Heald - The Upper Merrimack Valley to Winnipesaukee by Rail

The Merrimack near to Nature. This river was a favorite byway for the Native Americans. It is said that those of the interior gave it its present name, which signified a strong or swift current, while the Massachusetts Indians call it Merrimack, meaning a place, or water, of islands, from the many beautiful islands it contains. Others give a different derivation: coming from the union of the Pemigewasset and Winnipesaukee Rivers.

Gardners Survey map of the Merrimack River, 1638. We cannot really say who first saw the waters of the Merrimack, but we are told that in 1614 Captain John Smith had heard of it. He called it a great broad river or bay, and said: The rivers name is Merrimack as I take it.

Lake Winnipesaukee map, Boston & Maine Railroad, 1909. New Hampshires largest lake, covering 72 square miles with a mainland shoreline of 186 miles, is dotted with 274 habitable islands and surrounded by the foothills of the White Mountains. The lake is 504 feet above sea level, 23.5 miles long, and from 1 to 15 miles wide. It was named by the Native Americans as The Smile of the Great Spirit, indicating that they recognized that omnipotence had placed the seal of its crowning glory upon this sparkling lake. It is safe to say that Winnipesaukee is one of the three largest fresh water lakes in the continental United States which lies wholly within the boarder of one state.

A map of Native American trails in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire, 1956. There are conflicting stories about this early name, Merrimack. One writer maintains that it was Kaskaashadi,... the place of broken waters. Another gives Cabassauk,... the place of the sturgeon, and a third suggests that it was Morodemak, a word which is made up of old Abnaki syllables meaning a... deep or profound river.

The Bow of the River Bend. It was Winnipurkit, a Sachem of Saugus, who married a daughter of the great chief of the Penacooks, whose principal location was where Concord now stands. There was a great feast, and then the bride was accompanied to Winnipurkits home at Saugus, on the sea coast, by a band of prominent citizens. After a season she went to her fathers home for a visit, and was escorted by some of her husbands chiefs; but when she was ready to return, a falling out occurred between Passaconaway, her father, and Winnipurkit, her husband, over a matter of native etiquette; neither would send an escort with or for her. At last she was determined to return alone, and at the time of the spring freshet, she set out in a canoe on the troubled stream, and met her fate in the Amoskeag Falls in Manchester.

Above Amoskeag Falls. Manchester was a favorite meeting place for the Native Americans long before the European settlers came, due to the excellent fishing at Namaske Falls and around Lake Massabesic, Place of Much Water.

The junction of the Pemigewasset, Winnipesaukee, and Merrimack Rivers, Franklin, N.H., 1909. The region extending from old Dunstable to Pennycook was surveyed as early as 1638. One August day, about twenty years later, an expedition to find the source of the Merrimack started upstream in botes. The members of that party were quite upset when they came to the forks in the present city of Franklin and found two streams instead of one leading into the wilderness. The following was recorded by Jonathan Ince: But taking notice of both these rivers and knowing that we must make use of but one, I called the Indians to inform us which was Merrimack; their answer was the river which was next to usthat came from the easterly point, which river we followed unto the Lake.

Hooksett Falls. Roll on, bright stream!

And ever thus, from earliest time, thoust leaped,

And played amid these caverned sounding rocks,

When the long summers sun hath tamed thy power

To gentleness; or, roused from thy long sleep,

Hast cast thy wintry fetters off, and swept,

in wild, tumultuous rage, along thy course,

Flinging the white foam high from out thy path

And shaking to their very centre earths

Foundation stones.

By the shores of inland waters. In 1629, Passaconway, a great chief, sold the territory extending from the Piscataqua to the Merrimack River, and from the line of the Massachusetts Bay Territory 30 miles into the country, to Rev. John Wheelwright and his associates. The deed was signed by Passaconaway, the Sagamon of Pennacook; Runnawit, the Chief of Pawtucket; Wahangnonawit, the Chief of Squamscot; and Rowls, the Chief of Newichewannock, and properly witnessed.

Winnipesaukee River, Tilton, N.H. One can hardly wonder where Massachusetts Bay Colony would have set its boundary marker if the surveyors and their Native American guides had followed the salmon up the Pemigewasset instead of the shad up the Winnipesaukee River, for it was on Endicott Rock in Lake Winnipesaukee that the surveyors placed that line at the village of Aquadoctan, which is now the Weirs, and marked it on the boulder now enshrined there, 1652.