Great Gulf, Mount Washington, New Hampshire

The Great Gulf, seen from just north of the summit of Mount Washington, around 1900. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2021:

These two photos show the view looking north from Mount Washington, with the Great Gulf in the foreground and the summits of the northern Presidential Range beyond it. Mount Washington is the highest peak in New England and the northeastern United States, and it stands at the center of the Presidential Range, a north-south oriented range that contains many other high peaks. The five highest peaks are named after the first five presidents, mostly in descending order of elevation, and each one is higher than any other mountain in the northeast outside of the Presidential Range.

Mount Washington, the highest, is 6,288 feet above sea level. It is followed by Mount Adams (5,774 feet), which is seen on the right side of this scene; Mount Jefferson (5,712 feet) on the left side of the scene; Mount Monroe (5,384 feet) out of view on the opposite side of Mount Washington; and Mount Madison (5,367 feet) on the extreme right-hand side of this scene.

Just out of view in the foreground on the right side is a portion of Mount Washington, which extends to the northeast away from the summit area. That slope of Mount Washington, along with the northern Presidentials in the distance, form the walls of the Great Gulf, a large glacial cirque. There are a number of different cirques around Mount Washington that were formed by glacial activity, including Tuckerman Ravine, Huntington Ravine, and Ammonoosuc Ravine. However, the Great Gulf is by far the largest of these, extended more than two miles in length and over a mile in width.

The first recorded description of the Great Gulf comes from Darby Field in 1642. Although this was still very early in the history of European colonization in New England, and several centuries before recreational hiking became popular in the region, Darby Field and his two Native American guides became the first known people to have climbed Mount Washington. This achievement was considered remarkable enough that John Winthrop, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, provided a lengthy account of Field’s expedition in his journal. Regarding the final ascent to the summit, Winthrop wrote:

They went divers times through the thick clouds for a good space, and within 4 miles of the top, they had no clouds but very cold. By the way among the rocks, there were two ponds, one a blackish water, and the other reddish. The top of all was plain about 60 feet square. On the north side was such a precipice, as they could scarcely discern to the bottom. They had neither cloud nor wind on the top, and moderate heat. All the country about him seemed a level, except here and there a hill rising above the rest, and far beneath them. He saw to the north, a great water which he judged to be 100 miles broad, but could see no land beyond it.

Although Winthrop’s description was secondhand information at best, the account seems reliable, since it contains information that Field would only have known if he had actually reached the summit. The “two ponds” are likely the Lakes of the Clouds, located along the ridgeline between the summits of Mount Washington and Mount Monroe, and the description of the “plain” at the summit likewise corresponds to reality. And, his description of the Great Gulf also helps to verify the account, since Field would have only known about “such a precipice, as they could scarcely discern to the bottom” if he and his guides had actually stood here at the edge of the Great Gulf headwall.

Aside from Field’s journey, there were very few recorded ascents of Mount Washington during the colonial period. However, this began to change by the early 19th century, as New Englanders began to travel to the White Mountains to experience the scenery here. By 1819 there was a footpath from Crawford Notch to the summit, and this was later followed by a carriage road in 1861 and a cog railway in 1868. The summit area became a seasonal community, with several hotels and even its own newspaper.

However, despite the extensive development on Mount Washington, the other summits on the Presidential Range remained largely untouched, as did the Great Gulf. Visitors were generally happy to admire these scenes from afar, and there were few landscapes that could compete with this view here in these photos. Writing in his 1856 book Incidents in White Mountain History, Benjamin G. Willey provided the following description of this scene:

[G]oing a few rods northward, you come to the brink of an almost unfathomable abyss, known as the Great Gulf. It is a rocky, precipitous descent of two thousand feet. Rising up opposite you from the bottom of this Gulf, almost perpendicularly, is the great range of mountains, comprising Clay, Jefferson, Adams and Madison. This vast range may be seen from their roots to their summits by one standing on the brink. Deep down in the very bottom of the hollow are rough, confused piles of rocks, with narrow and deeply-worn ravines between them. Springing up occasionally, near the very base of the mountain range, are tall spruces, while further up on their sides are birches and small firbushes. Toward the east, the Gulf has an opening, surrounded on all its other sides by mountains.

