Appendix C

River Narrative

Ham Branch River Watershed Easton,

2014

Andrew Upper Mill 1890’s. Barn in distance on Lane (Winter Place).

Ham Branch: The Ham Branch rises at 2,100' on the south side of Beech Hill, just below the height-of-land of the Beech Hill Trail. Beech Hill was occupied by some of the earlier settlers in Easton, but the road was discontinued as town road in 1875. Above the height-of-land there are still stones piled like haycocks in the woods that used to be corn fields. This area, and possibly the Ham Branch headwaters were memorialized in Robert Frost's poem "A Fountain, A Bottle, A Donkey's Ears, and Some Books":

"I'll tell you what you show me. You remember You said you knew the place where once, on Kinsman, The early Mormons made a settlement And built a stone baptismal font outdoors-- But Smith, or someone, called them off the mountain To go West to a worse fight with the desert. You said you'd seen the stone baptismal font. Well, take me there." "Someday I will." "Today."

"Huh, that old bathtub, what is that to see? Let's talk about it." "Let's go see the place."

"To shut you up I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll find that fountain if it takes all summer, And both our united strengths to do it."

"You've lost it, then?" "Not so but I can find it. No doubt it's grown up to wood around it. The mountain may have shifted since I saw it In eighty-five." "As long ago as that?"

"If I remember rightly, it had sprung A leak and emptied then. And forty years Can do a good deal to bad masonry. You won't see any Mormon swimming in it. But you have said it, and we're off to find it."

Ham Branch Watershed Nomination – Appendix C C-1 "Like a good many people before and after him, Frost never did find the settlement, but he left us a poem memorializing a legend, and it's a legend with some basis in fact." (Looking Back at Easton, p. 66) Easton resident Edson Bailey, interviewed in the mid 1970s, said that the Mormon spring was the source of Swamp Brook (the local name for the Ham Branch on the east side of Route 116). Clayton Glover, also of Easton stated that on the east side of the trail there were "stone steps down to a brook where they baptized." (Towne & Jerome notes) Recent searching has failed to locate the spring or font.

The Ham Branch is the southernmost stream in the Ham Branch watershed. It is bounded on the north by the Beech Hill ridge, which runs northwesterly from below the Kinsman Ridge down to Route 116. From its headwaters the Ham Branch flows in a gentle and meandering course for 2/3 of a mile before being joined by an intermittent stream from the south. It continues in the same fashion for a mile, to the east side of Route 116 where it passes through a culvert. 100 feet south of it is a significantly smaller stream which powered the Morse Mill, built by Artemas Morse in 1855 and later operated by Roscoe Young. The dam which powered this mill is mostly gone but the brook still flows through the old mill foundation and through a narrow slab covered channel before flowing along Route 116 for a short way then passing under it and flowing into the swamp that the Ham Branch becomes. Northeast of the mill is what appears to be a large trench which may have diverted the Ham Branch into the mill pond.

“For generations water-powered mills abounded throughout interior New Hampshire, and their foundations and breached dams can be found on all sorts of brooks where, because of low water levels now, we wouldn’t expect to find them. However, before settlers cleared the land so extensively, water tables were higher, and some mere trickles in brook beds which today may dry up completely during late summer, back then were brooks sufficient to power mills.” (Fishing in New Hampshire, A History, p. 96.)

"In 1859, this mill housed a wood saw, a board machine, and a clapboard machine and was producing 40,000' of spruce lumber, 50,000' of hardwood, 60,000' of hemlock, and 12 cords of hemlock bark. After Artemas Morse died in 1860 of typhoid fever, his sons, Amos C. and Joshua

Ham Branch Watershed Nomination – Appendix C C-2 P. apparently ran the mill until they sold it in 1867 to Rufus W. Young" (LBE p. 26). In 1884 a storm passed over Easton "leaving ruin and destruction in its path. A number of farmers had all their crops destroyed even to the grass that was uncut...The lightning struck the smokestack of Rufus Young's mill, nearly knocking Mr. Young down..." (LBE p. 70). In 1886 Child's County Gazetteer and Directory reported: "Rufus W Young's steam saw mill on road 7 is fitted with machinery for the manufacture of dimension timber bobbins sheathing etc and cuts about 200,000 feet per year" (p. 241).

Remains of Morse Mill foundation and spillway.

The Ham Branch also crosses under Route 116, through a cement culvert, and is shortly dammed by beavers and flows north, becoming a large alder marsh for roughly 1/4 mile. Above this it resolves itself into a deep narrow channel of peat colored water surrounded by marsh and alders and sequentially dammed by beavers. It continues in this nature for 3/4 of a mile being fed by two feeder streams from the Jericho Ridge (west) and one from the east. The easterly stream rises on the north ridge of Beech Hill at 1,560' flowing west and crossing the old Bailey Road in 1/4 mile near the former Samuel Gray farm. It runs through former pasture for another 1/2 mile to the former Jeremiah Davis Farm where it passes close to the old foundation then under Route 116 and close by a prolific apple tree favored by local road cyclists. From here it runs for another 1/4 mile through the former farm of Philemon Oakes, where it soon joins the Ham Branch just about opposite the streams flowing from the Jericho Ridge. A third of a mile later, the Ham Branch passes under the PSNH 115Kv power-lines and across their 150' cleared area. A quarter of a mile later it is joined by Reel Brook, and quickly takes on its character, changing from a deep narrow channel to a broader river bedded on gravel flowing past a large beach of sand and small stones that are the remains of a former Reel Brook stream bed.

