Mount Chocorura - White Mountains

[redhawk]

Anyone know any history about this peak in the White mountains?

There is a painting by Thomas Cole, painted in 1827 titled:
"Cora Kneeling at the Feet of Tamenund" which is a depiction from J. Fenimore Coopers "Last Of The Mohigans"

The scene is supposed to take place on Mt Chocorura.

I was wondering if he painted the scene using an actual location on the mountain itself.

I have been unable to find any reference to it in any of the travel guides or brochures so my guess is that there is no connection.

However, if you have ever seen the picture, you would want to backpack there if it does exist.



Anyone have any feedback on this?

[funkyfreddy]

Beautiful mountain, beautiful views, have friends that live close by and have climbed it a number of times. You can see its characteristic summit cone from many places in the White Mountains and it has many legends associated with it, most of those about its namesake, the Sachem Chocorua. I'm going to let someone else take it from here as my memory is somewhat sketchy about the different versions of the Chocorua myth. I know that the AMC White Mountain Guide used to elaborate on it a bit, not sure if the current edition still does or not.

If you've never climbed it make sure you do - it has incredible views! I would recommend climbing it during the week as it's one of the most climbed mountains in the world and can get very crowded as it's also a fairly easy climb as well.

I wasn't able to view the painting if that's a link you posted, but do vaguely remember it being similar to the actual summit. You've probably seen pictures of the summit as it always used in coffee table books and travel brochures - once again it's a beautiful mountain to look at and also to look from.

[okpik]

Here's a couple of hits for ya to look at Hawk.

Mt. Chocorua

Some nice pic and info

[rondak100]

My recollection of the book....

...Last of the Mohicans, is that it all took place in NY.

Mike

[redhawk]

Re: My recollection of the book....

Originally posted by rondak100
...Last of the Mohicans, is that it all took place in NY.

Mike

Back when the Leatherstockings book were written, as far as indian Culture, there were no borders. Also, some of what was written concerning indians was loosely based on fact.

Now what is interesting about all of this is that Tamenund, who is the tribal elder is Lenape (Delaware) and Magua is Huron. One of my closest friends, Waktame is a Lenape Holy Man as well as a historian of the Lenape. He tells me that the Lenape spent much time up here in the summers in the 17- 1800's.
Another friend Gladys Tantaquidgeon, A Mohegan elder and sachem for the Mohegans told me years ago that there were stories of the Huron being allied with the Lenape.

You have to understand that in those days, many of the Atlantic Coast tribes migrated great distances North and South. So there could be some fact that led to the story.

[redhawk]

Just found a gallery with paintings of the mountain by many different painters. There are two others in there by Cole.

All of them show roughly the same shaped peak as the one that can be seen in the distance from the painting depicted in the earlier post.

that would indicate that if the place des exist, it is Not Mount Chocorua but a view from a peak in the vicinity.

Unfortunately there is no way to judge direction from the painting so I will just have to hope that if it does exist, someone will recognize it.

A friend and I do plan to get up there this spring so I will get to see some of it.

[rondak100]

Redhawk.....

...could you post one of these paintings by thomas cole, please? Fro some reason I can never see the shots you post. i just see a red x in a white box. Perhaps a link to a copy of the painting?

Thanks, Mike

I found it.

http://search.barewalls.com/cgi-bin/search.exe?SEARCHSTRING=thomas+cole

The ledge is reminecent of the plateau where the Catskill Mountain house used to sit. And the perspective is suggestive of the view from Artists Rock or North Point looking upon the hotel. I am quite certain that this painting was inspired by that view.

Mike

[redhawk]

Mike:
Yes, it's a link to the painting which I put on my server. You should see the picture in the post.

Is anyone else having a problem seeing the picture?

I'd rather use links then take up space on this server with pics.
I have infinite space on my server and a HUGE allotment of bandwidth.

Hawk

[spider]

Chocorua

Mt Chocorua was my 1st winter hike and I still climb it a couple of times a year. It is often mentioned as the most photographed mountain we have.

The gist of the ledgend of Chocorua, loosely retold, is...
Chocorua and the family of a farmer got along well enough that indeed a son of his would play with one of the farmer's children.
One sad day Chocorua's son was killed while playing with the farmers family..perhaps accidentily killed..Chocorua thought not.
He was upset... extremely upset..so upset he killed the entire family of the farmer when he was not at home.
This man hunted down Chocorua and fatally shot him on the mountain that now bears his name.
Before dying Chocorua is said to have uttered a curse on all of the valley..that no white man would ever prosper in this land.
A curse that was largely thought to come true as farm after farm failed.
To this day ( thankfully) it has never become the eyesore of the towns of Conway/North Conway...it is primarily uninhabited as part of the White Mountain National Forest.

Chocorua, I believe was a son of the great sachem Passaconway who lived to be over a hundred years of age. He lived peacably with the white invaders but clearly predicted the end of all they had known an loved. Within the following generation things fell apart terribly for them.
Of the Passaconaway family I believe Pagus, Chocorua, Wonalancet are his children or cousins of each other, all with mountains that bear their names but little else. Though there is the small town/village of Wonalancet.
The survivors of the tribe, after several battles and generations, eventually abandoned their lands and moved to St Francis, Quebec. Returning to trade annually till about the 1950's.

...that is the telling of the tale as I know it ...subject to some refinements I am sure...spdr

[pepsi]

redhawk,

I can't get the picture either. From the post above or the other link that you posted to your site. I see a red x here and from the other link "site not found". Guess I'll just go back and look at the mountain myself .

[Kevin]

If you're sharing pictures, use the IMG tags around the URL/link to the pictures.

For example, [img]http://www.the-boogiemen.com/mp3s/avatar.gif[/img ] (without the last extra space) would be the link to one of my avatars...

We also allow uploads of attached images in gif and jpg format, 50kb max (for now) with no size/dimension limit. I'll be raising that in the near distant future as I'm getting prepared to up our bandwidth quota with our primary forum server provider. This will keep us running for the coming years without any fuss or worries .

I figured out why the most recent image tags weren't working and have corrected this...