A few years later, in his 1860 book The White Hills: Their Legends, Landscape, and Poetry, described the scene in even more rapturous language, from an overlook on the nearby carriage road. He wrote:

Yet the glory of the view is, after all, the four highest companion mountains of the range. Clay, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, that show themselves in a bending line beyond the tremendous gorge at the right of the path, absurdly called the ” Gulf of Mexico,” and are visible from their roots to their summits. . . . Except by climbing to the ridge through the unbroken wilderness of the northern side, there is no such view to be had east of the Mississippi of mountain architecture and sublimity. They do not seem to be rocky institutions. Their lines have so much life that they appear to have just leaped from the deeps beneath the soil. We say to ourselves, these peaks are nature’s struggle against petrifaction, the earth’s cry for air.

This scene certainly captivated visitors, but few were adventurous enough to actually descend into this “unfathomable abyss.” Because of its remoteness, the upper reaches of the Gulf escaped large-scale logging, and even the trail builders of the late 1800s tended to avoid the area. A single hiking trail was built through the Gulf as far as Spalding Lake in the lower foreground of these photos, but it did not ascend the headwall of the mountains. Nor did it apparently see much use, because it did not see much subsequent maintenance.

The Great Gulf was still an essentially trailless wilderness when the first photo was taken around 1900, but this would soon change. From 1908 to 1910, Warren W. Hart oversaw the construction of a series of trails in the area, starting with the Great Gulf Trail, which traversed the Gulf, climbed the headwall, and ended near the spot where these two photos were taken. Another trail, named the Six Husbands Trail, was opened to the summit of Mount Jefferson by way of the steep slopes in the right-center of the scene. Two other trails—Adams Slide and the Buttress Trail—climbed Mount Adams, and the Wamsutta and Chandler Brook Trails climbed the northeastern slopes of Mount Washington from the Great Gulf.

At the time, the Great Gulf was still in private hands, but in 1916 it was purchased by the U.S. Forest Service. It subsequently became part of the White Mountain National Forest, and in 1964 it was designated as the Great Gulf Wilderness, which conferred greater protections on the land than other portions of the national forest. As a result, this view from atop the headwall looks essentially the same as it did over 120 years earlier, and in all likelihood it also looks the same as it did over 380 years ago, when Darby Field first described the “precipice” where he could “scarcely discern the bottom.”

Crawford Notch, Carroll, New Hampshire (2)

The view looking south toward Crawford Notch in New Hampshire, as painted by Thomas Cole in 1839. Image courtesy of the National Gallery of Art.

The scene in 1841, photographed by Dr. Samuel A. Bemis. Image courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.

The scene around 1890-1901. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2020:

This view is similar to the one in the previous post, although this one is a little further to the south, showing a closer view of the dramatic gap in the mountains at Crawford Notch. It is a view that has long captivated artists and photographers, as shown by the many different images here. This particular angle looks south through what are known as the gates of Crawford Notch, the narrowest point in the mountain pass. Barely 20 feet wide when discovered by European colonists in 1771, it has subsequently been widened to accommodate road and rail traffic, but it still retains much of the same appearance, with the steep cliffs on either side and the slopes of Mount Webster looming in the background. On the left side of the notch is an exposed rock formation known as Elephant Head, due to its somewhat vague resemblance to the head and upper trunk of an elephant.

The first image here is a painting of Crawford Notch by prominent landscape artist Thomas Cole. He is generally regarded as the founder of the Hudson River School, an artistic movement that emphasized the natural beauty of the American landscape. Cole typically used his artwork to convey the power of nature, and this painting features several of his common motifs, including gnarled trees, ominous storm clouds, and a small human figure that is barely noticeable amid the surrounding landscape. Perhaps the most foreboding element is the dense fog in the valley beyond the notch, giving a sense that the notch is a sort of passage to another world.

