Double the Fun!

Continuing with the "double" theme, my blog post will describe a "double" hike for two separate climbs off the Kancamagus Highway in Albany, NH (UNH Trail parking, Route 112, 22 miles east of Lincoln, NH, 14 miles west of Conway, NH).  The two mountains, Hedgehog and Potash, are near mirror images of each other in terms of difficulty and trail set up, and are great day hikes for most skill levels.

Mt. Passaconway from Mt. Potash

I'll start with Potash Mt.,(2,680 ft).  The Mt. Potash Trail begins and ends in the same parking lot as the loop trail for Hedgehog Mt. (the UNH Trail parking area). Heading out towards the southwest on an old logging road, it passes the Loop Trail junction (which departs to the left) and shortly turns right and
leads into the woods, crossing Downs Brook at 0.2 miles 
before the real ascent begins.  (Downs Brook flows between the two mountains).  It is a woodsy hike of moderate difficulty until it reaches open ledges at approximately 1.1 miles.  The view from the ledges looking to the south is into the Swift River Valley and directly at Mt. Passaconway (4,060 ft.)  These ledges are a great resting stop before ascending the now more difficult last third of the hike.  The trail crosses the steep mountainside diagonally over many small and large boulders that have tumbled from the summit over time, until reaching the final steep rocky incline up to the open summit at 1.9 miles.  The summit view is one towards the north and west, with great views of Mt. Tremont and further beyond, the Presidential Range.

Mt. Tremont

The Presidentials

Over to Hedgehog Mt., (2,532 ft.)  The UNH Trail is a loop that resembles a lasso and can be traversed in either direction, so I will describe it going clockwise.  The trail begins on the same logging road as the Potash trail, but as mentioned earlier, diverges east (turn to the left) just beyond the parking area.  The trail follows and old rail bed for 0.2 miles, then turns right and heads south towards the mountain.  As with Potash it is a moderate climb to the beginning of the connecting loop, and continues on this grade after turning left (east) and following along the upper edge of an old clear cut forest area.  After passing the clear cut at 1.2 miles, the trail turns south again and begins to become a bit more difficult with a few steeper sections as you get closer to the Eastern Ledges at 2.0 miles.  I must be honest here, I usually decide to stop at these ledges as they offer the best views on this hike (Swift River valley/Mt. Chocorua, 3,475 ft./Mt. Passaconway).

Mt. Passaconway from the Eastern Ledges

Mt. Chocorua from the Eastern Ledges

The loop trail continues on, heading back to the west and another viewing area above the same cliffs until it reaches the hardest climbing after 0.5 miles.  The next 0.4 miles turn to the north, is very steep, rocky, and has loose footing.  I usually recommend people not do this section in winter as it is extremely icy, and if they are going to do the whole loop in agreeable conditions, go the opposite way I've described (the steep section can be a real heartbreaker going clockwise).  There is no good view from the summit (another reason I tend to stop at the ledges), and the trail descends steadily through the forest to reconnect with the loop near the clear cut area.  There is a one-side path to a lookout called Allens Ledge (at 4.0 miles), but the area has become overgrown and has limited views.

One more comment; in past blogs I have described cabins my friends and I have rented in the White Mt. area, usually on mountainsides.  There is another such cabin directly off the Kancamagus (across the road from the UNH parking area) called Radeke Cabin which can be rented during summer or

Radeke Cabin

winter through the AMC (Appalachian Mountain Club) for a small fee.  There is no electricity, but it does have a big old wood stove, wood being supplied by the AMC, and I believe it can sleep over 10 people on wooden bunks.


As always, get out there and see our wonderful state.  Enjoy!







Written by Brian Markee

The Enigmatic Ferdinand Flipper

Within Dartmouth College's Library Digital Collections is a piece listed as the first comic book written in the U.S., The Fortunes of Ferdinand Flipper.  An interesting piece, quite funny, and a nice look into the past.  I sat down to write a short blog post about the piece and compare it to other similar pieces within the library digital collections.  Simple.

I start from the top, planning to gather some information about each piece.  Title page.  The Fortunes of Ferdinand Flipper.  I flip the page.  "New York: Published at the Brother Jonathan Office."  No author listed.  I have authors for the other two pieces, and think it would be nice
to complete the set.  I'll have to track this mysterious author down.
Little do I realize the momentous task I'm about to undertake

I do a preliminary Google search of Brother Jonathan.  First result, a
Wikipedia article.  I see an illustration of a man with striped pants,
stove top hat, and overcoat.  The article reads "The national
personification and emblem of New England."  From his garb, I can
see that he's clearly the inspiration for Uncle Sam.  Interesting, but
not what I'm looking for.  Farther down it reads, "...widely
popularized by the weekly newspaper Brother Jonathan and the
widely popular humor magazine Yankee Notions."

