While Rosemary and I both loved the idea of a mountaintop wedding, it was important to us that all of our immediate family members, including those with mobility challenges, be able to attend. Rosemary wondered if there was a place with a scenic view that it would be possible to drive to. One place immediately sprang to mind: The new overlook at the Buck’s Ledge Community Forest.

The community forest is owned by the town of Woodstock, managed by the Woodstock Conservation Commission, and held in conservation easement by the Mahoosuc Land Trust. It encompasses the land around Moody Mountain in Woodstock, Maine, and is named for its most notable feature: the large granite cliff that juts out from a westerly peak of the mountain, and which has been known for at least a century as “Buck’s Ledge.”

There are numerous stories about how Buck’s Ledge got its name, some involving bucks of the hoofed variety. But the most likely explanation points to the humans by that surname who lived nearby. It is a testament to its stature that Buck’s Ledge has retained its possessive “s” in nearly all common usages, while many other nearby locations—Bryant’s Pond, Locke’s Mills (save by a few holdouts) and even (usually) its twin Lapham’s Ledge—have succumbed to more modern naming conventions.

Buck’s Ledge cuts an impressive figure as seen by boat from North Pond or from the stretch of Route 26 that passes nearby. But the real prize comes from atop one of its two viewpoints, which command sweeping views of Greenwood and Woodstock’s North Pond, South Pond, and Mt. Abram. It’s also known as one of the best “bang-for-your-buck” (no pun intended) hikes around, since the trail is short and relatively easy.

Most importantly, of all the beautiful hiking spots in our area, Buck’s Ledge is the one that feels the most sacred to me. Since the last glacier retreated from Maine some 12,000 years ago, this great stone sentinel has stood watch over an ever-changing landscape below.

According to a recent report by geologist Myles Felch, curator at the Maine Gem and Mineral Museum, Buck’s and Lapham Ledges are “glacially-sculpted ‘roches moutonnées.’” Myles explains:

These hills were shaped as the glacier flowed over bedrock ridges, scouring the up-ice side into a gradual slope and plucking rock from the down-ice side to create a steep slope or cliff (such as Buck’s and Lapham Ledges). We can infer that the glacier was flowing from northwest to southeast in this area due to the shape of these hills (Fig. 6). These features are ubiquitous in western Maine.

In recent centuries, human activity has dramatically accelerated changes to the landscape. Indeed, North Pond, as we know it, is a creation of man. Like many of the lakes and ponds that surround us, it would be a much smaller body of water in its natural state.

The story goes back to 1816, one of the most difficult years that early Euro-American settlers in the area ever faced due to a series of extreme weather events. On April 10, 1815, the Indonesian volcano Mount Tambora exploded, spewing ash into the atmosphere and triggering a volcanic winter that would resonate across the globe. New England began to feel the impact months later. The following year experienced a killing frost every month and became known as “Eighteen Hundred and Froze To Death” or “the year without a summer.” Then, in the fall, wildfires swept through the area of Greenwood and Woodstock, destroying forests and charring the soil.

According to historian William B. Lapham, it was the urgency of this situation that spurred Samuel Barron Locke to action:

About the year eighteen hundred and sixteen, fires in the woods killed vast quantities of timber which, if not utilized at once, would decay and be spoiled. This induced Mr. Locke to buy a tract of land, and erect mills on the outlet of certain ponds in Greenwood and Woodstock, which outlet has since borne the name of Alder river. These mills have since that time borne the name of the builder and owner, and are situated in Greenwood about half a mile from Bethel south line.

As such, Locke’s Mills can be considered, as genealogist and local historian Chris Dunham terms it, “A Village Born of Fire.”

The damming of the outlet flooded the small streams connecting the three “Alder River ponds” (North, South, and Round) creating the wide channels we paddle and motor through today, and greatly enlarging the size of the ponds. This was done for the purpose of harnessing the water power, not with any thought in mind about increasing the availability of waterfront property. Yet it was only a matter of time before the first “rusticators” would conclude that by the ponds was the place to be.

According to Greenwood historian Blaine Mills, the first summer camps were built around 1890 on South Pond and Round Pond by Reuben Rand and the brothers Woodsum. Scattered cottages began appearing on North Pond just a few years later, although the east shore would remain undeveloped for several decades.

My family’s connection to Buck’s Ledge and to North Pond begins in the summer of 1953 when my grandparents, Ruth and Bill, rented a camp on the north end of the pond from Ada Balantine, a friend of Bill’s mother. They enjoyed their stay so much that they rented it again in 1954 and decided to purchase one of the lots on the east shore, which were then being offered for sale by clothespin manufacturer Lewis M. Mann & Son, and soon began constructing a camp.

The lots were priced according to the value of the wood that was on them, rather than based on any characteristics that might influence the desirability of their particular stretch of shoreline—a measure of how little anyone yet anticipated the coming explosion in demand for waterfront real estate. My family settled on one with a big “sunny rock” in the shallows near the shore.

I don’t need to say too much more about my family’s history with the camp as you can read all about it in my mom’s book, Just Like Glass. If you are at all familiar with the story, you know what happened next: the tragic death of my grandfather in June of 1958—just shy of his 46th birthday—and my mother’s unexpected arrival eight and a half months later. In the book, my mother tells the story of that year by channeling the perspective of my grandmother (or Gramma Wight as she was known to me—and to several dozen unrelated children in the area that she babysat for after retiring full time to Bethel).

I’m sure I will write more later, so it will suffice to say here that I, like my mother, have spent at least a portion of every summer of my life at the camp on North Pond.

Needless to say, lakeside cottages offer endless opportunities for amusement, from swimming to boating to lounging on the deck. But one of the most important rituals of any stay at Gramma Wight’s Camp is the pilgrimage to Buck’s Ledge.

My mom remembers that, in the early days, the start of the trail was not well defined. My family members would simply start bushwhacking uphill from the road behind the camp, and eventually you would intersect with a beaten path running along the gradually sloping northwest side where others had gone before.

Within my lifetime, there has always been a quasi-official trailhead and parking space on the Mann Road, just a few hundred feet up the road from my family’s camp, and for years this was the only trail to the top. A few years ago, a neighbor asked that the trailhead be moved from his property and so now that trailhead literally starts “right in our backyard.”

It’s only about a half a mile to the first ledge from the Mann Road trailhead, but it’s very steep, and the parking is limited. But thanks to the hard work of many people, it’s no longer the only option.

A Philosophy of Working Toward Maybe

You see, Buck’s Ledge may be hallowed ground to my family and me, but it’s not a claim we hold in exclusivity. It turns out that a great many people hold it in similar regard.

For pretty much as long as I can remember, there had always been talk about the land surrounding Buck’s Ledge becoming a town- or land trust-owned property. I can remember my parents attending a few meetings when I was still in high school.

At that time, the land that is now the community forest was owned by Bayroot LLC, an investment vehicle which is 98.8% owned by Yale University’s endowment and managed by Wagner Forest Management, who had acquired it in 2003 from MeadWestvaco, a former owner of the Oxford Paper Company mill in Rumford.

On May 6, 2008, the Bethel Citizen reported that the Woodstock selectmen had voted to adopt “a philosophy of working toward maybe acquiring Buck’s Ledge as town property, subject to approval by town voters.” That same year, the Land for Maine’s Future program authorized a $251,000 expenditure towards purchase of the 644-acre parcel. Unfortunately, Bayroot wanted more for the land than was feasible at the time and given the poor state of the national economy at that time, the conditions for fundraising were not ideal. As a result, negotiations died out for several years.

However, conservationists did obtain permission to build a trail to the top of Buck’s Ledge from a logging road which begins at a point near the spring on Route 26. This provided much easier public access than the Mann Road, and along with a series of volunteer-led guided hikes, helped to stimulate further interest.

It was around this time when my folks and I learned about Lapham (Lapham’s?) Ledge, which sits atop a smaller peak a short distance south of Buck’s. The logging road runs through the saddle between the two peaks, providing access in both directions. I’m pretty sure no one in my family had ever climbed Lapham Ledge before, even though they all grew up climbing Buck’s, so the hike we went on led by Marcel Polak, one of the leaders in the conservation effort, was a first for all of us.

In the early 2020s, when efforts at acquiring the parcel restarted in earnest, another new trail was added: the “JnJ Backcountry Trail”—constructed by local residents Janice and Jurgen Marks—which travels to the true summit of Moody Mountain. This means that by the time the Town of Woodstock received title to the land in August of 2022, there were nearly 5.5 miles of trails for visitors to explore. But the vision for the property did not end there.

A Forever Forest for All

After the successful campaign to acquire the forest, many of the leaders in that effort, including our friends Marcel Polak and Emily Ecker, Jim and Jane Chandler, and Ed and Leslie Rosenberg, set to work in their roles on the Woodstock Conservation Commission, raising additional funds and trying to figure out how best to make the property serve the public.

One of the principal forms of outreach for the commission has been identifying ways not only to get local school children to the trails to enjoy the forest, but also to involve them in shaping its future. Ed tells me that it was Telstar Middle School students who really conceived of the notion of a “Forever Forest for All,” and prompted efforts to make the area as open and accessible as possible.

The commission has improved access from the logging road, opened up a viewpoint that can be driven to, and constructed an upper parking lot to provide access. The crown jewel of this effort is the “Trail for All,” an accessible half-mile loop with a hard, smooth surface and a maximum grade of 9% that can accommodate wheelchairs and other mobility devices.

And to our great fortune, these improvements were completed just a few months prior to our wedding, allowing us to easily transport all of our guests to the overlook.

For As Long As We Both Shall Live

On the morning of September 27, 2025, we met our photographer, the amazing Craig Angevine, owner of Yeah Bud! Photography, in the upper parking lot at 9:00 am. There, we started off the morning with a hike up Lapham Ledge.

When we had talked on the phone a few weeks prior to iron out the details, Craig was enthusiastic about the hike, but wondered if doing it before the wedding might cause Rosemary’s makeup to run. Rosemary was quick to assure him that no makeup would be involved. In any event, we took the easy walk up to the ledges very slowly, with Craig stopping to pose us what seemed like every ten feet. Though the result was worth it, I’ll say that I think both Rosemary and I came away with a new appreciation for what professional models do, which definitely isn’t as easy as it might seem.

At the top, we ducked into the woods to quickly change into our wedding attire, and Rosemary’s best friend Helen did a bit more fussing with her hair—the minimal amount of dolling up that the bride would allow.

While North and South Pond are visible from Buck’s, from Lapham Ledge you get a view of Lake Christopher or Bryant Pond. (Both of the pond’s two names refer to my 5th-great-grandfather, Christopher Bryant, but more on that in the future.)

One fun fact about the Buck’s Ledge Community Forest is that it straddles three different subwatersheds of the Androscoggin River, which are divided by the ridge lines of Moody Mountain. North Pond and South Pond drain into Alder River, which runs about 6 miles northwest to Bethel where it joins the Androscoggin at Davis Park. Bryant Pond, on the other hand, is the source of the Little Androscoggin River, which runs 51.4 miles through Woodstock, Greenwood, West Paris, South Paris, Norway, Oxford, Mechanic Falls, Minot, and Poland, before finally joining the Androscoggin in Auburn.

(Water rolling off the east side of Moody Mountain rejoins North Pond water sooner. It collects in a small stream called Meadow Brook, joins another stream called Billings Hill Brook to form a slightly larger stream called Barker’s Brook, and joins the Concord River just before it enters the Androscoggin River, about a mile and a half downstream of Rumford Point.)

Craig warned us to temper our expectations for this series of photographs, since the bright late-morning sun is a far cry from the golden hour light any photographer would prefer to work with. In spite of this, the previews he showed us—even unedited on the small camera screen—looked promising to us and the final results certainly did not disappoint.

After we had taken about as much time as we thought we could spare at the top, we headed back down towards the parking lot, stopping for even more photos along the way.

Back near the bottom of the Lapham Ledge trail, we caught up with the rest of our wedding party and retreated to an open area along the accessible trail loop, where, a couple of months earlier, I helped Ed Rosenberg assemble some new picnic tables.

The wedding provided an excellent excuse to gather my buddies Lance, Evan, and John, who have been my best friends since elementary and middle school. Lance moved back from Florida about three years ago, and since then we’ve usually been hiking or skiing at least once or twice a month, but between busy work and personal lives it’s more rare that I get to spend any time with John and Evan these days.

In the Shadow of Buck’s Ledge, By the Shores of North Pond

Our ceremony was officiated by Pastor Emily Goodnow of First Congregational Church in Bridgton. Rosemary was brought up in the Bridgton Church and is still an active member. My family background is also Congregationalist though I’ve always been a secular person. As an adult however, my mom and I joined the Unitarian Universalist church in West Paris. More recently I have taken an interest in Buddhist philosophy and have been attending annual retreats at the Insight Meditation Society.

That said I have a great affinity with the community-centered approach of First Church, and in particular with Emily’s style of preaching, which embodies much of the same universalistic principles, openness to experience, and reverence for nature that are at the heart of both Unitarian Universalism and the Ammoscongon Chronicles project. I’ve always been warmly welcomed at Rosemary’s church and so the choice to have Emily conduct the service was an easy one.

It’s Emily’s practice to begin all of her sermons by grounding her listeners in place, with reference to the nearest mountain, water, and original occupants of the place where they are, which for those worshipping live in person at First Church are Pleasant Mountain, Highland Lake, and the Abenaki, Wabanaki, and Pigwacket people. We thought it would be appropriate to ask her to weave something similar into our service, and so after some opening remarks and welcomes, Emily took a moment to get everyone situated:

We are here in the shadow of Buck’s Ledge, by the shores of North Pond where Will’s family camp is, on land that has been playground and refuge and sanctuary and picnic spot and more for Will and his family’s whole life.

When we met with Emily to go over plans for the ceremony, another idea suddenly popped into her head, that she said she was going to keep as a surprise. This was finally revealed a few minutes into the service. After prefacing that this is where she usually would read a passage of scripture, she pulled out a copy of the AMC Maine Mountain Guide, and turned to the description of the Albany Mountain trail (not part of the Androscoggin watershed, but a near neighbor), where Rosemary and I took our first hike together.

It may seem like an unorthodox choice, but in Emily’s hands, the trail description became an extended metaphor for marriage itself:

There will be times when the regular markings end, and grace and forgiveness and creative courage have to be your guides. There will be cairns to follow for the most obscure parts of the path, love will help you find your way. There will be bushwhacking, good thing Will loves that stuff. There will be beauty, there will be joy, and like that first hike, you will find your way together, which is the holiest part of it all.

(Also: “Maybe you’ll see a beaver. I’m not sure what that would represent in your marriage, but it sounds delightful.”)

