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The Flume
Samuel L. Gerry (1813–91)
Signed, lower left: “S L Gerry”; undated, circa 1882
Oil on canvas (30 1/2 x 20 1/4 in.), in its original frame
Collection of the New Hampshire Historical Society, gift of Mabelle Furst Greenleaf in memory of Charles Henry Greenleaf and Edith Greenleaf
1924.003.04
The Flume has long been one of New Hampshire’s chief tourist destinations, even though the giant boulder suspended above it did not survive. A landslide and flood swept it away just a year and a half after Gerry painted it. The boulder’s demise, along with that of the Old Man, were anticipated by a reporter for the Boston Evening Transcript, who wrote on November 5, 1881, “The present generation may see the Flume, with the marvelous boulder suspended between the walls, and may look up at the great stone profile; but both of these wonders are transient, for the forces are silently working which will sooner or later dislodge both.”
