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| The map of Nutfield from Willey's Book of Nutfield |
“The appearance of the settlement along the banks of the
Westrunning brook in 1720 must have been romantic. Imagine the thick growth of forests largely
composed of walnut, chestnut, butternut and oak. Wild game, some of it unpleasantly fierce and
dangerous to encounter alone or without arms. It required some time for each
family to clear away timber enough to let in the sunshine and build a log
cabin. The cabins dotted the slopes a
little back from the brook, probably concealed from each other by the forests,
and reached by private paths hastily cut among the trees. On a frosty morning the white curling smoke
from the cabins along Westrunning brook rising over the tops of the trees may
have been a pleasing feature of pioneer life.
In order to have corn and beans and other garden crops before fields
could be cleared around each cabin, the settlers combined their strength and
cleared a tract of land together, and all joined in planting and cultivating
this tract, and the name by general consent became the Common Field. It is easily recognized now on the west side
of the turnpike about a mile below Derry Lower Village, and just north of the
brook. The map will enable the reader to
locate the Common Field of the settlers at the south end of the Gregg
land. The engraving is intended to give
a view of the homesteads in their position and relative proportions.”
The passage above is from the introduction of the book Early Records of Londonderry,
Windham and Derry, NH 1719 – 1745: Volume II Proprietor’s Records,
edited by George Waldo Browne, Manchester Historic
Association, 1911, pages vii and viii. Browne was referring to the map above, which shows West Running Brook right down the center of the page, in a vertical line since the map is oriented with north to the right side of the page. This was the location of the homes of the first Scots Irish settlers in Nutfield in 1719, later known as Londonderry (now located in the town of Derry, New Hampshire).
The first 20 settlers were:
James McKeen John Barnard
James Gregg Archibald Clendennen
Samuel Graves James Clark
David Cargill James Nesmith
Robert Wear John Goffe
John Morrison Elias Keyes
James Anderson Joseph Simonds
Thomas Steele James Alexander
Allen Anderson James Sterrat
John Gregg Samuel Allison
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| West Running Brook |
Image wood block print by Julius John Lankes (1884 – 1960)
for the book West Running Brook, by
Robert Frost, New York: Henry Holt, 1928
contained the poem, “West Running Brook”.
The Robert Frost Farm is located just down the road from this brook,
near the tiny Hyla Brook, which is also the name of another one of his poems.
“Fred, where
is north?"
"North?
North is there, my love.
The brook
runs west."
"West-running
Brook then call it."
(West-running
Brook men call it to this day.)
"What
does it think it's doing running west
When all the
other country brooks flow east
To reach the
ocean? It must be the brook
Can trust
itself to go by contraries
The way I
can with you—and you with me—
Because
we're—we're—I don't know what we are.
What are
we?"
"Young
or new?"
"We
must be something.
We've said
we two. Let's change that to we three.
As you and I
are married to each other,
We 'll both
be married to the brook. We'll build
Our bridge
across it, and the bridge shall be
Our arm
thrown over it asleep beside it.
Look, look,
it's waving to us with a wave
To let us
know it hears me."
"Why,
my dear,
That wave's
been standing off this jut of shore—"
(The black
stream, catching on a sunken rock,
Flung
backward on itself in one white wave,
And the
white water rode the black forever,
Not gaining
but not losing, like a bird
White
feathers from the struggle of whose breast
Flecked the
dark stream and flecked the darker pool
Below the
point, and were at last driven wrinkled
In a white
scarf against the far shore alders.)
"That
wave's been standing off this jut of shore
Ever since
rivers, I was going to say,
Were made in
heaven. It was n't waved to us."
"It was
n't, yet it was. If not to you
It was to
me—in an annunciation."
"Oh, if
you take if off to lady-land,
As't were
the country of the Amazons
We men must
see you to the confines of
And leave
you there, ourselves forbid to enter,—
It is your
brook! I have no more to say."
"Yes,
you have, too. Go on. You thought of something."
"Speaking
of contraries, see how the brook
In that
white wave runs counter to itself.
It is from
that in water we were from
Long, long
before we were from any creature.
Here we, in
our impatience of the steps,
Get back to
the beginning of beginnings,
The stream
of everything that runs away.
Some say
existence like a Pirouot
And
Pirouette, forever in one place,
Stands still
and dances, but it runs away,
It
seriously, sadly, runs away
To fill the
abyss' void with emptiness.
It flows
beside us in this water brook,
But it flows
over us. It flows between us
To separate
us for a panic moment.
It flows
between us, over us, and with us.
And it is
time, strength, tone, light, life and love—
And even
substance lapsing unsubstantial;
The
universal cataract of death
That spends
to nothingness—and unresisted,
Save by some
strange resistance in itself,
Not just a
swerving, but a throwing back,
As if regret
were in it and were sacred.
It has this
throwing backward on itself
So that the
fall of most of it is always
Raising a
little, sending up a little.
Our life
runs down in sending up the clock.
The brook
runs down in sending up our life.
The sun runs
down in sending up the brook.
And there is
something sending up the sun.
It is this
backward motion toward the source,
Against the
stream, that most we see ourselves in,
The tribute
of the current to the source.
It is from
this in nature we are from.
It is most
us."
"Today
will be the day
You said
so."
"No,
today will be the day
You said the
brook was called West-running Brook."
"Today
will be the day of what we both said."
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| The Robert Frost Farm, Derry, New Hampshire |
To hear the poem "West Running Brook" read by Robert Frost himself, with his lovely Yankee accent, click on this
YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbMgMXLRBfc
Derry
Topgraphic Map, 1985, Courtesy
of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin. You can see the position of West Running Brook (where the first settlers built homes), the Robert Frost Farm and East Derry (the location of the First Parish Church). Today there is a West Running Brook Middle School just off Route 28, too.
For more about the original Nutfield map, with a transcription of all the names of the early Scots Irish settlers granted land before 1723, see this link:
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Nice post
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