The Portland daily press., 1877-08-23
Correspondence Philadelphia Bulletin. !
Among the Mountains.
A Portland Woman Mt Gorham-The
Alpine Bouse-WashinEton and his
Court.

ALPINE HOUSE, Gorham, N. H., Aug. II.
am old enough to remember the era made
in New England travel by the opening of the
Atlantic and st. Lawrence Railroad (now the
Grand Trunk) through the Androscoggin
Valley. To be brought by rail within ten
miles of the top of Mount Washington seemed
an incredible feat which hundreds FASTENED to
verify wi their own eyes. The Alpine
House of that day, quarter of century ago,
became much frequented resort andlthe Mount
Washington carriage road from the Glen was
constructed for the accommodation of the
crowd of travel on this east side of the range
Since 1870 the new roads in the Saco and
Amonoosuc Valleys have had the popularity
of novelty, and with the unfortunate burning
of the old hotel here, have for a little turned
the tide of travel away from Gorham except as
the point for taking the stages.for. the Glen
House, eight miles up the Peabody valley.
Last year, the Railroad Company rebuilt the
Alpine House on the old site, and this summer
it is again filled as of old.
I reserve always my superlative adjectives
for tire Glen, bat as the chiefs..in that country
are also lords If the manor here, they will
think 1t no disloyalty to the lGlep. If I write
strongly in praise of this valley. 1t would be,
perhaps, quite enough to reprint Starr Kings
enthusiastic words about Gorham, but each
decade prefers to frame Its own rhapsodies.
Each summer has grace to be commemorated
in its own hour.
In the first place. the Androscoggin is no
mere mountain stream, but a river flowing
broad and free, through wide, rich meadow
lands. 1t is frequent summer excursion to
descend in boats the twenty miles to Bethel,
and L commend it to some rival of the Rob
Roy: This village stands just below the great
northward bend of the river, between the
opening OF the Peabody valley and the little
Moose. river westward. So it commands at
ouce the north and the east sides of the four
great peaks. Here they prove themselves not
merely the higher points of range, but the
grand mass of a central, isolated group.
1 should have deemed it misfortune that
they are not directly visible from the house,
but as it takes but a few steps in either
direction to bring them into view, find more
than compensation in the unexpected glimpses
which one constantly gets of them. Scarcely
have we crossed the meadow, or passed the
little hollow in the road or turned beyond the
naples, when lo sudden on our startled gaze
rises great vision of the mountain world.
Nowhere else is there the same effect of height
not even at the Glen, where the eye sweeps at
once the whole slope of Mount Was hingtoD
itself. Here they are nearly eight hundred
feet higher than at the Glen, but not to that
alone is due the greater effect 1t is the
larger proportion of height to mass as seen
here, compared with the more distant views
from the western valleys.
The circle of hills for in suchl neighborhood
they are scarcely to be called mountalns) about
Gorham is covered with beautiful forest.
There were cruel fires about here twenty. five
years ago, and the early visitors will remember