Ham Branch Watershed Nomination – Appendix C C-3 Reel Brook: Reel Brook begins in Lincoln at about 2,500' under the PSNH/Northeast Utilities 115Kv power-lines, in the White Mountain National Forest. It is bounded on the south by the Beech Hill Ridge which runs northwesterly down to Route 116. It runs westerly and close to the line for 1/8 mile then passes under it, running right between the lines and the Reel Brook Trail for another 1/8 of a mile before being joined by a feeder stream from the north, whose headwaters are at 2,800 feet. Five other feeder streams join Reel Brook from the north, between this point and its junction with the Beech Hill Trail. It is worth noting at this point that the Reel Brook Trail (the Old Peeling Road) was established sometime in the mid to late 1700s and was the original , being the only route from Peeling (North Woodstock) to Vermont. It was most likely the route Easton’s first permanent settler, Nathan Kinsman, followed with his family to reach his pitch in the Easton Valley (then Lincoln), from Peeling. The road followed the river and thus their destinies are entwined, as are the destinies of the river and the power-lines.

PSNH 115Kv poles near headwaters of Reel Brook

From here the river, power-line and trail run close together for 1/2 mile, passing through the former property of Silas Cutting, who had the highest recorded farm in Easton. Here the trail crosses back over to the north side of the power-line and the river runs along the line for a short ways before crossing to the north of it to run between it and the trail, which crosses over five first order feeder streams in 1.5 miles before reaching the trailhead. (In earlier years the trail ran along the river down to the Beech Hill Road crossing.) The northernmost feeder stream rises at approximately 3,200', below the summit of South Kinsman. From 1,900' to where it joins Reel Brook it is a beautiful stream passing through a

Ham Branch Watershed Nomination – Appendix C C-4 hardwood glade, with several small swimming holes. Old deeds show a four-acre parcel at roughly 1,750' on the stream, held out of a sale of an original 100 acre lot and range parcel, but there is no sign of a dwelling. At 1,500' it joins Reel Brook just south of its crossing of the Reel Brook Trail.

Note found in a plastic bag ½ mile upstream near northernmost feeder stream. “P.S. my site’s beautiful.”

Just south of the end of the trail, about 3 miles from its headwaters, Reel Brook passes between two dwellings, inholdings in WMNF. One is a small cottage close to the south bank of the river, accessed by a temporary steel foot bridge which is also the access to the Beech Hill Trail. This is an abandoned town road and trail which leads to Route 112 and the former site of the Wildwood settlement in Easton. There must have been a larger bridge here in the 1800s when there were farms on the Beech Hill Trail and a stage route ran on it to Easton center. Another house is several hundred feet from the river on the north side at the present end of Reel Brook Road. This dwelling incorporates part of the Charles Oakes (later Lane) homestead which was built before 1860. Above this part of the river were at least four steam and water mills owned by the J.B. Andrews, at least one which was there prior to 1890. "They were all softwood mills sawing at least 1 million feet of board lumber each." (Towne & Jerome notes) Reel Brook provided the mill pond for feeding the mill and the water for the steam boilers. The mill had a boarding house and its own company store. B.F. Andrew’s grandson, Neal “vividly recalls accompanying his father to the mills and has recorded his observations. They give a fascinating glimpse into sawmill life at this period:

“they had a small pond into which they rolled the logs, full length, as they needed them. Most of the logs were full-growth spruce or hemlock which went into dimension lumber. The

Ham Branch Watershed Nomination – Appendix C C-5 hemlock probably had been peeled in spring and the bark was sold for tanning. The good clear spruce boards were sold to Parker and Young in Lisbon for sounding boards for pianos.

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The logs were drawn into the mill up a “slip” onto a platform with a chain hooked into a large bull chain which was endless and came around a large pulley or wheel so that the log could be drawn along the floor to a position near the saw carriage. The latter was 36 feet long, I think…The saw was like a large cross cut and run by a belt off a pulley from a shaft from…the engine. The power was supplied by a horizontal steam boiler…It took a good fireman to keep up steam from the green slabs from the logs…. The logs were rolled onto the carriage by a man called the “roller”and he secured the “dogs” to hold the logs on the carriage. The sawyer was very important as he had to judge the logs to get the right amound of slabs for the least waste…The circular saw was quite an improvement of the old “up and down” saws, and enabled a good crew with good sized logs to saw out 8 to 10 thousand feet of lumber a day…Some of the dimension was drawn direct to the railroad…It was about a 10 mile haul from the mill to the railroad siding at North Lisbon. The horses used in the woods in winter were used to draw the lumber to the railroad in the summer…” “Neal Andrew remembers…the blowers piling up sawdust after mills were prohibited from dumping those wastes into the rivers… “I used to like to watch the sparks as they came from the stack every time the saw went into a log and the governor on the engine allowed it to speed up.” (LBE. pgs. 56-57.)

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Old foundations on Reel Brook.

