Arthur F. March Jr - Franconia and Sugar Hill

This early scene looking across the Easton Valley from Sugar Hill to the hazy Franconia mountains is a far cry from the scene that greeted the early settlers who could see little but the huge trees of the forest. The buildings, the cleared fields, and the stone walls are surely good reasons for satisfied contemplation by the farmer and his dog. (MTN)

Even more startling to the modern eye is this view of Sugar Hill at about the peak of its cleared-fields era. In addition to the village street (in the middle foreground and beyond), the magnificent mountain backdrop and the hotel complexes on Sunset Hill can be seen.

Sugar Hill Street (please dont call it Main Street even if it is) is seen here before the days of paved roads. Several of the buildings look much the same today, and others were destroyed by fire. Of special interest are the two street lamps: kerosene on the left, newfangled electric on the right.

Another fine panorama of the Franconia Range from Sugar Hill shows the flat valley in between and a field to delight the eye of a farmer, especially if he wasnt the one who pulled out all those rocks and built the wall. (CPH)

This unusually sharp image is the result of a contact print from a 4-by-5-inch glass-plate negative. It provides a view from Fox Hill looking northwest over the Village of Franconia in the early 1900s. (LN)

While there are of course no photographs of the first half of this period, this touching family scene reminds us that the business of the pioneer families was to provide themselves with food, shelter, and clothing, all to be derived from the land and their own labor. These are members of one of the Bowles families (more in chapter five). From left to right are Elgie, Mrs. Bowles (background), Clara, Ernest, Mr. Erwin Bowles, and Jay. The horse (unnamed) is no doubt enjoying this brief respite from labor.

Horses were not only essential work animals but were, save for shanks mare, the only means of transport. Before roads were hewed out of the wilderness they were ridden; with roadways came wheeled vehicles such as that of the Arthur Bickford family of Sugar Hill. (SSN)

Early settlers of the Franconia region quite naturally selected the flat lands along what is now known as the Ham Branch of the Gale River in the Easton Valley for their farms and homes. Such a one is the Brooks Farm pictured here much later in 1887. This is said to be where Luke Brooks lived at the time he is credited with the discovery of the Great Stone Face (1805).

Another such early homestead, but this one on Sugar Hill, was that of Leonard Bowles. Members of this family came early to the region, stayed long, and made a lasting mark on the community.