[Illustration: THE HAUNTED BRIDGE OF COUNTRY BROOK]
Country Bridge had the reputation of being haunted, when Whittier was a boy, and several of his early uncollected poems refer to this fact. No one who could avoid it ventured over it after dark. He told me that once he determined to swallow his fears and brave the danger. He approached whistling to keep his courage up, but a panic seized him, and he turned and ran home without daring to look behind. It was in this vicinity that Thomas Whittier built his first house in Haverhill. Further down the stream was Millvale, where were three mills, one a gristmill. This mill and the evil reputation of the bridge are both referred to in these lines from "The Home-Coming of the Bride," a fragment first printed in "Life and Letters:"--
"They passed the dam and the gray gristmill, Whose walls with the jar of grinding shook, And crossed, for the moment awed and still, The haunted bridge of the Country Brook."
It was the custom of the pioneers, when they had the choice, to select the sites of their homes near the small water powers of the brooks; the large rivers they had not then the power to harness. There were good mill sites on Country Brook below the log house, but probably some other settler had secured them, and Thomas Whittier found in the smaller stream on his own estate a fairly good water power. Fernside Brook is a tributary of Country Brook. Probably this decided the selection of the site for a house which was to be a home for generation after generation of his descendants. The dam recently restored is at the same spot where stood the Whittier mill, and in making repairs some of the timbers of the ancient mill were found. Parts of the original walls of the dam are now to be seen on each side of the brook, but the mill had disappeared long before Whittier was born. Further up the brook were two other dams, used as reservoirs. The lower dam when perfect was high enough to enable the family to bring water to house and barn in pipes.
When entering the grounds, notice the "bridle-post" at the left of the gate, and a massive boulder in which rude steps are cut for mounting a horse led up to its side:--
"The bridle-post an old man sat With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat."