Rambling New England Nature

Purgatory Falls, Mont Vernon, NH
November 7, 2015

[Photos at end of Text]

After parking off Dow Road in New Boston, I enter an attractive forest just beyond an information kiosk for Purgatory Falls. Wintergreen and partridgeberry, both with red fruit, dominated the leaf litter, and this mixed woods consists of Aspen, birch, young white pine trees and beech. The wintergreen leaves smell like wintergreen and the berries taste like wintergreen, though the texture isn’t as agreeable as the taste.

   Soon, I turn left and walk along a path lined with pioneer trees: aspen, birches and young white pine trees. I notice that the birches are slender and perfectly straight. There is room on the path for a good landing. My heart beats just a bit faster as I realize that these are ideal birches for swinging. Having grown up near a large second growth woods and having read Robert Frost’s Poem “Birches,” I rarely pass up an opportunity to swing a birch. Even as I grow older, the risk seems well worth it.

“When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay
As ice-storms do.” 

You don’t want to climb a birch that leans forward; you need a straight tree. And, once you find such a tree, slender enough to fit your weight, you must climb it correctly, not weighting it down to soon; but, at the right moment, you release and kick your feet out behind you. It has to happen at just the right height.

“He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.”

Frost climbed birches to get away from Earth for a while, but he chose the birch because he
knew it would return him safely to Earth, which is where he knew he belonged.

“May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love.”

And, Frost concludes, as we all must, especially those of us who have felt the satisfaction of a
good swing:

“One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.”

Purgatory Brook with adjacent marsh

   I walk along the stone-wall lined path until I come to the wide-spreading Purgatory Brook with its adjacent marsh. Maleberry, meadowsweet and royal fern grow here; and, overhanging the water, winterberry is showing off its dense clusters of red berries. Autumn, perhaps more than any other time of the year, is the season to step back from the color and structure and meanings of individual plants to take in the grand landscape view, a view no longer blocked by leaves, the artistic view, I suppose; with earth-tone colors and shapes that are softened by an Indian Summer haze. Standing at the water’s edge, joining the brook-side shrubs, I face, as they do, downstream, to the shadows and reflections of overhanging trees, the outcrops jutting out like small island habitats, the sky joining the water, until the brook turns out of sight and my imagination takes it a bit farther until the vision fades, and I’m taken back to the nearer winterberry shrubs, counting the missing red berries. Like Frost swinging his birch to momentarily leave the Earth, my imagination takes me away from what’s near to me, the actual, but, I too know I must return; and having left, I eagerly continue my ramble.  

   After leaving the edge of Purgatory Brook, I see that Curtis Brook connects with Purgatory Brook ahead, at a bridge. E. C. Curtis owned a saw-mill on Curtis Brook at the turn-of-the-Nineteenth Century. During much of the Nineteenth Century, this was a grist mill. Curtis Brook, by the way, was known as a “trapper’s” brook, “it’s many sluggish pools,” according to the History of the Town of Lyndeborough (1906), “making it the congenial home of the mink, the muskrat and the otter.” I turn right where the two brooks meet and continue to follow Purgatory Brook. At length, behind me, Purgatory Brook runs into Souhegan River in Milford, NH.

   I pass a large glacial boulder, split in half where, each winter, ice finds its weakness. On top of the boulder is a patch of evergreen polypore fern. Small waterfalls, hinting at those larger falls to come, bubble behind the boulder. I see several small tannish-brown mushrooms on a fallen log. Is it a red maple?  

   The climb steepens, and Purgatory Brook falls into a valley well below the path through this mixed forest. Looking into the valley, I imagine the great river that filled it, water flowing from a melting glacier 15,000 years ago. I’m standing at the edge of that imaginary river; I look downriver and see it flowing freely across a landscape bare of trees and grass and plants. This water carved out this V-shaped landscape and then slowed as the glacier shrunk. The river shrunk in size and power until it became a mere brook at the bottom of this valley. 

   This mixed forest is dominated by beech, hemlock, oak, red maple. The beech leaves are the most conspicuous color in this forest. They’ve turned a beautiful yellow-brown as they linger on the stems. Off the path, I see fresh-looking green patches of spinulose wood fern (Dryopteris carthusiana) covering rocks and large patches of ground. These wood ferns form circular groups, have brown scales at the base of their stems and prominent spores on the underside of the leaflets.

To Middle Purgatory Falls

   At a sign for Middle Purgatory Falls, I descend steeply into the valley, to the falls, passed moss-covered rocks and large outcrops showing erosion and cracks, ragged rock surrounding the waterfall. It seems as though a giant outcrop has been broken down, forming angled, broken rocks over which the water falls. The water is loud and rushing white over the rock and into a small basin below, splashing and spraying. I’m sure this is even more dramatic in spring, with the snow’s runoff. The moss covering the adjacent rocks, breaking them up so that ferns and birches can grow from them tempts one’s imagination; I squint just so to reveal magical deer and fire birds and elves and Milton’s fairy damsels. I glance, still squinting, just beyond the rocks and see the stuff of the brothers Grimm; perhaps the dangers of the Mirkwood Forest of Norse legend; and, of course, the heroes of any folkloric forest!  

