Sketch of Dunbarton, New Hampshire — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Sketch of Dunbarton, New Hampshire
John Stuart Mill · en
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[Illustration: (front cover)]
SKETCH OF DUNBARTON, NEW HAMPSHIRE.
BY MISS ELLA MILLS.
MANCHESTER, N. H.
MANCHESTER HISTORIC ASSOCIATION,
1902.
Sketch of Dunbarton, N. H.
BY ELLA MILLS.
Dunbarton is a town "set upon a hill which cannot be hid." The highest
point of land is on the farm of Benjamin Lord, north of the Center, and
is 779 feet above the sea level. From that spot, and from many other
places nearly as high, the views of hills and mountains are beautiful
and grand beyond description.
The twin Uncanoonucs are near neighbors on the south, Monadnock,
farther off on the south-west, and Kearsarge twenty miles to the north
west. On the northern horizon are seen Mount Washington and other peaks
of the White Mountains.
The longest hill in town is the mile-long Mills hill, and midway on
its slope live descendants of Thomas Mills, one of the first settlers.
Among other hills are Duncanowett, Hammond, Tenney, Grapevine, Harris,
Legache, and Prospect Hills.
No rivers run through the town, but there are numerous brooks where
trout fishing is pursued with more or less success.
No body of water is large enough to be called a lake, but Gorham Pond
is a beautiful sheet of water and on its banks picnics are held.
Stark's and Kimball's Ponds have furnished water power for mills, the
latter, owned by Willie F. Paige, is still in use. Long Pond, in the
south part of the town, was the scene of a tragedy in 1879, when Moses
Merrill, an officer at the State Industrial School, Manchester, was
drowned in an ineffectual attempt to save an inmate of that institution.
One portion of the south part of the town is called Skeeterboro,
another Mountalona, so named by James Rogers, one of the first
settlers, from the place in Ireland from whence he came.[1] East of the
Center is Guinea, so called because some negroes once lived there. The
village of North Dunbarton is also called Page's Corner; and not far
away to the eastward is a hill known as Onestack, because one large
stack of hay stood there for many years. A brook bears the same name.
Those who know Dunbarton only in the present can hardly realize that
1450 people ever lived there at one time, but that was the census in
1820. The first census, taken 1767, was 271. In 1840 it was 1067; in
1890, only 523. The last census gave about 575.