SEARCHING for Bear's Den & Surrounding Caves, Gilsum NH

 

Somersworth's Bear Cage

Those of you who frequent these posts may already know who I am. Whether the topic includes collecting animal bones, or drudging up a blast from the past, my name will likely surface. For a more formal introduction, my name is Madison Rondinone, daughter of Dave. No, I am not a frequent hiker (mosquitoes and bushwhacking don’t exactly make for comforting companions), but I will never turn down a good adventure! This past week my mom and I ventured out to Willand Pond in Somersworth, New Hampshire.

If you haven’t swung by this neck of the woods, I would highly recommend it. Not only is there a one-mile walking trail that circles the pond, but there is an assortment of exercise and obstacle-themed activities along the way. (I’m not too proud to admit that I may have tried a few!) You’ve heard it here – these are both kid and adult-approved!

One thing I want to make mention of is the history that surrounds this land. Originally making way in the late 1800s, Willand Pond became a center for activity in the early 1900s. From a roller-skating rink to a dance hall, from bowling alleys to arcades, there was something for everybody to enjoy. Looking at this land now, you would never imagine it to be so flourished at one point in time. Though much of these sites are long gone, few relics remain to be treasured. On your way to the trails, you will cruise down High Street in Somersworth. What is now a state-run liquor store, was once a large car barn. This brick building is made unique with its tall, archway doors, adding character to the street-facing wall.

Now for my favorite part of the journey – the bear cage! That’s right, one of the largest attractions from the hot-spot days included a showing of black bear cubs. While noted that this is no longer a morally accepted form of entertainment, at the time this was one of their most famed attractions. Today you can walk up to, and in, the infamous stone cage. In recent years, the framework has been repaired. Interestingly enough, this mission was led by a local Eagle Scout, only 13 years old!

Unfortunately, that is the end of my journey this time. But as we all know, there is never an end to history. Next time you are cruising the seacoast of New Hampshire I would recommend a stop to Willand Pond. And lucky for you – if you are trying to avoid a hike, some of the coolest attractions await right at the front door.

https://www.dover.nh.gov/government/city-operations/library/history/Heritage-Walking-Tours/1986-heritage-walking-tour.html

https://www.fosters.com/article/20141130/gjcommunity_01/141139964

Remains of the Homestead Nursing Home

The Homestead Nursing Home opened in 1960 on Route 1 in southern Maine, just a stones throw north of the Kittery outlets. Among the home's offerings were an outpatient unit, dental and eye exam rooms, a surgical center, and many more state of the art amenities. A staff of 15 doctors and 40 employees worked here full-time, but in 2001 it was announced that the facility was expected to suffer financial losses of $340,000, and that owner Bill Gillis - who had purchased the business just two years prior - would be shutting it down.

The building sat empty for many years following its closure, but despite the town's 2012 demands that the structure be torn down, hazardous conditions and high demolition costs postponed its destruction for many more years to come. Left to the elements, what remained here became a haven for vandals and explorers alike.

   

Never one to pass up the chance of exposing ourselves to a little asbestos, a few buddies and I roamed this building in the winter of 2017. What we found was one of the nastier abandoned buildings I've been in, but one that still had plenty of things to see.

This room was of some importance judging by the large wall safe it contained, and I wonder if it were left open like this when the hospital was abandoned, or if some clever explorer was able to unlock it.

   

The hospital also contained several common areas, large rooms that became canvases for graffiti artists ranging from unoriginal and unimaginative to some quite talented.  

In many spots the walls and roof have deteriorated completely, opening the door for mother nature to enter in the form of vegetation during one half of the year, and snow during the other.  

I'm suspicious that this is the actual number of days without an accident the facility ended with. 