The river flows west to Route 116 where it crosses under it on a new bridge just south of the present Darvid farm. It flows between the fields of this farm for 1/5 of a mile then enters woods and alder areas, meandering on a gravel bed with trees blown down by Tropical Storm Irene and other storms blocking the river and continually altering the stream bed. The stream is mostly shallow with occasional deep sections where barriers or steep banks have caused the river to flow downward. In this section the growth on either side is not tall and there are tremendous views of the Kinsmans to the east and the Cooley-Cole ridge to the West (photo left). Roughly four miles from its headwaters Reel Brook joins the Ham Branch in its northward flow. Just south of here, on its west bank, a steam mill which produced bobbins was built by Martin Gibson in 1924. The Easton NRI describes this area as it extends to the Slide Brook junction: "The next wetland complex is found in the basin where the Ham Branch, Reel Brook and Slide Brook converge. This basin was carved out by the glacier and then the melting of the glacier deposited many feet of

Ham Branch Watershed Nomination – Appendix C C-8 fine sandy outwash soils. Over thousands of years, repeated flooding of these three brooks, including lots of beaver dam activity, have created low areas of poorly and very poorly drained soils with lots of muck and peat. This area is characterized by poorly drained floodplain soils along the three streams and sandy outwash soils on the higher ground. Many of the soils here are considered prime farmland or farmland of local or statewide importance by the Grafton County Soil Survey. Much of this land was cleared for agriculture during the 1800’s and remained cleared through the turn of the century." (Easton NRI, p. 30)

Ham Branch continued:

An eighth of a mile later the stream is crossed by Gibson Road at a ford providing access to the former Eastman Hill Pasture via an old woods road. The river runs north parallel to Gibson Road to where a feeder stream from the Cooley ridge enters from the west from a deep beaver channel and open wetland created by an abandoned beaver dam.

The southern branch of this feeder stream rises at 1,600' and flows east down the Cole Hill ridge. At 1,400 it enters a good-sized beaver meadow just north of the Jericho logging road which branches north off the Jericho Trail From the meadow it passes out through a narrow channel and flows down into woods for 1/4 mile becoming increasingly flat and obscured by alders. It then passes out of WMNF and crosses the Northeast Utilities/PSNH power-line right-of-way through an abandoned and drained beaver pond then shortly into an abandoned yet still existing pond. (photo below)

It passes through the breached dam where there are old bridge foundations, crosses the woods road to Eastman Hill Pasture, enters another beaver meadow and passes into the Ham Branch before the farthest reach of the meadow, through a newer river-course created along a beaver trench. The northerly branch of this feeder stream rises at 1,800’ 1/4 mile south of the Jericho Trail. At approximately 3 1/4 miles from the Ham Branch headwaters, Slide Brook joins the river from the east, passing through an old boiler made into two large culverts under Gibson Road. During Tropical Storm Irene, water level was several inches above these culverts.

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Slide Brook: Slide Brook, formerly known as Slip Brook and Kinsman Brook, rises at approximately 3,000' in the ravine between North and South Kinsman mountains. At 1,680' on the south bank and 1,500' on the north bank, it passes from WMNF into private land. At 1,700', having descended 1,300 feet in altitude in a mile, (a 25% grade) the terrain becomes less steep. At 1,400' it is joined by an unnamed stream that rises at 2,400' about 1,200' south of it.

Sweetser's White Mountains 1875 edition mentions Slide Brook as a route up Mt. Kinsman. "A better route is to ascend the Slide Brook by a line of pretty cascades and basins, with steep smooth ledges and rocky debris underfoot." In 1881 Slide Brook was mentioned in an article published in Appalachia Magazine, Volume 2. Written by Gaetano Lanza and titled "An Ascent of Mt. Kinsman" it describes the route as follows: "...we...proceeded on foot first for a short distance through the woods by a path indicated by the Bolles family to meet a brook which flows down the ravine between the ridges that proceed from the above mentioned summits. This brook flows almost exactly west its course being nearly straight and it is remarkable for its beauty, its bed being composed of immense ledges of granite and containing a great number of picturesque cascades and basins, thus furnishing very easy traveling and a number of interesting studies for the artist and rendering a trip to the brook an easy and pleasant one even for those who are not disposed to press on to the top of the mountain. The view from points along the brook is not extensive, being cut off by the ridges on each side but from almost all points the valley beneath and the hills in the distance are visible. After following this brook for about a mile and three quarters from the road to a point where it loses itself in the woods and scrub we found ourselves at the foot of a short but well marked slide coming from the right hand ridge. There is a similar slide on the left hand side.”

Ham Branch Watershed Nomination – Appendix C C-10

Slide Brook

Aerial View of Slide Brook upper section

Ham Branch Watershed Nomination – Appendix C C-11

Isabella Stone

Marian M. Pychowska, one of the first female members of the Appalachian Mountain Club, mentions her 1878 ascent of Mt. Kinsman via Slide Brook in a letter to fellow member Isabella Stone: "Mr. Lanza's account gives you all (and more than) the information that my memory supplies with regard to the way. We did ascend by Slide Brook and found its beautiful ledges quite worthy of a visit for their own sake. To the foot of the slide you would find no trouble, and even its ascent I hardly think would overcome your powers." (Mountain Summers, pgs. 103-4) Slide Brook as a route up the Kinsmans was apparently never developed. The Kinsman Trail was cut in 1910 by A.B. Hubbard and Frederick Tuckerman, son of the poet Frederick Goddard Tuckerman, and nephew of Edmund Tuckerman, botanist and lichenologist, for whom Tuckerman's Ravine was named. A locally occurring lichen, Fringed wrinkle lichen

