A Concise History of the White Mountains

The Indians and Their Forebears:

The White Mountains were first inhabited by humans about 10,000 BC, after the melting of the continental ice sheet. These first inhabitants had migrated from the western half of the continent. These forebears of the Indians were hunters, fishers, and gatherers. They discovered a region that was rich with wildlife, fish, and edible plants. Tribes began to form about 3000-4000 BC. Their subsistence was fairly easy. Their most important challenge in surviving was storing adequate food for the relatively long winters. This probably required more effort than the actual procurement of the food. The ease in acquiring food and the its abundance provided a stable way of life for these people until European colonization of the region in the 1600s (Ponting, C., 1991, p.30).

The Indians in this region were called the Penacooks, one of two tribal branches within the regional Abenaki nation. The Penacooks were the western branch, and the Penobscots from ME were the eastern branch. In the early 1600s the Penacook confederation had 17 tribes, all of whom spoke the Algonquin language. This language had no written letters or words. There is no written history by these peoples, obviously, except for pictographs. Witnessed accounts by European-Americans comprise nearly all of the Penacooks’ known history. The population of this confederation was about 12,000 at the time of European colonization. The tribes resided in 30 villages along the Pemigewasett and Merrimack River basins and tributaries thereof, or near Great Bay along the NH seacoast.

The names of the Penacook tribes are familiar to residents of NH and MA. These are some of those tribes’ names, and the approximate present-day location of where they had resided, as follows: Amoskeag (Manchester, NH), Coösuc (Franconia, Littleton, NH), Nashua (Nashua, NH, Tyngsborough, MA), Ossippee (eastern Lakes Region, NH), Penacook (Concord, Plymouth, Lincoln, N. Woodstock, NH), Pentucket (Haverhill, Merrimac, W. Newbury, MA), Piscataqua (Exeter, Durham, Dover, NH), Wachusett (Fitchburg, Leominster, MA), Winnacunett (Hampton, Portsmouth, NH), and Winnipesaukee (western Lakes Region, NH).

A separate tribe called the Pequawkets (Conway, NH) was originally part of the Penobscot tribal confederation from ME, but became allied with the Penacooks as the Europeans began to colonize the White Mountain region.

Tribal life in the Penacooks centered around closely knit clans. During the summer months, several families of fifty or more in number congregated into a single, rectangular row house made of bark. Each family had its own fire. Women cared for young children, and tended to plots of squash, corn, and beans. Men fished and gathered edible plants and plant by-products such as berries and maple syrup, and probably taught hunting, fishing and gathering techniques to adolescent boys. During hunting seasons, the families split up and each lived in a portable wigwam, which resembled the modern dome tent in shape and size. Canoes were used for transport on rivers and lakes. Abundant animal hides were used for clothing.

Marriages were arranged by the mothers, who carefully observed the interactions of prospective brides and grooms. Tribal leaders considered the mothers to be equally at fault as the couple if the marriage failed. Marriages were monogamous, but the punishment for extramarital affairs or for premarital sex did not appear to be severe.

Occasionally there was inter-tribal fighting. The murder rate was very low, or non-existent, so it can be assumed that these troubles were more quarrels than they were warfare. It can also be assumed that the arranged marriages caused a certain amount of this strife.

Overall the Penacooks were a spiritual and generally peaceful people. The Penacooks were polytheistic, as were all the tribal groups in the Northeast, but seemed to focus their worship and attributed their well-being to one omnipotent spiritual entity. Worship and rituals probably occurred mostly during the winter months when there was a minimal amount of hunting, fishing, and gathering of food.

The Penacooks called Mt. Washington "Agiochook," which meant, “place of the Great Spirit.” Agiochook was not climbed by the Penacooks, for fear of death, but some tribal chiefs did venture there (Markowitz, H., 1995, p.586; Hixon, R.&M., 1980, p.172).