The only hiccup was that Rosemary was stung on the leg by a bee during the middle of the ceremony, but she kept her composure so well, I didn’t even know it until she told me after. After exchanging vows and rings, being pronounced married, and taking our group photos with our immediate families and wedding party, we headed back to the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society to join our guests.

Water of Health

Neither Rosemary nor I have ever been very enthusiastic about dancing in public, so our reception consisted instead of a delicious outdoor meal prepared by the Good Food Store, lawn games, and giant bubble wands, and libations served from the Mt. Zircon bottle. The bottle-shaped lunch stand, constructed by the Mt. Zircon Moon Tide Spring Company around 1921 as part of an ambitious marketing strategy, is one of the most notable curiosities of the museum campus, and my sisters Caitlin and Annie jumped at the opportunity to DJ and bartend from within it.

There is photographic evidence that the company had at least half a dozen of these at one time, and would transport them to various tourist locations where they were used to sell refreshments such as fried clams and Mt. Zircon beverages. This one was found by Randy Bennett at a campground in New Hampshire in the 1970s. It is one of perhaps two known to still exist, and the only one that has been restored to near-original condition. The “Ginger Champagne” bottle represented by the building was one of the signature products concocted with the waters of the Mt. Zircon spring, which is located near South Rumford in the township (formerly plantation) of Milton, Maine.

(The Mt. Zircon Moon Tide Spring will be the subject of at least one future post; in the meantime you can view an online exhibit about the history of the spring and the bottle on the MBHS website.)

Craig couldn’t resist also posing us for a few photos in front of the iconic Sunday River snow roller. Before modern snowplows, large wooden rollers like this, pulled by teams of four or more horses, were commonly used to compress the deep snow, making it possible for horses and sleight to travel. The snow roller was owned by the town of Newry to pack down the snow on town roads in the Sunday River area until around 1927, when the town purchased a tractor and plow. It was donated to the Bethel Historical Society in 1976.

North Pond, Mt. Zircon, and the Sunday River area are just a few of the places Rosemary and I have enjoyed visiting, but this account would not be complete without one final Androscoggin watershed reference. A few weeks before our wedding, my friend and mentor, Randy Bennett, an avid White Mountain art and ephemera collector, gifted us an incredible painting of “Jail Falls” by our friend Erik Koeppel, one of the most talented landscape painters active today.

Rosemary and I went looking for—and found—“The Jail,” an enormous glacial pothole in Grafton Notch that was a popular tourist destination in the 19th and early 20th centuries, on August 23, 2024. The location is unmarked on today’s maps and not identified by any signage. That’s on my list of places to write about, so I won’t drop any further details here, but I will share a few more images for your enjoyment!

Exploring together has been one of the major themes of our relationship, and we knew we wanted our wedding to capture that. At the end of the day, we were satisfied that, with the help of our many supporters, we had pulled off a pitch-perfect celebration of our life together.

Hello, Ammoscongon Chronicles readers! Let me start off with an apology, excuse, and/or explanation of sorts for the long absence of this newsletter. Over at my day (and sometimes evening) job at the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society things have been crazy, albeit (mostly) in a good way.

Somehow I managed to schedule our spring and early summer events in such a way that the launch of our annual history journal, a workshop on local Abenaki history for the Mahoosuc Land Trust, our 4th of July picnic and concert, the first Western Maine History Fair, and the opening of two exhibits, all took place within the same few weeks.

Nonetheless, a few weekends ago I managed to carve out a little time to take a two-night trip with Rosemary, venturing outside the Androscoggin River watershed and into the drainage basins of our friendly neighbors the Kennebec and the Penobscot. I had a specific reason for wanting to be near Monson, Maine, on the afternoon of June 22 (as we’ll see) and Rosemary has long wanted to visit the Gulf Hagas area, and so we had decided to seize the opportunity.

Rosemary is not usually the planner in our relationship, but with my own planning faculties temporarily expended, and her having begun school vacation, she took the lead on booking us a couple of campsites and figuring out the rest of the logistics. We would get up early on Saturday morning, drive up to Brownville and visit the Katahdin Iron Works State Historic Site, hike Gulf Hagas, and spend the first night in the KI Jo-Mary Forest. The next day we would exit via the Greenville end of the Katahdin Iron Works road, do some paddling on Moosehead Lake, have dinner in Monson, and camp Sunday night at Lily Bay State Park.

Our intention was to hit the road around 6:00 AM. Accordingly, we were in bed shortly after 9:00 PM Friday, bags packed, Eli delivered to Grandma’s house for the weekend. “We can still get our eight hours of sleep,” I commented as we switched the lights off. Famous last words.

In the middle of the night we were awakened by a phone call from the downstairs neighbor—or, rather, Rosemary was awakened by this. I was awakened by Rosemary yelling “Ohhhhhh, no!” from the bathroom. I leapt out of bed, ran in, and saw the bathroom floor was covered with a quarter inch of water and more was continuing to gush out from somewhere near the back of the toilet. Turns out the plastic nut on the supply line to the tank had given up the ghost in dramatic fashion.

We shut off the valve as quickly as possible, and while Rosemary figured out how to configure her own Shop-Vac for water use, I zipped over to MBHS to borrow another one, which, mercifully, was already so configured from its last use. After vacuuming up the water in both apartments, hauling several carpets out of the downstairs kitchen, and removing a portion of the ceiling, we finally made it back to bed for a couple hours of restless sleep.

I was worried we might have to cancel the whole trip, but the next morning we reached the conclusion that there wasn’t a lot we could do yet, anyway. I waited for Brooks Brothers to open, then swung up to purchase a new supply line and a dehumidifier to help dry the downstairs apartment. Rosemary phoned her parents and discussed what to do. Finally, at about 9:15 AM we pulled out of the driveway, sleep deprived and three hours behind schedule, but facing a big blue sky.

Out of the Fire and Into the Forge

Except for one brief stop for gas, another for a pee break, and a third at Douin's Market & Diner—where I was sucked into the orbit of a large sign reading “Home of the Award Winning Original Brownie Whoopie Pie”—we drove straight through to Brownville, arriving at the Katahdin Iron Works state historic site at around 12:30 PM.

The woman in the registration office showed us on the map where our campsite was located and explained how to get to the two trailheads for Gulf Hagas. It had been raining quite a bit earlier this week, so she mentioned that if the river was high it might be easier to start from the further trailhead, which crosses the West Branch of the Pleasant River by bridge, rather than the first, which requires a ford. We thanked her and then spent a few minutes exploring the remains of the iron works facility on the lawn opposite the office.

Silver Lake and West Branch of the Pleasant River

Our campsite was located not far from the registration office, at the end of a short drive on the opposite side of the road from Silver Lake. We were told this particular site used to be used by Boy Scout groups, and hence was more spacious than many of the others, with various clearings connected by pathways. The site included a fire pit, two picnic tables—one of which had a roof—and an outhouse I never went inside, but which apparently sported a sign that Rosemary found greatly amusing.

After setting up our tent we plotted our next move. With the unexpected delay, we had already decided to push the Gulf Hagas hike to Sunday, but we thought it would be prudent to take a drive up to the nearer trailhead and scope out the fording situation for ourselves. It was about a quarter mile walk from the trailhead into the river, where we lingered for a while and watched several groups of people cross in water that appeared no more than knee-deep, leaving both options open for tomorrow.

On the way up to the trailhead and back we got several good looks at the West Branch of the Pleasant River. The section upstream of Silver Lake looked wide and flat and mostly unobstructed, which set the gears turning in our brains. We had brought standup paddleboards with us, mainly with the intent of paddling on Moosehead, where we would be Sunday, since we originally planned to hike Gulf Hagas Saturday. Now, too late to start a hike, but with a couple hours still to kill before we had to start cooking dinner, the river looked like a fun place to explore.

Although there was a boat launch right on Sliver Lake from the road near our campsite, we first tried to put in directly into the river, near its outlet. There was a small turnout next to the bridge here, but just as we were about to open the back of the Toyota and take the paddleboards out, Rosemary spotted poison ivy.

Needless to say, we headed back to the safety and convenience of the boat launch and inflated our paddleboards there instead.

In the end it wasn’t much further to go from the boat launch. A short paddle around a peninsula of land, up the outlet, and under the bridge, and we were on our way up the river.

We saw plenty of evidence of wildlife on this expedition (most of which I failed to photograph). Throughout much of the paddle upriver we were following behind a family of geese. After paddling about a mile and a quarter upstream of the bridge, we came to a confluence between the main stem of the river and a smaller tributary. We followed the tributary as far as we easily could before encountering a large beaver dam, above which was a bog.

We then turned and paddled back to the main stem and continued on a little bit further. I was curious how much further we would need to go before we came to any of the spots where we had glimpsed the river from the road. Without any cell phone service we couldn’t tell for sure, but we guessed that, given the many bends in the river, it was probably significantly further. Later, when we were able to look at the map of what we had done, we saw this was indeed the case.

Still, it was significantly faster paddling back downstream, and so we thought that the next time we visit the area it might be fun to try to put in at the road crossing further up and paddle the full distance back downstream and to the boat launch, perhaps leaving a bike at the other end. The distance would be about 4.5 to 5 miles down the river and about 2.8 miles to return by road.

On the way back we saw several beavers—or one beaver several times—though I was not quick enough to get a photo before we heard the slap of its tail on the water and Beaver disappeared from sight.

We had just made it back under the bridge and were paddling the short stretch to the outlet when I heard the sound of something larger rustling in the bushes. It didn’t sound large enough to be a moose, but I thought that it might be a deer, which was confirmed a moment later. Rosemary, who was a little behind me didn’t quite catch it, but I got a brief glimpse.

By this time, we were both starting to get hungry, but instead of heading straight back to the boat launch, from the end of the outlet we turned right to explore another part of the lake that looked cool.

Both the USGS map and my Strava map show a peninsula here, but in fact we were able to paddle right through. Over on the shallow island, another deer (or the same deer?) was standing. We watched it for several minutes until another beaver appeared, slapped its tail, and scared the deer off.

As the evening fell, the campsite proved to be insanely buggy, and it was about all we could do to get through cooking and eating dinner. After having first dismissed the idea, I ended up making a fire more to keep the mosquitos at bay while we ate than for any other reason. After dinner, I walked back to the boat launch for a quick swim before bed.

“The Grand Canyon of Maine”

On Sunday morning, I got up first and took a walk to the boat launch where I was able to catch what remained of the sunrise and go for a morning swim. After Rosemary got up we made some oatmeal for breakfast. It wasn’t long before it started to sprinkle on us, and so we ended up rather hurriedly taking down the tent and shoving it into the car before heading out on our way.

Although we knew from yesterday’s reconnaissance that the river would be easily forded, we decided to start from the further trailhead anyway, which would mean a bit less driving after the hike, and also meant we could keep driving now while we waited to see if the rain passed. Fortunately the drizzly weather never turned into a full downpour.

From the Upper Gulf Parking Area it’s a couple mile walk in along the “Head of the Gulf Trail.” After crossing the West Branch by bridge, we walked by Lloyd Pond (or “LLoyd Pond” as a sign we’d passed earlier had it), caught another glimpse of the West Branch, crossed a smaller tributary by a sketchy bridge, and arrived at the junction of the Rim Trail.

The Rim Trail follows along the north east edge of Gulf Hagas, a 3-mile long gorge, sometimes called the “Grand Canyon of Maine.” There are several named waterfalls marked along the route, with a series of spur trails that afford a range of views.

We made it as far as a location called Cole’s Corner, where the river makes a sharp, 90-degree bend. Here we stopped and ate lunch on a log. We then proceeded as far as the next cut-off trail between the Rim Trail and the “Pleasant River Tote Trail.”

The only major falls named on the map we didn’t get the chance to see was Screw Auger Falls, which is actually not on the West Branch but on its tributary, Gulf Hagas Brook, and is apparently the most visited of all of them. We’ll have to get that one on our next visit!

It was significantly faster going back by way of the Tote Trail. Whereas it had taken us an hour and a half to get from the end of the Head of the Gulf Trail to where we turned around (admittedly with several stops) it was just forty minutes by way of the Tote Trail. Another forty minutes doubling back to the car, and we were headed towards Greenville.

Happy Campers

At Lily Bay State Park we were greeted by a sign with an arrow pointing to the right that said “Campers Register Here” and one to the right that said something like “All Others This Way.” I came to a complete stop and stared at the sign, genuinely perplexed.

Did they mean “campers” as in “people who camp” or “campers” as in camper vans and trailers? Rosemary was pretty sure that it was the first and that we were supposed to go to the right. I wasn’t so sure…

Now, perhaps I’m in the minority here, but when I hear the word “camper” my mind usually goes to the second usage. Sometimes I hear human beings called “campers” but usually only the context of kids at a summer camp. In the end, I drove to the left, which was, of course, wrong. Fortunately, the ranger on duty seemed amused, and told us we could just pull around and in the exit to the registration parking area.

Rosemary did a bang-up job picking our site, which was right on the water, more spacious and private than others nearby, and included a nice little rocky point. We set up the tent, to give it a chance to dry after the shower this morning. Then a quick dip (for me), and we headed out for our next appointment.

Diving Off the Rocks at Frenchman’s Hole

And now we arrive at the real reason for this trip, or at least its original inspiration. Let’s back up a bit:

As readers of this blog know, several months ago I published the first of a promised two part series on the history of the “Frenchman’s Hole” swimming spot on Bull Branch of the Sunday River.

Frenchman’s Hole was immortalized by musician Donnie Katlin in a song of the same name. But my research into newspaper archives revealed the possible existence of another Frenchman’s Hole song. This one was written by musician Jay Roy (then recording under the name “Junior” Roy) who was a former resident of Rumford, Maine. I wasn’t sure if this was an original or a cover, but when I asked Donnie confirmed for me that Jay’s song was distinct from his own.

The Internet revealed that Jay and his wife Tammy were still going strong and still actively touring and performing, and so I reached out with an e-mail.

Then, one morning a week or two later, Jay and Tammy called me up at the historical society and we had a wonderful conversation. We talked about their connection to Frenchman’s Hole and how he came to write the song and he sang me a few bars over the phone. I learned that “Frenchman’s Hole” had been recorded locally at the Outlook Studio owned by our mutual friends Conni and Ted St. Pierre, which meant it might still be possible to locate the original.

Jay and Tammy also mentioned that they would be playing up in Monson, Maine, at the Lakeshore House, a pub and inn run by friends of theirs that particularly caters to Appalachian Trail hikers. I wasn’t sure yet if the logistics would work out, but I marked the date on my calendar, and when I mentioned it to Rosemary, she was all onboard with an excuse to get up that way.

