THE GOVERNOR'S ROAD

Not a few times during the motoring season of the past two or three years certain persons connected with Dartmouth could have been found over back of Moose Mountain, in the wilder parts of Canaan and Dorchester, hunting for something not very obvious. In season or out, the infrequent inhabitants suspected invisible guns, or if charitable, boundary lines. A long-suffering car was driven up dim forgotten roads and left in abandoned clearings while army breeches disappeared into blackberry thickets or alder swamps. Following abandoned roads has a fascination for most of us. They are lovely things, with their stone walls grown up to thickets and forest trees, their surprises of lilac clumps at old cellar holes, their tremendous climbs to far views. When the road has also some historic interest, and is rather a puzzle to find, the tracing of it becomes a completely delightful excuse for a day out—there are some who are inclined to call it an obsession.

We have been trying to trace the road or path cleared for Governor John Wentworth from his country estate in Wolfeboro to Dartmouth, whereby he travelled with a company of friends to the second commencement, in 1772. In Hanover it has usually been called the Wolfeboro Road. Elsewhere it sometimes has been so called, sometimes the Governor's road, the Wentworth road, or the College road. An old inhabitant in a remote abandoned hill clearing in Groton, resting his shot gun on the scattered founda- tion of the school house where in his father's boyhood forty children gathered, said "Yes—King George's Road. It was down there. I remember corduroy in the swamp."

Now the academic (synonymous of course, with the efficient) way of going at this job would be to1 get at the original records of each town crossed by the road, consult the archives at Concord and the county registry of deeds, hunt up the local traditions. We have done none of these things. It is the out-door part which interested us. The obsession is growing, and may yet drive someone to research under roof, from which may result another and "authoritative" contribution. So far we have simply consulted what could be found in print or in the College archives. These served to establish a few points regarding which we could say; "the road almost certainly ran by here." Then we went out to see if we could find traces of a road connecting these points.

In Hanover, local tradition and references in Chase's History and the town records establish the route of the road so nearly entire that we have gone farther afield. For instance, Wallace's Hislory of Canaan avers that Josiah Bartlett's house was just south of our road. A casual reference found elsewhere in the book—and this is unusual luck—tells the exact location. An hour and a half from Hanover the car nosed up a steep road of grassy ruts and crackling fallen branches and emerged in a lonesome old clearing before a massive abandoned house. It was a fine old home of the square two-story type, now wrecked within and sadly worn, but preserving beautiful pilasters and architrave at the two doorways. It was built twenty years or so after the Governor passed that way, and since our visit has been destroyed to make a hunting shack. Our road should run east and west out of this clearing. We scouted the edge and soon found a lead east running down between old walls into forest, itself all but forest grown. Soon it dropped into a swamp and became a sunken way through the alders. We speculated as to whether a road would sink itself in such noticeable fashion in soft ground. Where it came to a north and south road we left it, retraced our steps and hunted for the westward exit from the clearing. After many false starts one blackberry tangle developed into a wood road which took us down to the Mascoma at an old mill dam. It wasn't much of a road—showed few signs of walling and ditching, but it was nearly in the right line. On other days we returned to the two ends thus left hanging and carried them on east and west till on one side we connected with the Hanover end —all but one puzzling half-mile gap— and on the other gave it up for the season in a trackless mess of slash and swamp.

The College owes much to John Wentworth, last Provincial Governor of New Hampshire. He and Wheelock together produced the famous liberal charter. He favored the college in every way, and attended its first three commencements in spite of the appalling difficulties of travel.

To be sure, he was an out-door man. He did a most unusual thing in Colonial New England—went forty miles into wilderness, cleared land, developed a country estate and built a manor house. This is not the occasion to describe that interesting venture at Wolfeboro on the shore of Lake Wentworth. But I cannot refrain from quoting, as others have, from a charming letter in which his wife gives a glimpse of her feeling on the subject. She writes in 1770 to a friend in town:

"...I was pleased at all the intelligence you gave me; for, although I live in the woods, I am fond of knowing what passes in the world. Nor have my ideas sunk half enough in rural tranquillity to prefer a grove to a ball-room. I wish you were here to take a game of billiards with me, as I am alone. The Governor is so busy in directions to his workmen that I am almost turned hermit.

"The great dancing-room is nearly completed, with the drawing-room, and begins to make a very pretty appearance.

