reprinted from Main Street - June 2002 - Volume XVIII Number 6

Today Alton Mountain Road starts at the base of Pine Mountain (Alton Mountain). After turning off of Rand Hill Road, once named Old Laconia Road, you begin the beautiful trip through the landscape. Over the past 30 years houses have been built along the roadside left and right. Also, the roadside at the top of the mountain has been cleared for a gorgeous view of the lake below. Upon reaching the "corner gate" you may turn right and continue along Alton Mountain Road or turn left to Gilmanton on Avery Hill Road. The road wasn’t always laid out like this.

The road was once dirt, making travel in all weather difficult, and it also followed a different path. In the early 1800's most travel was concentrated out of the (Gilmanton) Ironworks where settlers went for supplies and to go to church. The road then traveled to the Clough Small Place’s Sawmill that stood at the mouth of Sunset Lake, then called Place’s Pond. (When was the name changed?) Along this road to the sawmill is where the first farms were built with many of the old cellar holes still visible today. The old road out of Gilmanton that went between Hills Pond and the dam is now very narrow, rough and grown over. The ruts are not even lined with a stonewall like the lower half of the mountain, showing that the area was never really farmed.

The lower half of the mountain coming from Alton Bay was straightened out around 1929-1931. In the even earlier years there wasn’t a road connecting to Alton, and this meant the settlers had to travel through the Ironworks or through the dense forests to reach the town. Before the road was moved it ran up the mountain through the blueberry field to the Grand View Inn where it turned and continued to the present corner gate. Traveling to the right allowed you to go to Hill’s Pond or to Jesus Valley Road on Route 11.

The first road on the lower mountain is still visible today though it is overgrown with trees. (Now I believe a house has been built there near the "pipe" spring. It’s driveway runs between the stone walls that used to define the road.) It is even still lined with the stone walls that guided wagons over 100 years ago. Traveling up Alton Mountain Road today, the old road lies to the left just behind the houses on the street. The old road has not gone unused; it is presently the driveway to a number of houses, and it is the entrance road to the blueberry field.

In the mid 1800's Avery Hill Road was constructed. Perley Clough and Andrew Hill, two settlers of the area, cleared the road together that led from the present corner gate to the dam. The dirt road would become the heart of the region where schools would be built and the graveyard laid. It would later be named after a gentleman by the name of David Avery who bought the Clough farm.

At the turn of the century there were six prominent farms on Alton Mountain - those of Josiah and Rueben Smith, Dr. Jonathan Hill, Samuel Elkins and Perley and Simon Clough. Though today the farms are no longer standing almost all of their cellar holes are still visible. One of the very first settlers of the area was Dr. Jonathan Hill who built his house near Hill’s Pond which now holds his name. (...and you thought it was so named because it is surrounded by hills.....) Up until about ten years ago the Hill house stood next to the Ellis Cemetery at the end of the mountain road. (Instead of turning onto Alton Shores road keep going on the dirt road and the cemetery is on your left. The Hill House burnt several years ago. A new house has now been built there although there must be a right of way to access the trails at the boy scout camp. The people who own the new house have built the ‘cabana’ at the far end of Hills Pond. They have also donated a parcel of land adjacent to the town forest on Avery Hill Road)

Ithiel Smith moved to the area soon after his friend Dr. Hill. He lived on the mountain for a few years, but later sold his farm to his son Josiah. Josiah built a farmhouse and lived on the property for 15 years until 1799 when he sold it to his brother Rueben for $1,000. Rueben Smith lived on the farm for four years before he sold the property to James Tibbetts. Mr. Tibbetts prospered on the farm up until old age when he sold the farm to Esreal Sawyer in 1853.