Thomas Cole made several visits to the White Mountains, including one in the summer of 1839, accompanied by fellow artist Asher Durand. While here, he sketched this view of Crawford Notch, and he painted this painting after returning to his home in Catskill, New York. Titled A View of the Mountain Pass Called the Notch of the White Mountains (Crawford Notch), it was commissioned by Rufus L. Lord, who paid Cole $500 for the finished work. It is now regarded as one of Cole’s finest American landscapes, and it is currently on display at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

The second image here is a daguerreotype taken in 1841, just two years after Cole’s visit. It is the oldest photograph that I have featured on this blog, and among the earliest photographs to be taken in the United States, just a few years after Louis Daguerre invented the daguerreotype process. The photographer was Dr. Samuel A. Bemis, a Boston dentist who became one of the first photographer in the country. He began taking photographs in 1840, but evidently abandoned the hobby around 1843, leaving behind a relatively small number of photographs, most of which are poorly exposed. However, his works include the earliest photographic images of the White Mountains, many of which were taken in and around Crawford Notch.

This particular photograph shows nearly the same scene that Thomas Cole had painted two years earlier, although Bemis was a little closer to the notch than Cole was when he sketched the view. On the left side is the Notch House, which appears to be the same building shown in the distance on the left side of the painting. This inn was built in 1828 by Ethan Allen Crawford, and it was operated by his brother Thomas. From here, visitors could ascend to the summit of Mount Washington by way of the 8.5-mile Crawford Path, which Ethan Allen Crawford and his father Abel had cut in 1819.

In 1845, a few years after the photo was taken, the Notch House was expanded with a new addition. The attic was also converted into rooms, giving the inn a capacity of 75 guests. Then, around 1850 Thomas Crawford decided to build a new hotel nearby, just a little to the north of here. However, he ran into financial trouble and ended up having to sell the partially-completed hotel in December 1850. The hotel was finished under the new ownership, and it was named the Crawford House, with Joseph L. Gibbs as its manager. With this new, modern hotel nearby, the old Notch House quickly faded into obscurity. It was used occasionally for overflow accommodations, but it was ultimately destroyed by a fire in June 1854.

The Crawford House ultimately suffered a similar fate when it burned in 1859, but it was quickly rebuilt on the same site and stood there for well over a century, until it too was destroyed by fire in 1977. By the time the third image was taken of Crawford Notch in the 1890s, it was a popular resort destination. The hotel was located about a quarter mile behind where this photo was taken, so it is not visible in this scene, but there are other signs of changes here in the 1890s photo, particularly the railroad. In the 1841 image, the Notch House would have been accessible only by stagecoach, but in 1875 the Portland & Ogdensburg Railroad opened through the notch, making it much easier for tourists to visit the area.

Today, nearly two centuries after Thomas Cole painted Crawford Notch, the foreground of this scene has undergone substantial changes. Cole himself hinted at some of these impending changes with the cleared ground and tree stumps, but he probably did not anticipate that a railroad would one day be built through here, or that the rough stagecoach road would eventually become the modern US Route 302. However, despite these changes, the surrounding landscape has remained nearly unchanged. Cole did embellish parts of the scene, including the prominence of Mount Webster and the narrowness of the notch, but overall the landscape is still instantly recognizable from the painting, and Crawford Notch remains one of the most impressive natural features in the White Mountains.

Crawford Notch, Carroll, New Hampshire

The view looking south toward Crawford Notch from the Crawford House in Carroll, New Hampshire, around 1900. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2020:

As explained in an earlier post that shows the view from the opposite direction, Crawford Notch is an important mountain pass that, for many years, was the only east-west route through the White Mountains. The notch, which was originally barely 20 feet wide, was unknown to European colonists until 1771, when two settlers discovered it while hunting. It soon became a major transportation corridor, beginning with a rough road that was later upgraded for stagecoach travel. By the late 19th century, a railroad also ran through the notch, as shown by the tracks and station building in both photos.

Like most mountain passes, Crawford Notch forms the divide between two major rivers. In the foreground of this scene is Saco Lake, the headwaters of the Saco River. From here, the river runs through the gap in the mountains, which is known as the “gates” of Crawford Notch. The river then flows through a narrow, steep-sided gorge for several miles, and it ultimately flows through Maine and into the Atlantic Ocean a little south of Portland. On the other side of the divide is the Crawford Brook, which rises just behind where these photos were taken and flows into the Ammonoosuc River. The Ammonoosuc River then flows into the Connecticut River, which eventually reaches the ocean in Long Island Sound.

