Mt. Moosilauke (1839) - William Whitcher
". . . Mr. William Whitcher, who lives at the north foot of Moosehillock in Coventry, is the father of a family of fifteen children, if remembered aright nine sons and six daughters. With this family he has made in a single season more than three thousand pounds of sugar from the maple: the amount of manufacture in his family the present year was between two and three thousand pounds.
To show the capabilities of the soil which he cultivates, that cannot be called inferior in every desirable requisite to the most fertile regions of the far West, we need only mention that this man, rearing and bringing up a noble family of fifteen, of whom are sons sufficiently numerous for a file of soldiers capable of defending their country's rights, has in the course of a few years accumulated an estate with no other property to begin with than his own hands, worth five or six thousand dollars, rendering him more truly independent than are many men in the seaports and larger towns who are nominally worth ten times as much as he possesses.
But his most valued property is in the children which he has reared, and who, although the oldest is only about 26 years old, have assisted the parents in the rapid accumulation of this property, thus paying off-hand for the sacrifices and labors of early protection and support. Another fact in relation to this family deserves to be mentioned, because it proves there is no region on earth more conducive to health, to vigor of constitution and of consequent long life than the Granite hills of northern New England.
The family of fifteen children, although some of them have not yet attained their full growth, will average more than six feet each 'from the crown of the head to the soal of the foot.' Can the fertile West furnish the parallel to this family of sons and daughters?"
Note: William Whitcher was the son of Chase Whitcher and the father of Ira Whitcher. - RWA
From "The Moosehillock," p. 40-43 , The Moosilaukee Reader (Vol.1). ©1999.