In 1780 Samuel Elkins bought land between the dam and Hills Pond and built a house. Mr. Elkins was a close friend of Dr. Hill. When Elkins was a boy, a tree fell on his right leg and left him crippled. When he moved to Alton Mountain he ran errands for Dr. Hill and was his handyman. During the winter of 1792 the family suffered a devastating blow. When going to Gilmanton on errands for his father, Samuel’s son, Stephen, got caught in a snowstorm and died. Samuel Elkins died in 1799 and soon the family moved and sometime during the 1800's the house burned down.

Another early settler of Alton Mountain was Perley Clough. Perley grew up in Gilmanton and later worked for the father who owned the Clough sawmill at the time. Here Perley worked until his father, Simon Clough, sold the mill to Joseph Small and then moved to Canada. Perley married Sally Smith in 1792 and the two had three children together - Hannah, Joshua and Aaron. Perley inherited land from his father and farmed for over 40 years. He was active in town affairs and helped establish the school district. Perley was directly related to William Clough who invented the corkscrew. In 1839 Perley sold the farm to David Avery of Gilmanton for $1,000. Today Avery Hill Road is named after him.

More recently in the 1900's the land just after the Alton Mountain Cemetery was farmed by the Glidden’s. Today the family still lives on this same land. Here they grew strawberries, corn and maple syrup. They also shipped blueberries to Boston that had been grown atop of Avery Hill. Trudy Hunter can remember being pulled up the hill by horses on her way to pick blueberries during the summer.

Perhaps the most interesting piece of information would be that about the Ellis house. It is said that it was once used as a fort for protection. It was located next to the Hill house and they say it had a great many peepholes along the outside. The farms have all disappeared and the fields have grown over, but the cellar holes remain. It is these that tell the stories of the families that once lived there.

As more and more families moved to Alton Mountain, it became clear that a schoolhouse was needed. The six mile trip to the village was too long and soon a school was established. At first a small building in the woods was used, but the mountain people felt that one was needed along the main road close to where most of the families lived at the time. And so a schoolhouse was built to the right of the corner gate on the left hand side of the road. Unfortunately by 1930 the schoolhouse was struck with tragedy when fire destroyed it.

The second schoolhouse was located to the left side of the corner gate, just before the Alton Mountain Cemetery on the right hand side of the road. The school was grades 1-8 and all were taught by one teacher. Dana Morse, who grew up on the mountain, can still remember when he attended the first grade at the school in 1931 with about 16 to 18 other children. Going to school was a thrill for the children because it meant they could interact with people their own age on a regular basis.

Upon finishing eighth grade the students either ended their education or made the long trip into the village once again to attend higher grades. In 1933 the school on Alton Mountain ended. Alton students still continued to educate themselves. Ms. Claence Dore, who was salutatorian of her class. Became the secretary for her two brothers who both later became governors of New Hampshire. Perhaps even more impressive is the story of Dr. Carroll Jones, one to the top psychiatrists in the country at the time who was asked to testify in the Lindbergh trial.

Alton Mountain has been the home of many businesses from brick making on Hills Pond to the Clough Small Place’s Sawmill, but the most prominent businesses were the farms. One of these successful farms, the Morse Farm, still stands today located on the right-hand side of the road. Albert Sr., Dana Morse’s father, ran the farm. He sold lamb, butter, vegetables, milk and blueberries to the Advent Campground in Alton Bay. He also brought milk to the Alton Bay Railroad Station and sold it to HP Hood. But the largest industry of all would be the blueberry field. Located on Pine Mountain, Albert Sr. took over the field and built a shed in the 1930's. Times on the blueberry field have changed though. Once the berries were winnowed (cleaned) by hand and only cost $,03 a quart. Today a machine does the work and a quart costs $3. The shed still stands today, and the Morses still sell blueberries making the business over 150 years old.

