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The Monadnock Hall of Fame

Over its long history, Mount Monadnock has had its share of heroes who saved the mountain from developers, wrote about it, painted it or composed music about it. This page celebrates Monadnock's heroes.

Philip Ayres

As the chief forester for the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests he spent thousands of hours between 1911 and 1915 tracking down the ancestors of the "Masonian heirs" who owned the summit of Monadnock to persuade them to sign over their property rights to save the mountain from developers.

Allen Chamberlain

The author of Annals of the Grand Monadnock, in 1936 and assistant to Ayres in securing property rights to the summit of Monadnock, Chamberlain was the mountain's spokesman for the latter part of his life. He lectured around the country about how important it was to save the mountain. His book is the authority on the history and significance of the mountain.

Scott A. Smith

The man responsible for blazing the Smith Summit Trail, the Smith Connecting Trail and many of the other trails in the Halfway House network on the western side of the mountain. He was a wealthy industrialist from Providence who spent the last two decades of his life at Monadnock. Known as the "Old Man of the Mountain" because he was such an expert about all aspects of the mountain. He first visited Monadnock in 1851 when he was 17.

Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau made four trips to Monadnock between 1852 and 1860 and wrote the most complete description of the mountain that exists for the 19th century. His account in his journal is one of the most famous descriptions of Monadnock and have made the mountain a part of American literature.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson put Monadnock on the literary map with his long 1846 poem "Monadnoc" which was reprinted several times. Emerson was the most popular poet, essayist and philosopher of his day and his endorsement of the mountain brought the literary and intellectual leaders of the day to vacations at the Halfway House for a generation after his death. His son, Edward Emerson, claimed that Emerson first climbed Monadnock in 1845, but the evidence for that is scanty. He definitely climbed Monadnock in 1866 with his family and friends and stayed at the Monadnock Mountain House.

Helen Cushing Nutting

Nutting complied the first history of Monadnock by searching out references to it back to the 1600s. She published her results in 1925 in "To Monadnock, Records of Three Centuries." She found dozens of obscure poems and historical references for her book, which is still a major reference work on the mountain.

Abbott Thayer

Thayer was one of the most famous artists in American when he moved to Dublin Lake in 1890 and helped found the Dublin Art Colony. He painted Monadnock as a white snow-covered triangle against the blue sky. That painting hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. But he was also a leader in the movement to save the mountain from developers in the 1911-1915 period. When he died his ashes were spread on the summit.

Raphael Pumpelly

Pumpelly was a world-famous explorer and a professor of geology at Harvard who spent his summers on the southern shore of Dublin Lake. His property bordered on the mountain and in 1884 he blazed a trail from his house to the summit that still carries his name. The Pumpelly Trail is usually considered one of the most scenic on the mountain. He also built a rock house near the summit that he shared with Thayer's son Gerald.

Elizabeth Weston Timlow

Timlow was the principal of the Cloverside School in Montclair, N.J. and the Misses Timlow School in Washington, D.C. She was the author of a number of books for girls including "Dorothy Dot," "Cricket," and "A Nest of Girls." In 1920 she published The Heart of Monadnock, the first novella about Monadnock. It's an allegory about a man named "mountain lover" who loses his faith as a result of the horrors of World War I, but regains it when he hears the voice of God on the mountain. She spent the last years of her life in Fitzwilliam.

William Peabody

The Rev. William B. O. Peabody, D.D. wrote the first poem about the mountain, "Monadnock" in 1824. He was born in Exeter in 1799 and was pastor of the Unitarian Church in Springfield, Massachusetts. He was one of a pair of twin brothers who attended Harvard and was a frequent contributor to the North American Review Magazine.

Grenville Clark

Clark was a life-long advocate of civil rights and world government and a Wall Street lawyer who spent his summers in Dublin. In 1944, when a Keene radio station announced that it planned to built a radio tower and tramway to the summit, Clark went into action to stop the project. Working mostly behind the scenes he wrote hundreds of letters to influential people and raised thousands of dollars. He obtained an option on the Halfway House property, which effectively halted the process until the FCC killed it.

Alan Hovhannes

A native of Somerville, Mass, Hovhannes took many walks in New Hampshire with his uncle when he was a boy and climbed Monadnock with him in the 1920s. He wrote the first symphonic work about the mountain "Monadnock" in 1931. He also said that one of his most famous symphonies, "Mysterious Mountain," was inspired by the mountains he had visited, including Monadnock.

Col. Thomas Higginson

The colonel of a black regiment in the Civil War, he was a writer and scholar best known today as the editor and mentor of poet Emily Dickinson. In 1903, when he was 88, loggers threatened to clear cut the sides of Monadnock. He formed the Monadnock Forestry Association and served as its president. He succeeded in getting the state of condemn the 500 acres and raised the $10,000 to purchase it. This land became the basis for Monadnock State Park.

H. Charles Royce Jr.

Charlie Royce has been climbing Monadnock and working for its preservation for nearly 70 years. His grandfather, "Big Bill" Royce ,built the White Dot Trail and Charlie himself has served as state park manager, state representative and head of the Monadnock Advisory Commission. Today he is continuing the long battle to save Monadnock with his tireless efforts to preserve the Mountain Zone for generations yet to come.

Suggest someone for inclusion on this page

If you know someone who has made a significant contribution to the history of Mount Monadnock, please send a nomination identifying the person and accomplishment.

Send it here.

This page last updated on April 10, 2007