These two photos show perhaps the most dramatic view of Crawford Notch, looking south from right about the point where the two watersheds divide. From here, the relatively broad, flat valley on the north side of the notch narrows to a small opening that is flanked by steep cliffs on either side. Just to the left of the notch is a rock formation known as Elephant Head, and on the right is the eastern slope of Mount Willard. However, the most prominent landscape feature here is Mount Webster, which forms an impressive backdrop to the scene. At 3,911 feet in elevation, its summit rises two thousand feet above the floor of Crawford Notch, and it forms the southern end of the Presidential Range.

Given the amount of traffic that was funneled through Crawford Notch, the area was the site of several hotels and inns in the early 19th century. Perhaps the most famous of these was the Willey House, located about three miles south of here. In 1826, the occupants of the inn were killed in a landslide, after they fled the house in the middle of the night in an effort to escape the falling rocks and mud. Ironically, the building itself was unharmed by the landslide, and the tragic event was subsequently immortalized in paintings and literary works.

Many accounts of the tragedy made it a moral lesson about the untamed power of nature, yet it did little to dissuade visitors to Crawford Notch. If anything, it seemed to have the opposite effect, and by the mid-19th century the area was no longer simply a convenient transportation corridor; it had become a destination in its own right. Among those who benefitted from this was the Crawford family, for whom the notch is named. In 1828, just two years after the landslide, Ethan Allen Crawford built the Notch House here at the gates of Crawford Notch, and his brother Thomas subsequently ran it for many years. From here, the Crawfords offered guided tours to the summit of Mount Washington via the 8.5-mile Crawford Path, which Ethan Allen Crawford and his father Abel had cut in 1819.

The original Notch House was located in the distance of this scene, close to the actual notch. However, in the early 1850s Thomas Crawford began construction on a new hotel just to the north, located where these two photos were taken. He ran into financial difficulties and had to sell the half-finished hotel, but it was completed under new ownership. However, the building was destroyed by a fire in 1859, and was subsequently rebuilt and reopened later in the year. Known as the Crawford House, it became a popular tourist destination throughout much of the 19th and 20th centuries. It ultimately closed in 1975, and burned two years later.

When the Crawford House opened, there was no rail service through Crawford Notch. However, this changed in 1875, when the Portland & Ogdensburg Railroad opened here. This railroad was subsequently acquired by the Maine Central Railroad in 1888, and in 1891 the new owners built a Queen Anne-style station here at the Crawford House, which is visible in the foreground of both photos. The first photo shows a locomotive at the station, Maine Central No. 101, a 4-4-0 steam locomotive that was built in 1889 and scrapped in 1916.

Today, around 120 years after the first photo was taken, relatively little has changed in this scene. Right behind where the photos were taken, the Crawford House is long gone, and it is now the site of the Appalachian Mountain Club’s Highland Center. However, the view south toward the notch looks much the same as it did in 1900, including the historic railroad station, Saco Lake, and the surrounding landscape. Most of the land within Crawford Notch is now part of the Crawford Notch State Park, which was established in 1913, and the surrounding land on the mountains is part of the White Mountain National Forest, which was established in 1918.

Mount Jefferson from Mount Monroe, New Hampshire

Mount Jefferson and the northern Presidential Range from near the summit of Mount Monroe, around 1900. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2020:

The first photo here was taken from the same spot, and perhaps even on the same day, as the one in the previous post. However, while that photo shows the summit of Mount Washington from Mount Monroe, this view looks a little further to the west, showing the western side of Mount Washington with Mount Jefferson further in the distance. As was the case with the previous post, I took the 2020 photo without having first seen the 1900 one. I took the photos during a hike along the southern Presidential Range from Crawford Notch to Mount Monroe, and later discovered that several of the photos lined up perfectly with ones that were taken around 1900 by the Detroit Publishing Company. In this particular view, perhaps the most remarkable similarity is that both photos show a Mount Washington Cog Railway train in the exact same location, right in the center of the photo.

The highest mountain visible in this scene is Mount Jefferson, which is a little over three miles away from here. At 5,712 feet, it is the third-highest peak in the northeastern United States, after the nearby Mount Washington and Mount Adams. Along with Mount Madison and Mount Monroe, these comprise the five highest peaks in the region, and they are named in honor of the first five presidents, with the elevation rank corresponding to the order in which they served as president. However, Madison and Monroe are very close in elevation, and subsequent surveys discovered that Monroe is actually slightly higher, despite being named for the fifth president.

