Trailhead
Quick StartWhich trail to follow? Which book to read?
Quick AnswerIt doesn’t really matter.
This collection is not intended to be a formal history. The 12 books in this “Moosilauke History Series” have a central focus on Mt. Moosilauke, but like its trails, the stories and accounts range outward into surrounding towns, to the White Mountains and across the State. These books are as much a history of New Hampshire as of Moosilauke.
While the dozen books included in this Series could be considered to be its “chapters,” their combined 3900 pages would clearly be more than most people could ever read. Luckily, most of the books work well on their own, covering a particular period in Moosilauke’s history.
And many of these books have their own “Trailhead” — a Foreword — to provide some guidance at the start of each book. Additionally, some biographical sketches of some of the key “storytellers” are included.
Bill Morse was born in East Haverhill, NH, in 1904, and was the last survivor from the years of the old Moosilauke Tip Top House (1881–1919), just before Dartmouth and its Outing Club began its stewardship of what they would call in 1920, the Moosilauke Summit Camp.
Bill was a born storyteller, with a sharp memory for details and an equally sharp sense of humor. He also was a natural born writer.
On leaving the mountain in 1917, his family had kept the original Tip Top House scrapbook with its countless clippings taken from articles sent in to newspapers by visitors to Moosilauke from the 1880s to 1916. (In 2021, this became Book 7, The Tip Top News.)
I did my first interview with Bill Morse in 1990 in Rutland, Vt., and our first book, A Country Life, came out in 1995. The longer, illustrated autobiography, A Mix of Years, followed in 1998. This included a large section on Bill’s life as a boy living with his parents at the old Tip Top House on Moosilauke from 1915 to 1917 (Mountain Years). Stories of his life growing up at the base of the mountain, and his later work running lumber camps and as a surveyor, are well worth reading. He died in 2000 at age 96.
A Mix of Years would be a great “first” book for those starting out with this Series.
Moving on … In the late 1980s, I had been invited by the Dartmouth Archivist, Ken Cramer, into the inner sanctum of the “White Mountain Collection” in the back stacks of Baker Library. I did my search for Moosilauke writings by simply going through each book on the 300 feet of book-shelves. These contained an amazing collection of guidebooks, histories, essays, and other glimpses of the North Country past, especially from the 19th and early 20th centuries.
These provided the core of the next two books in the Series, with 48 essays making up The Moosilaukee Reader, Volumes 1 & 2. To these were added some excellent pieces on the Geology of the mountain (MaryAnn Love Malinconico), the Forest/Logging history (J. Willcox Brown), Glencliff Trail Notes (Bill Ballard), the history of Merrill’s Mountain Home at Breezy Point by Marjorie S. Davis (1904–2000), the story of the B-18 bomber crash in 1942 (Floyd W. Ramsey), A Home on A Hill (Rocky Rockwell), historical fiction essays (Jack Noon) on the opening of the original Glencliff trail (1840) and the search for gold around the mountain (1875), plus other pieces from the Dartmouth Outing Club archives at Baker Library.
These essays ranged from the 1817 scientific exploration by Alden Partridge to the philosophical 1949 essay by John A. Gustafson, a stretch of 132 years.
… by Jack Noon (2000), provides an additional six Moosilauke short stories based on known historical facts, peopled by visitors from two hard-to-find Connecticut River towns just west of Moosilauke (Barston, VT; Wheelock, NH — see map facing page 1 in Up Moosilauke).
These stories range from an early “pre-trail” visit in 1799 to January 1, 2000, as a new Millennium began.
19 Years Later …
Writing a biography of a long-forgotten early photographer from Warren, NH, required a search for the story of Amos Clough (1833–1872) and likewise for his scattered original stereoview photographs. Finding the time and resources to produce this first hardcover book in the series was a challenge.
This is a LARGE book — see Book Specifications at the end of this GUIDE — with 150 full-sized stereoviews, plus 140 additional photographs, maps and engravings.
Included were the how-and-why of stereoview photos, as well as a history of wet plate (collodion) photography. The almost lost art of viewing a 3-dimensional world is described — this is something not to be missed.
Clough joined Joshua H. Huntington, Dartmouth geologist, in late 1869 through the winter of 1870 at the Moosilauke Prospect House. Clough’s original diary of this expedition is here transcribed for the first time and 15 (of 36) of the original stereoviews provided.