Ham Branch Watershed Nomination – Appendix C C-12 (Tuckermanopsis americana) was named after Edward Tuckerman. By 1916 the trail was extended to South Kinsman. Slide Brook passes from WMNF into private land at 1680' on the south side and 1,550' on its north side. Its feeder stream enters private land at 1,800 feet. Both pass through the former Pesthouse Lot and farm owned by Nathan Kinsman, Easton's first permanent settler, after whom the Kinsmans are named. When the spotted fever struck Easton in the early 1800s, killing a third of its residents, Nathan Kinsman's son Peter tended the sick in the Pesthouse "which for years bore the carved names of many students from Dartmouth who had there been vaccinated for smallpox by Mr. Kinsman." (LBE. p. 7) One would guess Slide Brook provided the last drink for those who died at the Pesthouse. After crossing NH Route 116, about 3 miles from its headwaters, Slide Brook continues through the former Nathan Kinsman farm, passing near the site of his former house, which burned in 1858. In 1811, town records show a mill west of Nathan Kinsman's house, somewhere on the brook, though no remains are to be seen. The brook continues west on almost level ground gradually becoming swampy and entering alder terrain created by years of beaver dams and ponds being built, abandoned, breached, and built again. In the mid 1800s, when the beaver was extirpated, this area was pasture and known as The Meadow. Leaving the alder wetlands Slide Brook travels amidst alders between two old fields, under a culvert on Gibson

Road, and joins the Ham Spooner’s Vermont Journal Branch 20’ below it.

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Ham Branch & Gibson Road 4/15/14

Ham Branch & Gibson Road 5/11/14

Ham Branch Watershed Nomination – Appendix C C-14

Moosilauke Massif and beaver pond on Noyes Brook 1,500’

Ham Branch continued:

The river runs right next to the road for the next tenth of a mile, flooding it in times of high water. During Tropical Storm Irene, the road was under more than four feet of water at the lowest point and considerably eroded. The stream diverges away from the road and is bordered by field on the east and a high bank on the west which is covered with softwoods. At 3 3/8 miles Noyes Brook enters from the west, having flowed down from the Cooley-Cole ridge from its headwaters at 1,900' through a heavily logged area to an active beaver pond at

1,500 feet (photo above) through older logging to join with another feeder stream from the south. Just below their junction they flow through an abandoned small beaver pond under the PSNH power-lines, across the power-lines and through another, larger abandoned beaver pond. From here the stream passes through alder swamp and forest that were formerly pasture, and joining the Ham Branch a mile from their beginnings.

Ham Branch continued: At 3 1/2 miles are the remains of an old dam. Just north of here the river curves to the northwest with a high bank on its east side, at the top of which is the old H.K. Hall farmhouse, built in the mid 1800s. Just beyond this the concrete remains of the dam for the Charles Young Mill can be seen on either side of the river and there are some iron pins in bedrock in the riverbed. Mill ruins are covered by undergrowth on the west side of the river and the Charles Young farm house is at the top of a steep wet bank. Charles Young bought the saw mill in 1935. It was originally built by a Merrill and was altered from an up-and-down sawmill to a rotary mill by Samuel Whitcher, around 1860. Child's Gazetteer and Directory reported in 1886: “C.A .Young’s saw mill and bobbin factory on road 4 is operated by both steam and water power manufacturing boards lath shingles and bobbins." (p. 241)

Ham Branch Watershed Nomination – Appendix C C-15

Ham Branch from the former Henry K. Hall house. Dam remnants (possibly the location of the grist mill, unidentified owner) upstream just out of sight in left hand photograph and at the farthest point on right hand bank, right hand photo (C.A. Young Dam.)

Ham Branch Watershed Nomination – Appendix C C-16

A local newspaper article from 1888 stated "Sheldon Whitcomb is engineer at C.A. Young's mill. We are glad to hear the whistle echoing among these hills, telling that people are awake for business." (LBE. p. 70) The Young mill "produced quality lumber, its products helping build the present Dow Academy building, the Sunset Hill House and the walkways at the Flume." (LBE. p. 56) The 1936 Historic American Buildings Survey documented the remains of a mill owned by Charles Young (UNH., Milne Special Collections) This mill had a center vent water wheel with a yellow birch shaft 16-18' long, iron gudgeons, 10- 12 floats and a lignum vitae bearing at its base. It appears to have been acquired for parts as it had been purchased by Charles Young only a year before the survey, and the water wheel, at least, was in ruins only a year later. (Map; 1893)

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From here the river takes a steep turn to the southeast, with high banks on either side and runs over small ledges to the local swimming hole known as Slippery Rock, just above the present Easton Town Hall. This was the site of the Whitcomb Peg Mill, which was producing shoe pegs by 1863 and included a cooperage. "Francis Whitcomb and his wife Rosina seem to have run this enterprise jointly. The pegs were slivers of wood less than an inch long used in shoe manufacturing before nails came into use." (LBE. p. 26) After Francis died Rosina ran the mill. At an unknown later date Tom Trudeau's steam mill was located here. (Towne & Jerome notes). Opposite and east of the Whitcomb Mill was a blacksmith shop which later became the Town Hall.