And so it was that we found ourselves pulling into the driveway on the shores of beautiful Lake Hebron at around 4:00 on Sunday afternoon and followed the sound of music in through the entrance of the small pub area. After greeting Jay and Tammy on the way in (“I’m the Frenchman’s Hole guy!”) we sat down at one of the tables and ordered some food. Rosemary had the quesadillas and I had the mushroom ravioli (excellent) and we shared some fries.

After a few songs, Jay and Tammy called out to me and I went up and chatted with them for a bit more.

“To heck with the next song, then, let’s play Frenchman’s Hole!” Tammy said. And so they did. And I have the video to prove it. (But you’ll have to wait for “A History of Frenchman’s Hole - Part 2,” for the whole thing.)

With that circle complete and our bellies full, I thanked Jay and Tammy, promised to be in touch again, and we headed back to Lily Bay State Park for the evening.

Moosehead is a Big Lake

In Monson, the sun had been shining bright and it was actually quite hot out. Back at the park it was noticeably cooler. I was still determined to swim again, but made sure to build a fire first to warm myself by and then ventured in while Rosemary relaxed and read a book.

Shortly after I got out we were visited by a mama duck and three ducklings.

As I was watching them, the mama began preening, dipping her beak into the water and then running it through her feathers. It wasn’t long before the babies began copying her behavior.

The next morning when I got up early and swam again (that’s Will 5, Rosemary 0, if you’re keeping score) the water was nearly perfectly still, or, as my grandmother would say, just like glass. I went out for a short paddle around the bay, weaving around all the little islands in the immediate vicinity. The water was so still and clear I could paddle right up close without worrying about smacking my fin on any rocks.

As I was paddling around the cove back towards our campsite, I noticed a large number of geese swimming nearby. About twenty minutes later, the geese appeared at our campsite to give us our send off.

Moosehead is a big lake. I knew this, obviously. I have a dim memory of crossing on the shuttle to Kineo with my parents when younger, and though it’s only a short ride, to me it had felt like crossing an ocean. All the same, Moosehead’s shape, its many bays and coves and several large islands, mean you can’t fully grasp its size from water level. But it really sets in when you realize you’re almost always only seeing a fraction of it. I was out for an hour and made about a 2.3-mile loop.

Here’s what I did as a portion of Lily Bay:

And now here’s Lily Bay in comparison to all of Moosehead:

I guess I should be glad my project doesn’t cover the Kennebec watershed, because I’m pretty sure Moosehead alone could take me the rest of my life to explore. Rosemary and I are definitely excited to get back to both the Katahdin Iron Works area and Moosehead to poke around more. But don’t expect to see the Kinipek Chronicles (or, for that matter, the Panawahpskek Chronicles) from me. These are wonderful places to visit, but to truly know all the ins and outs of just one river and its watershed seems like enough of a project for a lifetime.

“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” - Matthew 7:13-14

The initial forecasts for the week of April 14 suggested that there would be essentially one window of opportunity to get out and enjoy some sunshine and warmth—and a chance for me to get another brook without freezing to death. And so, Rosemary and I set aside Monday afternoon and evening for a picnic dinner.

I suggested that we do the Mt. Crag loop in Shelburne, New Hampshire, a short, easy trail maintained by the Shelburne Trails Club. I had been up Mt. Crag a few times, but Rosemary never had. Mt. Crag is one of the hikes that delivers the highest “bang-for-your-buck” around, making it an ideal location for a casual dinner date. More importantly, for my purposes, however, the loop trail returns by way of the Gates Brook Trail, alongside the namesake brook.

Gates Brook is one of those “dotted line” brooks on the USGS maps, which is supposed to indicate an intermittent stream, although I suspect that this one at least trickles throughout most of the year. With the exception of a wider, flatter part just before it enters the Androscoggin, the USGS data shows the annual mean flow of most of Gates Brook as less than 1 cubic feet per second. Of all the brooks I did last year, I think only one of them, Lanes Brook, was quite this small, so I wasn’t sure how exciting it would be—or how easy it would be to find a place to fully submerge. The only way to find out for sure was going to be to actually go there and see for myself.

There were at least a couple of reasons to be more optimistic. For one thing, annual mean stream flow is just that, an average. This can obviously vary widely throughout the year, with the spring being the peak, and so, cold as they might be right now, this time of year is probably the best chance to get some of the smaller streams. Secondly, a low stream flow doesn’t necessarily translate to a lack of deep pools. There’s obviously a general tendency for those to correlate, but there are other factors. For example, this part of Gates Brook also has a 10.47% average slope, which is pretty steep. Steeper grades mean more water falls, which naturally carves more pools, some of which remain deep even when the amount of water flowing into and out of them is reduced.

In any case, Gates Brook is on the list, so it had to be attempted. My decision to concentrate, for now at least, on named bodies of water, occasionally feels a bit constraining. There doesn’t always seem, at first blush, to be a whole lot of rhyme or reason to which brooks have been given names and which have not. Obviously, the largest direct tributaries to the Androscoggin all have names, but beyond that you can find many unnamed branches that are several times larger than zillions of other Eponym Brooks. (I suppose I should just be glad there aren’t more named brooks; 532—at last count—is already a lot!) Of course, there is a reason and that reason is history. And, it turns out, the Gates name reveals quite a lot of it.

Holding Open the Gate

The 1861 map of Coos County has a C. Gates and a J. Gates living near this brook, while the 1892 New Hampshire Atlas has Miss S. A. Gates.

“J. Gates” is presumably Thomas J. Gates, an early white settler in Shelburne. As such, he is probably the individual for whom the brook was named. But it’s his daughter, Sarah A. Gates, or “Miss Gates,” who inherited the property, whose name I think most deserves to be commemorated. Miss Gates kept a summer hotel—a tourist home really, or what today we would call a B&B—the Gates Cottage. The 1917 edition of Chisholm’s White-Mountain Guide-Book by M. F. Sweetser lists the hotel as having a capacity of 25 and costing $2.00 per day.

The Facebook page “New Hampshire-then and now” posted an interesting story about Miss Gates’ generosity back in 2015:

This is H. B. Moller and his mother Mrs. Moller. Their little settlement in Shelburne, N.H. was talked about for years. In the woods and blocked by a fence for privacy. From 1901-1923 the Mollers spent their summers in Shelburne. H. B. Moller was in poor health and in need for something to do. Miss Sarah Gates who owned an Inn where the Mollers boarded told the Mollers that they could use any of the 200 acres at no charge. Off went H. B. to build his little village. H. B. built a small little church, Mother's private cabin, a cabin for H. B., dog houses, pigeon loft, general store, an open air restaurant, Grecian Temple of Music, [and] a tiny theater, 12 by 15 feet, which even had a ticket window. H. B. seems to be doing fine from what we can see in the photos.

Sadly, no trace of the odd little settlement apparently remains today:

H. [B]. and his mother left for a trip in Vermont in 1923 and never returned to Shelburne again. Seems during a violent storm in Vermont a falling tree fell on H. [B]. Moller and killed him instantly. Mrs. Moller could [never] bring herself to visit their village again. Soon came the curious crowds to see what was in those woods. They ruined the village. Many of the tiny furnishings were put away for safe keeping by Mrs. Gates...but most of their whereabouts are unknown today.

The Gates home and inn is gone as well. According to the “Shelburne New Hampshire” Facebook page, the cottage was abandoned for many years before being burned down by the Shelburne Fire Department for a training exercise.

Overcoming the Gatekeepers

There’s not a ton of other information available online about the Gates Cottage, but I found that there were several postcard views of it for sale, as well as a stereoview image taken by Bethel photographer Burnham, which, needless to say, I immediately had to purchase for the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society.1

But what really stands out is that something about the Gates Cottage—perhaps Miss Gates’ hospitality—seems to have made it a magnet for trailblazing women. Among Miss Gates’ guests were several who had to pass through the “narrow gate” to forge their own paths in male-dominated fields. This included Lucille and Marian Pychowska, the mother and daughter hiking duo, whom I have mentioned previously. Marian Pychowska’s notable feats include discovering and climbing down onto the ridge (or arête, as I’ve just learned it is properly called), now known as “The Pinnacle” at Huntington Ravine, astonishing president J. Raynor Edmands and other male leaders of the Appalachian Mountain Club.2 The Gates Cottage was a base of operations for the Pychowskas when exploring in Shelburne, writing some of the first descriptions of places such as Peabody Ravine, Giant Falls, and Bald Cap for Appalachia journal, and discovering and naming Gentian Pond.

Another visitor to the Gates Cottage was the Portsmouth, New Hampshire, painter Sarah Haven Foster. The Portsmouth Public Library has a collection of over 1,000 watercolors by Foster, including one depicting the “View from Gates Cottage.” Foster was also a writer, publishing two books, Watchwords for Young Soldiers, a volume of children’s Bible stories published in 1864, and The Portsmouth Guide Book, published in 1876, the latter of which has earned her consideration as one of the pioneers of Portsmouth tourism.

Also available online is a letter written by Abby Howe Turner, founder of the department of physiology at Mount Holyoke College, to her mother while Turner was staying at the Gates Cottage in August of 1919. Born in Nashua, New Hampshire, Turner received her B.A. from Mount Holyoke in 1896 and went on to study at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Chicago, and Harvard Medical School, receiving her Ph.D. from Radcliffe College in 1926. After teaching at Holyoke for more than 40 years, Turner served for two years as acting head of the Physiology department at Wilson College.

Turner was not blessed with favorable weather during this particular stay, but her letter offers us a few interesting peeks into life at the Gates Cottage:

Now I'm at Shelburne with time to write there is nothing to write about. I'm not sorry I came for the place is lovely, but I do miss Grace to do things with, and every day there are showers. Just now we have had a heavy one, and I would venture out for a little walk along the road, but it is nearly supper time and I wait on table tonight. Miss Gates' maids have gone and she can't get any one else except a woman who comes in during the middle of the day and serves at dinner. So the boarders take turns at waiting on table and helping with the dishes. I took today, and after this I shall feel as if I'd done my share. But I remember how good Miss Gates was to us when you were sick up here, and anyhow it isn't much to do. I don't feel in any danger of hurting my clothes.

These conditions might help explain the relatively low $2.00 board, which apparently compared favorably with the Ravine House:

Frances Botsford comes to Randolph tomorrow, and I wish I could be over there to go with her and her friend up a trail or two, but there doesn't seem to be any feasible way of getting over these miles between, and no place to stay over there except the Ravine House which is now 4.00 a day.

At Your Own Risk

Rosemary and I didn’t know any of this history as we drove into Shelburne that afternoon, but the village’s distinctive charm would be obvious to any outsider. The sun was shining brightly, and it promised to be a beautiful evening.

There are a few options for accessing Mt. Crag. There are two trailheads on the North Road at either end of the loop trail (which requires a short road walk to complete). Alternatively you can find a place to park on the dirt Mill Brook Road and then cross Austin Mill Brook (which is considerably larger than today’s target brook) in one of two places, one of which features a unique cable car.

It being mud season, we opted for the nearer of the two North Road trailheads, near the outlet of Austin Mill Brook. From here, you begin the hike by passing through an unusual wooden turnstile and then walk up an old road alongside the mill pond, until you intersect with the other trail.

If you go this way, you already start out on the Mt. Crag side of Austin Mill Brook. Nevertheless, we obviously had to start with a detour to the cable car. The last time I was in this area, a flood had knocked the platform down, so I was glad to see that a new one had been rebuilt. The wonderful folks at the Shelburne Trails Club do a great job of maintaining this often overlooked trail system.

A few years ago, I was here with my parents and we found out that Dogs Don’t Like Cable Cars, when Eli bailed halfway through the ride across, leaping several feet down onto the rocks below, and wading across the rest of the brook, apparently unharmed.

It was no surprise to learn that Dogs Still Don’t Like Cable Cars, and in fact, even though I was prepared to hang onto him more tightly this time, he refused to even set foot on the contraption.

Back on the trail up to Mt. Crag, the next diversion was an impressively large boulder which is located just off the trail.

I think I’ve probably climbed this thing every time I’ve hiked this trail, but somehow I always forget it’s going to be there until I’m upon it.

By the time we were nearing the summit of Mt. Crag, more layers had been shed, and I was down to shorts and short sleeve hiking shirt.

Up on the top we stopped to eat dinner (good ol’ PB&Js) and enjoy the view.

Unfortunately, during this time we spent on the top of Mt. Crag our sun disappeared behind a cloud.

Most of my motivation to jump in a brook was now gone, but fortunately (?) my stubbornness always persists. When we actually reached the intersection of the trail, I found that Gates Brook was, as expected, quite small, but still flowing enough to give me hope. There’s a footbridge here that crosses over the brook and leads on to the top of Middle Mountain. I had gone over it once before, when my mom and I hiked a loop over Middle Mountain from Mill Brook Road, returning by way of this trail and then up over Mt. Crag.

Instead of crossing the bridge, however, we turned left, following the trail that parallels Gates Brook back toward the North Road. This section was all new to me. While Rosemary mostly stuck to the trail, I bushwhacked down beside the brook, taking photos and looking for a place to submerge.

It was Eli who finally found a spot, which was at least deep enough to lie down in, and I decided to follow suit(less).

“Whyyyyyyyy?,” Rosemary asked as I was toweling off. If I haven’t come up with a convincing answer to that question yet, I’m not sure I ever will.

On days when I don’t have a lot of time after work, my default destination is the Bethel Village Trail system for a snowshoe during winter or a walk during summer or fall. I count myself lucky to have this excellent resource just a few minutes walk from my workplace and apartment. In the spring, when BVT is closed to protect the trails and parking lots from damage, my fall back is a stroll up to the top of Paradise Hill and back. It’s a nice walk with a great view at the top, but after a few days in a row, I still feel the need to break up the routine.

This past Wednesday afternoon (March 18, 2025), Eli and I left work around 4:30 and headed down the North Road in search of something to do. We found the McCoy-Chapman Forest still open and the parking lot in pretty good shape, and decided to go check out the spring melt on the Chapman Brook. I had thrown both my snowshoes and microspikes in the car, just in case, but I had no expectation of using the former. Sure enough, I found the trail mostly bare with occasional stretches of thin, icy snow cover.

When I came to the first pool on the Chapman Brook Trail, the water was the highest I have ever seen it on the brook and was a greenish-gray color—cloudy but still quite pretty to look at.

When we’re short on time, we often turn around and make a loop back on Sam’s Trail, but I was enjoying seeing the high water, and decided to continue at least to the big waterfall, which is another quarter mile beyond the Chapman Brook-Sam’s junction.

Just beyond the big waterfall where the trail formerly ended, a laminated sign points the way to a new loop.

This section of trail was only built sometime last summer and is not listed on AllTrails or widely known or used yet. Although I have walked along the Chapman Brook Trail countless times, I still had yet to hike the new extension, and so I decided that today I would change that.