The Penacooks had powerful and charismatic sachems, or chiefs of the confederacy, the most powerful and well known of whom was Passaconaway. Passaconaway initially fought with the British colonists to the south and east, as early as 1623. In 1642, however, a band of colonists found his village and captured his wife and his son, Wonalancet. Passaconaway negotiated their release, and in 1644 he pledged an end to the hostilities with the colonists by putting his people and lands under the jurisdiction of colonial leaders in MA. He in turn was given authority to administer colonial laws upon his people.

In 1660, Passaconaway abdicated his leadership at a great gathering of all the Penacook tribes in what is now Lowell, MA. In his farewell speech, he recalled his unparalleled bravery as a young warrior against the enemy Mohawks and his equally unparalleled prowess as a hunter. He warned that war with the British colonists would be futile, and that the Penacooks must live in peace with the white man or they would die.

Legend has it that several years later Passaconaway drove a sled drawn by wolves to the summit of Agiochook prior to his death. Allegedly this deeply spiritual man entered heaven at the summit(Kilbourne, F., 1916, pp. 5,6,7)!

Wonalancet became sachem of the Penacooks after Passaconaway. He inherited a dying confederacy, which was reduced to 13 tribes by sickness, famine, and foolish wars with other Indian tribal alliances such as the Mohawks. Wonalancet was insistent in maintaining the peace with the colonists. He led his tribes deeper into the woods to avoid conflict.

Wonalancet's policy of isolation failed, because Passaconaway’s professed warning about the colonists and the fate of the tribes came true. It was not warfare with the colonists, though, that devastated the Penacooks; it was the host of diseases that the colonists brought from Europe that were most fateful. The colonists had immunity or tolerance to malignant illnesses such as smallpox, tuberculosis, influenza, and alcoholism- the Penacooks did not.

Unable to effectively hold the afflicted confederacy together, Wonalancet abdicated as sachem of the Penacooks in 1685 and retreated to St. Francis, Quebec.

Kangamagus, also known as John Hawkins, succeeded Wonalancet as sachem. This peaceful nephew of Wonalancet succumbed to war-like factions within the confederation. Defeated after attacking a colonist outpost in Dover, NH in 1689, Kangamagus signed a treaty with the colonists that effectively ended the Penacook confederation. After that incident, the Penacooks retreated to Canada, except for a few bands in the North Country. The Pequawkets were the last to leave NH, which occurred in 1725 after the Fourth Indian War, or Lovewell’s battle. Paugus, the chief of the Pequawkets, was killed in that battle.

Chocorua was a Pequawket chief who refused to leave the home of his ancestors. After the rest of the tribe left for Canada, he stayed behind and befriended the colonists, especially one Cornelius Campbell. Chocorua had a son whom he left temporarily in Campbell’s care while he attended to tribal affairs in Canada. During his absence, Chocorua’s son died accidentally by drinking poison intended for vermin. Upon his return, the vengeful Chocorua in turn killed Campbell’s wife and children. The equally furious Campbell pursued Chocorua to the summit of the mountain of that name, and shot him. As the mortally wounded Chocorua lay dying, he cursed the white man. Soon after, livestock died in the area, which later was found to be caused by muriate of lime in the water. “The Curse of Chocorua” may or may not exist today, or ever have, for that matter. Hikers should approach Mt. Chocorua carefully, for it has a deceptive degree of difficulty (Kilbourne, F., 1916, p.11)!

The most famous Indian woman in White Mountain history also became a regional heroine. Weetamoo, the alleged daughter of Passaconaway, became a chieftain of the Wampanoag tribe in what is now RI and southeastern MA. How she became a Wampanoag from being a Penacook is unclear, but it was probably through an inter-tribal arranged marriage. The first of her six husbands was Wamsutta, son of Massasoit.