Ham Branch Watershed Nomination – Appendix C C-20

Adjacent to that was the Easton General Store and Post Office run by members of the Young Family. This section of town was and is the center of Easton. Child's County Gazetteer and Directory described it in 1886: "Easton (p.o.) is a hamlet located in the northern central part of the town. It has two saw mills, two blacksmith shops, a paint shop and six or eight dwellings. About the year 1857 a Union church was erected here but it is at present without a pastor."

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In Barn Doors and Byways, Walter Prichard Eaton described Easton center in 1930:

"There is a "general store" and post-office combined, close to the road, redolent with the mingled odor of calico, kerosene and chewing tobacco. Across the road is a tiny mill-pond and Mouse-gray sawmill, now seldom used. Beyond the mill-pond rise the dark hemlocks, and over their spired tops looms the summit of a mountain. Here in the centre of the village are not more than ten houses, three of them boarded up and abandoned. Through the window-chinks of one you may see the crayon portraits still hanging on the walls and the crocheted tidies on the chairs. Just south of the Mill-pond is a deserted creamery, covered now with flaming posters announcing a new brand of tobacco and the country fair; and just beyond that is the town hall. The brook flows under the town hall, the lower story is the smithy. The hall is reached by an inclined plane, as if it had once been a carriage shop. The unpainted walls of this quaint municipal building are also plastered with posters, and the forest trees brush its roof and tint the aged shingles a beautiful mossy green. Then the road winds up a hill and passes on toward Moosilauke." (p. 212-3)

There is now one private house here, the old Ebenezer Eastman house just east of the former peg mill site. There is also a fire station of recent vintage. The general store and post-office, owned by the Young family, ceased operations sometime in the early 1900s and was disassembled and moved to the Betty Davis place on Sugar Hill.

Former Ebenezer Eastman house, Peg Mill in center, D.J. Whitcher Mill pond behind photographer, Cooley-Cole range in background (west).

Ham Branch Watershed Nomination – Appendix C C-22

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Slippery Rock swimming area with remnants of dam from Whitcher Mill, 1946, 2013

Ham Branch Watershed Nomination – Appendix C C-24 From The Descendents of Chase Whitcher of Warren, N.H:

Samuel Whitcher, father of Daniel J. Whitcher. (1814-1879) (1849-1924)

Ham Branch Watershed Nomination – Appendix C C-25

The river flows past the Eastman house and under Route 116, meeting with a small unnamed stream and making an abrupt 90 degree turn north. Just south of this location was the town blacksmith's shop as well as a spring, just north of it the mill pond Eaton mentions. This area of ledges is known as Lower Easton and is a local swimming hole. "Sometime... before 1811, the Stephen Kinsman mill was erected...We can speculate that this mill was located near the Town Hall on the Ham Branch, since after it was sold by Stephen to Simeon Spooner it passed through several hands and in 1845 was deeded to Samuel Whitcher. Our 1860 map shows the sawmill and the starch factory Whitcher acquired in 1867 standing side by side across the road from the site later occupied by the town's post office." (LBE p. 26) The Whitcher mill, according to 1869 census figure, contained a board saw, a shingle machine, and a clapboard machine. Annual production, in addition to a good quantity of shingles and clapboards, averaged 100,000 ft. of spruce lumber, 110,000 f. of hemlock, and 35,000 ft. of hardwood." (LBE p. 26) When Samuel Whitcher died in 1879 his son Daniel operated the mill, which was "sold in 1909 to the Parker-Young Company of Lisbon which kept it running until about 1926." (LBE. p. 56)

Northern Wheatear near Ham Branch, 2014

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At this point the Ham Branch is bordered on the east by the interesting geology and terrain of the Paine Road area. This section of Easton is unique in its composition of small steep hillocks and is well known to local mountain bikers, a network of trails having been developed here over the past twenty years. Geologist Woodrow Thompson wrote of it: "That other area between Route 116 and Paine Road still puzzles me. I think the thick accumulation of sandy sediments reaching elevations up to 1340 ft. is likely to have been deposited in a glacial lake at first, but the area has been heavily dissected and modified by drainage from Mt. Kinsman. It’s likewise mapped as an aquifer by USGS, but the saturated water-bearing zone is deep below the surface and apparently thinner than beneath the alluvial fan". (e-mail correspondence, 11/13/13). None of the more than 25 streams which flow down the flanks of the Kinsmans and cross Paine Road continue west across Route 116. They all converge east of Route 116. The Ham Branch heads easterly here, diverging from Route 116 and is quickly lost from view of the road. Three quarters of a mile north, a small feeder stream enters from the Paine Road area to the east, arising at 1,260' and flowing 3/4 of a mile through former pastures entering the Ham Branch at 1,100' just south of where a newer bridge spans the river accessing two dwellings at the end of River Run Road. The river broadens here, passing through forest that used to be pasture from the river bank west to Route 116. Three quarters of a mile from the bridge it curves 90 degrees heading due east where it is joined from the south by Judd Brook

Judd Brook: Judd Brook rises due west of North Kinsman at 2,700'. It drops steeply for 3/4 mile through WMNF reaching private land (on the north side) at 1,700'. It was presumably named after one of the Judd's, perhaps Albert Judd who owned this section of gore land in (then) Lincoln, through which the stream flows. He is listed in the Lincoln inventory for 1835-40. His wife's parents had bought the Tuttle Farm, just west of his lot, in 1827. This was one of the first farms and taverns in Easton, and he took up residence there, where he lived until his death. Judd Brook flows through this farm, at 1.3 miles passing by the still-extant Tuttle house where a small pond sits below the house, before passing under Paine Road. From here it crosses through pasture returned to forest, soon joined by an unnamed branch which rises at 1,500 and runs generally parallel to it, entering former pasture at 1,300' before passing just south of the former J.C. Noyes dwelling (b. Landaff/Easton 1820, merchant, no dwelling remains yet found) before passing under Paine Road. It joins Judd brook and they run parallel to Paine Road though out of sight of it, through former pasture, before diverging west and joining the Ham Branch 3/4 m. from their junction.

