Erratic Wondering and His Mephitic Majesty

It started, as it so often does, with a map.... 

... and ends with a skunk. 

Recently I passed the new book display at the Conway Public Library and my attention was drawn to the cover of this book Erratic Wandering by Jan and Christy Butler. As many of you know, or will soon find out, I am a guy who walks around with rocks in my head. I immediately checked it out. The book covers 123 sites with 67 in New Hampshire (click on images to enlarge them).  

Here is an example of the format showing two nearby boulders. 

I had a vague notion I had seen a boulder they did not list in their book on an old map. So I searched around and found it.

Clark's Boulder was mapped out not far from the train tracks near Pine Hill and Devil's Pond. 

Another part of this map shows an unnamed boulder near a second Pine Hill to the north on the road to the mineral spring which we know to be the Washington Boulder (see previous blog here).

Below you can see the relation of those two "Pine Hill" areas to each other and to Conway Village.

Here is a copy of the whole map. 

The map indicates it was "Drawn by S. A. Evans." It was "tipped in" the front of a book written by that same S. A. Evans in 1889 titled in the typical period run-on fashion Conway, New Hampshire, Its Attractions for the Tourist and its Facilities for Business.

This promotional booklet features twenty-one entries in ten pages of text followed by five pages of business advertisements.

Here is what the book has to say about the Washington Boulder and Clark's Boulder on pp. 5-6 (click on images to enlarge them).

After studying the dimensions and shapes Evans describes in the book and comparing the line up of ponds (Knowles Pond now Iona Lake, Whitten Pond, Pea Porridge Ponds, Dolloff Pond) on his map with other maps, I am convinced that Clark's Boulder is now known as Madison Boulder (so the Butler's actually did include it in their book, just not with it's earlier name).

Here is a 1930 USGS map with the newer names of ponds and rocks (click on image to enlarge it).

According to the NH State Park website the Madison Boulder is "the largest known glacial erratic in North America, and among the largest in the world. Madison Boulder is a huge granite rock measuring 83 feet in length, 23 feet in height above the ground, 37 feet in width, and weighs upwards of 5,000 tons!" 

But who was this S. A. Evans that the map had led me to?

He advertised as a physician and surgeon in his book Conway Attractions on p. 11. 

After some searching, long detours and dead ends, I concluded that S.A. Evans was Simeon Adams Evans. I followed that lead and found another book in our collection he wrote. It is a genealogy book on his family with the title Descendants of David Evans.

Both the Conway Public Library and the Conway Historical Society have copies of the book. You can also read the book online at this link. 

Let's look at these two copies of the book as artifacts.

The copy at the Conway Historical Society is inscribed "S.A. Evans His Book." This is a traditional way to claim ownership of one's book. See our previous blog on the use of this phrase in a Samuel Bemis note book here. 

This copy has extensive handwritten notes and was updated after the author's death as a newspaper clipping on his death was pasted in the book.

Note the use of a red adhesive seal to bookmark his entry in the family line.

The copy we have at the Henney History Room was a gift from the author to his son George Hill Evans.  

 

This copy has also been extensively notated and updated. For example, his son poignantly added that Simeon was "George's Father," and listed his father's death on p. 55 and his own 1904 marriage on p. 56.  

Today of course, this kind of work is done in programs such as Ancestry. 

 

And now a word from our sponsor

The Conway Public Library's Henney History Room provides assistance to those who want to research and document their own family history. We have access to extensive data bases and can help you set up both physical and digital versions of your family records.

Now back to our regular program...

Other than an early lot map of Fryeburg, Maine tipped in at the front of the book, there are no illustrations in the book.

However, we have an original handwritten manuscript version of the book that is profusely illustrated and includes photographs, original correspondence, newspaper clippings and so on. It is a remarkable document revealing the process of compiling such a family history. 

Here are some examples from it's pages. 

I discovered that this genealogy book is not a boring collection of who begat whom, instead it reads more like a novel than a court document (although it includes plenty of documents). It weaves a dramatic story that covers a wide variety of themes such as fortunes won and lost, racial and cultural violence, kidnappings, slavery, silkworms, murder, mills and manufacturing, politics, rebellion, betrayal and of course death by ice skating. 

It is the tale of the building of our nation told through one family and reminds me of the narrative technique used in the 1962 film How the West Was Won.  

For example, Evans writes tenderly of a family slave Limbo who was cared for in his later years by a relative. 

 

You can still visit his grave in Fryeburg today.

Simeon Adams Evans was born in Fryeburg and later attended Bowdoin College. Here is a photo of him from that period with his birth and death dates.

We can add Evans to the list of arctic (or near arctic) explorers with ties to the Mount Washington Valley. In previous blogs here and here and here we have explored the area as a center and staging ground for polar explorers. In 1860 Evans embarked on an expedition with Professor Paul Chadbourne to Greenland and Labrador (more on this in a future blog).

