People Walking Through Tall Pines Photographs, Special Collections, New Hampshire Historical Society, Concord, NH

When we speak of nature in this manner…
we mean the integrity of impression
made by manifold natural objects.
It is this which distinguishes the
stick of timber of the wood-cutter,
from the tree of the poet.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nature”

John W. Weeks Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, Milne Archives and Special Collecttions, University of New Hampshire

Yet the bill stalled in Congress. One more person was needed: John W. Weeks. Philip Ayres, along with the President of the Appalachian Mountain Club and the Secretary of the Massachusetts Forestry Association, met with the representatives from all of the New England states in Boston on Halloween in 1906. Weeks was then a freshman Congressman representing the 12th District of Massachusetts. More importantly, Weeks was a native of Lancaster in northern New Hampshire. He had an intimate knowledge of the White Mountains having grown up there, and he continued to spend summers in Lancaster. Weeks promised to promote the idea in Congress. In 1908, Congressman Weeks rewrote the national forest bill, combining forest preservation with watershed protection and fire control. He “organized a successful campaign in the House” where the bill had been repeatedly defeated.

In January 1911, the SPNHF issued “An Appeal” for public assistance to pass the “White Mountain Forest Bill” to insure final passage. “The Weeks Bill for national forests in the White Mountains and Southern Appalachians is not making the progress in Congress that is necessary if it is to pass at this session of Congress, or before the White Mountains are denuded far more severely than they now are. The Senate has passed this measure three times in different forms, but is now waiting for action by the House. The House that passed this bill a year ago, in the previous Congress, is now engrossed in other matters. Where are the New England Congressmen?” The public responded with a deluge of letters urging more aggressive action on the part of New England representatives. The House and Senate versions were reconciled shortly thereafter.

The Weeks Act became law when it was signed by President Taft on March 1, 1911

“An Appeal,” Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, January, 1911. Milne Archives and Special Collections, University of New Hampshire

“Here’s to Their Better Acquaintance,” Boston Herald, February 16, 1911

Logging railroad trestle and cutover slopes Forest History Society

Despite the talk, conditions did not change in the White Mountains. In the October 1907 edition of Forestry and Irrigation, editor Thomas Will wrote: “Again prophecy has become history. On August 10th [1907] Forester Ayres of the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests and Secretary Will of the American Forestry Association sat on Mt.Lafayette and looked over some 25,000 acres clean cut by the J.E. Henry Co. The ground was thickly covered with branches, tops and logs. They predicted that forest fires would soon sweep this region. On Aug. 27th, seventeen days later, the Boston Post said in part in an editorial: ‘In the once virgin and beautiful White Mountain region it is happening as predicted. Following the lumberman comes the fire, and it is the end of forest beauty for not less than a generation and perhaps forever. … Survey from Mt. Lafayette shows Mt. Bond to be swept clean, the easterly slope of Mt. Garfield burned over, and the southerly slope of Mt. Guyot fiercely burning with flames eating up Mt. Lafayette.’”

Fire burned for many days during the second half of August. Thomas Will reported in September 1907 that:

It has become almost literally true that, where until recently stood a primeval forest, after cutting there remains standing scarcely a pole on which a bird can build its nest.

In President Roosevelt’s 1907 annual message, he declared: “We should acquire in the Appalachian and White Mountain regions all the forest lands that it is possible to acquire for the use of the Nation. These lands, because they form a National asset, are as emphatically national as the rivers which they feed, and which flow through so many States before they reach the ocean.”

Rocky Branch cutover area after fire—Conway area Forest History Society

Man walking along burned out hills after fire Forest History Society

Deforestation of White Mountains Guy L. Shorey Collection, Mount Washington Observatory

Southern forest advocates, led by Gifford Pinchot, wanted to preserve a large stretch of the southern Appalachians. At first, Pinchot resisted working with New Englanders. In January 1905, Ayres and Pinchot met at the first American Forest Congress. “Dr. [Edward Everett] Hale got out of a sick bed in order to speak for the White Mountains [where he had ‘helped to make the original surveys in the White Mountains when he was a youth under twenty … fully sixty years earlier …’] With his eloquent voice, he told the story of the White Mountains, and offered a resolution that was received with great enthusiasm and referred to the Committee on Resolutions.” Dr. Rothrock, known as “the father of forestry in Pennsylvania,” said to Pinchot, “Now, Gifford, your bill for a National Forest in the Southern Mountains has been tried out in Congress and failed. It always will fail until you get those Yankees behind it. You have got to have these New England votes and you might just as well agree to a National Forest in the White Mountains.” Pinchot did agree. The Forestry Congress:

approves and reaffirms the resolutions of various scientific and commercial bodies during the past few years in favor of the establishment of national forest reserves in the Southern Appalachian Mountains, and in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and that we earnestly urge the immediate passage of bills for these purposes.