Aside from Mount Jefferson, the most visible landscape feature here is Ammonoosuc Ravine, a large glacial cirque in the foreground that forms the western slope of Mount Washington. Further in the distance is Burt Ravine, a somewhat smaller cirque to the northwest of Mount Washington. In between these two ravines is a ridgeline that runs diagonally across this scene. The steep slopes of this ridge, combined with the heavy precipitation here, makes it prone to landslides, and both photos show the scars of large slides here on the southern side of the ridge.

Both photos also show the Mount Washington Cog Railway, which runs along this ridge between Ammonoosuc and Burt Ravines. Completed in 1869, this three-mile railroad was a major engineering feat, with trains rising about 3,500 feet in elevation from the base station to the summit. This was far too steep for conventional trains, so the railway’s founder, Sylvester Marsh, developed a rack-and-pinion system with a gear on the locomotive that engaged a rack in the center of the track. This allowed the gear to pull the train up the mountain, and then safely lower it in a controlled descent on the return trip.

The Mount Washington Cog Railway was the first of its kind in the world, and it today it is the world’s second-steepest railroad. The single steepest part of the route is a trestle known as Jacob’s ladder, with a maximum grade of more than 37%. This trestle is visible in the center of both photos, and coincidentally both photos show a train at the same spot at the base of the trestle. As was the case more than a century ago, the trains still climb and descend with the locomotive always on the downhill side of the train and a single passenger coach facing uphill. The only difference is the type of locomotive; for most of the railroad’s history it operated steam locomotives, but it now primarily uses biodiesel locomotives, which are more environmentally friendly and less expensive to run.

Overall, the type of locomotive on the trestle is essentially the only difference between these two photos. Although the summit of Mount Washington has been heavily developed with over the years with many buildings and other structures, the rest of the Presidential Range has remained largely unchanged, with few signs of human activity aside from hiking trails. Most of the range, along with much of the surrounding land, is now protected as part of the White Mountain National Forest, which was established in 1918 and has grown to over 750,000 acres of land in New Hampshire and Maine.

Mount Washington from Mount Monroe, New Hampshire

The summit of Mount Washington, seen looking north from Mount Monroe in the Presidential Range of the White Mountains, around 1900. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The view in 2020:

Rising 6,288 feet above sea level, Mount Washington is the highest peak in the northeastern United States. It stands at the center of the Presidential Range, a north-south oriented mountain range that forms a massive ridgeline of bare rocks and alpine vegetation. The range is infamous for its harsh and unpredictable weather, particularly at the summit of Mount Washington, which for many years held the world record for fastest surface wind speed ever recorded, at 231 miles per hour. Hypothermia is a year-round threat to hikers, and although there is no permanent ice cap, pockets of snow can linger well into the summer, as shown in the 2020 photo, which was taken on June 18.

Aside from Mount Washington, most of the other peaks in the range are also named for presidents. The five highest peaks are named after the first five presidents, in order of elevation, so that Mount Adams is the second-highest and Jefferson the third-highest. However, Mount Monroe, where these photos were taken from, is actually the fourth-highest, but it was named for the fifth president because of a surveying error. Monroe is the southernmost of these five major peaks; to the south are several lower peaks in the Presidential Range, including Mount Eisenhower and Mount Pierce.

Mount Washington’s high elevation and inhospitable climate have long attracted visitors to the summit. The first recorded ascent occurred in 1642, when Darby Field climbed the mountain accompanied by two Native American guides. Governor John Winthrop recorded the event in his diary, referring to the mountain as “the white hill,” since the mountain’s eventual namesake would not be born for another 90 years. Field’s exact route is uncertain, but he evidently approached it from the south, as Winthrop mentions two ponds along the way, which were likely the Lakes of the Clouds shown here in this scene. Aside from helping determine Field’s route, the mention of the lakes also helps to verify his ascent, since he would not have known about them unless he actually climbed at least this far.

