Origin of Name
There has been much discussion of the origin of the name "White Mountains". This name and similar ones such as "White Hills" or "Wine Hills" are found in literature from colonial times. According to tradition, the mountains were first sighted from shipboard off the coast near the Piscataqua estuary. The highest peaks would often be snow-capped. An alternate theory is that the mica-laden granite of the summits looked "white" to observers.
Read more about this topic: White Mountains (New Hampshire)
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“Each structure and institution here was so primitive that you could at once refer it to its source; but our buildings commonly suggest neither their origin nor their purpose.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)