Path to Upper Purgatory Falls

   I climb back up the steep slope to the path and head for the Upper Falls. The path is edged by the evergreen leaves of trailing arbutus, partridgeberry, and the leaves of bunchberry, with a marron tinge. There are old Indian pipes here that have turned brown and more wood fern spread in circular groups throughout the slope to my left. I turn to the valley below the path and see an interestingly shaped rock, about seven feet high and seven feet wide in a squarish-cylindrical shape, as if a cylindrical slab was pushed up through the earth. I descend again and cross Purgatory Brook for a closer look at the rock.

Upper Purgatory Falls

   The view is fascinating from downstream of the Upper Purgatory Falls, looking upstream, through pale birches and over the rocky edges of the brook, to the tall wall, towering over the basin and the craggy channels of rock through which water has flowed for centuries. I continue to walk upstream, alongside the brook, the flow of water from the waterfall growing louder, until I see the rush of white water, spiraling through the narrow channels above, cascading down those craggy rocks, foaming up as it runs in and out from potholes and over the smoothed rock at the bottom, loud and powerful, stirring up the basin or small enclosed pond below. The basin is large and shadowed by the tall surrounding cavern-like rock wall.

   I carefully maneuver over the stepping stones in this enchanted shallow basin, toward the falls. Soon, I’m face to face with the cascading water, a slight spray catching my face, the crash of water still louder. Watching the falling water crash into the potholes, I wonder at how many centuries it must have taken for the water, sand and pebbles to have ground away the rock into these smoothed four to six inch holes. Assuming a four-inch pothole, and assuming this rushing water’s beginning is associated with the melting of a giant glacier some 15,000 years ago, the water would have increased the depth of the pothole by approximately .0067 millimeters per year (25 millimeters = 1 inch).  

   Standing on these rocks in the middle of this basin and looking around me, it feels as though I’m in an old cave that has been worn back, and this might have been what happened over the past several thousand years.

   I leave the water and ascend to the top of the falls, thinking that the best time to see this falls is while a mile-high glacier is melting above it; I guess the second best time would be during the spring runoff, especially after a winter with a heavy snowfall. Being at the top and looking into the falls, I feel like I’m witnessing its inner workings, like seeing the mechanics within a watch. Flowing from a relatively flat bed of a brook behind the falls, the water is pushed around, stalled as it passes through the spiral channels, and then accelerates just before gravity pulls it over the rocks. I can see smoothed half-circle shapes where the water wore away the rock, apparently during a time when the amount of water flowing through this channel was of a much greater volume.

   I notice the iron spikes embedded into the rock. These spikes supported the railings that surrounded a six or seven foot deep glacial pothole away from the brook, just above the water channel. These iron spikes are all that remains of the center attraction that entertained thousands of people each year beginning in 1889.    

Victorian Entertainment at Upper Purgatory Falls

Toward the end of the 19th Century, when men took advantage commercially of any natural land feature, H. A. Hutchinson, the owner of this property, joined with Henry F. Dodge and Joseph G. Carleton to build a hotel and pavilion at Purgatory Grove, nearby this upper falls. The entertainment at this Grove included bowling and bands and readings.

   During the 1820s, a tavern with entertainment was built along the Middlesex Canal at Horn Pond in Woburn, MA to attract visitors from Boston who paid to ride packet boats along the canal. And, later, Benson’s Animal Farm in Lexington, MA and, later, Hudson, NH enticed Boston residents to ride trolley cars to the country.   

   According to The History of Mont Vernon (1907), “The survivors of the world-renowned family of Hutchinson singers, John W. Hutchinson, of Lynn, and his sister, Mrs. Abby H. Patton of New York, who led a choir composed of such other members of the ‘Tribe of Jesse’ as had inherited something of that rare gift, thrilled and charmed the vast audience by the sweetest music.” This singing family was, in fact, the most popular American entertainers of the 1840s. Their first concert was in Milford, NH in 1840.

   Whether the owners of this enterprise invented the story or whether it was already a myth surrounding the falls, I’m not sure; but, legend has it that the Devil, himself, lured local residents to this dark spot by offering to cook them a delicious bean dinner in his bean pot, actually a glacial pothole. Surrounded by these residents, the Devil’s foot became stuck in the rock after it grew soft from the extreme heat of the cauldron. The Devil cursed out loud and scared the residents away, foiling his evil plan, whatever that might have been. To this day, the Devil’s Bean Pot and seven-foot footprint are visible in the rock above the falls. And, so are several iron posts that held up a railing built by Hutchinson around this pothole. Hutchinson’s attractions lured thousands of visitors while in operation.

   In 1889, Hutchinson built a dam at the upper falls to hold back the rush of water. Billed as a “Grand Exhibition,” at the right moment, he would open the flood gate. The guests watched in awe as the backed-up white water cascaded over the craggy rocks, crashing into the basin below. The hotel and pavilion went bust during the Great Depression and eventually fell to ruins.

