Wapack Lodge
New Ipswich Historical Society
The Wapack Trail & Lodge
Discussed as early as the mid-1800s, the Wapack Trail was completed in 1923, mostly by Frank Robbins of Rindge, N.H., who farmed 1,200 acres of land around Barrett Mountain, and Marion Davis of New Ipswich, N.H. Marion Davis became the trail’s best-known personality by operating the Wapack Lodge for three decades through the late 1950s, providing lodging and hosting up to 100 people at a time. Sunday dinners are still remembered in the area a half-century later. She also invented the name Wapack, from the names of the mountains at each end of the trail – Mt. Watatic and North Pack Monadnock.
It can be buggy in New Ipswich, screened in porch
In 1993 a lightning strike set fire to the lodge and it burnt to the ground. All that remains is the hand dug foundation.
On this day - May 6, 1908
James Roger diary entry
6th (Wednesday)
Frost. Meadow white. David at Ashburnham. Got letter from Chapinville saying that brother Bob had got his foot amputated. P.C. from Hamish busy in brooder house and cleaning incubator.
On this day - May 6, 1897
William Jurian Kaula diary
I had received a newspaper clipping from home giving the address of a genuine "Ceská restaurace a Karárna v Parízi. It is situated at 5 Rue Beaujolais (Palais Royal). I found it without difficulty and went in with the intention of having a Bohemian dinner. I asked the first man that I saw speaking in the Bohemian* toungue [tongue] "if this was the Ceská restaurace" and if he could speak the language. He turned out to be a Frenchman and did not comprehend and dashed up three flights of stairs for somebody. A man came down with a billiard cue in his hand and addressed me in a lingo that I soon discovered to be German. He understood no Bohemian and was at a loss to know what I was driving at and then I tried English which suited him better only he spoke it with a mixture of French which was more intelligible. Then we had a horrible combination of four languages, German, English, French, and Bohemian which was too much for me and I bear [bore] a hasty retreat with only the idea that if I would call at nine o'clock tomorrow morning I would be able to meet someone who could make more trouble for me.
Notes from Kim Black, transcriber:
*The Czech language used today, was formerly Bohemian. It is closely related to Slovak, Polish, and Sorbian languages. Why would William Kaula have known this language? Did he have older relatives who were Bohemian? Per Ancestry.com, in 1880, there were 10 Kaula families living in Massachusetts. This was 50% of all recorded Kaula's in the USA.
I remember Marion when she lived in the lodge next to the Allards.