"He loves to be going about, and sometimes (except at meales) I don't see him an hour in a day. The season of the year advances so rapidly now that we begin to think of winter quarters, and I believe we shall soon get to town. I guess we shall set off about the time we proposed. You may easily think I dread the journey, as the roads are so bad, and I as great a coward as ever existed. I tell the Governor he is unlucky in having a wife so timid a disposition, and he so resolute. For you know he would attempt, and effect if possible, to ride over the tops of the trees on Moose Mountain, while poor I even tremble at passing through a road cut at the foot of it ... (Oct. 1770. Lady Frances Wentworth to Mrs. Woodbury Langdon. Quoted in Mayo, John Wentworth, P. 93)

Wentworth was very much an outdoor man, fond of the woods and of adventure. He did not shrink from long journeys under pioneer conditions. His biographer quotes as follows from his letters:

"My duty in the woods calls me so often into such sad countries that every day's travel is almost a miracle. How ever, I have not yet even broke a bone; and as to drowning, I begin to think it a mere fable as I am frequently upon great lakes in a hollow log, sometimes plunged into rivers endeavouring to pass on a single tree. But always somebody or other pulls me out again—for I can't swim, and it is, therefore, the more kind in them."

In the summer of 1773, Wentworth went through the woods "from Winnipesiokett Pond to White River Falls on Connecticut River, thence up the said river to the 45th degree of latitude, and thence by another direction through the pathless wilderness down to the seacoast." (From Mayo. p. 55)

This means an exploring expedition far beyond settlements, to the Connecticut Lakes, across to the Magalloway and down by the Androscoggin and the White Mountains.

In 1769 the only roads entering Hanover were the river road north and the river road south, and these were little more than ox-cart tracks. Heavy goods were boated up the river, or ox hauled along its banks, and came chiefly from Connecticut. Practically all the New Hampshire settlements within thirty miles of Hanover were made between 1760 and 1770, or later. Beyond, to the south, was another thirty mile belt of very recent and scattering settlement. Through roads for the convenience of the outlying settlements could be made only by compulsion and financial help from the Provincial government. Wentworth saw that the trade of western and northern New Hampshire was going to Connecticut and Boston instead of his own Provincial capital, Portsmouth, for lack of roads. Witness his reluctant advice, as reported by Aaron Starrs in a letter to Wheelock in 1771 "... as he is assured that the road from .... Senters to Orford is impassable with carts he thinks it advisable to traid in Boston ..."

These conditions resulted in a series of Highway Acts by the Provincial Assembly. They sound imposing, but, as we shall see, accomplished little owing to scarcity of settlers to supply labor, money and initiative. The Province itself was in no position to do more than divert to road work certain tax money already authorized, if it could be collected.

In 1763 a road was ordered by the Assembly to run from Durham by Plymouth to Haverhill. In 1771 an act recompensing contractors implies that nothing had been done north of Gilmanton. The Crawford Notch road, voted in 1769, was still impassable in 1777. The Pinkham Notch road, voted in 1772, was not put through until years later. The "Province Road" from Boscawen to Charlestown, ordered in 1769, was seriously undertaken, but in 1771 was still incomplete. The Hanover road seems to have been a pet scheme of the Governor. He attended the first commencement in 1771, to which Wheelock invited him in these terms:

AUG. 5, 1771.

"I hope to wait upon your Excellency among these pines at the time appointed viz the. last Tuesday of this month when there will be matters of the last importance to the prosperity and well being of this institution to be considered by the Trustees." "Among these pines"—the three words add to the formal notice of a Trustees' meeting that touch of grace and imagination which makes literature out of bare words. He went to Hanover by Plymouth, Haverhill and Orford, and must have found it annoyingly roundabout. Both he and Wheelock seem to have appreciated fully the advantage to the College of a direct road to the Capital. The Hanover proprietors took action in 1770, had a survey made and voted to build to the Canaan line. Nothing was done, perhaps because it was found that the other town would not act.

Feb. 6, 1771, Wentworth wrote Wheelock the following:

"If a road was opened to Winnipesiokett and your inhabitants found the way thereby to Portsmouth, it would strongly attract the interest of many, who weigh their conduct in that scale; much merit would then be discovered in the College, for the hopes of gain will purge the sight of such ...

