The Portland daily press., 1894-08-14


| ly Abundant Blueberry-Rev. Matt. S.
| Hughes as a Bowler.
Jackson, N. H.. August 18th.
| To the Editor of the PRESS:
1t was ten years ago that your cores
pondent last sojourned in this delightful
and now highly popular White Mountain
resort. There have been many changes
since them and they are tremendously
significant of the steady and rapid increase
of the summer resort business here.
The Glen Ellis house ten years ago, was
the largest hotel. Wentworth hall was in its
infancy and was known as the Thorn
| Mountain house. The Jackson Falls house
was only boarding house and the fourth
hotel was the Eagle Mountain house, farther
up the valley toward Carter Notch.
Now the Thorn Mountain house has be-
| come the cluster of large handsome build
4 ings. known as Wentworth Hall, which,
with its stables and accessory buildings is
| almost small village; the jackson Falls
| house has grown into a fine, spacious hotel
and .Gray's Inn and the Iron Mountain
house have been built and successfully rival
all the others except Wentworth Hall. D
| Besides this, numerous private cottages,
| some of them elegant mansions. have sprung
up on the mountain sides, and the surround
| ings have been changed and beautified by
! landscape gardening.
| Thorn Hill is perhaps the most notable
| colony of private cottages, 1t is quite a
| long, steep climb up the slope OF Thorn
| Mountain to where the cottages are perched
on slightly knobs, that overlook this beanti-
| ful amphitheatral hollow in the mountains.
| The green interyale, the trees that follow
| the winding Glen Ellis, and the red roofs of
| the handsome hotels are picture in them
| selves; add to this the surrounding grandeur
| of the mountains and the spectacle is more
than worth the long climb to these lofty
| homes.
Of course it is expensive to have cottage
| up there, for horses are indispensable for
| any kind of connection with the sources of
| supplies. DR.. Wigglesworth of Boston, has
| one of the largest cottages, and owns
| good deal of land there. He also owns the
| clearing of an old-time settler named Ches-
| ley. 1t is an oval hale down there in the
| forest by the bank of the river, and has
| been named "Nestleroot.H When you get
| there by roadway that DR.. Wigglesworth
| built, you feel that your twenty minute
| walk must have been twenty mile trip in
to the wilderness, the place is SO secluded.
| But it is fertile little farm, and is well
cultivated by its present owner. The origi-
| nal house is there, but so well repaired and
| painted that it doesn't show its age. 1t is
built of squared logs over foot in diameter.
! These have been covered with ciapboards.
| 1t is very warm house.
| The price of land on Thorn Hill was re-
vealed to lady visitor at Gray's Inn, as
| follows: She walked up there one day re-
| Gently, and meeting another lady entered
| into conversation. She finally queried as
| to how much the land was worth up there,
| and wondered how much an acre near
where they were standing could be bought
| for.
'You could buy that acre for $780," said
| the other.
| "How do you know"
| Because own ft.'' ~
| The town of Jackson has about 600 perma-
nent residents, natives, although a strager
would be at loss to know where they could
possibly be. There seems to be more hotels
| than farm houses in sight from any point
overlooking the valley. But mountains are
very deceptive You've no idea what room
there is between them and what fertile
| farms they oyer-shadow, until you get
|
| shoulder of Thorn mountain from jackson
valley and there is grim old Double Head
looming up close behind, and it all looks
| like one great wall of mountain. But you
| drive up over that shoulder of Thorn and
| the mountains open before you, as if by
magic, and there are even miles of fertile
arms, steeply sloping and ridgey,to be sure,
but good farms nevertheless. Mr.. Gray, the
| - Inn, hoe fa,,,,
there of over 800 acres where he keeps his
stock and raises grain and potatoes.
In scattered homes,is such places as these,
as well as long the banks of the Glen Ellis,
the geo people of jackson live, and the
winter is not SO dreary as might be sup
posed. The roads are blocked for two days
sometimes to be sure. but the great lumber
teams soon make a smooth path through the
drifts and the people get about as easily
and are more social than those in less iso-
lated sections.
They have dance once a week in the
dining room of the Glen Ellis house, and
muster between thirty and forty couples.
In the summer the population of Jackson
is more than doubled and these six hundred
summer visitors and more bring in an
astonishing amount of money. But it Ism t
dent population, and nobody is to blame
but the farmers themselves. A great deal
of the money that the visitors pay the hotels
goes outside again for food that the farmers
might supply if they would.
At least $500 is paid out every week by
| the hotels for chickens and fifteen-six-
| teenths of this goes to Boston and else.
where. There is no better place in this
country for raising lambs tLan these noun
| tain farms, the hotel proprietors have tc
| send outside for them in the same proper.
tion as they do for chichens. One hotel
/ proprietor says that he would gladly pay
/ two cents more pound for chickens
| raised in Jackson than for those he buys il
Boston, but the farmers don't raise them
They simply lack the enterprise.
The same thing is true of eggs. Nearly 500
dozen o. eggs are used every week by these
great hotels. yet they nearly all come from
Vermont.
1t is very satisfactory, however to know
that some of the native jackson people are
reaping the full benefit of the great COLDER
tide of summer travel that is flowing t.
their doors.