Nearly twenty years after shutting down, what sat as an eyesore for so many years is now touted as a success story by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Through a cooperative effort with a local developer they were able to tear down this building and divide the land into two separate parcels, and plans are now in the works to construct residential housing on one of those parcels and senior housing on the other. Meaning among other things, if you didn't get to explore this mess before now, you've missed your opportunity.

https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2020-10/documents/bf-ss-homestead-nursing-home-kittery-me.pdf

Video Exploration of the Campton Gold Mine

One of the better known mines of New Hampshire is the Campton Gold Mine.  I took advantage of our recent dry spell to cross the river and show you this walkthrough of the tunnel.  Although well known, I have not been able to find the history of this mine and welcome any info on it.  Thanks!

Glacial Potholes on Plummer's Ledge

There is a locality in town down the Buffalo Road less than half a mile from the Rumney line where the action of running water on solid rock can be studied to good advantage. Curiously enough, these potholes and caverns are on the top and sides of a high ledge with no water in sight.

- History of the Town of Wentworth, New Hampshire, George F. Plummer, 1930

In the clash between rock and running water, rock is going to win the short-term battle nearly every time. I suppose the only exception to this would be if the water was moving at an extremely fast rate, but throw an ice-age and some longevity into the mix and you just might end up with a geological wonder such as those found in the hills of Wentworth, New Hampshire. These are the glacial potholes of Plummer's Ledge, and they were formed by the churning of water and other debris during the melting of our most recent ice age.

This 3.5 acres of land was deeded to the state of New Hampshire in 1938 by George F. Plummer, the same man who wrote History of the Town of Wentworth, as quoted above. With Plummer's generous gift a state park was created where a half-dozen of these holes - and possible more that are buried and hidden - can be found along the ledge. Unfortunately - and head-scratchingly - the area has fallen into neglect and is no longer being maintained by the state, but it is still public land and therefore open to visitors.

We located the original trailhead on Buffalo Road, and parking is wherever you feel like your car will be out of the way enough to not get clipped by traffic.

Almost immediately the trail became blocked by downed trees and brush, forcing us onto makeshift trail nearby. But being that this is such a small patch of land it was not even enough to be considered a detour, and in just a matter of minutes we had found the first of the holes. No signs or markers exist to tell you what you're looking at, but you'll know them when you see them. The first was this double pothole on top of the ledge, smack in the middle of the trail.

But it's down around to the base of the ledge where you'll find the largest of the holes. In Geology of NH it is said that the deepest of them go to an enclosed depth of 20 feet, but all the big ones were filled with dirt or water and we weren't able to judge this for ourselves. What does show is the unenclosed portion in the side of the ledge, smooth and curved walls that are reminiscent of one of our more famous landmarks in New Hampshire, The Basin. 

All told we were back in our cars just half an hour after we arrived, making this the perfect side trip to an otherwise full day's adventure we had already carried out in the area. And that is our recommendation for anyone passing through or visiting Wentworth  - factor an extra hour into your day and visit the potholes of Plummer's Ledge. Maybe with enough interest this area could even return to being an actively maintained state park, once again.

The Poor Farm of Nottingham, NH

The house would be overseen by a man who would "manage to best of his ability" the farm. "He shall have the power to cause all Paupers that may become inmates of the farm labour according to their best abilities, and shall punish these disobedient and obstinate Paupers who can, but refuse to do as they are directed.

- Monday April 9, 1838, Town of Nottingham Bylaws & Regulations 

adopted in reference to the newly purchased Town Poor Farm.

Our introduction to the Poor Farm of Nottingham began with an afternoon stroll through the South Side Cemetery, an activity we find ourselves doing quite often when driving with no particular destination. Cemeteries, especially the older ones, can be a plethora of both beauty and local history, and although this one was unremarkable of any extravagant monuments we found one curious stone in the back left corner that simply read "In Memoriam". It stood near several unmarked graves, but despite our poking around we found no further information and left the cemetery having added another item to our to-do list - figuring out who or what was being memorialized here.

