Livermore Articles and photos

vftt.org

Help Support vftt.org:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

peakbagger

Super Moderator
Staff member
VFTT Supporter
Joined
Sep 3, 2003
Messages
8,383
Reaction score
565
Location
Gorham NH
The Saturday Conway Daily Sun edition (7/24) has a couple of articles and lots of photos of the former town of Livermore that used to be on the Sawyer River Road on the way to Garfield. They visited in the summer but in the past I have found that visiting it with snow on the ground reveals a lot more of the development that was there that has been reclaimed by nature. aThere is still a private camp and landowner, I always wonder what those lots and the camp would sell for if the current family ever did. There are a couple of other articles usually going back to a series of Mountain Ear articles on the web.

Reportedly as mentioned in the article the owners of Livermore were far more progressive in logging practices, get off the trails and there are some truly impressive old hardwood stands. There is also a very extensive road network that the woods have taken over.

Note the Conway Daily Sun is visible for free using a viewer that on my computers and browser is bit of PITA to use. It works but is not particularly intuitive.
 
The owner of that house between the road and the river used to let us swim there (mid 60s). Water runs down slabs on the opposite side of the river and ends in a deep pool. It was a waterslide before commercial waterslides became so popular It was a real blast to refresh ourselves after descending Carrigain. Must have been a bummer for him, or whomever the owner was during periods when the road was closed due to washouts.
 
Last edited:
Here is a link to more info https://whitemountainhistory.org/Livermore.html. Peter Crane pretty well is the source for much of the history. The Mountaineer articles (which I could not locate) explains how the current owners ended up with the remaining in-holding by purchasing it from the Saunders estate. At one point there was some speculation that the WMNF was trying to "smoke" the family out by leaving the road un-repaired for a couple of seasons. I have heard a claim that the owner had no interest in selling out and transferred it the his sons with the proviso that it not be sold but the Mountaineer articles did not indicate that animosity existed with the FS. The owner did go through a lot of issues with vandalism during the winter and spring when the road was closed with snow. The large mansion was still there but people would break in and rip out interior wood work to burn fires and in general trash the place. The camp that is there reportedly was built with salvaged materials from the old building. There are three parcels shown as WMNF in-holdngs on the USFS map and interestingly the camp is shown as on WMNF land. Two of the lots are shown as offset from the road and one has direct frontage.
 
Ragged Mountain Equipment just did a "Tour" this past weekend of Livermore. Maineguy that was a good spot back in the 60's.
 
Top