26 August–1 September 1839

Yesterday ascended Red Hill and saw our lake and Squam Lake, Ossipee, Conway, Gun- stock, and one dim summit which stood to us for the White Hills. Mrs. Cook lives on this Red Mountain, half a mile from the top and a mile from the bottom. We asked her what brought her here fifty-one years ago. She said, " Poverty brought and poverty kept her here." For our parts, we thought that a poor man could not afford to live here, that it was to in- crease poverty tenfold, to set one's cabin at this helpless height. Her son makes 1000 pounds of maple sugar in a year. They use the coffee- bean for coffee, and the fever-bush for tea. The Hedysarum, which they call wild-bean, was the principal food of the cows when they first came here until grass grew.