The winter expedition to Mount Washington (1870–1871) the following year is covered in detail, again with an almost complete set of the stereoviews taken by Clough and his working partner, Howard A. Kimball of Concord (NH).
The histories of other photographers who worked with Amos Clough (Howard A. Kimball, W.G.C. Kimball, Charles F. Bracy, Charles B. Cheney) are included in the Notes (Appendix) section at the end of the book.
Finally, this book traces Clough’s later journeys around New Hampshire and to Springfield, Massachusetts, where he died in 1872 of pneumonia.
“This is the story of Moosilauke.”
Many years ago — in 1879 — a New Hampshire man named Daniel Clement decided to set down his experiences on the top of Mt. Moosilauke, one of the few high mountain peaks with a summit house. With him was his older brother, James, the original builder of the Prospect House. Together they explored the wildlife, forests, and geology of the mountain, observed a full year of seasons and storms, “washed the delf” and debated all of life’s intricacies — from the challenges of life above treeline to death and the hereafter.
This is a key book in the Series for its details about the 19th century experiences of visitors to the top of Moosilauke, as well as to Breezy Point, particularly for the 1880s and 1890s, and also for the first part of the 20th century, up to the stay by the Morses (1915–1917) described in Book 1.
A special section at the end of the book — Voices in the Wind — provides biographical sketches of four Moosilauke personages: Sarah F. Woodworth, M. Isabella Stone, Henry DeMerritt Young, and Lucy Larcom.
This book provides stories about trips to Mt. Moosilauke from the perspective of the (mostly) boy campers and counselors from nearby Camp Pemigewassett in Wentworth, NH. The weekly trip reports were printed in the camp Newsletter — Bean Soup — reaching from 1910 all the way to 1992.
NOTE: PEMI was the first digitally printed book done in the Series. This allowed color illustrations and a much needed break for the budget.
After the Ice covers a wide variety of pieces on Moosilauke (and Dartmouth) history.
A major focus is on the story of the triangulation of New Hampshire (1870s–1880s) with survey work on the north and east peak of Moosilauke by Elihu T. Quimby and his crew from the Dartmouth Chandler School of Engineering (1873).
A collection of full-sized stereoviews is provided (as in all Trilogy books). Dick Sanders (D29) experiences on the Summit Camp crew in 1928–29, and a collection of Moosilauke poetry conclude this volume.
Focus on Moosilauke Forest history; Geology, including Lost River, Pike whetstone quarry, gold prospecting in the North Country, a landmark 3-part essay on the Landslides of Mt. Moosilauke, written by the Mountain Wanderer, Steve Smith; and lastly, People (Lebina Parker, Daniel, Nancy and Kate Whitcher; the story of the Glencliff Sanitorium in Benton by Paige Wickner MD and Fordham von Reyn MD).
A special collection covering the history of the Civilian Conservation Corps in the State of New Hampshire, the CCC camps around the base of Moosilauke, at Wildwood, Warren and North Woodstock, and the color paintings of life in the CCC camp in the Annett State Forest in East Jaffrey, NH, by George C. Soule (1914–2008). The story of how Rt 118 was built; two deaths; and the CCC Museum at Bear Brook State Forest in Allenstown, NH.
A Modernist Artist in the mountains in 1930: Marsden Hartley, Franconia, NH. Essays on Mt. Blue, Deer Lake, Jobildunk Ravine, Baker/Asquamchumauke River.
Stereoviews including Moosilauke, the Flume Boulder, and elsewhere. Collected stories by Dartmouth Outing Clubbers/Chubbers back to 1879 (Charles Sumner Cook D1879), in 1915 (Howard M. Buffinton D1916), and stories from the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s.
The history of Dartmouth skiing and snow on the mountain; the last years of the Moosilauke Summit Camp, and after.
Final section on Dartmouth Ecological Research on Moosilauke (William A. Reiners, William H. Schlesinger D72); Moose and Jack Noon in pictures; the building of the 1984 Crew Cabin (2008–2010); Old Roads become New Trails (1981).
Coming Full Circle …
Guide — Robert W. Averill, Kris Pastoriza, 2026
Special Note: The work of co-editor Kris Pastoriza of Easton, NH, for Books 9–12, and for this GUIDE, was indispensable.