Ham Branch continued: the Ham Branch turns again 90 degrees east, making a beautiful S- curve through fields below the present Every Farm before passing under N.H. Route 116 through a concrete bridge. (This is also the WMNF proclamation boundary, beyond which the federal government did not purchase lands for the WMNF). This location is known as third bridge to some locals and is an occasional fishing and swimming spot, the water forming a deep pool on the east side of the bridge. On the west side it passes quickly out of sight of the road heading due north along the back boundary of the still extant former N.T. Kendall farm (1860), where it is joined by Kendall Brook.

J

Ham Branch Watershed Nomination – Appendix C C-30

Judd Brook from Route 116, North Kinsman upper right

Flume Brook and Kendall Brook rise in WMNF in steep ravines on either side of Bald Knob at 2,400' and 2,200' respectively, according to the topographical map; this map also labels the northern branch of the brook Kendall Brook and leaves the southern branch unnamed. The Easton tax maps label the northern branch Flume Brook, which is accurate because the Kinsman Flume is near its headwaters, and labels the southern branch Kendall Brook. Keeping to these names, Kendall Brook drops 700' in half a mile, passing into private land at 1,700'. Here it flows at a lower angle over beautiful slabs of bedrock. This area abounds in the medicinal chaga (Inonotus obliquus) also known as clinker polypore

At 1,400 feet a woods road runs alongside the brook, appearing and disappearing while crossing the river. An old cook-stove lies at the south stream bank at 1,300’ apparently dumped from the woods road high above on the north side. The river enters a recently logged area at 1,400’ and is clear-cut on its south side while a beautiful steep hemlock covered bank rises steeply on its north. At 1300' there is barbed wire on the north bank of the river. Here a mountain bike trail joins the woods road after it crosses to the south side of the river. From here the river tumbles less steeply for another half a mile to 1,150' where a small cabin is located off a dirt road that heads west off of Paine Road. This area was the dwelling place of Joshua and his son Ephraim Kendall, two of Easton's earliest settlers. This area was recently logged, but in its early

Ham Branch Watershed Nomination – Appendix C C-31

Bald Knob (left) and North Kinsman

years Paine Road appears to have taken a more easterly course running higher above the valley and through these farms. The Kendall dwellings were sited between Slide and Kendall Brooks and north of Kendall Brook, just above where they join. One dwelling burned and the other was moved down to a site now just off the present Paine Road before it joins Route 116. From this conjunction Kendall Brook flows gently down through former pasture, (now a sandpit on its southern side), for 1/4 mile to where it crosses Route 116 just north of its junction with Paine Road and just 1/5 mile north of third bridge. Here it passes north of the former house of Nathan T. Kendall, another son of Joshua. It flows near a stone wall through flat former pasture joining the Ham Branch in 1/4 mile and both being joined from the east by an unnamed feeder stream from the west in 1/2 mile.

Flume Brook: Flume Brook rises on the north side of Bald Knob. This may be "Howland's mountain" mentioned in Child's Gazetteer of Grafton County: "Among the natural curiosities the township Kendall Brook presents to the observer, is "Howland's Flume." This natural flume is located about a mile from the residence of H.B. Oaks, on road 2. It is about eight feet in width and one hundred feet long, while the waters from it are precipitated to the

Ham Branch Watershed Nomination – Appendix C C-32 level below forming a beautiful fall 142 feet in height. From Howland's mountain, near the flume, an extensive view of the surrounding scenery may be obtained." (p. 240)

Howland’s Flume

In 1891 Sweetser's White Mountains referred to Kinsman's Flume: "The Mt Kinsman Flume is a recent discovery and may be reached by driving 5 M S from Franconia on the Franconia on the Easton road and ascending a mountain road 2 M long. The last half of this route is so steep and rough that it is hardly practicable for carriages though they have made the ascent. The flume is somewhat smaller than the one in the but resembles it very much and has a small stream running through it. A short path leads beyond to a rounded rocky dome crowning one of the high spurs of Mt. Kinsman overlooking the western valleys.”

Mt. Kinsman Flume; Granite State Monthly

Volume 21 of Granite State Monthly, published in 1896 makes clear these are one and the same: "Bridal Veil Falls, the Mt. Kinsman or Howland's flume and a score of other wonders or beauties of nature well deserve description which space limits will not allow."

