Rome, of Persia and of Egypt, to the times of Babylon and Nineveh ; to the times of Abraham ,,and of Noah, to say nothing of the centuries preceeding the flood? No man can tell us. Upon these points, while we know absolutely nothing, yet we are sure that we are as wise as the wisest. Oblivion has drawn her im- penetrable veil over all of the events that have taken place in these regions for almost the whole of the nearly six thousand years since the creation. All that is left to us is to go back one hundred, and a little over, of the nearly six thousand years of the past and see what we can gather up of the history of that comparatively short period. For although a century seems a long time for one person to live, a long time to look forward to, and a long time to look back upon, when we con- sider all that has been accomplished in it, yet as compared with all of time that has passed, it is only as a drop in the bucket, a single grain of sand in the hour-glass of time.

Indian settlements in this town were far back before any white man had knowledge of these localities. The Indian wars were over and the feu- scattering remnants of the race. that remained had retired from the unequal contest, had ceased their depredations and left the state (except perhaps in the extreme northerly portion) before this town was settled ; and we look almost in vain for any trace of them in this region. The only name that I find anywhere in the neighborhood, that indicates that the Indians ever

��dwelt here, is the name of Sunapee Lake. That name is unmistakably Indian. But why did the Indians call it Sunapee ? From the best informa- tion I have been able to obtain, I think the name means in plain English, "Goose" and Sunapee Pond meant simply Goose Pond. Our theory is that at sometime in the past this lake was found to be a favorite resting place for the Canadian wild geese, as they migrated from the regions of Hudson Bay southward at the approach of winter, flying as they always do at a great height, and like a well trained military company, following their leader in such a way as to describe the sides of a triangle with the angle in front, or as our farmers would familiarly express it in the shape of a harrow.

The size of the lake would cause it to be seen from a great distance on either side, and thus it would be sure to be sought as a place of rest and re- freshment for a time by the wild geese, as they went southward in the autumn and northward in the spring, and we infer that the Indians were familiar with this fact and hence the name Sun- apee, — Goose Pond.

We cannot doubt that the Indians also were familiar with the Little Sunapee Pond in the north-westerly part of the town and Messer's and Clark's or Har- vey's Ponds in the southerly part, and crossed the height of land and de- scended to Pleasant Pond, in the north-easterly part of the town. But, however that may be, one fact remains, which is that New London is the high- est land, or furnishes the dividing line between the Connecticut and the Mer- rimack rivers. There are upon the old farm on which I was born brooks on one side that ran into Little Sunapee and through to Sunapee Lake, and thence by Sugar River to the Con- necticut ; and brooks on the other side that descended to Pleasant Pond, thence into the Blackwater and so to the Merri- mack ; and it is said there are buildings in town from the roof of which the water descends from one side to the Merrimack and from the other side to the Connecticut River.

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