Ashley Miller shares this month’s story with ConcordTV. Watch the episode on YouTube.

When the Willey family — Samuel, Polly, and their five children, Eliza-Ann, Jeremiah, Martha, Elbridge, and Sally — settled in Crawford Notch in the fall of 1825, they hoped to encourage tourism in the White Mountains. Though relatively isolated, the family moved there to start an inn-keeping business.

They purchased a home called the “Old Notch House,” built in 1793, which was positioned at the base of what is now Mt. Willey in a valley bursting with sugar maples.

After moving in, they hired two men, David Nickerson and David Allen, to repair and enlarge the home, turning it into two stories and adding a barn and stables. They renamed the house ”Willey House Inn and Tavern.”

In June of 1826, following heavy rain, the Willeys witnessed a mass of soil and vegetation slide from the mountain to the valley floor, leaving a path of destruction in its wake. Samuel, fearing that same fate could befall his family, built a cave-like structure of stone a short distance above the house where the family could flee should a slide occur.

The summer of 1826 brought drought to the Notch, drying the mountain soil to an unusual depth.

Then, on the night of August 28, a violent rainstorm tore through the area. The Saco River rose twenty feet overnight. Livestock were swept away, farms set afloat, gorges were cut into the mountains, and a massive landslide tumbled into the valley.

On August 30, a traveler from Effingham passed through the Notch and arrived at the Willey House after dark. He found the doors open, the bed coverings thrown off, and clothes on the floor. In the light of morning, he traveled six miles to the neighboring home of the Crawfords, inquiring about the family.

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A search party immediately formed, combing through the massive debris field of boulders, trees, and brush that previously topped the mountain. During the day, the bodies of Polly, Samuel, and David Allen were found. In the coming days, neighbors located the bodies of David Nickerson and two of the children; the other three children were never found.

The slide had parted in two just before approaching the back of the Willey House and reformed into one after passing the house. The stone shelter and everything else in its path had been decimated.

The unfortunate fate of the Willey family spread through newspapers, attracting tourists who were in awe of the still-standing house. Famous artists, authors, and poets used the tragedy as a source of inspiration, creating works that drew more and more people to the White Mountains.

Tours through the region highlighted the Willey house. An addition was built onto the home which operated as an inn until it burned down in 1898. White Mountain guidebooks featured the untimely tale.

Frederick Hall noted in his 1836 account of the region, “I need not relate to you the fate of its former peaceful, contented inmates. It is already known to you, and all Christendom. I had heard of it, long since, in a distant state.”

In his “Notes of a Tour to the White Hills,” Edward W. Southwick describes visiting the Willey House in 1841 and taking souvenirs: “The house has been very much defaced by travelers, who have inscribed their names on the walls, and split off from every convenient place, mementos of the awful event. We imitated their wisdom or simplicity, by saving a fragment of the hearth-stone, so often warmed and lighted by the same blaze, which shone upon the cheerful countenances of the rustic circle, happy and thoughtless of their impending fate.”

In devastating irony, the Willey family’s demise brought a surge of tourism to the White Mountains. Today, the site is preserved as an interpretive center in Crawford Notch State Park.

Perhaps Nathaniel Hawthorne said it best when he wrote, “Who has not heard their name? The story has been told far and wide, and will forever be a legend of these mountains.”

From the Archives is a monthly column highlighting the history and collection of the New Hampshire State Archives, written by Ashley Miller, New Hampshire State Archivist. Miller studied history as an undergraduate at Penn State University and has a master’s degree in history and a master’s degree in archival management from Simmons College.