PEOPLE OF THE WHITES: Dr. Samuel Americanus Bemis (1983-1881) – by Frances Woodward Richardson

Dr. Samuel A. Bemis was one of the first photographers in the United States to take pictures of the White Mountains of New Hampshire and Boston, Massachusetts. He was also a dentist and an estate builder in Crawford Notch.

Samuel was the illegitimate son of Samuel Bemis (1754-1816) and Hazadiah McWain (1769-1854), born on June 27,1793 in Putney, Vermont. In his youth, he was an apprentice to his father in the watch and clock-making business in Keene, NH, until 1809, when he moved to Putney, Vermont, and opened a shop, later moving to Boston, Mass. 

In 1810, he made a tooth extracting tool for Zabdiel Adams, and in 1822, Samuel opened a dental practice and became well known as a dental surgeon, earning a large amount of money. He later moved his business to Baltimore, Maryland.

In April 1840, Samuel attended a lecture by Francois Fanvel-Gourand on daguerreotype photography. Bemis became interested, and for $75.00, he bought a Giroux camera and  12 plates. and began taking daguerreotype pictures in Boston, and the White Mountains, where he vacationed at the Mount Crawford Tavern owned by Abel Crawford and his son-in-law, Nathaniel T.P. Davis. Bemis took a mortgage on the Tavern, and when they died, Samuel took ownership of the Tavern.

The property was about 6,000 acres in Crawford Notch and Bemis, known as  “The Lord of the Valley”, began naming a mountain, a brook, and a lake after himself. He named Frankenstein Cliff after Godfrey Frankenstein, a friend and outstanding painter.

Beginning in 1860, Dr. Bemis began building a granite mansion from stone  quarried along the Sawyer River. Dr. Samuel Bemis moved in on Christmas Eve, 1880, and became a recluse.

Dr. Bemis allowed the Boston and Ogdensburg Railroad to cross his land for a dollar, and later, a small station was built.

Interested in horticulture, he grafted trees and was awarded for the apples he grew on his farm.

Samuel A. Bemis died on May 22, 1881, and is buried in the Notchland Cemetery beside Abel and Hannah Crawford and others on his estate in Crawford Notch. He left his property to George Morey, his friend, caretaker, and manager of his farm. Morey’s daughter-in-law, Florence Morey, became the owner and operated the mansion as a Bed and Breakfast called The Inn Unique.

In the 1980’s, John and Pat Bernardin remodeled eleven bedrooms and opened the inn for business. In the1990’s, it was sold to Ed Butler and Les Schoof, who continue to run the estate as The Notchland Inn.

REFERENCES:

• Find a Grave, by Kimberly Anderson Bloodgood and Shirley Mitchell
• Samuel Bemis: Renaissance Yankee: Historical New Hampshire by Catherine Campbell
• Wikipedia
• Notchland and Samuel Bemis by Rick Russack
• Bemis at Crawford Notch by Bartlett Historical Society