Todd & Fred at the Carter’s Mill site
At the Sandwich Children’s Center fundraising auction last summer, Todd and I quickly identified the one auction item that we would bid for until the last gavel drop: “Guided Hike with Fred Lavigne.” Not only is Fred a dear family friend (as is his wife Evelyn), but Fred is a legendary champion of the Sandwich woods.
About 17 years ago, Fred led the successful campaign to add 10,000 acres to the Sandwich Range Wilderness. The first sentence of the September 2014 National Geographic Magazine article about the 1964 Wilderness Act is this: “Fred Lavigne is looking for a tree.” How great is that?! (Click here to read the article.)
Beaver Art
Fred, though, is more than a font of knowledge; he’s also very funny. He grew up up North in Berlin (pronounced BUR-lyn, please), and he has an old-timey New Hampshire accent and a dust-dry sense of humor. Here are a few examples:
We admired many beaver-gnawed trees on our hike, and when we came upon the pointy stump pictured left, Fred said, “That’s why I don’t go sky diving.” On the bridge overlooking the site of Carter’s Mill, Todd told Fred that we were going to get him on Yelp. Fred’s reply: “What the hell’s that?” (I captured the moment in a video clip: click here to see for yourself.) And when we left the trail to explore logging camp sites, Fred said, “Maybe we should rope up so we don’t fall into a cellar hole.” I rest my case.
Into the woods with Fred
We spent more than six hours with Fred exploring the Guinea Pond Trail that follows an old railroad bed that once serviced 12 logging camps. We brought along our neighbor and nephew-in-law Steve Bartlett, who proved to be a human metal detector, and our neighbor Nancy Starmer with her son Daniel, a Sandwich-woods historian in his own right. First, though, a story:
According to the 1850 census, Sandwich, New Hampshire had 2,577 inhabitants. As the West opened up for settlement (apologies to Native Americans), and word spread that there was soil on the prairies that wasn’t loaded with rocks, many New England farmers packed up their families and headed out. Today, the year-round population in Sandwich is just a little more than 1,200.
Stephen Bartlett, “The Finder”
By 1860, only eight farm families lived in Sandwich Notch, down from forty. But as railroads expanded across the country, logging camps and sawmills were established in the Notch, and by 1920, more than 400 men were working in logging operations along the Beebe River. A railroad was constructed to haul out the logs, and during WWI, a quarter of the spruce used to make airplanes came from the Beebe River operation.
High grade spruce was used for constructing pianos, and hardwoods were used to make spindles for textile manufacturing. Most of the logging operation eventually burned down, so now it takes a keen eye to discover remnants of that bygone era — pieces of railroad track, a rusty wheelbarrow, railroad spikes, bits of charcoal, a spoon, a cache of draft horse shoes in an old logging camp, a rusty spoon.
I found this piece of a leather boot at Camp 7. Fred told us that the logging company burned the camp when they abandoned it to prevent future accidents. Of course there were plenty of accidents when the logging operation was in full swing. Fires were common, and excessive drinking led to railroad accidents. (I do not want to even think about accidents that happened in the sawmills. Ack!)
Fred told us about a logging crew that was evacuating in a blizzard, trying to save their horses, when one man fell behind. He wrote his name on a scrap of paper, pinned it to his chest, lay down and froze to death. Naturally, we made jokes about pinning notes to our jackets during the rest of the hike. We are bad.
Anyway, it was a beautiful fall day. Some gold and red leaves still clung to the trees, but most were on the ground, creating a lovely carpet, and the bare trees opened up views of Guinea Hill, Sandwich Mountain, and our own Mount Israel. (“This is your backyard, folks,” Fred reminded us more than once.)
We forded the Cold River, hopping from rock to rock, and we ate our picnic lunch by the cellar hole of one of the earlier settler-farmers, Johnny Wallace. Fred read a quote about Johnny’s mother-in-law (I think I got that right) who was described as “a sharp-tongued woman.” She said she was going to bury Johnny in a Hemlock coffin so he would “go snapping through hell.” (Hemlock is a conifer with lots of sap, so it pops and crackles when its burning. Lovely thought.)
The bright orange hats in the photos are signs of hunting season. (It’s muzzle-loader deer hunting season.) We saw numerous moose tracks and admired the handiwork of beavers. Look at the house they built on Guinea Pond!
Our time with Fred Lavigne was every bit as enjoyable as we hoped it would be, and we were left even more in love with our little slice of heaven in the New Hampshire mountains. Thanks, Fred!
Fred and Todd with a photo of Camp 2
Beebe River waterfall
Fascinating!