Twenty years after a fire on Rosebrook Range Philip W. Ayres photo, Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests Collection, Milne Archives and Special Collections, University of New Hampshire

Over one million board feet in Lincoln, 1902 Photographs, Special Collections, New Hampshire Historical Society, Concord, NH

Forestry pioneers on northwest slope of Mt. Carrigain, 1919 Forest History Society

From 1901–1911, unfettered logging proceeded apace and fires followed. In 1903, 80,000 acres burned. In 1904, 200,000 acres burned. In 1907, 35,000 acres burned. Each year, smaller fires burned additional acreage. During the same time, the movement to create eastern national forests spread nationwide.

On January 10, 1903, the New Hampshire legislature approved the creation of a federal White Mountain reserve “by purchase, gift, or condemnation according to law.” It also approved the expenditure of $5,000 to survey the White Mountains for such a purpose. In national publications, Ayres recognized that the movement was “an attempt to preserve what remain[ed] of the forest cover” and reiterated that the state alone could not do that. “State ownership … cannot be brought about except gradually and meantime the virgin forests are rapidly disappearing.”

Ayres addressed Congress for the first time in 1902. He gained the support of various national groups: from the American Pulp and Paper Association to the American Forestry Association. He wrote articles in the Concord, Manchester, Boston, and

New York newspapers, urging readers to contact their congressmen to protect both the scenic and business elements of the White Mountains. Largely at Ayres’s urging, Senator Jacob H. Gallinger and Representative Frank D. Currier, both of New Hampshire, introduced the first White Mountain forest “reservation” bill into Congress in December 1903. Over the next several years, it moved slowly through various committees and hearings.

Sabba Day Slash, 1915 Rick Russack,WhiteMountainHistory.org

“A Forest Hymn”
by Frederick J. Allen.

The Hymn is dedicated to the preservation of our American forests,
and has been written for use in public schools…As a teacher, you want this Hymn as an aid in turning the hearts of your pupils toward the great heart of Nature.”
“Preserve, O God, the forests fair
Of vale and sun-crowned hill,
Whose verdure rich
and fragrance rare
The earth with glory fill.

Forest Hymn, Milne Archives and Special Collections, University of New Hampshire

Forest Hymn, Milne Archives and Special Collections, University of New Hampshire

Philip W. Ayres Philip Ayres Collection, Milne Archives and Special Collections, University of New Hampshire

In early 1901, supporters created the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests [SPNHF]. According to its constitution, the group’s primary objective was “To preserve intact the scenic beauty in selected places throughout the state where the forest is an essential element, particularly upon the high and steep slopes in the mountains.” Farmers, bankers, ministers, surveyors, editors, legislators, foresters, members of women’s clubs along with corporate, government, and civic leaders; and even the head of the Berlin Mills Company supported the new association.

In late 1901, SPNHF hired 41-year-old history PhD, social worker, and newly-minted forester Philip W. Ayres to be its forester, publicist, and manager. Ayres accepted the job on one condition: that the SPNHF allow him to advocate for a national forest reserve.

Ayres went on the lecture circuit, speaking to any group, from schools to chambers of commerce, that wanted to hear about the White Mountains. He “assembled a coalition made up of diverse elements—loggers and pulp manufacturers, nature lovers, hotel owners, political leaders, literary figures, and just about anyone else who could see the economic and environmental advantages to saving the White Mountains.” Ayres argued that the White Mountains “were a national treasure.”

There were six great lumber companies, each with a well-equipped logging railway, stripping the White Mountains with the most scientific efficiency that Yankee ingenuity could invent. [SPNHF] wanted to save at least a portion of it, and needed a forester. I suggested a National Forest in the White Mountains as the most direct and only adequate remedy.

—Philip W. Ayres

Lantern Slides, Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests Collection, Milne Archives and Special Collections, University of New Hampshire

Lantern Slides, Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests Collection, Milne Archives and Special Collections, University of New Hampshire

Lantern Slides, Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests Collection, Milne Archives and Special Collections, University of New Hampshire

Clear cut above Profile House Rick Russack, WhiteMountainHistory.org

Advocates found the spark that would ignite the general public’s interest with the publication of the Rev. John E. Johnson’s rather lurid tale of The Boa Constrictor of the White Mountains; or the Worst Trust in the World in 1900. “Summer visitors to this section of the White Mountains have noticed the many deserted farms and dilapidated buildings and have wondered at such scenes, not dreaming that the cause was to be found in the operations of a company chartered to do it; that this desolation was due to the gradual tightening of the coils of a boa constrictor legalized to crush the human life out of these regions, preparatory to stripping them of their forests.” He blamed George James’ predatory New Hampshire Land Company, a large and rapacious timber company. “What is its object? To deforest and depopulate the region lying around the head waters of the Merrimack River in the heart of the White Mountains.” He asked that both state political parties unite “in an attempt to crush such an unmitigated outrage upon the rights of humanity.”

