Jamaica’s Salmon Hole: Allison M. Watts 1937

A poem written by Allison Mason Watts and published in the Brattleboro Reformer September 15, 1937. Born in Tenants Harbor, ME in 1878, and the son of a sea captain, Watts was a minister at the Jamaica Federated Church at the time (1936-1946) and was living in the village with his three daughters according to the 1940 US Census. His wife, Ida Geneva Dustan, had passed away the year before this was written, in 1936. He was ordained at the West Brattleboro Baptist Church in 1908 and served as a Baptist minister for most of his life, in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Quebec. The sentiment in this period poem is reflective of the well-established New England colonial narrative of heroism and triumph over adversity in the form of “uncivilized savagery and an inhospitable landscape.”

There now have passed almost two hundred years

Since Captain Melvin’s band of pioneers

Through this primeval wilderness were bound.

From Lake Champlain the Indian trail they found

And up the Otter valley made their way

High o’er the mountain ridge ‘neath summit gray

And the West River slowly winding down

They journeyed on toward Brattleboro town

Where safe within Fort Dummer’s strong stockade

Their weary wanderings would at length be stayed.

They skirt one morn Ball Mountain’s bold contour

That turns the stream aside in long detour

Down through the gorge, rough, picturesque and deep,

Where foaming waters o’er big boulders leap.

All travel worn and tired, hungry, sore

They stop to rest awhile, their strength restore,

Beneath the mountain’s sunny southern side.

Beside a pool of quiet water wide

Upon fat salmon large here quickly caught

They freely feast, enjoy this pleasant spot.

But while they eat a murderous Indian band

In secret swift pursuit steals close at hand

By short cut ‘neath the western mountain wall

Upon the unsuspecting company to fall.

In ambush hidden at the feasters’ rear

They open fire from the thickets near.

Six men fall dead beneath that sudden blast,

The rest arrange themselves in fighting order fast

And bravely face the craven warriors red

Until the beaten savages have fled.

Today we see that same deep Salmon Hole

In pleasant summer time a welcome goal

For recreationists from far and near

Who come to picnic, swim its waters clear.

Here children small delight in their first strokes;

Deep dives make thrilling sport for older folks.

Where sounded once blood curdling war whoops’ blare

Now merry shouts and laughter fill the air.