Mount Chocorua and Chocorua Lake from Tamworth, 1873 John White Allen Scott Oil on canvas, 30 x 50 inches From the collection of John H. and Joan R. Henderson
The Willey family lived in a house along one of the notch roads. After a dry summer and a three-day rainstorm in August 1826, an immense rockslide spilled down from the mountains. The slide wiped out the entire Willey family as they tried to flee, but their house escaped unscathed. Nathaniel Hawthorne immortalized the tragedy, observing:
They had quitted their security, and fled right into the path- way of destruction. Down came the whole side of the moun- tain, in a cataract of ruin. Just before it reached the house, the stream broke into two branches—shivered not a window there, but overwhelmed the whole vicinity, blocked up the road, and annihilated everything in its dreadful course. Long ere the thunder of the great Slide had ceased to roar among the mountains, the mortal agony had been endured, and the victims were at peace.
100 80 60 40 20 0
Coös Carroll Grafton
1850 1860 1870 1880 YEAR 600
400 200 0
-200 -400
1840 1860 1880 YEAR 1900 1920
Annual precipitation has been measured in Hanover, NH, since 1835. The deviation from aver- age precipitation shows that the 1840s were quite wetter than normal and the following decades were much drier. Data from the NOAA Global Historical Climatology Network were used to construct this figure.
1890 1900 1910
The amount of forested land (as percent of the county) covering White Mountains counties reached a low in the mid-nine- teenth century, followed by slow reforestation in the next decades. The secondary low point in 1890 is due to intensive timber harvests in the region. The trend in Coös County appears quite different, largely because of its geographic isolation. The U.S. agricultural census was used to construct these trends.
12
ANNUAL DEVIATION (MILLIMETERS)
FORESTED LAND %
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