SAW-MILL AT CENTRE HARBOUR, LAKE WINIPISEOGEE.

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early annals are highly interesting, and we cannot better associate drawings of scenes of cultivated life at the present day, than by portraying some of the steps by which the comfort and civilization of the state have been attained.

"No person," says the record, "had hitherto attempted to remain through the winter on the township. Those who came in the summer to clear their lands, brought their provisions with them, and erected temporary huts to shelter them. from the weather. In the summer of 1736, at least one house was erected; and three persons, Nathan Blake, Seth Heaton, and William Smeed, (the two first from Wrentham, and the last from Deerfield,) made preparations to pass the winter in the wilderness. Their house was at the lower end of the street. Blake had a pair of oxen and a horse, and Heaton a horse. For the support of these, they collected grass in the open spots; and in the first part of the winter they employed them in drawing logs to the saw-mill, which had just been completed. Blake's horse fell through the ice of Beaver-brook, and was drowned. In the beginning of February their own provisions were exhausted, and, to obtain a supply of meal, Heaton was despatched to Northfield. There were a few families at Winchester, but none able to furnish what was wanted. Heaton procured a quantity of meal; but before he left Northfield, the snow began to fall; and when, on his return, he arrived at Winchester, it was uncommonly deep, and covered by a sharp crust. He was told that he might as well expect to die in Northfield and rise again in Upper Ashinelot, as ride thither on horseback.' Recollecting the friends he had left there, he nevertheless determined to make the attempt; but had proceeded only a short distance when he found that it would be impossible to succeed. He then returned, and directed his course towards Wrentham. Blake and Smeed, hearing nothing from Heaton, gave the oxen free access to the hay, left Ashnelot, and, on snow-shoes, proceeded either to Deerfield or Wrentham. Anxious for their oxen, they returned early in the spring. They found them near the Branch, south-east of Carpenter's, much emaciated, but feeding upon twigs and such grass as was bare. The oxen recognised their owner, and exhibited such pleasure at the meeting as drew tears from his eyes.

"About this time, John Andrews came from Boxford to settle in Upper Ashnelot. He sent back Ephraim Donnan and Joseph Ellis with a team of eight oxen and a horse, to bring up his furniture. The route they came, which was probably then the best, if not the only one, led through Concord, Worcester, Brookfield, Belchertown, Hadley, Hatfield, Deerfield, Northfield, Winchester, Swanzey, and on the banks of the Ashnelot, to the house lots. When they passed through Swanzey, it rained hard, and they did not reach the station until night. As it continued to rain, was very dark, and as the water, which already covered the meadows, rose rapidly, they, apprehensive of being drowned, unyoked their

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LITTLE FALLS ON THE MOHAWK.

oxen, chained their cart to a tree, and hastened to the settlement, then a mile distant. As soon as day-light appeared, the next morning, a boat was despatched in search of the cattle and furniture; when, passing over Bullard's Island, a man cried to them for help. It was Mark Ferry, the hermit. Wearied with the noise and bustle of the settlement, he had retired to a cave, which he had dug into the bank of the river, where he constantly resided. The water had now driven him from his dwelling, and compelled him to seek refuge on a stump, where he then sat, with a calf in his arms, over which he had drawn a shirt. The boatman answered, "we must take care of the neat cattle first," and passed on. They soon came to the cart, which was afloat. Proceeding further, and guided by the sound of the bells, which the cattle as usual wore, they found them on several little hillocks-some with only their heads out of water. They forced them into the water, and guided them, swimming, to high land, where they left them until the flood subsided. Hearing cries for help below them, they proceeded to Crissen's House, in the borders of Swanzey, to the chamber and to the top of which the family had been driven. These they took off, and, on their return home, took Ferry and his calf into the canoe. This, which was known by the name of Andrew's flood, was the highest ever known in the township. The water came within a few feet of the street north of Captain Blake's old house."

THE LITTLE FALLS ON THE MOHAWK.

THE cavities worn in the rocks about these Falls, afford great matter of speculation to the geologist. The rock is gneiss, and these circular pots are worn evidently by the attrition stones kept in agitation by the current of a river. The astonishing part of it is, that these cavities are, some of them, more than a hundred feet above the present level of the Mohawk, proving that river to have been thus much higher in former times, and of course a lake, whose waters must have extended far and wide over the broad interval above. The narrow passage

LITTLE FALLS ON THE MOHAWK.

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which it makes through the hills just below, shut in by perpendicular precipices on each side, would be sufficient to have made the theory probable without the assistance of these appearances.

These cavities are very numerous, and the largest are about eight feet deep, and fifteen in diameter. The rocks exhibit evidences of having been washed by water still higher. There are analogous traces of lakes on the Connecticut and Hudson rivers, which break through the mountains in a similar manner, the first between Mount Tom and Mount Holyoke, and the latter at the Highlands; but the depth and number of these rock-worn cavities are peculiar to Little Falls.

In approaching this part of the Mohawk from the east, the stranger is first delighted with the bold abutments on the river of two dark precipices, whose summits are laden with foliage, and which rise so abruptly from the undulating banks of the Mohawk, that they seem designed as barriers to the pass. The river glides between, darkened by their shadow; and close under the face of one precipice shoots the rail-car, while as close under the opposing one glides the silent passage-boat of the canal. Emerging to the sunshine beyond, the river spreads out in its thousand windings, as if rejoicing in the space of which it is so soon to be deprived, and in a moment or two (if you are travelling by steam) your course is arrested amid the foaming and busy scenery of the Falls, the picturesque and the hideous, the wildly beautiful and the merely useful, so huddled together that the artist who would draw either the architecture or the scenery by itself, would scarce find a bit large enough for a vignette.

Alluring as the picturesque and fertile valley of the Mohawk must have been, it was not till after the revolution that it was sought by white men with a view to settle. For some years after the war, it was still the beaver country of the aborigines, or the place of their wigwams; and the country round about, now stocked with villages, and without a red-face to be seen, was a hunting-ground, in which ranged bears, foxes, wolves, deer, and other game, the Indians themselves calling it couxsachraga, or the dismal wilderness. The town of Mohawk, where the tribe dwelt up to the year 1780, is but thirty-six miles west of Albany.

General Sir William Johnson lived not many miles below Little Falls, and from this spot to Canada Creek a tract of fourteen miles was given to him on his marriage with a Mohawk girl, by King Hendricks, the faithful Indian ally of the whites. It is a curious fact, that, during the war of the revolution, a son of Sir William Johnson, in the English service in Canada, made an incursion at the head of a party of hostile Indians on the very lands once owned by his father.

The Mohawks contended very fiercely for the honour of original descent. The Iroquois, who were more powerful, they considered as interlopers; and, in the following tradition, give the basis of their pedigree :