I follow the link to the article on the Brother Jonathan paper.  "Brother Jonathan was a weekly publication operated by Benjamin Day from 1842-1862, and was the first weekly publication in the United States."  I read on.  Day founded the first penny newspaper in the U.S., The New York Sun, but sold it to his brother-in-law in 1838.  Day and partner James Wilson acquired Brother Jonathan sometime after this and began publishing the paper name in 1842.  The paper eventually reached a circulation as high as sixty to seventy thousand.  Impressive, especially for the time.  Perhaps Day is the mystery author I've been looking for.  I click the Benjamin Day link.

Day was born in Springfield, Mass. in 1810.  Started his career at the Springfield Republican.  Credited with founding sensationalism and bringing the London Plan of paper distribution to the U.S.  You know the cliché of a kid with a cap and suspenders yelling "Read all about it!" on the street

corner?  That's the London Plan.  Publishers sold papers to these industrious young men in bulk, who would then sell them on their own for profit.  Anyway, it seems that Day stayed on the managerial side of things and wasn't an illustrator himself.  No luck.  Maybe the mystery "author" is an illustrator who worked for the paper.  I decided to head the the source.

I know that The Fortunes of Ferdinand Flipper was published some time in the 1850s.  This should help narrow down my search.  I search for digital copies of The Brother Jonathan magazine.

I begin my search at Dartmouth's own library website.  I type Brother Jonathan into the search box.  First result, Brother Jonathan by Weld, H. Hastings; Neal John; etc. Book, 1842.  That could be it.  I click the link.  Imprint New York: [Wilson & Co.], 1842-1843. Frequency: Weekly.  This looks like the right place.

I see that digital versions of the paper are available.  I follow the link to a ProQuest page which contains a number of pdfs of sections from the paper.  Oddly, only volumes from 1842 and 1843 are present.  Even though these volumes were published at least seven years before Ferdinand Flipper, it's still possible that they could provide some helpful information.  Alas, despite a lengthy search, I can find no trace of illustrators credited.

It appears that Day and Wilson populated their magazine with plagiarized material, mostly from European authors and illustrators.  The Adventures of Mr. Obadiah Oldbuck, also included in our digital collection, was one such piece.  You can read a blog post on the piece here.  So was Ferdinand Flipper created in the U.S. or was it stolen from outside this country?

I search for mentions of plagiarism in early comics.  I find a thread on a comic book collectors forum in which people discuss early comics.  Most of the discussion revolves around an attempt to define comic books as compared to other early illustrated works.  It's interesting, although not particularly relevant to my search.  However, some length down the forum I find a post which references an exchange from American Notes and Queries 1941 amongst a number of cultural historians.  Within the post author W.H.P. lists the date of publication for The Fortunes of Ferdinand Flipper as 1858.  I now have a specific year.  If I can find a copy of Brother Jonathan from 1858 I might be able to find some clue.

I begin to pour through the library records searching for any copies of Brother Jonathan from after 1843.  I try Harvard and Stanford digital archives.  No luck.  I try libraries in New York, where Brother Jonathan was published.  NYU, Columbia.  Still nothing.

I head to New York's census website to see if I can track down employees of the Brother Jonathan paper.  The website is confusing.  I give up immediately.

It seems that nobody knows who wrote The Fortunes of Ferdinand Flipper.  But I can't give up.  Now it's personal.  To be continued?

Addendum: I had planned to spend some time hunting down the mystery author.  But alas, during a brief return to the book Father of the Comic Strip: Rodolphe Topffer, by David Kunzle I see a small section on The Fortunes of Ferdinand Flipper that I had missed during my original perusal of that source.
Kunzle writes of Ferdinand Flipper, "The whole thing is cobbled together from a miscellany of woodcuts, mostly French, whose chance availability determines the narrative, such as it is, rather as in the parlor game "Consequences."

So there you have it.  There is no single creator of The Fortunes of Ferdinand Flipper.  It is the offspring of many minds and craftsmen, and the rascal newspaperman, Benjamin Day, who robbed them of their intellectual property.  So it goes.


Written by Kevin Warstadt