We reached out to the Nottingham Historical Society for answers, and if you've never spoken to anyone at your own local historical society I encourage you to take the opportunity if it ever arises. In 100% of my experience these are folks eager to offer you their time and resources and are truly appreciative of your interest in local history. I exchanged several emails with a volunteer named Leanne who not only replied with details of the memorial, but sent newspaper articles and meeting minutes from their archives as additional resources to its story. The stone was erected for residents of the town's former Poor Farm, and a timeline of its history is as follows:

The first motion to establish a poor house, or in this case a poor farm, was voted for on March 8, 1836. The motion was defeated, but two years later on March 13th a poor farm was again voted for, and this time the purchase of an existing farm was approved for its establishment. In a sign of how drastically different these times were, among the stipulations of how it should operate was that the farm must be overseen by "A suitable and desirable man who has a wife." 

The idea behind the farm was to give poor or vagrant people work to do in exchange for a place to live. An average year might see a half dozen or more people living there, such as in 1849 when 8 "paupers" were cared for and the farm was running so smoothly that the annual review resulted in no changes to its operation. But not all residents were there voluntarily. It was also a house of correction wherein "any one who through idleness and bad habits is unwilling or unable to support his wife and family so that they are town charges for forty-eight hours or more shall be imprisoned." In other words, if your family ended up on the 1800's version of welfare due to your own laziness, you were sent to the Poor Farm to work. There was no tolerance for deadbeat dads two-hundred years ago.

On paper a poor farm might seem like a great idea, but it had its share of detractors who repeatedly tried to shut it down. Perhaps unhappy with their taxes going to support the poor, or perhaps thinking the county's poor farm would be a more efficient solution than the town's, in 1843, 67 Nottingham residents - the required "sixth part of the town voters," - called for a special meeting to disband it. The farm survived this challenge but with it came the stipulation that they keep detailed records of each person living there and whether they worked to earn their keep, and that these records would be printed and distributed to voters within the town.

Under this scrutiny the farm continued to run for three more decades, but at a special meeting on March 29, 1872 a vote was finally passed to sell the farm and all its property, thereby shutting it down. 150 years later the house is still standing and in fact is occupied as a private residence. We gave it a drive-by one afternoon but it was set too far back from the road to get a picture of without crossing the line into creepersville.

34 years of housing vagrants saw many deaths occur at the farm, and since many of these residents had no family to claim them they were buried right there on the property. There they remained until the town had the bodies exhumed and moved to the South Side Cemetery in 1910, and this motion was passed to erect a monument in their honor.

But who was removed from the farm will forever remain a mystery, as by the time they were dug up no records existed to identify any of the bodies. They are the remains of the unknown, residents of a time unimaginable to most of us walking around with computers in our pockets today, and they are remembered with a simple and nondescript stone that is perhaps symbolic of the lives each of them lived.

Further Reading:

Concord Monitor - What if the poor were sent to work on town-owned farms? They were, and it wasn’t pretty

https://www.concordmonitor.com/poor-houses-and-town-firms-chichester-nh-historical-society-3582343

Piper Cherokee Wreckage on Saddleback Mountain

April 10, 2020

On May 28th, 1973, pilot George Delmar left West Haven Vermont on a flight bound for Rutland airport, also in Vermont. Following a previously failed departure from a nearby grassy field, his single engine airplane had suffered wing and propeller damage that he planned to have fixed in Rutland. Bad weather forced him to radio ahead and say he was instead turning for "home" - where Delmar lived in Walpole Massachusetts - but he never arrived and by the next morning a search had begun for his small, yellow and white airplane.

The Burlington Free Press - Wed May 30, 1973

Over the next five days, 25 airplanes and a privately owned helicopter made 113 sorties in an effort to find Delmar's plane, all without success. Because Delmar had not filed a flight plan for his detour, Aeronautics Commissioner Charles Miel said that searchers could not focus on a specific route and therefore were searching "all of southern Vermont". After five days without any leads, the search was called off.