April 13, 1771, the Province act ordering the road was passed. Most of the towns involved promptly voted to do their share. The preamble of the act reads: "Whereas the opening and making of roads through the various parts Of the province is a great public utility; and the making of a road to Dartmouth College will greatly promote the design of that valuable institution

Surveying parties were sent m to run the line, and their original plot and courses are preserved at Concord, know therefore the general run of the road. But only $50 was appropriated to survey sixty or seventy miles of road. So they simply laid out a way through, in shots sometimes four miles long, regardless of hills and swamps, and naturally the local men who cleared the road used their own judgment in sequently the old survey with its "W. 32 N. 4½ miles to a beech tree is of little help in finding the details of the old route.

There is little doubt that Hanover actually cleared and roughly improved its part of the road in 1772. On June 22 1772, the proprietors allowed £l/10 building a bridge on this road across Camp Brook. The Governor was expected to travel it, and Hanover owed him much. What was done on the road in other towns is more doubtful. Moultonboro and Tuftonboro there was obstruction, as is evidenced by the petition of Senter, who had charge o a. section:

".... notification in the prints was afterwards given for the several tow to clear out the same .... but none of said towns or their proprietors took any notice thereof ...."

This would imply that two years after the Governor travelled to Hanover, it was still only a bridle path in spots.

To us it seems, as a route for trade, or communication with the capitol, un necessarily rough and far from the more rapidly settling parts of the Province. For the Governor's convenience, or to develop new territory, it was well suited. That this was felt at the time may be inferred from the fact that in 1/74 a road from Hanover to Boscawen was projected and actually built m part though apparently without Provincial authority. Records show that it was constructed through Andover. In Hanover only a tradition of it remains After the revolution it became a fact, though by a slightly different route.

We have practically contemporary evidence as to how these roads were made Jeremy Belknap was a close friend Wentworth, and probably travelled with him at times. In volume three o History of New Hampshire, published in 1792, we find:—

"The manner of making a new road, through the wildernefs is this: Firft, a furveyor and his party, with the conpafs and chain, explore the country, and where they find the land fuitable for a road, the trees are fpotted, by cutting out a piece of the bark, and at the en of every mile the number is marked on the neareft tree. Then follow the axemen, who clear away the bufhes and fell the trees, in a fpace of three rods wide, cutting them as near as poffible ground, that the ftumps may travelling; and if the trees are they cut them again, into fuch lengthy as 'that the teamfters, by the help chains and oxen, may draw them out of the way. In wet land, the trees thus felled, or others which are proper a formed into caufeways and bridges. Rocks are either turned out of the or fplit by gunpowder, or heated by fire and then foftened by water.

is where the pitch pine grows; this is generally level, or if not perfectly fo, yet always dry. The foil is fandy or gravelly; the trees are fparfe; and the under growth confifts of brakes, fern and whortle bufhes, which are eafily fubdued; but this kind of land is not profitable. The beft land for cultivation, is a deep loamy foil, which makes miry roads, and needs much labor to be beftowed on bridges and caufeways. For croffing fmall ftreams, the beaver dams are found very safe and convenient. They are about three or four feet wide at the top, which is on a level with the water above, and is always firm and folid. New roads, therefore, are frequently laid out fo as to fave expenfe, by taking advantage of the labor of that ufeful animal." "Roads are not brought to perfection at once, efpecially in rocky and hilly land; but after the firft operations, they are paffable for fingle horfes and teams of oxen. As the earth is opened to the fun, many wet places are dried, and brooks are contracted; and as the land is more and more cleared, fmaller frtreams difappear. The beft kind of land for roads

We have nothing to indicate that the Governor's Road became, throughout or in large part, passable for wheels before the Revolution. The Revolution set everything back—little road making or settling was done. It removed Wentworth and the importance of Wolfeboro, and diminished the influence of Portmouth. Until the era of Turnpikes began, about 1800, each town made roads to suit itself, with little reference to through routes or the convenience of other towns. It is likely therefore that the Governor's Road was used very little after his last trip in 1773 except when it happened to coincide with the needs of the towns it crossed. From Wolfeboro to Groton it did so coincide in large part. Through Dorchester, Canaan and Hanover it hardly did at all.

From all this it follows that parts of the road not only may never have been walled and ditched, but may even never have been rutted, and consequently would be absolutely untraceable on the ground today. Using the old survey we may accept as part of the Governor's route roads now traceable which run it reasonably close. Where there is choice between two roads neither of which is quite right, or when none at all can be found, recourse to records must be had to see if by some casual reference, as in old town road surveys, the point can be settled.

