Fish Street

Maine, 1916

Miss Staples from South Portland is boarding at Maple Rock farm for a short time.

Ross Day, who was the recent guest of Mr. Farrington and family, returned to Massachusetts Monday morning.

Mrs. Abbie Farrington is the guest of Mrs. M. M. Smart.

Mrs. Kate Eastman and daughter Arline are visiting in Berlin, N. H.

Mrs. Hubert Quincy, daughter Helen and son William went to Boston Monday.

Florence, Joseph and Margaret Quincy are with their grandparents during their mother's absence.

M. M. Smart, Thomas Dresser and Mr. and Mrs. D. A. Bradley motored to Lewiston on Friday to hear Chas. E. Hughes, Republican candidate for President. George Anderson took them in his car.

On Saturday D. A. Bradley and wife, Miss Elizabeth Hall and Rev. A. W. Barnland took a trip through the mountains as far as Fabyans, visiting Diana's Baths and Echo Lake on their return trip. The day was ideal. The hours passed rapidly as new phases of natural beauty were continually presented and the slowly descending sun warned us all too soon of the distance which must be covered ere home was reached. The beauty and grandeur which this trip affords must be seen to get any idea of it. Words cannot paint it. Neither can canvas portray it.

Mr. and Mrs. W. C. Beedy, Mrs. M. M. Smart and Mrs. Abbie Farrington were the dinner guests of Mrs. D. A. Bradley Monday.

Gertrude Howard is on the sick list.

Mrs. Clarence Kimball and daughter were at church Sunday.

We were glad to see Mrs. Kimball out to church Sunday.

Rev. A. W. Barnland leaves for the West today to continue his evangelistic work.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 12, 1916, p. 2.

Lost Four Days in Woods.

1916

Dixville Notch, N. H., Sept. 24. — Lost for nearly four days in the wilderness of the northern foothills of the White mountains, Joseph A. Dennison, former assistant district attorney of Suffolk county, Mass., and his wife, were found early today. They had suffered greatly from lack of food and sleep, but it was not thought their hardships would cause permanent injury to their health.

The Dennisons were found in an abandoned logging camp on the shores of Dead Diamond stream in the Dartmouth college grant, a wild section of country near the hotel from which they had set out Wednesday afternoon on a walk which they expected to finish before dinner.

In seeking to return they had lost their bearings in the almost trackless woods, and for two days had wandered in quest of a habitation. Not until Friday did they find shelter in an old lumber shack, where they remained, too tired to go further, and not knowing which way to turn. The discovery was made by Earl Gould and Scott Copp, employes of the hotel, who will divide a reward of $1500, of which $1000 was offered by Daniel H. Coakley of Boston, brother of Mrs. Dennison, and $500 by Thomas G. Washburn of that city, a close friend of the former district attorney.

It was early this morning that the young men, who had been tramping the vicinity of Dead Diamond stream through the night in a heavy rain, came on the abandoned logging camp in which the Dennisons had taken refuge. After giving such help as was possible under the circumstances, one of the young men went to a farm at Wentworth's Location, several miles away, and from there telephoned.

Although it was 10 miles from Dixville Notch to the shack where the Dennisons were found, it was necessary to send a team 25 miles over back country roads to bring them back.

Both the attorney and his wife were so overcome at the sight of their rescuers that they broke down and cried.

That the Dennisons were not found sooner was due to a series of coincidences. During their stay at the hotel they had occasionally gone away on trips that took one or two days, and their absence Wednesday night aroused no comment.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 26, 1916, p. 2.

Flag Again On Pike's Peak

1916

Thanks to a Patriotic Kansas City Woman.

KANSAS CITY, Missouri — Mrs. Emma Howell, 2614 Olive Street, while on her vacation in Colorado this summer, stirred Colorado Springs to provide funds for keeping the American flag waving above the summit house on top of Pike's Peak. It is said to be the highest point in the world where the Stars and Stripes are displayed regularly.

While on the peak, Mrs. Howell noted the absence of the flag. She asked about it when in Colorado Springs and was told a flag was whipped out by the wind on the mountain top in a few weeks and "it cost so much to buy new ones."

