What's this about a Wizard?

Last week we received an incredible donation from Noel Quinton of over one-hundred postcards. It is a magnificently rich collection, full of potential stories that will help us unlock some of our local history mysteries. Here is the first of many more tales to come. This one attempts to map out a lost trail to a misplaced tourist attraction.

We start with this postcard from our new collection of a large tree labelled horizontally at the top right "The Wizard Birch, Intervale N.H." Along the right edge of the image it reads vertically "Copyrighted by N. Weston Pease, North Conway, N.H. 1577" (click on the image to enlarge it). 

In her Cow Hampshire blog (here), Janice Brown traced the tree's history and asked the question "where is it now?" (or more precisely where was it?) The obvious answer would seem to be in Intervale N.H. as noted on the postcard above, but it is harder to track down Intervale that it might first seem. The question is "which intervale?" There are several places with that name in the area. 

According to this website, Intervale is a village that spans two towns, Conway and Bartlett.  The Intervale post office (zip code 03845) is in Conway. Here is a Google satellite view showing that "Intervale."

To make it more confusing, all of the low lands on both sides of the Saco River are called intervales.

This use of the term can be seen here in Jeremy Belknap's 1792 History of New Hampshire and another postcard from the new donation helps illustrate the viewpoint. This is basically the same view you can see now from the Intervale scenic vista rest area.

The Cow Hampshire blog has another clue that may help. Janice includes a photo of the tree from the Library of Congress with the caption "Cathedral woods, Intervale, White Mountains; Detroit Publishing Company, 6 December 1900."

 

However, once again we have a problem - which Cathedral woods? There were at least two in the area. 

By coincidence we have a similar photo (without the people) on display in the history hall by the same company and the same year 1900 (which by coincidence was also the year the library's construction where that date is literally written in stone and more recently steel.  For more on that see our previous blog here). 

In a previous blog, we focused on the poster on the left of Cathedral Ledge located on the west side of the Saco River rising out of what is now called Cathedral Woods. Now we will move our attention down the hall to the next image on the left wall, in the hallway leading to the Henney History Room to an earlier Cathedral Woods on the east side of the Saco River, literally over the river and through the woods from the first. (we will map this out and try to explain that below).

Here is a closer view of that image.

At the bottom left it reads "015104. THE WIZARD TREE, CATHEDRAL WOOD, INTERVALE, WHITE MOUNTAINS"

Details on the original copyright for that photo can be found here.

On the bottom right it reads "COPYRIGHT 1900 BY DETROIT PHOTOGRAPHIC CO." 

On the left on the map above can be seen the road leading to Cathedral Ledge. The woods at the base of the ledge are now known as Cathedral Woods. However the older Cathedral Woods were over at the top right in Intervale.

John Cannell who lived in the area and remembered the location of the tree sketched a map on the back of our photo. It locates the tree close to the Intervale train station near the Abenaki Gift Shop.

While the Intervale train station has been moved away and now serves as a residence, the area can be identified by nearby buildings and other physical remains of the past. 

 

This postcard can be found on the Bartlett Historical Society here along with some relevant information. 

 

Here is that view today. 

 

The station sign still stands.

 

And the train still passes by. 

Pease also did a stereoview photograph labelled Cathedral Woods... 

... as well as a later colorized postcard of Cathedral Woods.

Here is another Pease postcard entitled Cathedral Woods, Intervale, N.H.

We know this was the Cathedral Woods on the east side of the Saco as the titles locate it in Intervale. Also period photos show that what today is called Cathedral Woods (on the west side of the Saco) had been clear cut during that time, so there were no woods there.

To add even more to the mystery, the new donation also includes the following post cards with similar, but not identical scenes, entitled "Enchanted Woods, North Conway, N.H."

 Below is another "Enchanted Woods."

So is enchanted woods the same as the early cathedral woods?  Let's turn to another photographer of the Wizard Birch, T.E.M White.

Both Pease and White ran ads in the The White Mountain Echo newspaper (August 27, 1881 p. 14).  

Here is a detail of the ads (seen in the red box above).

Note the last two lines of White's ad "House on the edge of the "Enchanted Woods," adjacent to the Indian Tent."

You can see the locations of both the White and Pease studios on the map below from another issue of The White Mountain Echo (click on image to enlarge it).  

You can find a short bio on Pease here showing his house where Joe Jones is now across from the North Conway Public Library he worked so hard to develop (click on image to enlarge it). 

 

For more information on this wonderful collection contact us at the Conway Public Library's Henney History Room.

The Old Newman is New Again

Above: Conservator Martha Cox and the painting before cleaning and conservation treatment. 

Below: You can see the difference in the photo after treatment.

As part of a grant from the Robert and Dorothy Goldberg Foundation and support from the Friends of the Conway Public Library the painting has been cleaned and is back up on the wall. 