Ham Branch Watershed Nomination – Appendix C C-33 ..."Mt. Kinsman Trail. Left on this trail at 2.25 miles to the Kinsman Flume, a deep canyon through which a small brook cascades-- a miniature of the larger flume in Franconia Notch. The trail continues to the summits of Mt. Kinsman, the northern 3.5 miles." (NH A Guide to the Granite State, p. 409)

"...1 1/2 mile. Kinsman Cabin is passed on the L, and the Mt Kinsman Trail swings sharply R across a brook, at 0.1 m. farther a second brook, and in another 0.2 m. crosses Flume Brook (2.1 m. from road. At Flume Brook a branch trail leads R to the head of Kinsman Flume and Profile (0.1)." (1966 AMC Guide)

From Boy Scouts in the White Mountains, 1914:

"After a while, the path left the logging road, and swung up still steeper through the trees. Suddenly they heard water, and a moment later were standing on a shelf of rock over a waterfall, which came forth from one of the most curious formations they had ever seen. "Another chance for you to get wet, Peanut!" laughed Frank. "What is this place, Mr. Rogers?" "It's called Kinsman Flume," the Scout Master answered. The flume was a cleft not more than eight feet wide, between two great ledges of moss-grown rock. It ran back into the hill two hundred feet, and was at least thirty feet deep. The brook came into the upper end over a series of waterfalls, and out of the lower end, where the boys were, down another fall. Frank took a picture of it, and then they crossed the brook at the lower end, and followed the path up along the top. The path brought them into another logging road, which presently came out into a level clearing."

Flume Brook (left) rises somewhere above the 2,200' shown on the topographical map, because it crosses the Kinsman Trail at this point. Here a faded sign lettered "FLUME" stands on the east side of the river. A path leads down-river roughly 30 yards to where a view can be had of the Flume, or at least of an alarmingly deep declivity several feet in width. Old photos show a board bridge across this section. Shortly below this the trail disappears, and 100 yards of bush-whacking on steep boulder-covered slopes leads to the bottom of the flume, which is below where the stereoscopic image was taken. Following the river upstream from this point is not advisable in cold and icy conditions. From here the stream plunges steeply down on a bed of boulders, some of great size, which also comprise the steep slopes on either side. These

Ham Branch Watershed Nomination – Appendix C C-34 are covered in spruce, some very old, with an understory of small spruce and some fir. After about a half a mile the slope eases, and shortly afterwards passes from WMNF into private lands. For the next 1/2 mile the land transitions from upland spruce fir to northern hardwood, with a predominance of beech on the southern side. At about 1,600' is a metal bed-frame next to two small walls of rock of similar dimensions. At 1,500' an old sap line appears on the upland southern side of the river, which flows down through short steep hemlock covered banks. At 1,400' barbed wire remnants are seen on the south bank of the river, and a woods road leading to a cabin appears on the north side of the river. Just below this crosses the river to the south side on an old but still passable (on foot) log bridge. The river continues through old pasture that has grown up and been logged some years ago, joining Kendall Brook in about 1/4 mile.

Ham Branch continued: just after Kendall/Flume Brook joins the Ham Branch from the east, two old stream beds head north from the current bed of the river, joining it after it makes a 90 degree turn from east to north where Pepper Brook's southern branch joins it from the west. Between this southern branch and the northern one the river runs for about 3/4 miles bounded by an old field on the east which quickly gives way to scrubland and floodplain forest. On the west, the terrain slopes gently upwards then gives way to floodplain. Here Brooks Brook enters from the east.

Brooks Brook: unnamed on the topographic map or the Easton tax maps, so label this stream north of Kendall/Flume Brooks. It has two branches, the northern rises at 2,200' in the ravine south of the Coppermine Brook drainage. The southern branch rises above 2,100', the altitude at which it crosses the Kinsman Trail, running in a waterfall over a 10' mossy rock face left of the trail. The streams join at 1,700' meeting with a woods road that parallels the brook on the south side. After less than 1/4 mile the brook enters private land just south of former pasture of the Cecil Bowles farm. It runs down in a steep hemlock covered ravine, crossing several mountain

Ham Branch Watershed Nomination – Appendix C C-35 bike trails and a woods road at 1,200' before passing by an off-the-grid cabin and though former pasture for 1/4 mile, crossing NH Route 116 to a former small swimming hole. It then passes through the pastures of the former Luke Brooks farm, still occupied by cattle, the last in Easton. After somewhat under 1/4 mile of running below the level of the pasture, bordered by trees, the brook joins the pasture in a mucky, sandy floodplain through which it passes in a shallow channel, before entering brush and alders and passing into the Ham Branch River. Tropical Storm Irene seems to have altered the terrain here considerably, not surprising as the area is within the 100 year floodplain.

Ham Branch continued; here the river becomes broader and flatter, with many inviting beds of gravel and sand. On the east is a border of a high, sandy, scrub-covered (tall grass, willow, steeplebush, and raspberries) bank which leads up to floodplain and continues scrubby for several hundred feet before the land becomes pasture, bounded by barbed wire. On the west side of the river the forest slopes gently upward and 1/4 mile after the junction of Brooks Brook, the northern branch of Pepper Brook joins the Ham Branch from the east.

Unnamed Brook: This stream rises at 1,280' in Sugar Hill, below and parallel to an old woods road that slabs along the hill below Toad Hill Farm. The topographic map does not name the brook but Easton tax maps and locals refer to it as Pepper Brook. The topographic map also shows a pond here but at present the area is a series of at least six abandoned beaver ponds/dams and one active one, surrounded by the usual muck and alders. After a quarter mile of this the stream emerges, crosses the southwest corner of Franconia and shortly after a feeder stream, called Pepper Brook, joins it from the west. This stream rises at 1,750 on Cole Hill then flows for 3/4 mile before crossing Sugar Hill road. Here it passes through a culvert and runs south of the southernmost field on the former Cooley Farm, where it is bounded by an old woods road on the south for 1/4 mile before it joins the Pepper Brook.