"For shame," the Kansas City woman said. And when she was asked to address a meeting of an auxiliary of the G. A. R. she advocated obtaining a permanent fund to buy flags. The money was found.

Mrs. Howell is a member of the women's auxiliary of the Sons of Veterans here.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 3.

Hey, Diogenes!

1919

The Honest Man Is Found Among Alabama Moonshiners

ANNISTON, Ala. — The rugged honesty of the mountain folk who make "moonshine" and are caught at it by revenue men was shown when twelve of thirteen Federal prisoners began serving terms in the jail here. The thirteenth man sent word that he would be in as soon as he had finished killing some hogs and his cell has been made ready for him.

The men had all been convicted at the last term of Federal Court, and had been sentenced to thirty and sixty day terms in jail by Judge Walter I. Grubb. All of them are farmers and Judge Grubb allowed them to go to their homes and gather their crops before beginning their terms, each man giving his word that he would be on hand at the promised time.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 5.

Grizzlies Feast on Sheep

1905

Early one frosty October morning when the little Nimrod was sitting in a crevice of the mountain's side basking in the sun he espied way down in the valley three grizzlies, says a writer in the Metropolitan. From the former trailing he had done he knew them to be a great male and two females as his mates.

As the boy watched them he says that they went off in different directions, one ascending the face of the opposite mountain, while the other two worked their way around either side of its base before commencing the ascent. As he watched them he noticed that while the bear that was climbing up the mountain's face took things leisurely the other two were going much faster and that they were heading up toward the back of the mountain.

The lad, wondering what the bears were about, began to scan the mountain and discovered a band of big-horn sheep feeding on the mountain's front very near the top. Standing Wolf felt sure that something of interest was about to happen, so he watched the bears and the sheep attentively. After awhile, when the lower bear, the only one now in view, had climbed to a point which revealed him to the sheep, they became restless and began to ascend rapidly. Whenever the bear was seen to quicken his pace the big-horns would at once quicken theirs.

Up, up, up the rugged precipice they scurried and ever faster followed the bear. After an exhausting ascent of the steepest cliff on the mountain's side the band gained the top and for a second rested. Then, as two great forms rushed out among them, confusion seized the herd and they dashed away in all directions, many leaping panic-stricken over the precipice.

A moment later, after having killed the couple they had seized, two grizzly bears that had ascended the back of the mountain waddled forward to the edge of the cliff and, stared down at their accomplice feasting upon sheep that had been mangled upon the crags below.

Pickpocket's Hand in a Mole Trap

1905

Louis Hugon, a young pickpocket of seventeen, had a most unfortunate experience this afternoon while exercising his profession.

A crowd had assembled around a fallen horse in the Place d'Italie, and Hugon saw a lady whose bulging pockets offered all kinds of tempting possibilities. Without further ado he deftly introduced his hand, but instead of grasping the expected purse, found his finger securely caught in a new mole trap which the lady had just purchased.

With Spartan-like heroism, he uttered no cry, but tried to withdraw his hand. The lady, however, became conscious that something was wrong, and Hugon was seized by the bystanders and handed over to the police. The latter took him to the Hospital de la Pitie, where the amputation of his finger was adjudged necessary. — Paris correspondence, London Chronicle.


Descended Mountain on Skis

Norman Libby of Bridgton, Me., recently made the ascent of Mt. Washington and made the descent to the base on skis, without mishap, being the first man who ever successfully made the attempt.

The Matterhorn — Tough for Mountaineers to Climb

1907

Many mountains which long enjoyed a reputation of being absolutely unclimbable are now considered as almost ordinary excursions. The Matterhorn for many years repulsed men who were among the foremost mountaineers of the day. Professor Tyndall and Edward Whymper were foiled on more than a dozen occasions.

But on July 15, 1865, with Lord Francis Douglas, Hudson and Hadow, Mr. Whymper eventually reached the summit, and it was in descending that the fatal slip occurred which cost the lives of his three English companions as well as of Michel Croz, one of the most competent of Swiss guides.

Nowadays the peak is constantly ascended (with the help of guides) by tourists who have no pretensions to be mountaineers at all. — Dundee Advertiser.