Metacomet, Wamsutta’s successor, led the Indians in the bloody King Philip’s War (King Philip was Metacomet’s other name) against the colonists. Weetamoo was a staunch supporter of Metacomet and his fighting against the colonists. It can be assumed that her husbands succumbed in the fighting. She presumably drowned during an attempted crossing of the Taunton River on August 6, 1676, while being pursued by a colonial militia. Weetamoo Rock on Mt. Chocorua and Weetamoo Falls in the Great Gulf immortalize this beloved woman and sachem of the Penacook and Wampanoag tribes. (Markowitz, H., 1995, p.851; Bolnick, B.& D., 1990, p.269).

These two friends enjoy the foliage from Mt. Pemigewasett, just south of Franconia Notch. This mountain is also known as Indian Head, its summit rock profile.



The Colonization of the White Mountains:

The European colonization of the Whites was a direct result of turmoil on that continent in the 1600s. A revolving door of religious strife between Puritans, Anglicans, and Roman Catholics in Great Britain sent waves of colonists to America seeking freedom from religious persecution, depending on which religious group was in power there. In the latter half of that century, Louis XIV of France sent his armies to invade other western European nations, causing full scale warfare that eventually spread to North America against the British.

In 1679, King Charles II of England declared NH a Royal Province, the only state that would ever have that status. There was a perceived military reason for this; the high quality timber and wood byproducts needed for the Royal Navy’s warships had been purchased from Norway up to that time. By 1700, the Great Northern War between Peter the Great of Russia and Charles XII of Sweden had shut off Norway as a source of those materials.

The Royal Navy, desperate for these materials in order to mass a navy to match Louis XIV’s war machine, turned to the colonies. An inital lack of interest on the colonists part, probably because of Indian troubles, forced the Royal Navy to subsidize the lumbering operations. Shipbuilders specifically sought the Eastern White Pines (Pinus strobus), for main masts. Hemlock and spruce were sought for other shipbuilding materials, such as rosin, pitch, and turpentine. Those prized commodities had not been available from Norway because of the aforementioned war, too. Thus the White Mountains were a source for military supply during the colonial era. The Old Mast Road near the Wonalancet Range is an example a trail that was used for transporting these commodities. (Ponting, C., 1991, p.279; Cooke, J., 1993, p.518).

Pioneers:

The 1600s through the mid-1800s was the pioneering era of the White Mountains. Many of these pioneers names are immortalized in the locations bearing their names. Two of the very earliest pioneers are worthy of the most notice. The first is Darby Field, an Irish-American from Exeter, NH (Washburn, B., 1928, p.5). Mr. Field made the first recorded hike of Mt. Washington in 1642. The other was John Josselyn. These two persons were probably the most important of the White Mountain pioneers because of their extensive written accounts about the Presidentials. These two men wrote the first trail guides for the Whites! They provided detailed descriptions of the climate, the geography, the vegetation, the distances, the mountains’ locations in reference to the major rivers nearby, and even the Indians’ attitudes toward the mountains.

Other notable pioneers, like the hikers of today, came from all walks of life. They all had one thing in common though; a tremendous love for this region. These are some of the most well known pioneers and their occupations: Francis Boott (industrialist and scientist); Dr. Philip Carrigain (surveyor, mapmaker, NH Secretary of State); Dr. Ezra Carter, MD (botanist– searched for medicinal herbs); Abel Crawford and Ethan Allen Crawford (settlers of Crawford Notch, Mount Washington trail blazers and guides, innkeepers); Nathaniel Davis (trailbuilder, son-in-law of Abel Crawford); J. Rayner Edmands (Harvard professor, surveyor, former AMC president, and trailbuilder); J.H. Huntington (geologist); Rev. Thomas Starr King (minister, author, hiker); Timothy Nash and Benjamin Sawyer (farmers, woodsmen, pioneers of Crawford Notch); Professor Edward Tuckerman (botanist and accomplished hiker); and many others who contributed to discovering the wonders of the Whites, and blazed trails to them.

Many of the destinations and trails in this guide are named after these pioneers.

Below- a view toward Crawford Notch and the Presidential Range from the summit tower on Mt. Carragain. Many consider this to be the finest viewpoint in the Whites, aside from the Bonds.

Bottom- the lovely BridalVeil Falls.




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