The now larger stream flows in the same southerly direction for 1/4 mile to another woods-road crossing where the river runs through a large culvert. Just east of the culvert the old road is completely washed out by flooding. This road was approved in 1859 and abandoned by the

Ham Branch Watershed Nomination – Appendix C C-36 Town in 1886. ("To see if the Town will vote to discontinue the bridle road leaving the highway near the A.G. Aldrich house and running northerly to the Franconia line.") Here the ridge to the east becomes steeper and covered in hemlock and a mountain bike trail comes in from the east. It runs near the river for a short ways, crossing it after the river makes a curve to the northeast. Here at 1,100 feet is barbed wire on the east side of the river. At this point the topographic map shows the river looping farther south, but one branch runs northerly across this loop through increasingly flat and flooded terrain for roughly a half a mile before joining the Ham Branch farther north of the junction shown on the topo. This deviation is the river course as shown on the 1929 topo. A southern branch of the river flows down and joins the Ham Branch as shown on the recent topographic maps.

At this point the Ham Branch bed is about 30' wide, rocky and sandy with alder floodplain to the west and a short rise to fields on the east. The Easton NRI describes this area:

"The first and smallest wetland complex is found at the northern most end of town, near and including the town line with Franconia. This wetland is the result of flat topography, poorly and very poorly drained soils and the confluence of four headwater streams with the Ham Branch in rapid succession of each other. These three landscape attributes create a great opportunity for frequent seasonal flooding resulting in a diversity of wetland/shrublands, floodplain forest and wet meadows created by agricultural mowing and possibly grazing. Much of this area is considered to be farmland of prime, statewide or local importance and has had a history of agriculture since the early settlers of Easton first arrived. This wetland is identified by the WAP as having a combination of peatlands, grasslands, and wet meadow/shrubland. This area was also identified by the WAP as having some of the highest ranked habitat in the White Mountain Region. Timber cutting adjacent to this floodplain forest has created a dynamic habitat with a diversity of height structure and plant and tree species. This is a benefit to multiple species of wildlife that can inhabit this wetland including grassland birds, woodcock, turkeys, ruffed grouse, deer, bear and moose and many species of turtle." (p. 27)

From here the river takes a turn slightly to the east and reaches the Franconia border just before a stream joins from the east.

Local Town Histories, Oral Histories or General Historical Knowledge:

Photo of Merrill's Saw Mill-- NH-34, UNH Milne Special Collections

1946 photograph of Slippery Rock, courtesy of Anna Darvid, Easton

Photographs of Marian and Lycia Pychowska and Isabella Stone from Mountain Summers.

Aerial photographs from White Mountain National Forest archives, Campton, NH.

Appalachian Mountain Club. A.M.C. White Mountain Guide. Boston, MA.: Appalachian Mountain Club, 1966

Ham Branch Watershed Nomination – Appendix C C-37

Appalachian Mountain Club. A.M.C. White Mountain Guide. Boston, MA.: Appalachian Mountain Club, 1916.

Childs, Hamilton. Gazetteer Grafton County, N.H. 1709-1886. Syracuse, N.Y.; The Syracuse Journal Company, 1886.

Currier, Stanley P. and Clement, Edgar T. History of Landaff. Littleton, N.H. : Courier Printing Co., 1966.

Easton Town Inventories. Easton Town Hall. Easton, N.H.

Eaton, Walter Prichard. Barndoors and Byways. Boston, MA.: Small Maynard & Co., 1913.

Eaton, Walter Prichard. Boy Scouts in the White Mountains. Boston, MA.: Small Maynard & Co., 1914.

Hopkins, Harry L. Administrator. New Hampshire, A Guide to the Granite State. Boston, MA.: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1938.

Lanza, Gaetano. “An Ascent of Mt. Kinsman”. Appalachia Magazine, Volume 2, 1881. http://books.google.com/books?id=EI9IAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:PdyhG XVo69MC&hl=en&sa=X&ei=zSlmU7HQEvOzsQTrj4CwDg&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAw#v=onepa ge&q&f=false

Noon, Jack. Fishing in New Hampshire, A History. N.H.: Moose Country Press, 2003.

Parsons, H.C. “The Warder of the Pass: A Sketch of Franconia”. Granite State Monthly, Vol. 21, 1896.

Rowan, Peter and June Hammond, Editors. Mountain Summers. Gorham, N.H.: Gulfside Press, 1995.

Sweetser, M.F. Sweetser’s White Mountains. Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin & Co. The Riverside Press, 1875, 1891, 1893.

Towne, Ruth and Jerome, Chris. Looking Back at Easton. Littleton, N.H.: Sherwin Dodge Printers, 1976.

Towne and Jerome notes; Easton Town Hall, Easton, NH.

Whitcher, William F. Descendants of Chase Whitcher. Woodsville, N.H.: News Book and Job Press, 1907.

Ham Branch Watershed Nomination – Appendix C C-38

Ham Branch Watershed Nomination – Appendix C C-39