In a glass case on the opposite wall is a display about the artist, the painting and the treatment program.

An article from our online collection of the Reporter News for January 25, 1940 (page 7) documents the display of the painting and notes who the models were for the woman and the boy. 

Another article from our subject vertical file provides more detail. 

The article featured a photo by Roger S. Burnell.

For more information on the subject of the painting see our previous blog here. 

Hot Spots for ice Cream

With the forecast for another warm summer week, I thought we would follow up on ice cream.

This was once a favorite spot in North Conway for ice cream. It is now operated as an antique store. 

Here is a close up of the sign over the front door. According to the Conway Public Library's ancestry subscription, Ella May (Berry) Masson lived from 1855 - 1943. Her daughter Susie lived from 1877 - 1970.

Here is a business card of the place.

You can also find out more about Mrs. E. M. Masson and Daughter through the Conway Public Library's online collection of the Reporter News. Start your search at this link. The earliest reference I could find was here from 1895. They wintered in Florida and this January 7th, 1909 edition of the Reporter News described a "New Year's Token" of flowers they sent folks in Conway. The same page of the paper points out that people are preparing to fill their ice houses and that a church supper was to serve cold ham with potatoes a la cream (sounds interesting!). 

Of course, cream is a key ingredient in ice cream and that comes from a cow and was delivered in the old milk wagons. Local celebrity, Sut Marshall displays some of his collection each year at the Fryeburg Fair and has published a book on some of his wagons. 

Ice was cut from local ponds, stored in ice houses (such as the one that still exists pictured below) and delivered in horse drawn wagons.

The large ice house on the left from Payson Tucker's Birchmonte estate can still be seen at the Red Jacket Hotel in North Conway.

Here is an ice wagon from the library's collection.

In my search for "cool" things to enjoy in the summer, I ran across this paper weight advertisement that doubles as a relief map.

While it doesn't look too accurate to me, if you have one and are willing to donate it, it would make a nice addition to our collection. For more on relief maps see our previous blog here.

Many of you may remember the 28 flavors of ice cream served at the local Howard Johnson's.

If you have stories to share about Hojo's please write them in the comments section of this blog. For more on North Conway's Howard Johnson's see this link.

For more on Mount Washington Valley history contact us at the Conway Public Library's Henney History Room and keep cool!

Pond Water Ice Cream

With the recent heat waves, we have all been searching for a way to "chill out." I have been finding refreshment by examining old maps to savor a favorite taste of summer (mine is blueberry basil flavor). It is one of the ways I have been celebrating National Ice Cream Month. 

But what does this have to do with pond water as my blog title suggests? Well, take a look at the image above from the 1908 Sanborn insurance map from the collection of the Conway Public Library's Henney History Room (click on images to enlarge them). Can you find the three ice houses on the map that were once within a short distance from the library? (Hint: all are small wood frame buildings - indicated by the yellow color code - and located away from the street behind the main buildings. Two are associated with dwellings and one with a hotel).

The Conway Public Library is easy to find by its red color, representing brick. However, if you look closely at the library you will also find part of it with blue and the yellow. To find out why, see our previous blog here.

We will examine more on how these traditional ice houses worked and historic ways to make ice cream later, but where did the ice come from? To find the potential likely source of the ice for these ice houses let's go down the street and around a couple corners. Unfortunately, the 1908 map does not show this area, so let's jump ahead in time see it on our 1923 Sanborn insurance map.

The areas covered on the map are numbered and colored coded on the index page.The 1923 Sanborn map shows two ice houses on the shore of Pequawket Pond (note north is towards the left on this view of the map).

Early next month, the Upper Saco Valley Land Trust will present a couple related programs exploring Pequawket Pond. For more information see the links here and here. 


Here is a detail of the image above.

... and even closer detail.

Notice the grey shading around the outside of the ice house on the right.
According to the "Key" printed on the map, gray represents "iron" indicating that the building was sheathed in "iron" or tin.

In another version of the map, a "paste over" shows that the two ice houses were replaced or merged to become one larger one with conveyors suggesting that the operation was modernized.

Detail

Even closer detail.

Even though modernized, much of the industry continued to use simple, traditional tools. These techniques are presented each winter at numerous locations throughout New England, including at the Remick Farm Museum in Tamworth. The traditional ice harvesting process was also featured in the beginning of the first movie Frozen.

In the library's 1929 version of the Sanborn maps an ice cream mfg. (manufactory) shows up not far from the Conway Public Library in 1929.

Here you can see that building in the bottom left corner of this detail of the map and its relation to the "four corners" intersection of this detail of the map.  

Here is a "zoomed" out version.

For more information on your local history contact us at the Conway Public Library's Henney History Room.