The new part starts off by traversing sideways across the hill through a hardwood forest. There are a few blazes but most of it is still marked with orange flagging. There appeared to be just one other set of tracks from a recent hiker.

We encountered one blowdown in this section, but for the most part, despite being new and not well trodden, the trail was easy to follow.

After about two-thirds of a mile, you arrive at another of Chapman Brook’s tributaries, where the water slides down over some smooth rocks.

If you recall, last time I posted about Chapman Brook I made up some unofficial titles to help refer to these branches, based on namesake George Whitefield Chapman. While the original Chapman Brook trail goes up the main stem of Chapman Brook and then along what I’m calling “Deacon Brook,” the new part crosses over to the branch I’ve named “Whitefield Brook.”

The trail follows along the west side of the “Whitefield Brook” for another third of a mile before crossing over a simple log bridge to the east side.

Just below this is the most attractive falls found on the new trail.

From the pool below this falls, the water tumbles out and down over another falls, dropping into a gorge below. The last stretch of the trail briefly follows along a ridge overlooking this gorge before breaking east away from the brook and back to the McCoy-Gray Birch Trail.

You return to the McCoy-Gray Birch Trail about a quarter mile above the first bridge on that trail, which crosses back over the same tributary followed by the new trail.

The full loop ended up registering as 4.17 miles, which matches the posted mileage on the new signs. Walking at a fairly brisk pace but stopping to take numerous pictures, it took an hour and forty minutes to complete. The Chapman Brook extension is a wonderful addition to an already great network of trails, and is well worth the visit.

Hello, Ammoscongon Chronicles readers—with this post begins a new season of “stream bagging” for me. Yesterday, I braved the icy water to grab my first one of 2025.

Getting an early start this year introduces a slight complication. I started the project in May of 2024, but the blog in January of 2025. So far I’ve been writing about streams in the order I did them, and I’ve only made it through a fraction, which means I still have many adventures from last year to catch up on. That includes 37 streams I bagged and have not yet written about, several paddling trips, and other outings I want to share. In fact, I have a spreadsheet with a plan for 60 more posts I want to write about my adventures in 2024.

Now I could just add every new trip to the end of the stack, but I’d rather write about these new ones in more-or-less real time when possible. So from here out, I’ll be alternating the new with the old. (That includes the long-teased Part 2 of my history of Frenchman’s Hole—it’s almost done, I swear, I’m just waiting until I have the chance to talk to Donnie Katlin to flesh out some more details of a few stories.)

On a related note: you may notice a slight shift in style. I still plan to post regularly, but the posts you will read over the next several months will tend to be more travelogue-y than historically dense. They’ll feature more personal narrative and fewer bits of information gathered from the archives. There are two main reasons for this: (1) after the first few streams I visited I started to document a bit more carefully, so I have more of my own photographs and videos to share and (2) I’m pretty swamped with other responsibilities right now, and these will hopefully be quicker to write. I’ll circle back to fill in the history of a lot of these places when things calm down a bit and I have time to put into research again.

One final note: on today’s adventure, I stumbled upon the facilities of the Northeastern University Hus-skiers and Outing Club (NUHOC). I’m paywalling the majority of this post so as not to direct any unwanted attention towards the exact location of their special spot—but I have a deal for you! Upon returning home and reading a little bit more about the NUHOC lodge (or “Loj” as they sometimes called it) I found out that what I had seen was just a collection of temporary buildings. The original 1971 lodge burned in 2015 and the Northeastern Outing Club Asssociation (NEOCA), an alumni support group, is still trying to raise money to help them rebuild.

Although I have no personal connection to Northeastern, this makes me sad. So…to see this full post you can either subscribe OR donate any amount of money to the rebuilding of the lodge, and let me know, and I will gladly “comp” you a paid Ammoscongon Chronicles subscription equivalent to your gift. I’ve also sent them a little donation myself as a thank you for the nice spot to sit and have lunch.

The Ides of March

Saturday, March 15, 2025, proved to be a beautiful sunny day, and as I lazed away the morning at home, working on various projects, I suddenly felt the pull of the outdoors. Perhaps, I thought, if I time it just right, it might even be warm enough for a quick jump in a brook—assuming I could find the ideal spot and some open water.

The forecast showed temperatures would peak around 3:00, and that it would stay full sun until then. So we waited around for a bit longer and then, in early afternoon, I loaded Eli up in the car and headed out in search of adventure.

We took a drive down the Evans Notch Road (Route 113) first. The road is still gated for winter, and likely will be for a couple more months. There were a ton of cars at the turnout just before the gate, some cross country skiers and their dog preparing to head out, and even some people unloading a couple horses. It was cool to see Wild River in the ice and great to see so many people getting out, but I decided this was not the place for us today and turned around.

Just over the New Hampshire border on Route 2, there is a short loop of gravel road, not passable by car in the winter, with two entrances off the highway. At the second entrance, it is labeled “Lady Trooper Ln.” This is the Shelburne North Trailhead, though it’s denoted only by a plain brown sign with a hiker symbol. Off this loop is the Connor Brook Road, which, when drivable, takes you to a summer parking area at one end of the Shelburne Trail, which leads to the Shelburne South Trailhead near the Wild River Campground. (You can also use this trail to get to the Kenduskeag Trail and climb Shelburne Moriah Mountain.) Also off this trail is the Hastings Trail, which leads to the bridge over Wild River near the corner of 113 and the Wild River Road.

In the winter, the Hastings Trail is concurrent with the Evans Notch Corridor 19 snowmobile trail, and that seems to be its primary function these days. I don’t think the trail sees a lot of summer (or spring) use.

As to the name “Connor Brook”: Crossing the border into New Hampshire means I need to find some new sources from the ones I usually rely on. Apparently I have been spoiled by the easy availability of historic Oxford County deeds. Coos County’s online system appears to only show more recent deeds, and you have to pay money to see the full documents.

More helpful are early maps. For every community in this area there seem to be at least a couple of nineteenth century maps that show the names of property owners. For Shelburne, we have the 1861 wall map of Coos County (like the 1858 map of Oxford County, produced by H. F. Walling) and an 1892 Town and City Atlas of the State of New Hampshire. The former is available online thanks to the American Geographical Society Library Digital Map Collection at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and there are nice scans of the 1892 maps available from the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection.

In 1861, we learn that the farm nearest what is now called Connor Brook—but was then labeled “Mill Stream”—was owned by a J. Conner, apparently Joseph Conner. By 1892, it was in the hands of “R. Connor,” who would be Joseph Conner’s son, Ronello Conner (1848-1895). As far as I can tell, the spelling should be Conner, not Connor, and the name of the brook today could well originate from the error on the 1893 map. There are some other nomenclature differences between the early maps and what the USGS map shows today. On the early maps, two main tributaries of the “Mill Stream” are labeled “West Branch” and “East Branch.” Today, it’s all just shown as “Connor Brook,” though Clement Brook, to the west, has an “East Brook” branch that was not shown on the earlier maps.

Up Connor Brook

It was around 1:15 when we pulled into the parking lot. I assessed the situation and decided winter boots and microspikes were in order. Starting from the Shelburne North Trailhead, we headed in on “Lady Trooper Ln.” We passed the Connor Brook Road, but I decided to check out the Hastings Trail instead.

Just after the Connor Brook Road we crossed a bridge over a little stream that empties into Connor Brook. Curiously, this stream is not shown either on the early maps or on the USGS maps, which are usually more accurate and generally show streams of any significant volume, whether named or not.

Nonetheless, on the downstream side of the bridge was big, beautiful pool of water.

The pool was open, at least waist-deep, and clear—the perfect spot. Best of all, it was close to the car, so I wouldn’t have far to go to get back afterward. As I looked at it I laughed out loud and said, “Oh $&@#, I’m actually going to have to do it!” but kept going for now. Just a little bit further we crossed the actual Connor Brook (where the opportunities for jumping in were considerably less) and then took a right up the Hastings Trail road.

The snow cover on the Hastings Trail was pretty thin and I figured we weren’t likely to meet any snowmobilers today, but the packed snow and ice made for pretty easy going with spikes on.

The trail runs parallel to Connor Brook for its first stretch. After a little while I could hear rushing water, suggesting the brook was a lot more lively here than where I had seen it below, and so I decided to veer off the trail and go check it out.

Read more

This is the first installment in a two-part history of Frenchman’s Hole. It covers the early history of Frenchman’s Hole, before it was known by that name. Part 2, “Newtons, Nukes, and Nudity,” will cover the period from the 1960s to the present, and will be available exclusively to paid subscribers to this blog.

Ten-Foot Falls

Just about a mile upstream of where Bull Branch of the Sunday River joins with the main stem, a ten-foot tall waterfall drops into a deep, round pool, which is partially encircled by tall granite ledges. For more than half a century, at least, this pool has been known locally—and now more widely—as “Frenchman’s Hole.”

Our first mystery surrounds the name “Frenchman’s Hole.” It’s not at all clear who coined it, or when exactly it came to be applied to this location. The name does not appear in Sunday River Sketches, the most detailed available history of this area, written by Martha Fifield Wilkins, which—as I discussed in our last installment on Bull Branch—was completed in 1947 and deposited at the Bethel Library Association. This is in marked contrast to some other familiar appellations, such as the “Letter S,” which was already in use by Wilkins’ time.1

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In fact, within the text of Sunday River Sketches I was unable to locate any definitive reference to this location. On page 51 is a passage one might think refers to what we call Frenchman’s:

Mr. Fifield's mill was not far from the falls which pour over the ledge with tremendous power at certain seasons of the year, and in which his son Israel was drowned in 1842.

Indeed, H. F. Walling’s 1858 Map of Oxford County, Maine, shows a saw mill site not far from the location of Frenchman’s Hole:

On page 95, however, Wilkins makes clear that the mill, falls, and pool to which she refers lay near to the “Sunday River Ledge,” just downstream of the twin bridges, and close to the Fifield homestead.

The large area of bare ledge near the mouth of Bull Branch was so close to the Sunday River, that it was commonly called the Sunday River ledge. The water above it is shallow, clear and sparkling as it comes down over the rounded rocks. At freshet time the stream becomes rapid and dangerous as it goes over the ledge where sudden drops make thunderous falls. Logs are floated down and at times, pitch over in great jams. At the upper end of the ledge, on the left side as the river descends, there was once a small mill owned by O. Israel Fifield, one of the first settlers of Riley Plantation. The mill disappeared more than a half century ago, but the dam site has been used to direct the logs and change the channel of the stream when danger threatened. It was here in the deep pool just below the falls that young Israel Fifield was drowned in 1842.

This site, as described and pictured in Sunday River Sketches, is less visited and discussed today, but there are still some footpaths that lead down there from the turnout just over the twin bridges, if you know where to look. The area can also be clearly seen from Google Earth.

I went and checked out this site last July. There are some very old names carved in the ledge (also discussed in Sunday River Sketches) which can still be seen today. I’ll have much more to say in a future post, but for now I will simply note that it is a distinct location from today’s Frenchman’s.

Other searches within Sunday River Sketches also yielded nothing relevant. Wilkins probably knew more about the history of the upper Sunday River valley than anyone. If there was an earlier name for Frenchman’s Hole, she could be expected to know it. But if so, she doesn’t mention it in the main text of her manuscript. The now-famous falls and pool are also not pictured in any of the photos from her collection which editor Randy Bennett added to the published version.

Over the past couple weeks, I have spent several hours poring over the Martha Fifield Wilkins’ collection at the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society, in search of clues. The collection is one of our largest, and includes much more than what ultimately made it into the published text. Currently, I’ve got it packed into archival bankers boxes, and it easily fills seven of them. In addition to numerous albums put together by Martha Fifield Wilkins, the collection includes several boxes of original negatives.

My first eureka moment came when I located a small translucent brown envelope containing a handful of negatives which Martha labeled “Waterfall on Bull Branch (of the best films) / Taken by Fred Fifield.”

Four clearly showed Frenchman’s Hole, while one I determined was actually a waterfall not on Bull Branch but on Miles Notch Brook. Two of the Frenchman’s Hole negatives were shot in quick succession, and are barely distinguishable from each other, but the others are quite unique, and so it appears Fred Fifield photographed the falls at three distinct times and from three different angles.

The three views illustrate some of the seasonal changes in volume of Bull Branch. The image at the top of this post shows the falls at moderately-low flow. Most of the time, this is what the falls look like, with the water dividing into two distinct streams. Another of the negatives, taken head-on from across the pool, at a time of similar or perhaps even slightly lower volume, shows this even more clearly:

At higher flows, however, the waterfall forms a single roaring plunge:

Unsurprisingly, the negatives themselves are not labeled, as negatives seldom are. I am grateful to have them, as original negatives always produce much higher quality scans, but for more descriptive detail, we need to be able to match them up with labeled prints.

In one of Martha Fifield Wilkins’ albums, there is a photographic print that is similar, though not identical to, the image at the top of this post. It is captioned, “Ten foot falls, Bull Branch.”

Aha! This is something at least, but it raises the question: was this a name or simply a description? Did Wilkins mean to say, “here is a picture of the Ten Foot Falls on Bull Branch” or “here is a picture of some ten foot falls on Bull Branch?” Context seemed to point toward the latter. She didn’t capitalize the Fs in “Ten foot falls,” even though she did capitalize them in the proper noun Bull Branch. Nor did she set the name in quotation marks, underline it, or otherwise set it apart. So it might have been a name for the spot, but I wasn’t sure.

The next photo I found, a print of the “head-on” negative above, didn’t help at all. Wilkins had labeled that one simply “falls and pool on Bull Branch” on the album page, while on the back she wrote, “a trout pool on Bull Branch.”

But continuing my dig through the albums, I eventually found the “Ten-Foot Falls” name repeated in numerous variations. In some instance, all three words are indeed capitalized, while in other places the phrase is set in quotation marks. Such deliberate and repeated use suggests to me that it was in fact intended as a kind of name for the location.

But this only raises another question: Would this name have been recognized by others at the time? Or was it just what the Fifield family called it? So far, I am still at a dead end here. Searching all available newspaper databases and other digitized items within our collections did not yield any relevant results for “ten foot falls.”

One reason there may be so few early references to this spot is that while the “Ten-Foot Falls” may have been worth the occasional photograph, for the Fifields at least, they do not seem to have been the most favored location. In contrast to these few images of what is now Frenchman’s Hole, amongst Wilkins’ albums are dozens of prints of the aforementioned “Sunday River Ledge.” For her family, this was the primary attraction.