The mountain was only occasionally climbed during the rest of the 17th and 18th centuries, but this began to change in the early 19th century. In 1819, local residents Abel and Ethan Allen Crawford cut an 8.5-mile path from Crawford Notch to the summit of Mount Washington, following the ridgeline of the southern Presidential Range. The trail passed through this scene just to the East of the summit of Mount Monroe, and most of it is still in use today as part of the Appalachian Trail, making it the oldest continuously-maintained hiking trail in the country. Ethan Allen Crawford built a cabin, and later a hotel, at the base of the trail, and he also acted as a guide for hiking groups setting out from Crawford Notch. The Crawford family later improved the trail for use as a bridle path, and by the 1840s visitors could ride to the top of the mountain on horseback.

The first building at the summit was a small hotel that opened in 1852. It was joined a year later by the rival Tip Top House, which still stands atop the mountain today. At the time, the only ways to get to the top were by foot or by horseback, but this would soon change. The Mount Washington Carriage Road opened in 1861, bringing visitors up the east side of the mountain, and the Mount Washington Cog Railway followed eight years later on the western slopes of the mountain. These two routes helped to spur more development, and by the time the first photo was taken around 1900 the summit was crowded with buildings, including the Tip Top House, a weather observatory, and the massive Summit House hotel, which could accommodate 150 guests. The summit even had its own daily newspaper, Among the Clouds, which was published during the summer months from 1877 to 1917.

By the late 19th century it was easier than ever to reach the summit, but many visitors chose to test their abilities by hiking up the mountain. However, because of the mountain’s notorious and often unpredictable weather, this sometimes led to tragic consequences for unprepared or unlucky hikers. The first known fatality in the Presidential Range was Frederick Strickland, who began his hike on October 19, 1849, when the mountain was already covered in deep snow. He climbed via the Crawford Notch, and he would have passed through this scene on his way up the mountain. Strickland made it to the top, becoming the first known hiker to do so in winter conditions, but he ultimately succumbed to hypothermia while descending the western side of the mountain. His body was discovered well below the tree line, near where the present-day Jewell Trail crosses Clay Brook.

One of the most famous tragedies on the mountain occurred on June 30, 1900, when William Buckingham Curtis and Alan Ormsbee both died of hypothermia while ascending the mountain. Both men were experienced outdoorsmen, and Curtis was renowned as an athlete and promoter of amateur athletics. As with Frederick Strickland a half century earlier, they hiked up the Crawford Path from Crawford Notch. Their goal was to attend the Appalachian Mountain Club meeting at the summit, but they faced harsh conditions along the way, including dense fog, sleet, and high winds. They climbed to the summit of Pleasant Dome (now Mount Eisenhower), and they were last seen alive soon after by a descending group that warned them of the deteriorating conditions ahead.

The first photo was probably taken within a year or two of Curtis’s and Ormsbee’s deaths, and it shows the section of the mountain where their journey came to an end. It is unclear as to whether they took the Crawford Path to the east of Mount Monroe, or if they took  the loop trail over the summit, but just to the north of Monroe they took shelter in a dense stand of stunted spruce trees. For unknown reasons, they subsequently left this shelter, and Curtis’s body was discovered a short distance beyond the trees, somewhere near the foreground on the far right side of these two photos. Ormsbee managed to continue up the mountain, but he ultimately died just a few hundred feet short of the summit.

In the aftermath of this tragedy, the Appalachian Mountain Club built a small shelter here in the area between Mount Monroe and Mount Washington, near the spot where Curtis died. It was completed in 1901, and was large enough for about six to eight people, yet uncomfortable enough to discourage use for anything other than an emergency situation. However, hikers nonetheless used the shelter for regular camping, and in 1915 it was replaced by the Lakes of the Clouds Hut, which was built a little lower on the slope on the far left side of the scene. Far more than just serving as an emergency shelter, this hit was staffed by the AMC, and provided overnight accommodations along with meals for hikers.

Today, around 120 years after the first photo was taken, Mount Washington remains a popular destination, accessible either by train, by car, or by foot. The Lakes of the Clouds Hut has been expanded several times over the years, and it now has bunk space for 90 hikers. The hut is located at the convergence of several major trails, including the Crawford Path, which still follows essentially the same route that the Crawford family laid out more than two centuries ago. The only significant change to the path is here between Mount Monroe and Mount Washington, where it was rerouted to access the hut, and to eliminate unnecessary switchbacks.