Paugus Valley, Albany—This area burned three times Rick Russack, WhiteMountainHistory.org

The New England Homestead, a magazine found in the home of almost every New England farmer, spread the news and let readers know that:

The state of New Hampshire is facing a crisis. The destruction of the forests has reached a point where the very source of her wealth and the most potent factor in the economic life of her people is threatened a blow beyond reparation. She is in the grip of the lumbermen and land speculators, and whether or not she will free herself is of vital concern, not only to herself but to the great manufacturing interests centering along the Merrimac river in Massachusetts and to that vast body of people at large who turn to the White Mountains in quest of health and recreation.… Talk alone cuts no figure. The lumber barons are united as one man. The vast public, if united as one man, can easily secure justice. Protest, long and loud, is well enough, but let us organize so as to make protest effective. … Instant action is imperative.

The next week, the Homestead printed a membership application “To save New England’s farms, homes and industries” and the editorial column was full of letters of support. The public was solidly behind the project.

1903 Fire at Zealand Rick Russack, WhiteMountainHistory.org

Joseph B. Walker c. 1863 Photographs, Special Collections, New Hampshire Historical Society, Concord, NH

During the 1880s, Joseph B. Walker began to push what was then a radical idea: government purchase of private lands in the White Mountains to create a “public forest.” In an address to the Fish and Game League, he suggested, “the purchase, at low and established prices, by the state, of some of the denuded areas recently cut over, to be held and managed hereafter as public forests.” In 1892, the same year New York created a park in the Adirondacks, Walker asked New Hampshire to accept donations of land for preservation. But, hampered by a lack of funding, the state legislature did little: it passed a few forestry laws, created some temporary forestry commissions, and, in 1893, established a permanent forestry commission.

The value of the New Hampshire timber harvest doubled in the 1890s. In an 1893 article in the Atlantic Monthly, Julius H. Ward wrote that there had been a:

frightful slaughter of forest, the trees cut off entirely … and that what ought to be enchanting scenery along a great railway has been ruthlessly laid waste by the lumbermen and by fire.

The argument seemed to be that the state could either promote tourism or promote timber and pulp interests. “It is plain that in the future, if these great domains are to be maintained in their substantial integrity and wholeness, there must be some other arrangement for their protection and preservation than now exists, so that the charm of the region as a great national park may not be lost, and the rights of private owners, who have purchased this property in good faith and are entitled to revenues from it, may be preserved. The question is, What shall this protection be? and it is more easily asked than answered.”

View Greeting Hikers—Presidential Range and Carter Notch from Mount Washington The snow distinquishes the vast scope of the clear cuts Guy L. Shorey Collection, Mount Washington Observatory

Pushing voluntary cooperation for forest management had minimal impact. Urging the state to buy the region would not work; the state could not afford to purchase even a small portion of the White Mountains. Congress refused to consider creating a national park. In 1892, North Carolina geologist Joseph A. Holmes offered a new idea: instead of a park, why not create eastern national forests to match the new western ones? New Englanders agreed. “The demand exists that the White Mountain region shall be in some way regarded as public property…. New Hampshire enjoys the unique distinction of having a domain which nature has pointed out for a great public park; not a sportsman’s preserve… but a people’s hunting and tramping ground, where the domain is as free as the air, and where every American feels that the endowments of nature are as permanent and secure as the Constitution.” But was it constitutional for the national government to purchase private forest lands for public purposes?

Ruins of Summit House Guy L. Shorey Collection, White Mountain Observatory

Passaconaway and Chocorua from East Side Larrabee Collection, Photographs, Special Collections, New Hampshire Historical Society, Concord, NH

Mt. Lincoln Larrabee Collection, Photographs, Special Collections, New Hampshire Historical Society, Concord, NH

Top of Potash Mountain from Logging Road—September 19, 1917 Larrabee Collection, Photographs, Special Collections, New Hampshire Historical Society, Concord, NH

Goodrich Falls—Jackson, NH Guy L. Shorey Collection, Mount Washington Observatory

In 1885, the first New Hampshire Forestry Commission reported that New Hampshire forests were “a public resource.” “To recklessly destroy [the forests] is as unwise as to throw away any other natural resource which may be conducive to the welfare of the state.” But the same group reported in 1893 that “all the mountain forests in New Hampshire are private property, and … we have no more control over them than we have over the condition of life on the moons of Mars.”

Path of the slide, following forest fires Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests Collection, Milne Archives and Special Collections, University of New Hampshire