“We Kept Well Away”

The only other clear pre-“Frenchman’s” Frenchman’s reference I can find comes from Ruth Crosby, who in 1966 wrote a book entitled I Was a Summer Boarder about summers spent at Miss Mary Ellen Locke’s boarding house on the Sunday River during the early 1900s.2

She does not refer to the spot by any name, but the description is clear:

I was always glad when we reached the foot of the hill and turned sharp left, crossed a shaky plank bridge, and drove into an open field by the Littlehale place. There we rested the horses for a while before turning right and driving through the field to our picnic spot by Bull Branch…

There was the smell of fresh hot coffee mixed with pines and sweet grass and ferns, and the sound of the roaring waterfall of Bull Branch…After lunch, while the grownups were clearing things away, we children went to Bull Branch. A safe distance above the deep and rushing fall was a shallow pool where we could wade and play. I remember one picnic when all along the stream were great logs which had not gone out in the spring freshet. Father and Uncle Carl spent a whole afternoon rolling logs into the stream and then pitching them over the fall. They would go way to the bottom of the pool and disappear completely for a few seconds, then bob up again and go on down the river. I don’t know how deep that pool was, but we children kept well away from it. [p. 101–102]

After going up the west side of Bull Branch, the group from the boarding house would sometimes also visit the other side:

The other expedition we sometimes made was up to the Demeritt place. Owen Demeritt was Gertrude’s brother. He and his wife and family lived in a cup-shaped valley surrounded by mountains at the very end of the Ketchum road. To reach their place, we drove from the Littlehales’ back across the Bull Branch bridge and then turned left instead of right as we should do to go back down the valley. After a short drive we came to a hill that seemed to go up almost at a right angle, not long but so steep that all but the driver walked up it…The Demeritt place was on the other side of Bull Branch from where had picnicked and high above it, but we could hear the roar of the waterfall even there. [p.103–104]

The Demeritt place Crosby refers to was the farm of Owen and Lucy Demeritt. According to Martha Fifield Wilkins, the homestead was originally built by O. Israel B. Fifield. It was owned by Reuben T. Sargent, who conveyed it to his son, Thomas J. Sargent, in 1859. In the last two decades of the nineteenth century, the property was owned by Greenleaf Emery, who moved to the area from Poland, Maine.

Charles Owen Demeritt and William B. Hall bought the property of Harlan Ingalls in 1903. Owen Demeritt was a farmer as well as a snowshoe maker, hunter, and guide.

In 1920, Demeritt sold the property to Alva Morrison, who mortgaged it back to the “Owen Demeritt Associates, Inc.” which appears to be the “sporting syndicate” referenced in Sunday River Sketches. The property remains in the Morrison family today.3

These few scattered references to the “roaring waterfall of Bull Branch,” indicate that although early residents and visitors were certainly familiar with the spot, it did not carry the name and fame that it does today. From the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century, sportsmen and tourists may have occasionally enjoyed going “up Bull Branch,” but fishing, picnicking, and sight-seeing were the most popular activities, while swimming was rarely mentioned and cliff-jumping not at all.

But like the very waters that sculpted this location, the relentless flow of modernity never ceases its transformative work. Within a few decades, major shifts in transportation, communications, and culture would combine to give “Frenchman’s Hole,” a whole new meaning and identity.

To be continued.

Says Harry to Lifey,
I’ve been thinking of late,
That you and I are walking
Just a little too straight.

So to have a slight change,
And the time of our lives,
Let's go up Bull Branch fishing—
And not take our wives.

Part of my inspiration for “stream bagging” came, as I have described, from a more longstanding “peak bagging” project, directed at summiting every peak in Oxford County recognized by the Peakbagger website and app. Peakbagger is just one of several useful databases available for this purpose. One obvious impediment to pursuing the even more niche project on which I am now focused is the absence of any comparable app for tracking streams. I was going to have to compile my own list.

In the week leading up to May 15, I had been testing a variety of apps to assist me on my quest. One of the most useful that I found is called Natural Atlas. While it’s not exactly the “Streambagger” app I dreamed of, it does allow you to select and favorite named streams along with many other natural features, as well as to add your own field notes and waypoints.

A Natural Atlas Plus subscription costs $40/year, which is a few bucks more than AllTrails+, and was definitely worth it for the extra features, which include additional layers, downloading areas for use outside of service range (key!) and the ability to measure and plan routes. (This is not a paid endorsement, but if anyone from the Natural Atlas team is reading this, that’s not to say it couldn’t be 😜.)

Playing around with the route planning feature, I came up with some itineraries I could get excited about. It was, after all, still May and a good warm-up was still preferable. Run-hiking up Caribou a couple days earlier and ending with a dip in Bog Brook worked out pretty well. Even better would be to combine both with a bushwhack to a new peak I hadn’t yet visited. That was the plan anyway.

I would park a little ways before the gate on the Bull Branch Road, run out the road, cross Bull Branch and then follow a logging road that leads pretty close to the top of Riley Hill. From the end of the logging road it looked like it would only be a third of a mile to the actual peak. I left the return trip open, but I thought I would probably bushwhack down from the top of Riley Hill to Miles Notch Brook and then follow the brook back to its junction with Bull Branch, bagging Miles Notch Brook, and maybe Bull Branch, somewhere along the way.

I was also eager to check out the Bull Branch Road, which I knew had some washouts during the previous December’s catastrophic rain event, and would be gated about a half mile before Frenchman’s Hole. The road provides access not only to Frenchman’s Hole, but also to the Wright Trail to Goose Eye, my favorite approach to one of my favorite peaks, so I was curious to see what length of road closure we might be in for.

Riley Plantation

The drive up the Sunday River Road is a pretty one, no matter the season, but, especially outside of the busier summer months, it’s the last leg of it that always gets me—that moment when the pavement ends just beyond the Letter S pool and the last of the newish subdivisions fades into the rearview.

For a historian and a hiker, it seems impossibly lucky to live within half an hour’s drive of so many wild and beautiful places that have now returned to something more like a natural state, but where the echoes of past civilization still linger. It may seem hard to believe now, but this rugged upland was once home to a small community, its riverbanks dotted by a handful of isolated farms.

There’s always a moment when I can feel my consciousness shifting. It’s hard to name and often subtle, but it runs deep. It’s the same feeling that I get when I turn a corner on the Bear River Road and see Old Speck and the Eyebrow Ledges looming in the distance, or when I follow the winding road into Wild River and try to imagine the logging trains running and the buildings that housed the lumbermen.

Perhaps, it’s simply a kind of awe or reverence that comes from trying to take it all in, coupled with the awareness that I am now sharing space, across time, with the small number of people who once knew the landscape intimately.

What later became Riley Plantation was once called Ketcham or Ketchum for Phebe Ketcham, a woman who almost certainly never set foot here.1 It was originally part of Township Letter A, one of five irregularly-shaped townships designated A through E and drawn up in the late 18th century—apparently to fill the space between the early settlements of Peabody’s Patent (Gilead), Sudbury Canada (Bethel), New Pennycook (Rumford), East Andover (Andover) and some blockier parcels laid out in the typical “lot and range” fashion.

Things don’t look all that different today.

Townships C, D, and E retain those names (though a portion of C is now “C Surplus”), while Township B is now the town of Upton. Some boundaries, particularly in the more populated areas, have been adjusted, but more than 200 years later our borders still largely reflect the chaos of colonial land grants and the errors of early surveys.

John Peabody surveyed A, B, and C in 1792 and included some useful notes on the earliest white settlers, “all of whom,” he wrote, after listing eleven names and dates of settlement, were “settled on a small stream called Sunday River, except Ithiel Smith, who is settled on another small stream called Bear River.”

These were the first settlers of what became Letter A, No. 3, soon to be called Bostwick, and later Newry, when Letter A was divided into three pieces a few years later. On January 30, 1796, all three pieces were sold to different owners: Phebe Ketcham, John I. Holmes, and Sarah Bostwick, all of Middletown, New Jersey. Sarah Bostwick was John I. Holmes’ sister and was a widow. Phebe Ketcham is listed as a “spinster.” I haven’t quite pinned her identity down from a few candidates in that family, but she was definitely related in some way. In all likelihood, I think it was probably the “miller and gentleman” Holmes who paid for all three townships, but for whatever reason, put two of them in relatives’ names.

Letter A, No. 3, as noted, is today’s Newry, and Letter A, No. 2 (“Holmes”) would become Grafton. Letter A, No. 1, is Ketcham, later Riley Plantation, and now Riley Township.2

The history of Riley Township was documented by Martha Fifield Wilkins in three notebooks deposited at the Bethel Library in 1947. In 1976, the notebooks were edited by Randy Bennett, and they were published in book form the following year.

In addition to Sunday River Sketches, Wilkins’ historical legacy also includes an extraordinary collection of family photographs and negatives—including rare views of the Newry, Riley Plantation, and Bethel area—which is now in the collections of the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society. You can bet that we’ll be returning to both frequently in future installments of Ammoscongon Chronicles.

Up Bull Branch

There was one other car parked along the Bull Branch Road when I got there, perhaps someone checking out the high water, but they pulled out as I was parking. There was a light drizzle, so I waited in my car a few minutes to see if it stopped.

Already I was questioning the viability of my plan for today. I had arrived here a little later than ideal. It was 4:24 when I started out, according to Strava. That left plenty of time before sunset, which wasn’t until 8:05, but I still had to get home and make something for dinner, and wasn’t really planning on being out too much later than six. But at the very least, I still wanted to get my run in, so I tightened my shoe laces, let Eli out of the back seat, and started to jog up Bull Branch.

That’s the way it’s said: up Bull Branch. Bull Branch has been the name of this Sunday River tributary for as long as the paper trail extends, and going “up Bull Branch” is how old-timers have always referred to visiting the stream. The place has been a draw for sportsmen (from both near and far) and tourists from the middle of the nineteenth century.

My first cousin, four-times-removed, Jotham Sewall Chapman (1854-1919) composed a humorous poem about some local men undertaking an unsuccessful fishing trip, which was published in the Oxford County Citizen:

Some of Bethel's Great Fishermen
             Jotham S. Chapman

Says Harry to Lifey,
     I’ve been thinking of late,
That you and I are walking
    Just a little too straight.

So to have a slight change,
     And the time of our lives,
Let's go up Bull Branch fishing—
    And not take our wives.

Eugene Martyn and Geo. Harding
     We will invite,
For both are great scrappers,
     Should we get in a fight.

George will furnish the fish hooks,
     We don’t need any rum,
If we don’t bust our tires
     We sure will go some.

And if we do go,
     And don’t half try,
What fish we don’t catch
     Wouldn’t make a great fry.

So those four, pompous fishermen
     Started off in great glee,
Like a lot of small boys
     Going on their first spree.

After leaving their auto
     Near Stillman’s old house,
They stole up Bull Branch
     As still as a mouse.

After fishing for hours
     Without getting a bite
George says “Look here boys
     We are not fishing right.

“I will wade to the middle,
     I don't want a crown,
But I'll dip up all the fish
     You fellows drive down.”

And Ira, left alone,
     All day in the store,
Expected they’d catch
     A barrel or more.

And took their long absence
     As having great luck,
Was about to send for their fish
     Thurston’s big truck.

But just before dark,
     With their heads hanging down,
Their little tin Lizzie
     Took them back into town.

For four little boys,
     They might call it a plenty—
Of very small fish
     They had about twenty!

— Oxford County Citizen, July 26, 1917

Bull Branch owes its outstanding recreational opportunities to its physical characteristics. The main stem of Bull Branch rises in Mahoosuc Notch, the rugged, boulder-filled pass between Mahoosuc and Fulling Mill mountains which is often considered the hardest mile of the entire Appalachian Trail. It gains volume from Speck Pond (which, at 3,400 feet, is considered the highest body of water in the state), from an unnamed stream running off the southeastern slope of Old Speck, from Goose Eye Brook, and finally from Miles Notch Brook.

No segment of it is less than a 2.3% grade, and it only gets steeper the higher you climb. Water from Speck Pond must fall a total 2,520 feet in just 6.2 miles to the confluence with Sunday River. More or less the entire branch is a series of cascades and pools perfect for swimming or fishing.

The Best Laid Plans

A bit over a mile beyond the Frenchman’s Hole parking lot you cross a bridge over Goose Eye Brook and a sign for the Wright Trail up Goose Eye Mountain. Beyond the Wright Trail trailhead is another gate that stays closed. The four miles of road beyond this were “put to bed” in 1991, causing some upset among local Jeepers who had previously enjoyed the use of the road.

About two miles further there is a fork in the road. The road to the right crosses (or rather, crossed) Bull Branch and then makes almost a complete U-turn, heading back in the direction of Riley Hill. When I reached the stream crossing, however, it was clear that with the high water from recent spring showers, I wasn’t getting across. At least, there wasn’t going to be any getting across without taking my shoes off and wading through a strong current, and I had no intention of getting my feet wet until near the end of my run. Eli didn’t seem too enthusiastic about crossing either, and I didn’t want to put him at any risk.

A few investigations upstream also suggested no easier crossing in the immediate vicinity.

At this point, I turned and ran most of the rest of the way back. Like Jotham’s fishermen, I was now at serious risk of returning with an empty pail—so to speak—but I could at least get one thing I came here for.

And so, when we got back to the Frenchman’s Hole area, I tied Eli’s leash to a tree, followed the path down to the ledges, stripped down, and leapt into the fearsome turning waters below.

Frenchman’s Hole? Now that I mention it, you may have noticed that, up to this point, in discussing Bull Branch’s recreational opportunities, I’ve had little to say about its most famous feature. Well, my friends, of course I’d love to tell you more about Frenchman’s Hole, but that is a story for next time…

As I hinted, my next post is going to be a deep dive into the history of Frenchman’s Hole and will be my first bonus post for paid subscribers only. No pressure, of course, but this is a great time to consider upgrading to a paid subscription if you want to support this project and get the full insider experience.

The weather wasn’t bad that day, but it was significantly cooler than on the day of my first unplanned dunk in Chapman Brook a week earlier. The day after I devised my brook jumping challenge, the temperature had plummeted from a high in the 70s to more typical seasonal weather in the 50s. Now it was back up to about 60, which seemed tolerable, and I was eager to put another notch in my belt. My plan was to combine an intense workout with a jump in a brook, figuring that if I worked up a good sweat first the cold water would be more inviting.

The Caribou Mountain Trail from Bog Brook was an obvious choice for this because of one particularly attractive feature: a natural swimming hole in Bog Brook, ideally situated at the start/end of the trail.

This may seem an unlikely place to find a nice swimming hole, as the name Bog Brook suggests a swampy, slow-moving stream. Indeed, much of it is, but closer to the 5.6-mile-long brook’s point of origin on Caribou Mountain, it begins as a clear mountain stream.1

Caribou Mountain straddles borders, both natural and manmade. The modern line between Batchelder’s Grant and Mason townships passes right over the summit, and the water that falls there makes its way to the Androscoggin via one of three paths: Wild River by way of Morrison Brook or Mud Brook; Pleasant River via its West Branch; or Bog Brook.