The Burlington Free Press - Mon Jun 4, 1973

It wouldn't be until five months later that a group of hikers from the University of New Hampshire would locate Delmar's crumpled airplane in a "particularly inaccessible spot" of Saddleback Mountain, in the neighboring state of New Hampshire. The students blazed their path back to Route 4 in Northwood and called authorities with the location of the wreck.

The Portsmouth Herald - Tue Oct 23 1973

Delmar was a 25-year old race car driver who had flown to New Haven to participate in weekend races, but having no more than 50 hours of flight experience and holding just a student's pilot license, he wasn't trained in blind flying and therefore unqualified to fly in bad weather, factors that turned fatal when combined with the prior damage done to his aircraft. His body was finally recovered and laid to reset, however, as with many aircraft that have crashed within our mountains, the wreckage of the plane was left in the woods where it fell. Retrieving a body from a location such as this is hard enough in itself - retrieving the entire plane is often just not practical.

45 years after this tragedy we hiked to see Delmar's plane, and it looked much like I imagine it did when it crashed back in 1973. As it was described at the time, this spot is not one you're apt to just stumble across, and being so hidden from the public it seems to have only been touched by nature, not by any misguided souvenir seekers. Unfortunately that does happen at sites like this, but the only disruption here was this pair of trees that had fallen onto the plane.

Although crumpled, one side of the plane was still recognizable for what it used to be. The other side was a shredded pile of metal, and my belief is that this is where it was pried apart to extract Delmar's body. 

A few years had passed when in April of 2020 we made a return hike, and the only thing that seemed to have changed was that the downed trees were a little more rotted. A lot more rotted, in fact, enough to where between the combined muscle of our family we were able to lift them up and toss them aside, a feat that had my teenage daughter feeling pretty good about herself. 

And after cleaning the brush and debris off the plane my wife and I felt pretty good too, in that perhaps we restored just a small amount of dignity to the place that has now become George Delmar's memorial.

* Thank you to our friends at wermudfun for introducing us to this site and for all their extensive research.

* George Delmar, 1972

Brookline's Outdoor Sculpture Park

Even if you've never heard of an outdoor sculpture park, you can probably form a good idea of what one is just by hearing the term. And I think you'd be right. The idea is to take two things that are each really cool in their own right - artistic creations and hiking through the woods - and combine them into a single afternoon of fun and adventure.

Brookline's Outdoor Sculpture Park, officially known as the Andres Institute of Art, was founded in 1996 by philanthropist Paul Andres and serves to "provide a place in which individuals may experience art and nature in tandem." Their Facebook page describes them as "always open", and with 140 acres they've been able to expand to more than 90 exhibits and counting while still leaving plenty of room for social distancing.

There is no charge to visit here - your only costs are going to be the gas it takes you to make the drive plus a small donation should you choose to leave one. Nor does anyone actively work here. Just show up and grab yourself a map to begin your self-guided hike, and prepare to see all ranges of exhibits. At one extreme will be things like this one that could almost be believed to be a curiosity of nature.

And at the other extreme will be those that have no earthly business in the woods of New Hampshire, exhibits that will leave you marveling at how someone got them out here to begin with.

Expect a few yuks out here, as well. Several exhibits do a good job of combining both talent and humor, such as this one where by the time I figured out what the joke was, it was on me.

But the day I can't come to a place like this and have some laughs is the day I no longer like fun, and our day soon turned into seeing what scenes we could create by interacting with each exhibit. In this one I was nearly tricked into trading my brand new cell phone for a chunk of rock.

 When Technology Meets the Stone Age

As the person who accounts for 100% of the hair in our relationship, my wife was the only one qualified to pose with this next statue. 

Mirror Image

We took this trip back in 2018 with our friends from WeRmudfun - two people who enjoy fun so much they included it in their name - and it turned out to be one of our most memorable adventures that year. If you'd like to see a little more of what Brookline's Outdoor Sculpture Park has to offer, watch this video Chuck & Cheryl recorded of our antics that day. But as you're watching it remember one thing, my day job is as an accountant, not an actor.