A Hindoo Legend

A Hindoo account of the creation represents the deity as dividing himself in two and making of one half man, the other woman. The legend indicates, as many other things in the sacred books of India do, that the position of woman was once very different there from what it is today. In the laws of Manu it is said, "Where women are honored the gods rejoice, but where they are not honored all rites of worship are unacceptable."

A Virginia Mountaineer's Influence Over Wild Animals

1896

An Extraordinary Power

He Can Summon at His Will Snakes, Squirrels and Wild Birds From Their Retreats

If Kipling were here, writes a Rockbridge Alum Springs (Va.) correspondent of the New York Tribune, he would write of another and elderly Mowgli, local genius of this green valley, with its cordon of hills and outlying rocky summits. Thomas Hostetter is his name and his age is absolutely uncertain. He thinks he is about eighty-five years old. The wrinkles on his bronzed face rival in number and complexity those of Loti's mummy. His eyes are small and deep set. He lives somewhere among the crags and blackberry bushes several miles to the north of this place, in the neighborhood of Collierstown, Va.

He suddenly appeared here the other morning with a well-fingered and timeworn fiddle slung over his shoulder, and a huge kohinoor of an alum diamond in his hand. He said he paid $10 for his violin ever so many years ago in Lexington. He seemed confident of the value of the gem, which only stern necessity compelled him to sacrifice for $1, and which the writer bought in the hope of drawing him out. He said his wife was dead. His nine children were all married or scattered. He had never been to a city and was absolutely unversed in knowledge of any life but one — that of the deep wood, with its multitude of silent creatures. Their habits and language were an open book to him. The old man had innumerable little packages of rattlesnake rattles stuck into every conceivable receptacle of his clothing. It seemed that the snakes had come to regard him without animosity. He had acquired an insight into their habits, and when he did not see them with his worn-out eyes he simply sat down on a log and beguiled them out of the nooks and crannies to his feet. He had no Hindoo "tomtom" wherewith to charm the snakes, and apparently exerted no influence upon them other than that which close sympathy always begets. Doubtless they had learned to regard him much in the light of a sorely overgrown and distorted brother.

The writer came across him one dewy morning seated crosswise on a log with a six-foot rattler coiled contentedly at his feet. Not until the stranger appeared on the scene did that flickering tongue protrude or those angry eyes glitter. The two seemed to be simply enjoying a quiet wood talk as the claw-like hand of the man stroked down the diamond patches on the snake's shiny back. Hostetter apparently did not think this situation at all out of the common. He had known rattlesnakes and blacksnakes and moccasins so long and so intimately that any loss of sociability between him and the reptiles would have seemed strange to him. So powerful was his influence over the coiled serpent at his feet that a little further endearment even reconciled the snake to the writer's presence at a reasonable distance.

When in the woods at night Hostetter always sleeps by the side of a convenient fallen tree, and it is no unusual thing for him to wake up in the morning and find a poisonous reptile slumbering between his legs or warmed into deep sleep on his body. He said that the blacksnakes in the mountain meadows actually coil themselves around the legs of cows and milk them, and that the cows actually grow fond of this unnatural milking and come to the same spot in the field each day at the same hour and low for the snakes.

Uttering an inarticulate sound, midway between a sob and a groan, Hostetter sent the snake into the bushes.

"Let me see you bring a squirrel into your lap."

He sat down on the spreading roots of a pine tree and gave utterance to a subdued chorus of chirrups and squeaks in minor keys, and soon the wood seemed to be filled with the pattering of little feet, and the queer old man became the motionless centre of a cluster of bushy brown and gray squirrels. They raced up and down his legs and arms, sniffed at the opening of his bulging pockets, and only avoided the smoke of his pipe. Again, with a sound half inarticulate and a half gesture, he dismissed the nimble footed throng.

"Can you call the wild turkeys, Hostetter?"