Once named the Grand View Inn of the Grand View Manor, today is the home of the Lindlands. Traveling up Alton Mountain Road the road begins to level off and then it begins to climb again and turns to the left. On this corner about one quarter mile before the corner gate stands the Grand View Inn. The inn is about 145 years old, and in its’ earlier days it was the alternative lodging to the inn at the Bay, many saying it was a bit less formal. The building was built by Charles Hayes in the mid 1800's. Hayes used the building as a boarding house, but in 1920 it was ruined by fire; Hayes rebuilt it. Mr. Hayes sold the inn to Amanda Willard who opened the doors to summer visitors, some of whom stayed for months at a time. Dana Morse, a neighbor to the inn, can remember when his father would pick up visitors down at the railroad station and bring them back up to the inn. In its’ time the Grand View Inn was a thriving business with everything a guest could want. The inn closed in the late 1940's, but forty years later it was again used, this time as a family-owned sub shop.

When Alton Mountain began to become settled, a cemetery was needed in the heart of the country on Avery Hill Road. After turning left at the corner gate, the Alton Mountain Cemetery lies on the right-hand side of the road, on a little hill about three quarters of a mile down. Here, many of the early settlers are buried along with their families in blood and in name. Veterans from the Revolution, the War of 1812 and Civil War are lad to rest here along with Nehemiah Sleeper for whom Sleeper’s Island is named. Today the cemetery is immensely overgrown with bushes and vandalism has taken its’ toll. Many grave stones have been knocked over, moved and some have even been stolen.

Just across from the dam on Place’s Mill road lies the family plot of the Sapirs. Behind the old summer house is a field and in the right back corner stands the massive rock that marks the graves of Edward Sapir and Jean V. Sapir. Before there were laws restricting it, many families buried their dead on their property, and this is an example of a family plot.

If you turn right at the corner gate and continue along Alton Mountain Road, it eventually turns to dirt and narrows out. At the end of the road where the Ellis and Hill houses once stood lies the Ellis cemetery. Here rests David Ellis, Alfred Ellis and his wife Mary, and their daughter Amanda. The Ellis Cemetery is still well kept and has flowers growing within its’ stone walls. Across the road from the Ellis Cemetery is a field of high grass where deer like to hide. If you walk through this field all the way to the back right corner, there is an old stone wall where there is a single grave, that of Betsey Flanders. Unlike the Ellis Cemetery this cemetery is all but forgotten.

Other settlers of Alton Mountain were buried on their farms and today their graves are lost under topsoil, but three settlers of the mountain are buried in the Hall’s Hill Cemetery - James Tibbetts and Jonathan Hill and his wife Mehitable.

Today, Alton Mountain weather is as it was 150 years ago, altogether unpredictable. It is always changing and often times it will be completely different from weather down at the bay.

The mountain was famous for blizzards that would dump huge amounts of snow and ice atop the land and because of this settlers often didn’t see anyone at all during the winter months. They stayed on the farm living off what they had produced the summer before and just trying to stay warm. At that time these roads were not plowed after a storm; instead a huge roller was taken out and hitched to a team or two of horses. Then the sand filled roller was pulled along the road. The weight of the heavy roller then packed down the snow making it a bit easier to travel by wagon. When the winter months began to be over and the spring crept its’ way in, the fertile soil grew soft. The melting snow would then cause the dirt roads to become flooded, leading to washouts three feet and deeper.

Over the years the mountain has been in the path of numerous storms. Two storms stand out in the memory of Dan and Ann Morse. The first was a hurricane in 1936 which caused a great deal of damage. The other is the ice storm in 1998 when it rained for two to three days and the entire landscape was covered in an inch or more of ice. It covered the roads making them impassable and trees and power lines making them strain under weight. Pretty soon the weight of the ice became too much for everything to hold and that’s when all the noise began. Trees could be heard popping and snapping just like toothpicks. As the branches fell they took down the power lines with them. the mountain waited for a whole week before power was restored.

There is still evidence of damage as you drive up the mountain road. Many trees only have a few branches at the their tops. It is a shame to see the damage that Mother Nature can cause; it is a wonder to see it heal itself.