The Twin Mountain House New Hampshire Vintage Postcards and American History

Twin Mountain House, New Hampshire
Vintage Postcard ca. 1943-1960

The Twin Mountain House

Twin Mountain, N.H.

Details

Vintage Divided Back Postcard

Eagle Post Card View Co., New York 1, N.Y.

Photo Duo-Tone

3-5/8 x 5-5/8 inches

Blog post by Mary Katherine May.

Dating the Post Card

One of the first orders of inquiry for a deltiologist is dating the postcard. This can be done by type of paper and printing, the stamp box, how the back side is arranged, and also by ascertaining when the manufacturing company was in business.

For this postcard I used the caption on the front as a clue: Eagle Post Card View Co., New York 1, N.Y. The 1 is a postal zone number used by the United States Post Office from 1943 to 1963, after which the ZIP Code was introduced. The ZIP being an abbreviation of Zone Improvement Plan.

According to the website OldStuffOnly.com, the zones were started in 1943 during World War 2 to aid all of the newly employed postal clerks who replaced the men now in military service. In 1963 the United States Post Office began using a 5-digit Zip Code. The ZIP is an abbreviation of Zone Improvement Plan.

Twin Mountain House Vintage Postcard Back

Twin Mountain House is no longer in operation. The Mount Washington Hotel at Bretton Woods is one of the few grand hotels remaining. In the publication Field Trip Stop and Drive-by Site Descriptions, 64th Highway Geology Symposium, North Conway, New Hampshire, 2013, there is a fabulous image of the Twin Mountain House viewed from across the Ammonoosuc River (p. 71) and the dates of 1868-1960 are given as years in operation. This allows me to date the postcard between 1943 and 1960.

Twin Mountain House

The Twin Mountain House in Twin Mountain, New Hampshire, was one of many lodging places where people would come for a visit or a season to get away from the heat, noise and dust of city life.  The air in the mountains allowed relief from hay fever.  

The post card back describes the excellence of the Twin Mountain House: 

A landmark hotel of distinction... The utmost in comfort, good service and unsurpassed cuisine.

Henry Ward Beecher spent many seasons at the Twin Mountain House where he offered daily morning devotions and Sunday sermons as well as comfort and counsel to the resident lodgers, or as one publication called them, inmates. Beecher's sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of the pre-Civil War novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, also visited the House, as did many prominent people. Notices were placed in newspaper's announcing their impending plans to visit.

Historical Source 1: Twin or Not a Twin?

Source Link: TheWhite Mountains: A Handbook for Travellers. Fourth Edition, Revised andEnlarged, 1881

Selected Text:

The Twin-Mountain House is on a little terrace north of the Ammonoosuc River, and in the vicinity of a group of saw-mills. It is provided with post and telegraph offices, billiard and bowling rooms, and croquet-grounds; and keeps a band during the summer.  It is equal to the Glen House or Bethlehem as a refuge for people affected by hay-fever, though it is much lower than either of those points.

The house was built in 1869-70.

The view from the Twin-Mountain House includes on the left the symmetrical knolls known as the Sugar Loaves (and sometimes locally called the Baby Twins), on whose right is the massive Mt. Hall.

The Twin Mountain House, Twin Mountain, N.H.

Food better than the view?

The situation of the Twin Mountain House was not well chosen, with reference to mountain-views, but its cuisine is justly celebrated; and to the usual amusements of a summer-hotel it adds the pastime of boating, on an adjacent mill-pond of considerable length.

The people about the house stoutly maintain that the two mountains nearly opposite are the Twin Mountains, but they are not, since the Twins lie in a line nearly North and South, and the North Twin only is visible, Mt. Hale being the other “Twin” (as regarded by the hotel people).  The Twin Mountains are seen from Mts. Washington and Lafayette, and other points East or West of their line, but not from the Twin-Mountain House.

Historical Source 2: Building and Location

Source Link: Historyof Coos County, New Hampshire by George Drew Merrill, 1888.

Selected Text:

Oscar and Asa Barron, brothers, largely identified themselves with the building up of the hotel business of the western side of the White Mountains, and did much to develop summer travel.  Both were active and energetic men, and were connected with the erection and conducting of the Twin Mountain House, Fabyan's, Mt. Pleasant House, Crawford's and the Mt. Washington Houses. Both are now dead. Col. Oscar G. Barron is their successor.

Twin Mountain House takes its name from two prominent peaks of the Franconia range.  This house is well known as a quiet, secluded mountain retreat, and a pleasant resting-place for invalids.  It was built about 1870, stands upon a terrace, faces east, is surrounded by ornamental grounds, and has room for 300 guests.  The boating on the mill-pond is very enjoyable; the cuisine is excellent, and this hotel well merits the favor it meets with the travelling public.

The Twin mountains are nearly 5,000 feet in height, and from the northern summit can be seen a vast panorama of valleys, highways and villages; on the west the Presidential range, and eastward, the Connecticut valley, while on the south an almost boundless stretch of craggy and wooded mountain forms a pleasing variety to the views.

Historical Source 3: Twin Mountain House and Henry Ward Beecher

Source: Pinehurst Outlook, Pinehurst, North Carolina, 14 January 1898. (Newspapers.com clipping)

Selected Text:

Henry Ward Beecher: The Celebrated Plymouth Pastor’s Summer Parish. Services conducted by him in the parlors of the Twin Mountain House. Interesting Recollections of his special reporter, T.J. Ellinwood.

For a number of seasons it was my pleasant duty to report the discourses of Mr. Beecher at the White Mountains. During a large portion of his vacations he preached regularly on Sundays at the Twin Mountain house, whither he resorted from year to year on account of hay fever, with which he was afflicted. The services were generally held in the great parlor of the hotel, and were so largely attended that many were obliged to occupy seats or standing-room in the halls or on the piazzas. A part of the time the accomodations for the audiences were so inadequate that an immense tent was procured under which the services were held.

In addition to his Sabbath discourses Mr. Beecher gave to guests of the hotel week-day morning talks, which were very much prized, and were often attended not only by the inmates of the Twin Mountain House but also by people from a distance.

We had there a good many people of the world, who were not habitual attendants at church, because, as they said, religion was ordinarily presented in a way that violated their common sense, their observation, and their highest reason.  I have ground for believing that there were some among them who entered into the Christian life under the influence of the preaching in the parlors of the Twin Mountain House.

Which Twin Mountain House?

Source: The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brooklyn, New York, 12 June 1904 (Newspapers.com clipping)

Imagine my surprise when I looked at what I thought was the only Twin Mountain House that could house at least 200 and saw a structure that appeared it could hold at most maybe 40 people?

The confusion cleared quickly when I realized the Twin Mountain House I was looking at was in the Catskill Mountains in New York that was in operation the same time as the one in New Hampshire.

Twin Mountain House in the Catskill Mountains
From the Pinehurst Outlook, 1898