Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 5.djvu/399

 ALONG THE JOHN STARK RIVER. 363

Just across the village common, which in early days is described as being quite an elevated sandy knoll, is a little office, having lost its identity in these later years by being incorporated with a larger structure, where the Hon. Edmund Burke commenced his legal career; and those three years, passed by an ambitious young lawyer, in an aspiring young town, were characterized in a letter to the writer hereof, just before his death, as " full of pleasing memories." He was, we believe, the first lawyer in town.

But it was not of the hill-shadowed town of Whitefield we designed in this short sketch to write, but of the river on whose mossy-ledged banks the village is located, and which has a history of its own. Just below here, after running the gauntlet of the hills and performing various requirements of indus- try, the river receives its largest contribution ; a union of streams from the Beach-hill swamps and from Round Pond on the borders of Littleton, which takes the unassuming title of "Little River," and at this junction it is burdened with the responsibility of supplying the power which runs the immense manu- facturing establishment of Brown's Lumber Co., one of the most extensive in all this northern country. Just below this interruption to the free passage of the waters, the river enters the town of Dalton. Along this valley from the Connecticut to this point, and following east of the line of the Dalton Hills, by the lakelets known as Long and Round ponds, the traditional Woonesqua of the natives, and over the route where the B. C. & M. R. R. Co. have spiked their tracks of steel, along the Ammonoosuc valley and to the mountain pass and head-waters of the Pemigewasset, was one of the traditional "carry- ing places," or passes of the Indians. Over this route from the Pemigevv^asset valley to the "Stream of Many Waters," thence by the Nulhegan and chain of ponds to Lake Memphremagog, many a captive in the days of savage tumult and horror, from the lower settlements, if we may credit published legends and the traditions of early hunters, was taken by the hostile Indians and sold to the French in Canada. It is related that once along this path came the noted "Titigaw" and a savage band, having in their power some captives from below, among whom was one Grovenor, and that some where between the Amnionoosuc and the Connecticut he was bound to a tree and burned with all the orgies of savage cruelty.

There have been found, we are told, near Montgomery pond, unmistakable signs of Indian occupation, and there is a mound in the same vicinity, evident- ly of aboriginal construction, seem.ingly of a memorial character, as it has not the outline or general appearance of a defensive work. Perhaps a little atten- tion and investigation might develop more of an interesting nature, concern- ing the time when the Lidian and the moose roamed through this dark and boughy wilderness.

The nomadic tribes of this mountain land were willing subjects of the gTeat sachem Passaconaway, and their yearly tribuic of furs from these valleys and streams, was an exacted token of loyalty. Those of this section and the upper Connecticut were known as Coosaukes ; from Cooash, pine trees, and Akee, land or country, thus signifying "The country of the pine trees," or the Pine tree country.

Whether that eminent chieftain ever visited the pine-clad fastnesses of his northern subjects, it would be interesting to know. Certain it is that his son and successor Wonolancet, acting upon the dying advice of the old chief, retired from his seat of power at Penacouk with the young warriors of the tribe, to the head-waters of the Connecticut rather than be drawn into a bloody war against the whites, by the wily persuasions of king Philip.

After escaping from its narrow bounds and the mill-dams of A\'hitefield, our river, with broader views and expanded notions, enters the town of Dalton.

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