Overall, this scene has changed very little since the first photo was taken, aside from the construction of the hut. The surrounding land is now protected as part of the 750,000-acre White Mountain National Forest, which was established in 1918. The Presidential Range is a particularly important part of this national forest, as it features a number of rare alpine plants, including the Robbins’ cinquefoil, an extremely rare flower that can only be found here on the slopes of Mount Monroe. Because of the fragile nature of many of these plant species, combined with the thousands of people who climb Mount Washington each year, one of the present-day challenges here is balancing conservation with recreation in order to ensure that this view continues to remain unchanged for the next 120 years and beyond.

Willey House, Hart’s Location, New Hampshire (3)

The view looking north in Crawford Notch in the White Mountains, with the Willey House in the distance on the left, around the 1860s or 1870s. Image courtesy of the New York Public Library.

The scene in 2018:

These photos show the view looking north in Crawford Notch, a long, narrow valley through the heart of the White Mountains. For many years, it was the only east-west route through the mountain range, and since the late 18th century it has been a vital transportation corridor. As explained in more detail in an earlier post, the first road through the notch was opened in 1774, and over the years it was steadily improved, eventually becoming part of the Tenth New Hampshire Turnpike in 1806.

To serve these travelers in the midst of the northern New Hampshire wilderness, a series of inns were opened in and around the notch. The first building within the notch itself was a house that was constructed in 1793. Later known as the Willey House, it stood in the left-center of the first photo, where the peak of its gabled roof is barely visible beyond a much larger three-story hotel that was constructed in 1845.

The house served as both a residence and a small inn, and it had several different owners in the early 19th century before being acquired by Samuel Willey in 1825. It was an isolated location in the middle of the notch, several miles away from the nearest neighbor, but Willey moved here in the fall of 1825, along with his wife Polly and their five young children. He spent much of the fall improving the property and preparing it for the long, cold northern New England winter, and the result was a modest but comfortable place for travelers to stop for food, drink, or shelter.

As the Willeys would soon discover, though, the house’s location at the base of a steep cliff made it susceptible to landslides. One occurred in June 1826, and it narrowly missed the house. Then, two months later, another one occurred during a heavy rainstorm on the night of August 28. This time, the house was completely encircled by the debris, although the house itself survived unscathed thanks to a low ledge just above it, which split the flow into two channels.

Unfortunately, though, the Willey family attempted to flee the house in the midst of the storm, evidently fearing that the house would be destroyed. However, in the darkness they unknowingly ran directly into the path of the slide, and all seven were killed, along with two hired hands who lived here with them. Searchers subsequently found six of the bodies, some of them badly mangled, but three of the Willey children were never recovered.

The sudden deaths of nine people, more than half of whom were children under the age of 13, quickly gained national attention. This helped to spur tourism to the White Mountains, and over the next few years many curious visitors came to Crawford Notch to see the Willey House, the aftermath of the landslide, and the surrounding wilderness. The story also became the subject of a now-lost painting by noted artist Thomas Cole, and a short story, “The Ambitious Guest,” by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

By the mid-19th century, the area was a popular destination thanks in large part to the publicity generated by the Willey disaster, and there were many hotels in the vicinity of Crawford Notch. These included the Willey House itself, which had been purchased by Horace Fabyan in 1845. He constructed a new, much larger hotel building adjacent to the old house, and it can be seen on the left side of the first photo. Both buildings stood here until nearly the end of the 19th century, but they were ultimately destroyed by a fire in September 1899.

Today, the site of the house and hotel is now the visitor center and park headquarters for the Crawford Notch State Park. There is little evidence of the buildings that once stood here, although the location of the Willey House is now marked by a small stone monument. The road has also changed significantly since the first photo was taken some 150 years ago, and the narrow dirt path is now U.S. Route 302. Overall, the only thing from the first photo that has not changed is the surrounding landscape, which has been preserved as part of the state park. This includes the most prominent feature in both photos, the 2,804-foot Mount Willard, which dominates the background of the scene and marks the northern end of Crawford Notch.