A few hints in the meagre printed records bear witness to the obstinacy of topography. In the warrant for the Hanover town meeting of 1800 we find .... "8th: to see if the town will open the Wolfeborough road so called over Moos Mountain ...." In the warrant for March, 1812 meeting .... "12th. To hear a petition of a number of the inhabitants east of Moose Mountain respecting clearing Wolfeborough road ...."

It is small wonder that this section of the road,, with its tremendous climb over the saddle in Moose Mountain, early fell into disrepair. Today it has utterly gone to gulleys and brush. Yet it was spasmodically worked till fairly recent years, else Dr. Carleton would, we hope, not dare to claim that he drove over it in the first automobile that ever came to Hanover, an Orient Buckboard.

Three towns have printed traditions of the Governor's journey over his road. Chase gives the Hanover tradition: "commencement fell on the 26th of August, 1772. The Governor came, with a considerable following by the new State road from Wolfeborough."

That he did so come, by this new road throughout, is extremely probable, but I have not seen documentary proof. He was a good sport, and would have put it through if possible.

Here is the Hebron tradition: from Childs—Grafton County Gazetteer.

"Governor Wentworth and his council once passed through the town, re- maining overnight at the residence of Captain Pike. Tradition asserts that they passed a law relative to borrowed articles, as follows:-'When the owner of a loaned article wishes it returned, he must go after it.' " This has a genuine ringit is the sort of thing one might expect from a lively crowd bored by a long journey.

This is the Canaan story

"In the spring of 1772, Governor John Wentworth started in his four-horse coach from Wolfeborough to visit his possessions toward Connecticut River. He was accompanied by an escort of sixty soldiers, and the road was cleared for him as he passed along through forest and swamps, over hills and through valleys, building bridges—and corduroy—" This is probably mere nonsense.

In the summer of 1772 the Governor prepared to attend the second commencement, and had hopes that his new road to the College would be more or less done, so that the trip would be easier than before. When about to start he received this letter from Dr. Wheelock:-

DARTMOUTH COLLEGE, Aug. 10, 1772. Much Honored Sir:

I have snatched this minute to embrace a favorable opportunity while your Servant is making ready his carriage to inform your Excellency that Several Young Graduates and other Gentlemen in connection with this College have been desirous and Studious to give some proper and due expression of their duty and Respect to you and having been informed that you design to come hither by the New Road they determined to meet your Excellency at Plymouth and conduct you by that way, but we are now informed by your Servant that you design to come by Way of Cowas. We are also advised that it is doubtful whether the road is yet cut so as to be passable to travel thro Cokermoth. Which has thrown us all into Suspense, 'till we may be advised of your Excellencys Pleasure in the affair, which will not fail to meet with their complyance with much (illegible) as they are as well as he who begs leave to subscribe himself with great Sincerity

Your Excellencys Much Obliged and Most Obedient Humble Servant,

ELEAZAR WHEELOCK.

Wentworth's reply follows:

WENTWORTH HOUSE, 17th August, 1772.

Reverend and Very Dear Sir:

I have this day rec'd your kind letter by my servant, Hersey. The polite intention of the gentlemen connected with Dartmouth College gives me great pleasure and is gratefully accepted.

I propose to set out from this place the first fair day after the 20th instant, accompanied by Mr. Jaffrey and Colo Gilman of the Trustees, also The Speaker, & as many members of Assembly & other Gent, of consideration as I could prevail on, in great hopes to interest their hearts where their duty has long since called them, & thereby obtain a proper support for Dartmouth College, already too long delayd.

At Plymouth we shall make due enquiry, & if tolerably practicable prefer the College road ' lately laid out by authority. Colo Atkinson's age, & Mr. Pierce's fatally increasing infirmities, prevent the possibility of their making the journey; but I am still in hopes the gentlemen from Connecticut will make up ye Quorum of Trustees, that the College affairs may not suffer a repeated disappointment. I am, etc.,

