‘“Is there, really and truly, such a place as Fairy Land?” we shall answer “There is; we have been there. It is hidden away on the mountain shores of Lake Winnepesaukee, in the beautiful Ossipee Glens”’
Such was the conclusion of Lucy after a visit to the Ossipees and a hike along a brook. She wrote at length of her visit, something she had done apparently many times.
“There are innumerable delightful hide-away places in the hill-country of New Hampshire, fairy nooks and corners of which the railway-travelling world has not the remotest guess. This has been found true of the green heights of the Ossipees.”
I took this photo several years ago on a hike in the Ossipees and had a similar feeling as Lucy.
“At least one remarkable lake is hidden in its heart, -a mountain tarn that reflects the loftiest of the Ossipee summits in its unfathomed deep, sunk like a well in a hollow wilderness of hills, and unvisited except by an occasion guest – usually some stray woodsman or fisherman.”
“This range, fortunate in being accounted uninteresting by the common traveler, has not been without its merited poetic appreciation,” she than quotes a poet friend, “I saw on Winnepesaukee fall the shadow of the mountain wall.”
“That dark olive-green cone which rises as a landmark from the corner of the range, -what a shame that it should be known by the libelious cognomen of “Black Snout?” She suggests “Spruce Cap”.
She wrote about the “Crow’s Nest” and “The Steep”; the view at 1200’ from the house on the lawn looking out over the Lake “mingling its vivid blue waters and green islands with the mistiness of mountain distances”; and then, also, from the north porch “where a verdurous semi-circle of mountains seem to enclose you”; the cellar holes, “the weather-worn farm house behind the stone wall across the way”; the school-district which “children climbed the mountain side from below, to study their spelling-book and multiplication table by the light of lake and hillside sunshine”; the remaining “few farmers and their families”; “the spot where Ebenezer Horne perished in a snowstorm only a few feet from his own threshold, as he returned from an errand to the settlements below, on a bitter night in the year 1813”; the North Wind Ravine and its “curious weather phenomenon”; Mount Shaw having “three distinct elevations” one which “formerly unfortunately shared with it the barbarous characterization of ‘Black Snout’; but is now more euphoniously spoken of as ‘Melvin Peak,’ or the ‘East Knoll’”; some Indian history and Bald Peak.
Crow’s Nest
http://www.winnipesaukee.com/photopost/data/531/medium/20scancrowsnest.jpg
House on the Lawn (Weelahka Hall) with Crow’s Nest in background
http://www.winnipesaukee.com/photopost/data/531/medium/20scanweelahka.jpg
The walk Lucy took was one I had been meaning to do for some time but could no longer put off. “The soul of the region has yet to be unveiled to us…A turnstile – and then a foot path. There is a lisp of waters…a rustic bridge. We are entering Glen Ossipee, the Glen of the Beautiful Brook…For a mile this bright presence descends the rocky glen, filling it with every various mood of a brook’s life, from rivulet to waterfall…Mary’s Arch…the ‘Veil Falls’…the ‘Falls of Song’…Glen Ossipee Brook (sometimes called Welahka) descends two hundred and fifty feet in one mile…The visible source of the brook is far up the hillside, in a circular spring hidden by enclosing woods, a sort of fairy-fountain, with ice-cold water perennially bubbling up through clear sands. Its real, unseen sources lie deep within the mountain’s heart.”
Bridal Veil Falls
Falls of Song
From a book published in 1869
“Centre Harbor…
On the south side of Ossipee Mountain, which extends into this town, there is a cool and copious spring, impregnated with sulphur and iron. Near the summit of the mountain is a remarkable spring, fifteen feet in diameter, which emits a dozen jets of water to the height of two feet, containing small quantities of fine white sand, and discharges a considerable brook ; receiving many tributaries, it becomes, in the course of a mile and a half, a foaming mountain torrent. At that distance from the spring, and not far from Sulphur Spring, it breaks into a broad and furious cascade for fifty feet, then takes a perpendicular plunge of .seventy feet. Ossipee Falls are magnificently grand of themselves, and picturesque in all their surroundings, and it is believed that a summer hotel would be accommodating and remunerating. Near these falls there is a cave, where charred wood and other indications of its once having been a resort for Indians have been found. In 1817, a huge skeleton of a man, supposed to be seven feet high, or more, was found buried in the sand. In 1820, on a small island in the lake, a rusty and ruined gun-barrel, of peculiar workmanship, was found embedded in a pine-tree sixteen inches in diameter. The Ossipee Indians lived about this region, and there is, or was recently, a tree on which was carved the records of the tribe. "
The ‘spring’ is the source for Castle Springs water.
The ‘Walk’ had suffered damage from flood and time but was recently cleaned up and opened to the public.
Lucy quotes the poetry of John Greenleaf Whittier (thus the mountain “Whittier” - note the ski area was called Mt. Whitter Ski Area but was on the Nickerson Mts).
Lucy’s 15 page account was published in the “New England Magazine” in 1892.
She is credited with naming Paugus and Wanalancet in the Sandwich Range.
Two mountains in the Ossipee Range now bear her name – Larcom and Little Larcom.
Her mountain tarn is Conner Pond, 86 acres and 63 ft at its deepest.