The old man seated himself again with his back to a tree, and the writer wandered off into the deep shadows. Scarcely was this done before a familiar "gobble, gobble" was heard, and then after five minutes silence the notes were repeated. A twig snapped and soon through the leaves the beady eyes of a wild turkey peered with hanging comb and one foot lifted. Again a low "gobble, gobble," and the leaves divided and the stately bird strutted directly to a place beside the old man and stared without blinking into his face.

The Hot Springs, Arkansas

1878

At the foot of the mountain, rising 1,060 feet below the tide-water at the Gulf, on whose sides the springs gush forth, lies the town of Hot Springs, following the windings of the narrow rocky valley of The Hot Springs creek. It consists of one long, irregular street called Valley street, which crosses and recrosses the little stream.

The valley of the latter runs almost due north and south, the Hot Springs mountain rising to the east, and more thickly wooded hills to the north and west. At one part the picturesque little valley is so narrow that the street takes up most of the level, the houses on one side being built over the creek and almost into the mountain-side, which in many places has been cut into and blasted away to make room for the buildings and other improvements.

The town broadens out considerably on the more level country at the south, towards the Ouachita river, and at the other end the houses are scattered for some little distance up the valleys of the two streams, which, joining at the northern end of the town, together with the waters from the mountain-side, form the Hot Springs creek. This stream, after passing over its rocky bed in the valley, flows due south for some six miles to where it joins the historic Ouachita.

There are some fifty-six springs in all, said by some to be one spring with this number of outlets, ranging in temperature from 63 degrees to as high as 148 degrees, and situated at different elevations on the Hot Springs mountain, and in the valley of the creek below, the highest issuing 180 feet above the Hot Springs creek, and rising within a space of 1,200 feet long by 200 wide.

The majority of the springs are situated well up the mountain-side, a few are distributed along the base, while others rise on the banks of the creek, and one springs from the bottom. The hot waters rise to the surface through a formation of milk-white novaculite rock, on top of which they have deposited a layer of calcareous tufa, in some places of very considerable thickness. They are supposed to derive their high temperature directly from the interior heat of the earth, either by passing over and through heated rock formations, or by thorough permeation with heated gas and vapors, rising far below from the molten subterrene.

The springs rising on the mountain are those used for bathing purposes, and are mostly covered over to prevent any pollution at the fountain-head, as well as to preserve as much as possible all the properties of the water until it is brought into use. The waters are carried by a system of wooden pipes to the tanks above the different bath-houses. They are still so hot on reaching the bathing-tubs that cold water has to be added. Together these springs discharge some 344 gallons per minute, or nearly 500,000 gallons of hot water daily, having an average temperature of 136 degrees Fahrenheit — certainly plentiful and hot enough for any number of invalids.

Hot vapor rises continually from the limpid waters, while carbonic acid gas bubbles to the surface. In the colder months the vapor, becoming visible, rises in such clouds that it looks like a fog hanging over the mountain-side. Day by day the springs are depositing the tufa, which forms incrusted basins for the clear sparkling waters. This is also found as a coating on the pipes and troughs, in the receiving tanks, and, in fact, wherever the waters pass. At the base of the mountain the ridge formed by the tufa hangs over the hot waters of the creek.

The diseases notably benefited, and in many cases cured, by the use of the waters of the Arkansas Bethesda are those of the skin and blood, nervous affections, rheumatism and kindred diseases, and the various diseases of women. In tke case of acute and inflammatory diseases, especially those of the heart, lungs, and brain, the use of the waters is injurious, and in many cases very dangerous.

The treatment is by drinking and bathing in the waters and in their steam, producing in each case a profuse perspiration, which is an active agent in the elimination of the disease by natural channels. The advice of a physician who has well studied the effect of the waters on the system is necessary, during their use, as they, if rashly used, are as powerful in breaking down the constitution as they are in building up. In many cases the system has to be prepared for the treatment by a course of medicine.

The hot baths are usually taken once a day for three weeks, when a rest is necessary, the patient probably spending a week at the neighboring sulphur springs, near the Ouachita river. A second three weeks' course is then taken, followed again by an abstinence of some days, from bathing. The duration of the treatment depends, of course, upon the nature of the complaint and its degree of severity. The usual stay at the springs is from one to three months, but many invalids stay a year and longer, and, in fact, some settle there. — A. Van Cleef in Harper's Magazine.