The mountain has quite a storied history, so it’s convenient that with several more brooks and a spring to cover I will have plenty more opportunities to write about it.

Just this past week I was scanning a collection of negatives from the West Bethel area when this image popped up on my screen. When my friend Carolyn Hardy, one of the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society’s board members and volunteers, arrived to take over the project, I showed her the image and she excitedly produced a handwritten history of the little camp—which was built near the top of Caribou Mountain in 1908—from her grandmother’s records which she has been digitizing.

Needless to say, we’ll be picking up the story of Camp Caribou on future visits to the mountain, but for now I want to give a little history from an even earlier era.

The Bog Brook side is an appropriate place to dive into the history, since this is the direction from which the earliest ascents seem to have been made. This is unsurprising, as before the road was developed through Evans Notch there wasn’t much for convenient access from the westerly direction.

Cook and Pychowska

As with many other mountains in the area, it’s likely that the first people to climb Caribou were local youth, hunters, and berry pickers. It’s obvious that plenty of people had visited the top by the 1870s, as the view is described in a few early publications, and there were logging operations conducted here for which roads were apparently built nearly all the way to the summit.

But it was not until enthusiasts affiliated with the White Mountain Club of Portland (1873-1880s) and the Appalachian Mountain Club (founded 1876) began systematically exploring the White Mountains and writing up their experiences that many detailed accounts were published of how these peaks were actually reached.

The December 1883 issue of Appalachia magazine, the journal of the AMC, included a report by Eugene B. Cook who summited Caribou in 1877 in the company of his niece Marian Pychowska. Pychowska and her mother Lucia Cook Pychowska were among a handful of pioneering women who helped to map the White Mountains and were the first to reach numerous peaks.

Cook’s report goes as follows:

The rocky crest of Mt. Caribou, seen from Shelburne Moriah, gave promise of an excellent outlook. As the wide-stretching forests of the Wild River valley did not seem a promising way of approach, a reconnaissance was made by the writer down the Androscoggin valley. The best line of attack from Shelburne was found to be via Gilead. About two miles therefrom, on the way to West Bethel, a road starts off to the right, passing through a gate, just beyond which stands a schoolhouse. A tolerable road leads thence to the farms scattered along Bog Meadow. The road passes over Bog Meadow, a portion of which consists of a chain of narrow, connected fields devoted to the production of hay.

Farther along, some rather desolate farms are passed, after which the road goes into the woods and follows a stream, on its western side. A bridge is seen before long, near which are two or more houses, — one being a rather elegant cottage, unoccupied whenever the narrator has chanced to pass it.

Two routes are here at one’s choice. One can either continue by the wood-road which keeps along the western side of the stream, follow the road to its end, and then ascend a ridge which leads up to a point not far from the top of Mt. Caribou; or one can cross the bridge and follow a logging-road that keeps on the eastern and southern side of the stream, and ends only a short distance below the summit. This latter route is preferable, because the natural line of ascent brings one out directly on the summit. By the other approach, when the top of the ridge is reached, it is necessary to cross a hollow which separates “Wrong Mountain” from the highest head of Caribou. From West Bethel there seems to be an easy approach, by means of a high-road and a wood-road branching therefrom, which leads below the east side of the mountain.

In Professor Hitchcock’s “Geology of New Hampshire” is an interesting plate, giving outlines of some of the mountains seen from Mt. Caribou.

The Moriah and Carter ranges, from Caribou, appear finely over the valley of the Wild River. Speckled Mountain, Mt. Royce, and Baldface Mountain, invite one to continue one’s walk along the whole line. Many lakes in Maine offer their bright mirrors to beautify the landscape. The top of Mt. Caribou is in possession of rocks and moss, is rather long and narrow, and its surface is undulating. From Shelburne Moriah this waving line is well seen; but from Mt. Royce the top of Caribou seems a fantastic pile of rock, suggestive of Mts. Crawford and Chocorua. In the season, excellent blueberries are to be found on Caribou, and its crest is adorned with the Alpine silver-chickweed.

The writer has ascended Caribou four times. In 1877, on a very warm day, my niece, Miss Pychowska, and I, made the ascent. We left Gilead Station at half-past nine, A.M., reached the bridge that has been mentioned at eleven o’clock, and stood on the summit of Mt. Caribou at seven minutes before one. In coming down, the bridge was reached in an hour and twelve minutes, the school-house in forty-eight minutes more, and the railway station at Gilead in thirty-seven minutes, — the whole time from the summit being two hours and thirty-seven minutes. The time taken in making the ascent was three hours and twenty-three minutes from Gilead Station.

It’s always difficult to untangle a description such as this, given how much the roads have changed, and the imprecise physical geography of older maps. Before the U.S. Geological Survey began systematically collecting data and publishing topographic maps in the mid-1880s, cartographers often relied on a variety of local knowledge and survey data of decidedly mixed quality. These maps are invaluable for their information on roads and settlements, but are particularly impressionistic in their depiction of mountains, ranges, ponds, and streams.

A useful bridge between nineteenth-century and modern maps is the collection of historic USGS topographical maps available through the topoView service. The earliest available for this area is the Bethel Quadrangle from 1914, which already shows a trail to the summit. These maps are geographically accurate enough that it is possibly to overlay them on modern maps, but also show some no longer extant houses and other features we can match with the earlier maps.

I had originally assumed that Cook would have approached the base of the mountain by starting in the Bog Road. However, the road which “starts off to the right” was about two miles or a thirty-seven minute walk from the railroad station in Gilead (highlight 1 on 1880 map above). This must not be the Bog Road, which would be another two miles on, but another road that once went in just after the main road crosses Bog Brook. There is still today a dirt road that begins here, perhaps close to the location of the old road.

This also means that the schoolhouse mentioned by Cook would be the one that stood at the corner here (highlight 2 on 1880 map, and labeled Peabody School in 1883), rather than the schoolhouse at the end of today’s Bog Road (circled in red—now the site of a gravel pit). Although the 1880 map does not show it, it must have been possible to connect through on this road beyond the homestead of P. B. Heath to the Bog Road (at highlight 3) to reach “the farms scattered along Bog Meadow.”

There should have been at least two stream crossings, but the bridge mentioned I take to be the one at highlight 4, since this would put one “on the eastern and southern side of the stream.”

The Trail Today

I have my own fairly lengthy history with Bog Brook and Caribou Mountain. One of my best friends lived on the Bog Road growing up and we used to go to the swimming hole at the base of the trail fairly often. I can vaguely recall some earlier hikes of which I have no records, but in the past six years, I have hiked it at least ten times. (Once in 2018, once in 2021, twice in 2022, and three times each in 2023 and 2024.) Of these, five were from the Evans Notch side on the Caribou-Mud Brook Loop, and five were from the Bog Road.

The Bog Brook side is the only way of accessing Caribou Mountain when the Evans Notch Road is closed. During the winter and shoulder season the end of the Bog Road may also be gated after Pooh Corner Farm, as it was on May 13 last year. I parked my car in front of the gate and ran in the road. This added about 3/4 of a mile to the beginning and end, but was a good way to warm up before starting the climb.

The dirt road dead ends at a gate that is closed year round. There are just a few places to park here, but I’ve never seen more than a handful of cars. On the west side of the road there is a short path that leads to a picnic area and the swimming hole on Bog Brook. The Caribou trail starts by walking around the gate and continuing on up the old road.

The modern trail was first built on top of these same old logging roads followed by Cook and Pychowksa and has changed remarkably little over the past 100 years. Overlaying my GPS track on the 1914 USGS map, we see only a few small variances.

The trail hews pretty close to Bog Brook for most of the way, crossing back and forth over the main stem and its tributaries several times.

The entirety of the trail is within the White Mountain National Forest, but after about two miles you cross the boundary into the Caribou-Speckled Mountain Wilderness.

This is a specially designated area within the White Mountain National Forest that is more restricted. Wilderness areas prohibit all logging, mining, and motorized vehicle use.

The next third of a mile beyond this point appears to be the only real change from the former course of the trail. As you can see on the 1914 map, the trail formerly diverged up the left side of the valley here and ascended directly towards the site of the Camp Caribou cabin below the peak. It now follows it all the way up to the col between between Caribou Mountain and Gammon Mountain (which I take to be the “Wrong Mountain” mentioned by Cook).

At the col it meets with the trail that follows Morrison Brook up from Evans Notch. You then turn left and ascend another fairly steep half mile to the summit.

A Vastness of Vacciniums

What first strikes everyone who reaches the peak of Caribou is of course its gorgeous 365-degree views from the expansive top.

I think only a few hikes in the area of comparable height and distance can rival it—Rumford Whitecap and Sunday River Whitecap come to mind.

But Caribou also shares one other notable feature with the two local Whitecaps: its abundance of blueberries, bilberries, huckleberries, cranberries, and the like (all of which belong to the genus vaccinium).

In a July 11, 1970, article in the Lewiston Evening Journal, Edith Labbie wrote:

On the crest is an acre of flat land. Amid a carpet of gray lichen, ruby red cranberries may be found in the fall.

As I remember it, it was in this same location that I tasted my first mountain cranberries—or lingonberries, as they are more properly called. On a hike with my cousins Keith and Cindi on September 4, 2021, someone in our party used a phone app to identify what we were pretty sure were edible berries. There were just enough of them for each of us to have a small taste.2

Old newspaper articles are full of references to people collecting these tart treats, but I tend to hear much less about mountain cranberry picking as compared to blueberry picking these days. Now that I recognize them, however, they have become one of my favorite trail snacks. They seem to evade me when I deliberately seek them out, but when I find them I never pass up the opportunity.

A couple years ago I was on East Royce Mountain, just across the valley from Caribou, and happened upon so many that I managed to collect a whole pint container full. Having no other container with me, I emptied out the water bladder from my running vest and used that to carry them down.

Two Down, Four Hundred and Some Odd to Go

There were obviously no berries to be found in May, but the views from the top were as resplendent as ever. I paused to take a few photos of the view and an obligatory summit-selfie of me and the pooch, and then we were on our way again.

I made it up from my car and back as far as the trailhead (about 6.25 miles with 2,000 feet of elevation gain) in an hour and 22 minutes, a time I was pretty happy with considering I had only just gotten back into the swing of trail running after the winter. By the time I reached the bottom I was, as predicted, more than ready for a cold dip in the brook, after which I walked the remaining 3/4 of a mile back to my car.

After more than 215 years of family ownership, the McCoy-Chapman Forest parcel was deeded to the Mahoosuc Land Trust by Ginnie McCoy’s estate on April 23, 2018.1

Immediately upon acquiring the property, MLT began soliciting input from the public to help plan for future uses. A few months later, on October 28, the organization led a guided hike/walk on old logging roads through the forest. I’m not sure where I was that day, but my mom was in attendance with Eli, who was about a year and half old at the time. From my mom’s Locke’s Mills column for the November 8, 2018, Bethel Citizen:

Last week, even though it was damp and drizzly, Eli the Wonder Pup and I enjoyed a great walk in the McCoy-Chapman Forest on Sunday afternoon with Kirk Siegel of the Mahoosuc Land Trust as our guide. Eli was particularly enthusiastic about hiking with a larger group than he’s used to. There were 11 of us, and I spent a lot of my time during the hike making sure he didn’t steal anyone’s hats or gloves.

On Tuesday, May 7, 2024, however, we (Eli and I) pulled into the parking lot and found we had the place to ourselves.

Since 2018, MLT has done a wonderful job of developing the property for hiking, snowshoeing, and cross-country skiing. It now boasts a variety of options:

• The McCoy-Gray Birch Backcountry Trail, the first trail to open on the property in late 2018, is a 4.5 mile out and back to a scenic overlook. On March 17, 2019, this was the first trail in the forest that I hiked, along with my mom and Eli.

• On the south side of the road is the 1.1 mile-long Esker Loop, a favorite of ours when short on time. It offers beautiful views of the Androscoggin and some fascinating glacial geology. The trail opened in October of 2019 and was cut and blazed by local high school student Carter Richmond as part of his Eagle Scout project.

• The Chapman Brook Trail and Sam’s Trail opened in 2020 to give access to the cascades and falls along the brook.

• The most recent addition is the “Forestry For Maine Birds Trail” which opened in the summer of 2023 and includes eight interpretive panels describing the forestry practices used on the property. (MLT conducted its first harvesting operation on the property in early 2021.)

On this day, the brook was calling us, and so we decided to walk along the Chapman Brook Trail and loop back by way of Sam’s Trail. Weather Underground confirms this was the day when temperatures climbed into the 70s for the first time in 2024, but being still conditioned to winter it felt like about 90.

You don’t have to walk far before you come to the first idyllic spot on the trail. Just a little over a quarter mile from the parking lot, you come to the first “Forestry for Maine Birds” panel.

Here, a short path to the left leads down over some smooth rocks to a beautiful shimmering pool.

The sandy bottom, crystal clear water, and relatively open forest surrounding this pool give it a stunningly bright golden appearance on a sunny day. In a beautifully-written article describing Chapman Brook from an ecological perspective, science writer Catherine Schmitt explains:

As the stream flows downhill, it gains more water and gets larger, and receives less forest material relative to its area, but more sun. Light and heat stimulate the growth of diatoms and other algae, which are scraped off rocks and wood by grazers that keep the stream looking “clean.”

Continuing on, the trail—following an old logging road—bends away from the brook for a while, so that from the trail you can’t actually see the place where the lower (third order) part of the brook converges from two main (second order) branches. But by the next time you encounter the brook, about a tenth of a mile further, its size has been much reduced, as you are seeing only the east branch of it.

The trail crosses this branch on an old rotten bridge, to which a few new planks have been added to make it safe for human (and dog) crossing.

Though I didn’t go that way on this day, on another occasion, I have turned off the trail here and followed this branch up to the confluence.

At this location, the (second order) east branch is formed by the convergence of two smaller (first order) streams.

A Nerdy Digression on Stream Order 🤓

(Feel free to skip to the next heading...)

What’s all this about stream order? The USGS National Hydrography Dataset includes two ways of classifying streams relative to others in their network.

The Androscoggin River has a stream order of 6, which reflects the complexity of the river's network of tributaries. The USGS uses a version of the Strahler system, in which the smallest streams with no tributaries (meeting certain thresholds) are assigned an order of 1. When two streams of the same order meet, they form a stream of the next highest order. When two streams of different orders meet, the resulting stream retains the higher of the two orders.

In other words, the Androscoggin has a large enough network so that some of its tributaries have tributaries, which themselves have tributaries which have tributaries which have tributaries.

In contrast to stream order, stream level classifications tend to decrease further downstream, but this is not a simple inversion of the stream order system.