J. Wentworth.

The following list accompanied the letter: "The company expected to attend Commencement at Dartmouth College, Aug. 26, 1772, with his Excellency Governor Wentworth; namely, the Honorable Mark Hunking Wentworth, Esq., George Jaffrey, Esq., Daniel Rogers, Esq., Peter Gilman, Esq., the Hon. John Wentworth, Esq., Speaker of the Assembly, Major Samuel Hobart, Esq., John Giddings, Esq., Col. John Phillips, Esq., John Sherburne, Esq., Member of Assembly, John Fisher, Esq., Collector of Salem, Col. Nathaniel Folsom, Esq., Rev. Dr. Langdon, of Portsmouth, Rev. Mr. Emerson of Hollis, Dr. Cutler, Dr. Brackett, Samuel Penhallow, Esq., William Parker, Jun., Esq., Benjamin Whiting, Esq., High Sheriff of Hillsboro County, Hon Samuel Holland, Esq., Surveyor-General of the Northern District of America and a Councillor of Canada, Thomas McDonogh, Esq., Secretary to the Governor. About ten more are invited, but I think uncertain whether they'll undertake the journey."

It must have been something of a Cavalcade that left Wentworth House by the lake on that "first fair day" in August, 1772. There were servants, of course, and pack horses, for they must have at least provided against having to camp in the open. There were long stretches without a clearing and nowhere accommodations for so large a party. The road ran across to Lake Winnepesaukee, northwest beside it to Moultonboro, across the head to Center Harbor, to Holderness and Plymouth. So far there were scattering settlements and doubtless stretches of older cart tracks connected and shortened by the new path. Much of this section must correspond closely to existing travelled roads.

From Plymouth the route ran down to Hebron at the head of Newfound Lake, and turned west into Groton. Near the lake were a few clearings. From there to Hanover it was all wilderness, exeept, perhaps, for two or three hunters' cabins in Canaan. The newly cut forest path seems to have run up Cockermouth Brook, passed through the notch north of Kimball Hill, and, turning a little southward, headed as directly as hills would allow for the saddle in Moose Mountain. Three long but narrow swamps stretch athwart the route. The path seems to have cut straight across them—perhaps on some of Belknap's long vanished beaver dams. Quite surely the path passed just south of Clark's Pond, climbed the hill overlooking, dropped to Goose Pond inlet and made the long climb by Tunis to the saddle in Moose. Writing in 1774 regarding the commencement meeting of that year, the Governor said " if possible I will be there. You will please to inform me what trustees you expect to be with you. It would be advisable to write very pressing to the worthy good Brigadier Gilman. He hardly knows how again to pass Moose Mountain...... "

From Moose the path ran by Hanover Center, around the south end of Lord's Hill, north of the reservoir, down to Hanover plain by the track still traceable on the hillside north of the present road, and so to the College.

There has not been space to describe in detail even those sections of the Governor's Road with which we are most familiar. Not a mile but has a dozen high lights for those who love the hill country of New England. There are miles enough to take a long, long time to explore in detail, to welcome many besides those who left their car at the Joseph Bartlett House.

The newest of the Outing Club cabins is1 to stand by the spring under a giant hemlock beside the Governor's Road, where it makes its first climb from Hanover Plain. Moose cabin is just off the old road. In the wilder parts of Canaan, Dorchester and Groton are plenty of attractive cabins sites along the line. Plymouth is the south western gateway to the mountains. Perhaps the Club will maintain an interest in the old road from Hanover to Plymouth at least—keep it open where overgrown entire; perhaps put up a few signs. There is something in the future of wider importance. Many organizations, interested in out-door things from different angles, are slowly coming together for a definite objective —an Appalachian Long Trail, from Mount Mitchell to Katahdin, from Alabama to Maine. More miles of this now exist than most of us realize. The trailcrossing from the Green Mountains to the White Mountains will be at Hanover. Then why not alternate routes—the D.O.C. trail to Moosilauke and the northern end of the White Mountains—the Governor's Road to Plymouth and the southern approach? One hundred and fifty years ago this coming August the road was cleared and the Governor's party made the journey. It is fitting to recall it.

But after all many of us are interested in the old road simply because it is old, and dim, and in part forgotten: because we like to trace the faint signs of former travel, to pass pleasant hours in the abandoned fields of the hill country; to trace fallen walls among the spruces and find caving cellar holes, amazing in their remoteness and in the persistence of their apple trees and lilacs: and, the while, play that we have an end in view to justify our pleasure.

At the Hanover End of the Abandoned Section

Where the Road Turns to Cross Moose Mountain

View of Clark's Pond from the Road, a Section through Canaan

A Typical Stretch of Abandoned Section Through Forest

NATHANIEL L. GOODRICH Librarian of the College