Monadnock Road
From Worcester Activist wiki
Near the southwest corner of New Hampshire, 10 miles southeast of Keene, a mountain rises 2186 feet above sea level. The base takes in eight miles.
It is called Monadnock-from the Indian meaning “place of the surpassing, or unexcelled mountain.”
Strangely, there is little Indian lore connected with it. Possibly the redskins avoided it-fearful of the gods which moaned against its bald rock..
Early settlers near the mountain used to call it their “almanak”; could tell coming weather by absence or presence of vapors.
“A storm is preceded for several days by a roaring of the mountain, which may be heard 10 or 12 miles,” wrote Jeremy Belknap in 1792.
It wasn’t always written Monadnock. References list it as “Great Manadnuck,” “Grand Wanadnock,” “Wannadnack Mt.,” “Grand Manadnuck,” “Meorgnuck” and “Wahmodmaulk!”
Except for the King’s decree in 1740, the mountain might have been in Massachusetts, instead of about 10 miles north.
There was a boundary-line dispute in the 18th century growing out of the exact course of the Merrimack River.
Legends have it that Monadnock wasn’t always bald and settlers wrote of great fires that once rimmed the mountain by night.
They also believed the mountain was the stronghold of wolves. About 1795, Fitzwilliam and Jaffrey, N.H., were plagued first by bears, then by wolves, which tore at their sheep. Mr. Spaulding complained of losing 16 in one night.
Then every able-bodied man and boy seized a rifle and set out to destroy wolves, stronghold and all. They climbed Monadnock and found an old bear, two bear cubs and four foxes. They shot them all with the exception of one cub. The cub got even by biting off the thumb of a youth who carried it.
Emerson, Thoreau, Whittier, Sanborn, Holmes, Lowell, Channing, Hawthorne, Robinson, Lord Dunsany, Mark Twain, Kipling and others have written about the mountain.
Geologists find its rocky crest and shoulders full of interest-refer to it as made of a syncline in andalusite-fibrolite schist.
Grand Monadnock pays no attention to their inquisitive hammer-pecking; continues to loom grandly and placidly-probably aware that it is perfectly visible on a clear day from the State House dome in Boston.
Worcester honored this stone monarch with a street in 1898. It runs from Salisbury street northeasterly to Whitman road.
The core of this article comes from A History of Your City Streets.