The National Hydrology Dataset Plus (NHDPlus) user guide explains:

The StreamLevel value-added attribute is often misunderstood or misused by users. Users commonly think of stream level “as the opposite of stream order”, which is incorrect. Stream level has nothing to do with relative stream size.

The primary use of stream level is to distinguish the main stem from the tributary streams based on the inflows immediately upstream from the selected stream segment (fig. 23). The stream level assigned the lowest value is the main stem, and the higher stream-level values are assigned to the tributaries. For example, StreamLevel 1 would apply to the Mississippi River main stem but also to every stream, regardless of length or volumetric flow rate, that terminates on a coastline.

The Androscoggin River has a stream level of 2, because it is a tributary of the Kennebec River (stream level 1), which it joins with at Merrymeeting Bay before flowing out to the Gulf of Maine.

Here’s how stream order works for Chapman Brook:

And here is its stream level structure:

As you can see, each of these provides distinct advantages for how to look at and think about the tributary structure of a stream. Stream order provides a clearer picture of relative size and complexity within a network.

Stream levels are more useful for identifying “main stems” and align more closely with our typical naming conventions. Even though their networks look more like the root systems of a tree, we tend to think of rivers and streams as linear entities. When there is a confluence, one branch usually continues the name upstream, while the other is given a new name (even if the two streams are roughly equal in size).

The various tributaries of Chapman Brook are too minor to have acquired names, but if they had, they would more closely resemble the stream level chart above than stream order. Just for fun, we could even make up a few names for these unnamed branches, based on the George Whitefield Chapman family and their interests:

These branches run through four different towns/townships: Riley Township, Newry, Gilead, and Bethel.

Taking the Plunge

Continuing on from the old logging bridge, about another third of a mile, you come to the junction of the Chapman Brook Trail and the McCoy-Gray Birch Trail.

If you take the McCoy-Gray Birch trail, you will cross two upper branches of the east branch of the brook. At the first is a wooden bridge built by students in the Region 9 program in December of 2019.

The second bridge is narrower and at the bottom of a big sag that is a heckuva lot of fun to ski down and over.

Instead, however, we went left at the junction onto the Chapman Brook Trail. After winding through the woods for a while the trail returns to the west branch of Chapman Brook just below another confluence.

As usual on a day such as this, it didn’t take long for Eli to wade in.

This seemed like a pretty good idea to me as well. Somewhere between the first pool and the turn onto the Chapman Brook Trail, sweat rolling down my back, I had decided that next pool we came to on the brook, I was going in too.

I made sure to capture the moment and sent it to my partner, Rosemary, who, being very cold water-averse, already believed to me to be crazy. (I’m pretty sure she continues to believe so, with ever-mounting evidence.)

Rosemary’s skepticism aside, seeking refuge in a cool brook while hiking on a hot day is itself nothing out of the ordinary, but almost immediately my mind began turning with other possibilities.

You see, dear reader, I am by nature something of an obsessive, and nothing inspires me more than a good challenge.

Stream Bagging?

Some context: Back in 2020 a friend of my mom’s clued us in to the Peakbagger app. Peakbagger is not a hiking app like AllTrails, and doesn’t have much data on officially marked trails. What it does do is show you every single peak named on source maps or submitted by other users and allow you to log data on your own ascents.

It also has a few useful navigational features, such as tracking and various map layers, but the big emphasis is lists. I was, of course, aware of the more widely known challenges, such as the AMC Four Thousand Footer Club. There are lists for county highpoints, for peaks which meet certain prominence requirements, or for lower elevation thresholds that greatly expand the traditional challenges (the Maine 3,500-foot Peaks list includes 63 ranked peaks with at least 200 feet of prominence, in contrast to just 14 Maine peaks on the 4,000 footer list).

The website/app also allows users to create custom lists based on search criteria or a pick-and-choose method. I created a list for Oxford County. Peakbagger limits you to 200 items to a list, so I had to separate it into three parts: High, Medium, and Low. Altogether there are a total of 557 peaks recognized in the Peakbagger database that are all or partly within the boundaries of Oxford County. I have been slowly picking away at the list since then, and have completed 84 of them. That includes most every peak in my immediate vicinity that can be reached by a well-trodden path passing over or near to the summit, as well as a fair number of scraggly bushwhacks.

My enthusiasm for that particular project tends to wax and wane. Sometimes I will get into a spell of tackling multiple new peaks a week and other times I will go months without giving it much thought. I haven’t abandoned the goal, but it turns out it’s fairly difficult to remain inspired by a project that has you wading through tangles of blackberry bushes and dense thickets, up steep hills, sometimes for many miles, for what often turns out to be very little in the way of a scenic overlook.

In contrast, I thought to myself, hiking along a brook usually offers a fairly unobstructed path and pretty views the whole way.

The idea implanted in my brain, I turned to Google for a little research and inspiration. There was, it turned out, some precedent for the idea of “bagging” bodies of water. In 1951, veteran peak baggers Colin Dodgson and Timothy Tyson conceived of the idea of bathing in every tarn (or small mountain lake) in England’s Lakeland fells. This remarkable feat of “tarn-bagging” was accomplished eight years and 463 swims later.

While “lake bagging” remains a lesser known activity than “peak bagging” the practice has gained traction in several places. There’s an “ADK 47 Lakers” club for those who have swum in all 47 lakes in the Adirondack Park, and the University of Bristol Expeditions Society has set up some formal rules for their annual competition. (“Points: 1 for fully submerging, double for full nakedness, and double again for breaking ice.”)

But what about moving water bodies? The term “river bagging” has been suggested for various activities, including paddling in New Hampshire (the challenge includes a section of the Androscoggin), fishing in Scotland, and skating frozen rivers in Swedish Lapland. However, neither “river bagging” nor “brook” or “stream bagging” by immersing in streams is something I could find mentioned. Of course that just seemed to be all the more reason to try to make it a Thing.

While I thought about lakes and ponds too, the prospect of jumping in brooks held much more appeal. A lot of ponds are pretty stagnant and shallow, and if I were to attempt that, I could see a lot of muck in my future. Mountain brooks, however, are generally quite nice, even if perpetually frigid.

To formalize the challenge, I tried to define a few parameters:

• I would be required to get only named brooks. There are some arbitrary factors involved with this. There are some unnamed streams that are actually larger than named ones. I am limited by what the maps I use tell me. I have some knowledge about local names for places near me, but

• I would walk the length of each brook until I found a spot deep enough to jump in. If I found one, I could declare the brook “bagged” and move on if I wanted to, but if I could not find one, I would have to keep going, walking as much of the brook as possible to confirm that there wasn’t one.

• When I say “jump,” I mean that I originally intended to very literally jump into each of these brooks. Part of the challenge would be to find a spot deep enough to leap from a point of land, cannonball or tuck, and enter the brook all at once. That worked for the first half dozen or so I did. In several cases I found such holes even on brooks that seemed so small as to be unlikely to include one. After a while however I started to explore brooks at which I never found a place where this was possible. Not wanting to return defeated, I eventually settled for a place where I could crouch, or in some cases even lie down, in order to fully submerge.

• In keeping with the tradition established by Dodgson and Tyson and others who have attempted similar challenges, I decided to skinny dip whenever possible. This is undeniably more fun and is generally quite practical, as it eliminates the need for hiking in or carrying wet clothes. In some cases it does add another layer of challenge in having to locate a time or location where seclusion is guaranteed.

As I wrote in my introductory post, I’ve since started thinking about this project more expansively, but “bagging” as many streams as possible remains a core part of my mission. For those keeping score at home, I’ll be noting my progress at the end of each relevant post.

As I noted in my introduction to this blog, there are actually two Chapman Brooks, both Androscoggin tributaries, which come to their mouth just a few miles from each other.

Both are part of the Chapman Brook-Androscoggin River subwatershed, as defined by the USGS; both begin to collect in Riley Plantation, on the slopes of Wheeler Mountain; both pass (at least briefly) through Newry and into Bethel; and both cross the Northwest Bethel Road (North Road) before emptying directly into the Androscoggin. The ridgeline between Wheeler Mountain and Ellingwood Mountain forms the height of land dividing their watersheds.

Both are also now accessible to the public by hiking trails on conserved land—the upper part of the easterly one is part of the Bingham Forest, managed by Inland Woods + Trails, while the westerly one falls within the Mahoosuc Land Trust’s McCoy-Chapman Forest.

The easterly Chapman Brook, upon reaching Bethel, remains well within the town’s borders for the remainder of its run, while the westerly one passes only through a corner of Bethel before draining into the Androscoggin in Gilead. For simplicity’s sake I will refer to Chapman Brook (Gilead) and Chapman Brook (Bethel) when any ambiguity might arise, naming each by the location of its mouth.

It’s clear from H. F. Walling’s Map of Oxford County, Maine, that both brooks had acquired the name Chapman Brook sometime before 1858.

Given that, I was somewhat surprised that I was not to be able to find any historical documents specifically mentioning the identical names. It is somewhat amusing to note, however, that the Fourth Annual Report of the Maine State Water Storage Commission, published in 1913, which featured a gazetteer of the lakes and rivers of Maine, mistakenly referred to the westerly Chapman brook as “Channon Brook.”

I suppose this could have offered a novel solution to any confusion, but it’s probably still for the best that the name never caught on anywhere else.

Not so surprisingly, it has proven somewhat difficult to research the history of the Chapman Brook (Gilead) because most of my search queries for “Chapman Brook” pull up results relating to the one closer to Bethel village. That brook has an important history as the source of the town’s public water supply until a catastrophic rain storm in 2007. I’ll have much more to say about the history of that Chapman Brook later. In Part 2 of this post I’ll turn to the brook that set me on my mission, but before we can get there, I hope you’ll indulge me in a little Chapman family history.

Ai and Peamont?

The progenitor of the whole Chapman clan in the Bethel area is my fifth-great-grandfather, Rev. Eliphaz Chapman, who came to Bethel in 1789 and purchased a farm on the north side of the Androscoggin River, a little ways beyond the Mahoosuc Land Trust’s Valentine Farm property. He then returned to Methuen, but came back the following spring with his son Eliphaz, Jr., to begin building a house at this location. Bethel’s first historian, Dr. Nathaniel T. True, informs us that this was the location of an “Indian village” and cornfield, evidence of which could still be seen, although it was estimated not to have been occupied for at least fifty years, which suggests it may have been abandoned following the Battle of Pequawket in 1725.

After a few years, the family built a frame house to replace the original log home, and this stood until 1937 when it caught fire during the night.

Rev. Eliphaz is the namesake of Goldiva’s Reverend Eliphaz Chapman aka Eli the Wonder Pup, who I adopted a few years after starting work at the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society. He is most often recalled in these parts as the man who suggested the name “Bethel” (from the Bible meaning “House of God”) for the town at the time of its incorporation in 1796. In doing so, he rendered quite a service to future generations, since the alternative suggested by Captain Ezra Twitchell (who happens to be my fifth-great-granduncle on my mother’s side) was “Ai,” an awkward name in any era, but one that it would be particularly unfortunate to be saddled with today.

That story has been oft-repeated throughout our history, but what I only recently learned was that it was also old man Eliphaz who suggested the name Gilead. The township was originally “Peabody's Patent” as two of the original purchasers in 1772 had been Oliver and John Peabody of Andover, Massachusetts. As recorded by historian Dr. Nathaniel T. True, one of the town’s later Peabody inhabitants had apparently sought to have it named “Peamont,” but unsurprisingly “opposition arose” to this name. Instead Eliphaz's son (my 4th-great-granduncle) Eliphaz, Jr., purchased the naming rights for a gallon of brandy and took the suggestion of Gilead from his father.

George Whitefield Chapman

Besides Eliphaz, Jr., and my direct ancestor, Edmund, Rev. Eliphaz and his wife Hannah Jackman had six other children. One of their sons, George Whitefield Chapman, was born in Methuen, Massachusetts, on Christmas day in 1780. He came to Bethel when he was about ten years old and recalled to Dr. True that during the first winter in the log cabin, “they could get no grinding done at the mill, and they were obliged to live on hulled corn, stewed peas, and bean porridge.” The family was able to eat much better after acquiring a few cows, which found plenty of food to forage from the rich interval land along the river. Unfortunately, the intervals were also abundant in wild onions, of which the cows ate so many that it could be tasted in their milk. To lower their sensitivity, George recalls that they would eat an onion first before drinking the milk.1

By the time George was 21 years old, he had saved up enough to purchase his own farm, but he did not stray far from home. Instead he bought a large tract of land about four miles upriver, just over the Gilead line, through which ran the pretty little brook which presumably took his name shortly thereafter.

Deacon George Whitefield Chapman, the probable name sake of this Chapman Brook was a pretty cool guy. He was known for being exceptionally intelligent and thoughtful and had extensive knowledge of both Bethel and Gilead history. Between running the farm, serving his church, and holding elected office as a Selectmen for fifteen years and for one term in the Maine Legislature, he also found time to compose poetry, drawing his inspiration from the changing world and from the natural beauty of the Androscoggin valley.

His writings only increased when his eye sight began to fail him, after which he dictated to his second wife, Hannah, a brief History of Gilead, which was originally published in the Bethel Courier and later adapted into a short book entitled Brief History of Gilead, and Prose and Poetic Writings. The volume also include an autobiography and many of his works of verse, the bulk of which are acrostic poems written for friends and family.

Dr. William Berry Lapham describes a visit to Chapman’s daughter’s home in Portland in 1875, where he found the deacon’s “mind unclouded and his memory of early events something marvelous.” Dr. True recognized G. W. as one of his main informants for his 1859-1861 History of Bethel, much of which is incorporated (not always with proper credit given) into Lapham’s later volume.

But perhaps what I find most intriguing about George is his support for the anti-slavery Liberty Party at a time when advocates of abolition were often ridiculed and reviled. He attended the Liberty Association’s 1847 convention in Bethel, where he volunteered to serve on a committee to obtain subscriptions for the association.2

The Chapman Homestead

When George W. Chapman first purchased the land around Chapman Brook, he spent three years cultivating and clearing the land while continuing to live with his father. In July of 1804, he married his first wife Polly Greenwood. The following winter, George and Polly lived with George’s brother, Eliphaz, Jr., and his wife, Salome Burnham, who had a place about a mile up river. In May of 1805, George built a “temporary” house on his own land, which they end up living in until he built a permanent house in 1816.

Tammy Chapman MacDormand wrote about the history of the homestead for the fall 2005 issue of The Patent, the newsletter of the Gilead Historical Society. George and Polly lived there until Polly’s death in 1849. In 1851, he married Hannah Buxton and moved to Bethel, leaving the homestead in the care of his son George Granville Chapman. He moved back in with Granville after Hannah’s death in 1862, by which time he was losing his sight.