The Raymond Cliff Caves, Weare NH

Raymond Cave is in the side of Raymond Cliff, near Everett station. Its opening is large enough for a man to comfortably enter erect. For the first forty feet it is about twelve feet high and eight feet wide, then for the next forty feet it is of smaller dimensions. It is very cold in summer. The cave is formed of huge, angular blocks which have fallen from the cliff above.

- The History of Weare, New Hampshire, 1735-1888

In 1876 John Clough paid $16.76 in taxes for 339 acres of property he owned in eastern Weare, near the bordering town of Dunbarton. Although a pittance by today's standards, these taxes were something he paid for year after year to hold on to the land, refusing to sell despite many offers. Clough loved this area and feared that if he sold the land it would be logged, and in 1932 he deeded the property to the State of NH, forever preserving it. A subsequent lawsuit trimmed the state's portion down to 150 acres, but Clough would be happy to know that nearly 100 years after gifting it away we still have his former property to enjoy, now known as the Clough State Park.

 

We explored here during the beginnings of the Covid-19 craziness, back when seeing someone in the woods with a mask on would still make you look twice, and probably pick up your pace. We chose this location thinking there wouldn't be any crowds, and although we counted a few dozen cars in the parking lot there was enough open space for us to obey the six-foot rule before it was even a rule.

No matter which trail you start off with the first thing you're going to notice is the 2,000 foot long Hopkinton Everett Dam, situated smack in the middle of everything. Completed in the 1960s after years in the making, this 115 foot tall structure is part of the Hopkinton-Everett Lakes Flood Risk Management Project, a mouthful of a project put into place to end a series of devastating floods that rampaged this area in the first part of the 1900s.

Our son Logan joined us for this trip, but it wasn't to admire the engineering of the dam or for any history lessons. To the west of the park are the Raymond Cliffs, and they are loaded with all sort of rocks and ledges to climb on, one of his favorite pastimes that doesn't require a keyboard and a mouse.

And for anyone without a teenager of their own, when you go climbing with your 16-year old son this is their idea of waiting up for you.

Logan had his own motive for coming here, and my wife Tina did as well. I have taken her on some hellacious hikes over the years, but today meant an afternoon of walking on her perfect idea of what a trail should be - flat, near water, spacious, and most importantly without any bushwhacking.  

Then there was me - and I was here for the caves. These ledges are a playground for all sorts of caverns and cubbyholes to explore. Many are small like this one, dark places where you're apt to go eyeball to eyeball with a porcupine or something equally cuddly.

Other caves were much larger. Steve Higham mapped these ledges in the June 2017 edition of The Northeastern Caver, with three of them being large enough to qualify for a name. There is the Lower Carr Cave, the Devils Step Cave (a name you'll understand if you navigate its southern entrance), and the largest and most well know of this area, the Raymond Cave. It's a mid-size cave as far as New Hampshire goes, measuring 99 feet in length, and throwing in the historical aspect makes for a really cool place to explore.

After our afternoon of playing - I was able to find all three of the named caves - we still had one more quest to complete. John Clough left his mark on society by giving us all this land, but he left his mark in a more literal sense, as well. Look for the largest free-standing boulder at the base of the Raymond Cliffs, then take a walk around it toward its water-side. Although perhaps not as prominent as it was a hundred years ago, where he engraved his name on this boulder is still clear enough to read to this today: John Clough.

Clough State Park is one of those places where we hadn't even left the parking lot and we were already planning our next trip here. This is a beautiful and unique area that has something to offer for anyone who doesn't like spending their weekends on the couch. That describes probably every single one of our friends, and we look forward to introducing them to this place when, and hopefully not if, our world returns to normal.