During the Civil War he served as an assistant surgeon. 

 

Our copy of the 1892 New Hampshire Atlas mapped out his home not far from where the Conway Public Library was to be built in 1900, five years after he died.

Here is a detail of that map. Dr. S. A. Evans is the fifth building on the southeast side of the road from the 4 corners intersection.

Remember his son George? He became a librarian and wrote his own book Pigwacket about the history of the area. We introduced his book in a previous blog here. 

Now what was that about a skunk? 

Well, writing in The Bee Keepers Exchange, January 1800, pp. 3-4 (see link here) Simeon Evans quotes Thomas Gray when remarking on bees and the business end of a polecat. Reminds me of The Cheese and the Worms.

If you have any comments or questions on the history of the area contact us at the Conway Public Library's Henney History Room.

On the Road from Goshen to Buttermilk Hollow. Toponymy and Topography.

Goshen is an old local name for what is now known as South Conway, New Hampshire. Goshen is relatively easy to find out about, but for years I wondered where in the world is (or was) Buttermilk Hollow? 

It is not on any current maps nor is it easy to find in a regular internet search. The few references I could find about it were not exactly clear about it's location.

However, I did find it recently on a relatively unknown relief map made by a famous 19th century geologist, Charles Thomas Hitchcock (1805-1880). Now you can find it with your cell phone (more on that later). 

My search began with a reference to a painting titled Buttermilk Hollow in a book by Charles Vogel about the Boston Art Club (p. 284) by the artist Joseph Aaron Nesmith who summered near Conway Lake (identified on old maps and in historic paintings as Walker's Pond).  That painting is also referenced in Nellie Carver's book Goshen, p.  89. You can read more about the Goshen summer people in our previous blog here.

I did a toponymic search in Google books for Buttermilk Hollow and found a reference in Osgood's White Mountains published in 1876 for tourists (page 93). 

 

You can read the entire book online here.We also have a copy in the Conway Public Library's Henney History Room.

This guidebook was one of a series of so called "red books." You can read more about them in our previous blog here. Unfortunately, the book does not tell you in what direction you go from Conway to reach Buttermilk Hollow and there are a number of lakes at that distance in many directions. 

I thought I caught a break when I noticed the library copy of the book came with a map folded in the back cover pocket so I did a topographic search.

However, to make the search more confounding, the map, made by geologist Charles Hitchcock does not show the location of any Buttermilk Hollow.

A few years later I did a blog on a poster that was displayed at one of the old hotels (probably the Intervale House) to promote excursions to tourist attractions and it listed Buttermilk Hollow as being 12 miles away. So with a bit of math, I figured that Buttermilk Hollow must be south of Conway Village.

The puzzle was finally solved with another map made by Hitchcock, now in the collection of the Conway Historical Society, that was displayed in a different hotel, the Kearsarge House.

Here is a detail of one of the labels on the relief map.

So on the relief map you can leave Conway Corner (the old name for Conway Village, also known earlier as Chatoque). For more on that see our previous blogs here and here. 

Follow Buttermilk Hollow Road south roughly parallel to Walker's Pond (the old name for Conway Lake).  Click on images to enlarge them.

 Here is a comparison of that area with today's Google maps.

The Buttermilk Hollow Road seen on the Hitchcock relief map on the right roughly follows Route 153 seen on the Google map on the left. Notice the other two bodies of water on the left of each map, Pequawket Pond at the top and Pea Porridge Pond towards the bottom. These features help frame the map locations.

The road to the left of Buttermilk Hollow Road but right/east of Pea Porridge Pond with a distinctive curve is Tasker Hill Road that changes to Allard Hill Road. The next section of the relief map finally reveals the label for "Buttermilk Hollow" at the top of and Robertson's Pond (now Crystal Lake). 

 

Here is a side by side comparison of the relief map on the right with a Google map on the left.

A quick zoom in and switch to satellite view shows us that Buttermilk Hollow's current name is Eaton Center.

Hitchcock is known to have made at least four other, much larger, relief maps. You can read about them here. 

You can read more about White Mountain relief maps here and here. 

The July/August 2020 issue of Popular Mechanics magazine argues that maps are humankind's greatest tool, and I tend to agree. I read maps like other people read novels. I propose that you can not really do a good exhibit of art or history without a map on display. I also see maps as works of art in themselves. 

Today most people carry maps around with them all the time through their cell phone. To find more about finding the Redstone Quarry or Cathedral Ledge with your cell phone go to this website:  https://www.theclio.com.  If you enable your gps location you should be able to see entries for historic sites around you all around the country. We have eight sites listed in the Mount Washington Valley and are planning to add many more so stay tuned!