From Granville, Tammy writes:

The Homestead passed to William Chalmers Chapman, the fourth of Granville and Eliza Chapman’s 8 children. William (1841-1927) married Martha Baldwin and had 6 children, one of whom was my grandfather, Granville Appleton Chapman, known as Jack.

During William’s tenure, the Homestead saw many improvements, financed largely by William’s uncle, Timothy Appleton Chapman, who had made his way to Milwaukee where he had established a very successful dry goods business.

Timothy Appleton Chapman shared his father’s convictions. Dr. William Berry Lapham tells us that:

He was strongly in sympathy with the Abolitionist movement, and a supporter of Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, John G. Whittier and William Lloyd Garrison, long before their doctrines had become popular. He came to be known as a young man of ideas and of sterling qualities.

It was also Timothy Appleton Chapman who largely financed the publication of Lapham’s 1891 History of Bethel, in recognition of which Dr. Lapham dedicated the volume to him.

One of T. A.’s improvements affected during this era was the construction of a large sheep barn in 1880.

In 1915, William Rogers Chapman, a prominent composer and conductor and the impresario behind the Maine Music Festival, had this same barn moved from the homestead to his property, the former Moses Mason farmstead (later the Norseman Inn), in “Mayville.” There are stories that the barn was skidded down the river on ice during winter but I’ve never been able to document that. The more plausible account, given in Yvonne Nowlin’s history of the Bethel Agricultural Fair is that it was dismantled and rebuilt.

Chapman used the farm to house his thoroughbred racing horses. Sometime after he sold the property in 1918, the barn was moved closer to the Bethel Fair Association grounds. If you haven’t yet guessed, this was the famous “Fairgrounds Barn” or “Harrington Barn” a local landmark which stood by the field near the Bethel airport until it was demolished in October of 2024.

The McCoy-Chapman Forest

Tammy’s father Franklin S. Chapman (whose mail my grandfather Franklin B. Chapman used to occasionally mistakenly receive), was born on the family homestead in 1912 and spent many summers there. Picking up the story from Tammy again:

Following the deaths of William in 1927 and Martha in 1939, the Homestead passed to their unmarried daughter Cecile (1881-1961) and on her death to her sister Christine Chapman McCoy (1884-1981). On Christmas day, 1969, the 189th anniversary of the birth of its founder, George W. Chapman, the Homestead was destroyed by fire.

The house was rebuilt in the early 1970’s by Christine’s son, Samuel McCoy (1913-1992) and his wife Geneva Johnston McCoy, the current owner.

After Geneva “Ginnie” McCoy’s death in 2016, the rebuilt house was sold to Mark and Cassie Mason Szeliga, who live there today. Some years earlier, however, Ginnie had “quietly let it be known” that she would like the majority of the land to remain in its natural state. With the support of family members, including Tammy, Jack Chapman, and Elizabeth and Barre Tozloski, this vision was secured through the acquisition of the property by the Mahoosuc Land Trust in 2019.

To be continued.

Names in bold are streams that I have “bagged” by submerging fully in (also indicated with a 🌊). Other activities I have engaged in are indicated by a relevant emoji, including:

🛶 canoe/kayak

🏄‍♂️ stand-up paddle boarding (surf emoji because there is no SUP emoji)

⛸️ ice skating

Underlined names are places I have posted about. Clicking on one of these names will show all posts on this blog relating to that body of water.

Upper Androscoggin (HUC 01040001)

Lower Richardson Lake (HUC 0104000101)

Cupsuptic River (HUC 010400010101)

Streams

• Cupsuptic River

  • Porter Brook

  • Snow Mountain Brook

  • East Branch Cupsuptic River

  • Little East Branch Cupsuptic River

  • Lost Brook

  • Portage Brook

  • Beaver Brook

  • South Brook

    • Toothaker Brook Number One

Lakes and Ponds

• Cupsuptic Pond (MIDAS 7726)

• Fox Pond (MIDAS 7734)

Read more

Welcome to Ammoscongon Chronicles! I am launching this blog to document my humble little project of fully exploring the entire Androscoggin River basin. Or…well…something like that.

I suppose I need to add some caveats here, because while I haven’t crunched the numbers I don’t think it would actually be possible within a human lifetime to “fully explore” every inch of the river’s 3,530 square mile drainage basin in search of anything that looks wet. Not to mention the legal and physical barriers one would encounter in attempting to do so.

Instead my aim is to visit every named tributary to the Mighty Androscoggin and “experience” it in some manner or fashion. In other words, what I am setting out to do here is to walk, run, skate, paddle, submerge in, swim, photograph, and research the history of as many ponds, rivers, and (especially) brooks, in the Androscoggin River watershed as I can during the remainder of my lifetime.

My original inspiration for this project came after an unseasonably hot day last May when I was out of walking my dog Eli along Chapman Brook,1 and decided on the spur of the moment to go for a quick Baptismal plunge in the brook which is rather fittingly named for the family my ancestor (and Eli’s namesake) the Reverend Eliphaz Chapman, who came to Bethel in 1789, and later suggested the Biblical names for both Bethel and Gilead at the time of those town’s incorporations. (I’ll have more to say about all of this later.)

I had been engaged in “peak bagging” (the sport of collecting summits) as many of the hills of Oxford County as I can for several years, and it occurred to me that “stream bagging” by fully submerging in as many rivers and brooks as possible could be a fun complimentary activity. Since bodies of water couldn’t care less about the political boundaries declared by us humans, I decided that instead of Oxford County I would concentrate this project on the watershed of the Androscoggin River.

Unable to find a master list of brooks (though the USGS does provide very useful system for classifying the various basins, watersheds, and sub-watersheds that make up the country), I set to work with various maps and applications compiling my own list of named streams. Currently, it includes 532 streams, but that will definitely change some over the course of this project.2

Since I originally conceived of that idea, my ambitions have been expanded in some ways but loosened in others. I’ve realized, for example, that may not be possible or safe to submerge in every single stream, especially as I work my way towards the southern part of the Androscoggin River basin, which is much more densely populated.

On the other hand, I keep thinking of more ways to enhance the project. Why stop at streams? Why not try to visit and photograph all the ponds as well, even if the stagnant water may not be as suitable for bathing as a cool mountain stream? What kind of a local historian would I be if I didn’t also research and write about the places I visit?

Then this summer my partner, Rosemary, and I got hooked on standup paddleboarding, which added a whole other layer. Inflatable paddleboards are easy to transport great for exploring shallow water, which has made it possible to explore some small rivers and brooks that push the boundaries of “navigable.”

I now think of this as less of a box ticking challenge (though I do still have my checklists to complete) and more of a journey to be savored. It’s also a way to integrate one of my favorite pastimes with my professional interests as a historian of western Maine and the director of the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society. My hope is that this project will grow into a large database of photos and information that will someday form the nexus of a comprehensive history of the basin and its inhabitants. Thank you for coming along on this expedition with me!

A Note on the Title

“Ammoscongon” is how the name of the river was rendered in the 1792 deposition of Pere Pole, an Abenaki who was living in the area of the Pejepscot Purchase. This is probably the most accurate phonetic rendering of the Abenaki name for the river and for the group of people who lived along its shores. Recovering the history, to the maximum degree possible, of the river’s original human inhabitants will be a priority for me. My use of this term is intended to honor the many generations of faithful stewardship of the land and water by the Abenaki people. I also acknowledge the legacy of genocide and dispossession in which my own ancestors were complicit. It’s a painful and complicated history and I will do my best to do justice to it.

What to Expect in the Near Future

Since I started my “stream bagging” project in May of 2024, but am only starting this blog now at the beginning of 2025, I obviously have a big backlog of things to post about. In addition to the 41 brooks I immersed in, I also paddled parts of the Pleasant River in West Bethel, Mill Brook, and the Swift and Cambridge Rivers, as well as several day trips with Rosemary on the Big Andy itself and on part of the Magalloway. I’ve been scraped and bruised, got a nasty rash from a hickory tussock moth caterpillar, and been covered in leeches, but so far no broken bones or near drownings.

So, yes, I have some stories to tell, but my memory is already going to be much fainter than if I had written them up in the immediate aftermath. I have time and location stamped photos, my Strava data, some social media posts, and a few notes to go by, but some early posts here might be a little sparer on the narrative details than I would prefer. Beginning next spring, I am resolving to document my trips much more deliberately.

On the other hand, the less frantic pace of my winter work schedule and the limited daylight hours does give me opportunity to spend more time doing research, so you can expect a little more of a historical focus to some of these early posts. I am also looking forward to doing some exploring on snowshoes and skis this winter but my focus will be more on exploration than on immersion. Jumping into brooks in winter isn’t part of the plan (although, hey, you never know!)

I am going to aim to post something for all readers about once a week, sharing updates, stories, and reflections on my adventures and research.

I’m also going to try to commit to at least one bonus post a month that will be available with a paid subscription. I’m a public historian and I don’t really love the idea of putting up a paywall, but I do think there is a very solid case for limiting the audience for some parts of this project. Some of the places I will be exploring will not be widely known and I don’t want to send the whole Internet trampling over fragile ecological habitats or to anyone’s “secret spot.”

As a paid subscriber, then, the main thing you can expect is the goods on how to get to all those super-secret locations that would likely cause the locals to put my head put on a pike if I revealed them widely. I may also occasionally put under lock a particularly juicy bit of historical gossip, a deep dive into the weeds of some historical question, an extra-spicy hot take on some policy question, or anything else I deem too personal or not yet ready for the whole World Wide Web.

You’ll also get the privilege to message me for directions or coordinates to a place I’ve posted about, and the current version of my working “master list” of all the places I plan to visit and have visited so far, and the satisfaction of supporting this project. Any income I do receive from this will be put towards things that will enhance the project. A “real” camera (though my iPhone does pretty well) and a small drone are a couple items high on my wish list.

Inland Woods + Trails has given these feeder streams names, which are given in the description of the Bingham Forest on their website:

The Bingham Cascades Trail branches off the Summit Ridge Trail in the BCF to a series of waterfalls and cascades off the Chapman Brook, Library Brook, and Spruce Spring Stream.

These names don’t actually appear on any map that I can find, but on the IWT map, the cascades are named and its obvious which name they intended for each stream.

Completing the loop clockwise, the first one I came to was the Chapman Cascade.

There are actually two waterfalls here, or, at any rate, two pitches, and although I technically only needed one to cross the brook off, I decided to hit both the upper and lower pool for good measure.

I then continued on towards the “Upper Cascades” on what IWT calls the “Spruce Spring Stream.”

I decided to target the Swift Cambridge River. The first place we tried to go in was the gated gravel road that starts just south of where the Swift Cambridge crosses under the Bear Pond Road.

We walked in the road a ways and then bushwhack through to the river, but, despite it’s name, this section of the Swift Cambridge was slow moving and unexciting, and not deep enough to swim in.

We decided to walk back out and keep going a bit further up the Bear River Road. We had much better luck at the next place we tried.

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We settled on Stony Brook, which is one of seven brooks in the Androscoggin River watershed by that name (although the two in Peru are actually Upper Stony Brook and Lower Stony Brook). It’s not hard to see how this one in Evans Notch got its name.

We didn’t have to go far at all before we came to a nice big pool that looked like a possible jumping location, but for now we kept exploring a little further.

After finding some cool flat rocks and wading through some shallow pools, we circled back to the big pool to eat dinner, after which, I did my thing.

We ate at the picnic area at Screw Auger Falls and then walked around for a while.

I remember coming here pretty frequently as a kid, but other than a quick walk around the other day when I was here to get a brook, I haven’t been here much in recent years. I pass by all the time when heading out to hike Old Speck or Baldpate, but when you live this close to a tourist attraction, there’s a tendency to say, oh, been there, done that.

This evening, however, we decided to put our tourist hats on, and after walking around Screw Auger Falls, we headed up the road and check out Moose Cave as well..

On the way back home, I asked Rosemary about one place that you won’t find marked by a sign or shown on any tourist maps but which my friends and I used to visit all the time.

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I got here by following the Highwater Trail from the footbridge near Hastings Campground. This is one of my favorite places to walk Eli when we’re not up for a bigger hike, and I’ve walked by this brook several times before, but not paid it much mind until I started this project. After crossing one smaller, unnamed stream, Pine Brook is the first named brook you come too, about a mile and a half down the trail.

My initial concern was short-lived. As I followed the brook upstream, the terrain soon got much steeper, and as the brook became more “playful” started to see some deeper pools at the base of little falls.

I knew that if we kept pressing forward, we would eventually find a perfect spot.

And about half a mile upstream, we did: a long, skinny horse tail waterfall with a nice clear pool below it.

The pool was about waist deep—plenty deep enough to jump into carefully.

We had gotten kind of a late start—it was nearly 5:30 pm at this point—so we turned around and headed back the way we came, four Wild River tributaries now under my belt.

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I parked in the Screw Auger Falls parking lot, and of course I took a few minutes to check out the falls, which never fail to impress.

From there, I made my way back down the steep hill that you come up just before getting to Screw Auger Falls when coming from Newry/Bethel. When I got to where the brook runs under the road, I took off through the woods alongside the stream with Eli by my side.

It wasn’t long before the terrain turned pretty steep and we encountered all kinds of neat cascades and slides.

About half a mile upstream I came around a bend to discover the most interesting of these, a small, steep-walled gorge with a waterfall and pool.

This naturally seemed like the best place to take a plunge. There being no platform to jump off of, I instead scaled partway up one side of the gorge and balanced precariously for a moment before pushing off and leaping into the pool.

Having completed the first part of my mission, I continued up the brook, encountering a number of other cool spots.

The bushwhack up Mt. Hittie proved much less pleasant. It was thick and scratchy going up a pretty steep pitch to a top that offered no clear view as a reward. Instead I paid the price in scratches, but at least I got to bag both the brook and the peak that I came for.

Basin Pond is part of the Cold River—and, eventually Saco River—water shed. Once we climbed up over the “Basin Rim” we reentered the Androscoggin River watershed.

Blue Brook, where we would be staying, is a tributary to Wild River, and although this was not Rosemary’s reason for suggesting the camp site, I had hoped there would be an opportunity to cross the brook off my list.

We arrived at Blue Brook to find just one other party camping there, but plenty of sites left for us to choose. We checked out the brook first, then went back to pitch our tent, and returned to the rocks to cook dinner.

There was a deepish pool visible below steep pitch in ahead of us and I was sweaty from the hike up that I was eager enough to rinse off.

And so I scrambled down beside the brook and forced myself to duck into the frigid water. Rosemary, who is reluctant to swim in anything cooler than bathwater, was not at all keen to join me, and was perfectly happy to start cooking dinner and watch from up above instead.

After dinner, we enjoyed a quiet evening and then crawled into the tent before the forecasted rain could start.