   Apparently, visitors to this place would climb down into the Devil’s Bean Pot, and some of them chiseled their name into the rock. The most visible name is E. L. Holt, who obviously used an actual chisel and hammer to set his name in the rock in 1871. At this time, there was a Holt family in Mont Vernon, and one of them was named Ebenezer Holt. He was born in 1730 at Andover, MA, but settled on a farm in Mont Vernon. Obviously, this wasn’t our E. L. Holt. There was also an Ezekiel Holt who was born in 1741. He also settled in Mont Vernon. And, there was an Emory Holt who owned pasture land in Lyndeborough. Though there were numerous Holts who lived in Mont Vernon and Lyndeborough at the time, so far, I’ve been unable to trace back an E. L. Holt.

Glacial Potholes 

   What was locally known as the Devil’s Bean Pot is an example of what geologists call a Moulin pothole. “Moulin potholes (also called glacial potholes),” according to E. D. Elston in the 1917 Scientific Monthly article, “Potholes: Their Variety, Origin and Significance,” are in general to be correlated with what are popularity termed giants’ kettles and are associated in origin with the melting of glacial ice.”

   Elston cites G. K. Gilbert (“Moulin Work under Glaciers,” Bull. Geol. Soc of Am, 1906), who “ascribes these potholes to the work of a Moulin or glacial mill which is a stream of water plunging from the top of the base of a glacier through a well of its own maintenance. The water, which is chiefly derived from ice melting, usually has a short course as a stream on the surface of a glacier before reaching the well, and it escapes from the bottom of the well by a channel under the glacier. The Moulin originally forms in a crack or crevasse, and in its initial stage the crevasse must extend from the top to the bottom of the ice mass to admit and transmit the water stream. After a time the crevasse generally becomes sealed by regelation except where the falling water maintains an opening. Thus a vertical fall develops and the stream strikes the rock bed beneath with great force. Boulders and sand are carried by the surface stream to the well and at the base of the ice the plunging water picks up rock fragments and sand from the ground moraine and thus material is used as tools with which to attack the rock bed. With long enough continuance of such action a hole is formed which deepens and assumes the character of a normal pothole of very large size.”

   After reading this, and looking at the pothole, I can see that the rear section of this cylindrical hole is smooth and taller at the back or upstream wall. The front or downstream section is worn away, suggesting a rush of water digging this pothole and the water rushing out the front, wearing away rock as it forcefully pushes its way out over the brim.

 Purgatorio

Why is this property known as Purgatory Falls? Purgatory is a place reserved for those who have died in a state of Grace, but need to be purified before they can be sent to heaven. No one in purgatory goes to hell, and this place seems to be about the influence of the Devil. So, the name doesn’t make much sense if we focus on the legend of the Devil enticing locals (there were only about 600 people living in Mont Vernon during the late 1800s). Perhaps it comes from some wrong interpretation of the term, “purgatory,” or, maybe there are other legends that haven’t reached our present day. It would make sense that such a place, with rushing water, would become a place of purification. Perhaps, the story about the Devil was a fabrication; perhaps this was, in fact, a place of purification for local residents.

   “The theme of Dante’s ‘Purgatorio’ is the purification of the soul,” wrote Susan E. Blow in the January 1885 Journal of Speculative Philosophy article, ‘Dante’s Purgatorio.’ “It describes not a place, but a process; not a future possibility, but an ever-present reality. It represents the eternal transition from evil to good, and all struggling souls may find in it a reflection of their conflict and a sure prophecy of their final victory.”

“As when, to harbinger the dawn, springs up
On freshen’d wing the air of May, and breathes
Of fragrance, all impregn’d with herb and flowers,
E’en such a wind I felt upon my front
Blow gently, and the moving of a wing
Perceiv’d, that moving shed ambrosial smell;
And then a voice: ‘Blessed are they, whom grace
Doth so illume, that appetite in them
Exhaleth no inordinate desire,
Still hung’ring as the rule of temperance wills.’”

                 - From Dante’s Divine Comedy, “Purgatorio,” Canto XXIV

“The changed attitude of the soul is the significant distinction between the Purgatory and the Inferno,” wrote Blow. “The spiritual universe is always the same, but it is differently reflected in the mirror of individual consciousness. The soul steeped in sin has become a distorting mirror which gives back love as hate, and heaven as hell. Each denizen of the Inferno might echo the despairing cry which Milton puts into the mouth of Lucifer: ‘What matter where, if I be still the same?’ The consciousness of the penitents in Purgatory is a mirror which reflects truly but feebly – a repentant spirit knows its own sin, but at first defines goodness negatively as simply the opposite of itself. In the recoil of pain it recognizes the antagonism of its evil deed to the spiritual whole and resolves on amendment; but the true spiritual ideal hovers before it dimly, being obscured by the clouds and smoke of its own sinful passions. There is, in a word, still indwelling sin, but there is no longer a consent of the will to sin.”

   The combination of the science of geology with that of philosophical or religious speculation fascinates me: potholes and devils and Purgatory Why is mythological speculation carried forward as a truth? Does it satisfy some human need, some curiosity, in the same way that we demand scientific explanation?

   I retraced my steps back down through this forest, lingered at the open marsh along Purgatory Brook again, and then returned to the parking area.