Killing The Mountain Spirit

1874

In illustration of the excessive superstition of the California Indians, a writer in a Sacramento paper relates the following story:

"Two years ago, 'Whistler,' a noted hunter and brave warrior, of the Klamaths, was on the sacred mountain, at the head of Sprague River (a tributary of Williamson's River, and the one referred to so often as the latter stream), when, in the dusk of the evening, he saw a large mule deer, and at once fired, bringing it to the ground.

"In going to cut its throat he was horror-stricken at what he saw before him. There was a deer, a male, weighing over 300 pounds, whose horns were to him a mystery. From one side of the head grew a single spike, ten or twelve inches in length; while from the other side grew a stump horn, with seven short prongs. He had never seen or heard of the like before, and his superstition got the better of him.

"His health for a long time had been bad, and this and the excitement of having, as he supposed, killed the spirit of the mountains, threw him into convulsions. He bled at the mouth and nose, and laid there helpless for hours. At last he managed to crawl to the camp of his party at the foot of the hill, where he told his story and went into a trance. His party were terribly alarmed, and one rode to the agency and told O. C. Applegate that Whistler was dead. Applegate had his coffin made, and it was set out to dry.

"The next morning news came by another rumor that Whistler was alive. It happened the Indian doctor was along with the party, and when Whistler went into a trance he did likewise and kept him company, and brought him back with him, as he expressed it."

The Scenic Beauty of Alaska, Mt. McKinley

1916

A Grand Panorama That Reaches Its Climax In Mount McKinley.

A careful reading of literature pertaining to Alaska prepared me in part for what the journey was bound to disclose, but seeing is the only sense that can give knowledge and secure appreciation of the grandeur, the sublimity, the fascinating beauty of mountain, sea, stream, fiord, falls, islands, forests, cloud and the glorious color effects which the dazzling rays of the sun bring into existence. In connection with all these is a land of enchantment for all who love and can appreciate nature.

Cook Inlet, with its arms and reaches, has many bewildering channels, resulting from the numerous rugged islands. The forbidding and embattled shores rising into lofty mountains and at present swathed in white almost to the water's edge possess a virility, a grandeur and sublimity which require the most poetic imagination and most facile pen even faintly to portray. The grand panorama reaches its climax in Mount McKinley, monarch of the North American continent. With its altitude of 20,400 feet it stands alone in lofty pride and is distinctly visible from the vessel notwithstanding the very great distance. This fact well establishes the quality of the clarified and invigorating atmosphere of this far north country.

The Thousand Islands with all their beauty would scarcely serve as a prelude to the surpassing grandeur and loveliness of the many thousand islands that adorn the 3,000 miles of Alaskan coast. The fiords of Norway, the farfamed glaciers of Switzerland, cannot compare with their counterparts to be found in Alaska in number, variety, size, color effect and all the qualities that give charm to these works of nature. — Hon. A. Barton Hepburn in Leslie's.

Lyrics of Life: "The Little Valleys" (poetry)

1921

Lyrics of Life
By Douglas Malloch

THE LITTLE VALLEYS

The little valleys lie so far
From where the busy cities are
That men may live and men may die
And never find them where they lie,
The little valleys near the sky.

Shut in by plain and sturdy hills
That feed the grasses with their rills,
The little valleys do not seem
A part of all life's roaring stream—
But just a landscape and a dream.

A few green acres, that is all,
The mountains like a garden wall
In quiet peace to shut them in,
To shut away the dirt, the din.
And all the world of noisy sin.

And, oh, I wish that weary feet
Could find the little valleys sweet—
And, oh, I wish the weary heart
That feels the bruises of the mart
Could find this little world apart!

"God's gardens," so I call the vales
Up yonder by the mountain trails;
And you who cry for heaven's aid
You will not find it, I'm afraid,
Where man his busy world has made.

You must come tramping over hills.
Come follow singing whip-poor-wills,
Must journey long and clamber high
To where God's hidden gardens lie—
The little valleys near the sky.

—Mountain Democrat, Placerville, California, October 29, 1921, page 6.