The small pond in the center as seen from Mt. Shaw
I have been doing quite a bit of research and am always finding more. I have more pictures and info if any are interested.
Such was the conclusion of Lucy after a visit to the Ossipees and a hike along a brook. She wrote at length of her visit, something she had done apparently many times.
“There are innumerable delightful hide-away places in the hill-country of New Hampshire, fairy nooks and corners of which the railway-travelling world has not the remotest guess. This has been found true of the green heights of the Ossipees.”
I took this photo several years ago on a hike in the Ossipees and had a similar feeling as Lucy.
“At least one remarkable lake is hidden in its heart, -a mountain tarn that reflects the loftiest of the Ossipee summits in its unfathomed deep, sunk like a well in a hollow wilderness of hills, and unvisited except by an occasion guest – usually some stray woodsman or fisherman.”
“This range, fortunate in being accounted uninteresting by the common traveler, has not been without its merited poetic appreciation,” she than quotes a poet friend, “I saw on Winnepesaukee fall the shadow of the mountain wall.”
“That dark olive-green cone which rises as a landmark from the corner of the range, -what a shame that it should be known by the libelious cognomen of “Black Snout?” She suggests “Spruce Cap”.
She wrote about the “Crow’s Nest” and “The Steep”; the view at 1200’ from the house on the lawn looking out over the Lake “mingling its vivid blue waters and green islands with the mistiness of mountain distances”; and then, also, from the north porch “where a verdurous semi-circle of mountains seem to enclose you”; the cellar holes, “the weather-worn farm house behind the stone wall across the way”; the school-district which “children climbed the mountain side from below, to study their spelling-book and multiplication table by the light of lake and hillside sunshine”; the remaining “few farmers and their families”; “the spot where Ebenezer Horne perished in a snowstorm only a few feet from his own threshold, as he returned from an errand to the settlements below, on a bitter night in the year 1813”; the North Wind Ravine and its “curious weather phenomenon”; Mount Shaw having “three distinct elevations” one which “formerly unfortunately shared with it the barbarous characterization of ‘Black Snout’; but is now more euphoniously spoken of as ‘Melvin Peak,’ or the ‘East Knoll’”; some Indian history and Bald Peak.
Crow’s Nest
http://www.winnipesaukee.com/photopost/data/531/medium/20scancrowsnest.jpg
House on the Lawn (Weelahka Hall) with Crow’s Nest in background
http://www.winnipesaukee.com/photopost/data/531/medium/20scanweelahka.jpg
The walk Lucy took was one I had been meaning to do for some time but could no longer put off. “The soul of the region has yet to be unveiled to us…A turnstile – and then a foot path. There is a lisp of waters…a rustic bridge. We are entering Glen Ossipee, the Glen of the Beautiful Brook…For a mile this bright presence descends the rocky glen, filling it with every various mood of a brook’s life, from rivulet to waterfall…Mary’s Arch…the ‘Veil Falls’…the ‘Falls of Song’…Glen Ossipee Brook (sometimes called Welahka) descends two hundred and fifty feet in one mile…The visible source of the brook is far up the hillside, in a circular spring hidden by enclosing woods, a sort of fairy-fountain, with ice-cold water perennially bubbling up through clear sands. Its real, unseen sources lie deep within the mountain’s heart.”
Bridal Veil Falls
Falls of Song
From a book published in 1869
“Centre Harbor…
On the south side of Ossipee Mountain, which extends into this town, there is a cool and copious spring, impregnated with sulphur and iron. Near the summit of the mountain is a remarkable spring, fifteen feet in diameter, which emits a dozen jets of water to the height of two feet, containing small quantities of fine white sand, and discharges a considerable brook ; receiving many tributaries, it becomes, in the course of a mile and a half, a foaming mountain torrent. At that distance from the spring, and not far from Sulphur Spring, it breaks into a broad and furious cascade for fifty feet, then takes a perpendicular plunge of .seventy feet. Ossipee Falls are magnificently grand of themselves, and picturesque in all their surroundings, and it is believed that a summer hotel would be accommodating and remunerating. Near these falls there is a cave, where charred wood and other indications of its once having been a resort for Indians have been found. In 1817, a huge skeleton of a man, supposed to be seven feet high, or more, was found buried in the sand. In 1820, on a small island in the lake, a rusty and ruined gun-barrel, of peculiar workmanship, was found embedded in a pine-tree sixteen inches in diameter. The Ossipee Indians lived about this region, and there is, or was recently, a tree on which was carved the records of the tribe. "
The ‘spring’ is the source for Castle Springs water.
The ‘Walk’ had suffered damage from flood and time but was recently cleaned up and opened to the public.
Lucy quotes the poetry of John Greenleaf Whittier (thus the mountain “Whittier” - note the ski area was called Mt. Whitter Ski Area but was on the Nickerson Mts).
Lucy’s 15 page account was published in the “New England Magazine” in 1892.
She is credited with naming Paugus and Wanalancet in the Sandwich Range.
Two mountains in the Ossipee Range now bear her name – Larcom and Little Larcom.
Her mountain tarn is Conner Pond, 86 acres and 63 ft at its deepest.
The small pond in the center as seen from Mt. Shaw
I have been doing quite a bit of research and am always finding more. I have more pictures and info if any are interested.
