WARNING: This blog report is a bit different from my
previous postings. It's mostly
narrative, and has only one photo, and one map!
Anyway,
a few weeks ago, I did a relatively short 6.6 mile "out and back"
trek using the Reel Brook and Kinsman Ridge Trail. My simple destination was the point where the
power line intersects Kinsman Ridge, just above Bog Pond.
Over a century ago, this location was known
as Kinsman Notch, while today’s Kinsman Notch was referred to as Moosilauke
Notch. Somewhere down through the years,
the name of Kinsman Notch was transferred from its original remote location to
the more accessible mountain pass along Lost River and beyond toward the
Wildwood Campground.
This
hike was done mainly for the exercise, and for the adventure of snowshoeing
along a trail that is infrequently used in winter months. In terms of views, "they are what they
are"! The power line severely mars
the vista that includes Bog Pond in the foreground with the Osceolas; Scar
Ridge; Loon; Tecumseh; Sandwich Mtn on the horizon.
The view just described is shown below in the
composite photo. For the
LEFT frame, photo-editing software was used to remove the power
lines and the ski runs on Loon Mountain. The RIGHT
frame shows the vista as it actually exists.
It's
fun to think that the view on the LEFT frame of the photo could be similar to
what Nathan Kinsman might have seen in the early 1780s when he is speculated to
have traveled from the vicinity of North Woodstock to the Easton area
by constructing a crude pathway through the original Kinsman Notch where the
power line and Reel Brook Trail exist today.
Unfortunately,
there is no written record of the route that might have been used by Nathan Kinsman
in the 1780s to travel from North Woodstock to Easton where he and his family would become the first permanent settlers of that area. However, with the aid of my friend Joanne
Jones, a written reference (see below) was found which documents that a road did
run through the old Kinsman Notch in the 1820s.
Excerpt
from 1897 Granite Monthly; Volume 23, page 12:
"About 1820, a
road was constructed through Kinsman Notch, that
led by Bog lake, and which connected the valley with the town of Landaff."
Please
understand that the following is pure speculation on my part. If a rough
pathway was indeed hacked out by Nathan Kinsman in the 1780s, then perhaps it
continued to be used over the years, and was then eventually upgraded in the 1820s
to become the road that is mentioned in the Granite Monthly article?
Although
the roadway of the 1820s eventually ceased to exist, one can say with a fair
degree of confidence that travel along a corridor between North Woodstock and
Easton continued over the years.
One piece of evidence to support this theory is that the earliest editions of AMC's White Mountain Guide (first published in 1907) describes a trail
running from Easton to the North Woodstock area. It was referred to as the Bog Pond Trail.
On the west side of the Kinsman Ridge, the
old Bog Pond Trail followed nearly the same route as the present-day Reel Brook
Trail. And on the east side of the ridge, it followed a corridor that ran along
Bog Pond and then continued eastward to the vicinity of North Woodstock. (The present-day Georgiana Falls Trail is likely
the only surviving segment of the eastern portion of this old route.)
When taking a look at a current-day map of this area, one can imagine a
route that could have filled the gap between today's Reel Brook Trail and Georgiana Falls Trail.
To sum it up, this blog posting
is by no means intended to be a scholarly piece of work. Rather, it's just a fun piece of speculation
about the view that Nathan Kinsman might have seen in the 1780s, if in fact his
route from North Woodstock to Easton took him across the old Kinsman Notch corridor.
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MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THIS TOPIC:
1) More
in-depth information about Nathan Kinsman, and the old Kinsman Notch has been
written by Mike Dickerman. Click HERE, and then scroll down through the article to access his Kinsman essays.
3) Also, there is a wealth of information contained in a 1976 publication entitled "Looking Back at Easton" written by Ruth W. Towne and Chris M. Jerome.]