References:

https://extension.unh.edu/resources/files/Resource006141_Rep8795.pdf

https://www.nhstateparks.org/visit/state-parks/clough-state-park

Pig Lane's Abandoned Community

We love a good hike, we love local history, and we love coming across random artifacts in the woods. Wrapped up in 365 acres of conservation land that was once home to several residences and a pair of mills - one grist and one shingle - Pig Lane of Strafford has each of these things and more. And in this era of each person walking around with their own personal six-foot safety zone, Pig Lane is far enough off most people's radar to make for a perfect afternoon in the woods.

A couple of questions might come to mind when you read the above paragraph. Where the heck did the name Pig Lane come from, and what the heck is a shingle mill? According to the History of Strafford County New Hampshire and Representative Citizens (1914), Pig Lane is a name that seems to have just always been there, and its origin has been lost to time. As for what a shingle mill is, Google had a much easier time with that question. Up until the 19th century when wooden roofs were a standard thing for most houses, there were mills designed for the sole purpose of making these wedge shaped shingles.

Our hike began at the main trailhead where Range Road and New Road meet, a lot just big enough for five or six cars if you park them creatively. A kiosk and map show the variety of trails and where most of the remnants are, but as we learned over the course of two separate hikes here, there's more out in these woods than what is shown on the map.

Probably the only mistake you can make is to take your first right at the four way intersection you'll encounter just minutes into the hike. It will bring you to the power lines and who knows where beyond this, but I can tell you from experience it won't be Pig Lane. After backtracking I eventually led our group to the Beaver Pond Loop, which after a marsh splits onto Foss Mill Trail, a beautiful river walk that winds along the Isinglass.

You might spot the remains of a foundation on the opposite side of the water, which is the former site of the Grey/Foss/Swaine Mill. Don't be tempted to try crossing for a closer look though, there's a much easier, and dryer, way to get there if you finish Foss Mill Trail and loop over the bridge.

This is where Pig Lane bisects the conservation property and where you'll start finding all the goodies shown at the kiosk. After seeing the mill - just a 220 foot walk down Mill Access Trail - our next detour was to the Foss Family Cemetery where we counted 13 fieldstone markers, none of which were engraved. Someone has figured out who is buried here though, for one stone was marked as a Civil War soldier, and another as a soldier from the Revolutionary War.

Perhaps the same person or group who marked these veteran's graves has also done a wonderful job piecing together other parts of Pig Lane's history. The next foundation we saw was the Swaine's house, where a sign shows you not only what that house looked like but tells the story of a flood that forced the family's evacuation out a second story window. Seems like there wouldn't be much left of the structure after that much water, but subsequent research told us the house actually survived this devastating flood and was lived in for many years afterward. Today, this is all that is left of it.

On the west side of Pig Lane you'll find what is labeled as a 1700's mill, and I'm still not clear on whether this one was the grist mill or the shingle mill. But I do know what it looked like. Stairs lead you down to the water, where along the way you'll find this sign showing the old mill and where to look for its remains.

Back on Pig Lane we continued north past a handful of foundations - which if you're a geocacher you'll want to pay close attention to - before finding a second cemetery which was not listed on the map. And unlike the earlier one that told us where the people were buried but not who they were, this cemetery told us who the people were but not where they were buried, as several of the engraved headstones have toppled from their original location.

One more off-the-map treasure our friend spotted was this vehicle deeper into the woods, and you can guess what we spent the next ten minutes doing. I though it looked like an old hot-rod from the sixties, but the heavy duty frame suggested it's probably the remains of a work vehicle.

Our final tally came to 4.6 miles and there were still some trails we didn't get to. But the ones we did were well groomed, had beautiful scenery, no crowds, and even held a few surprises. And unlike our more rigorous trails up north this system has no real climbing to speak of, making it an easy and unique afternoon in the woods that should appeal to explorers of all levels.

Links:

Connect with life in the 1700s in Strafford The Isinglass Conservation Reserve Trails reveal early settler history  - Foster's Daily Democrat

History of Strafford County, New Hampshire and Representative Citizens - John Scales