About a mile and a half downriver is another national landmark, "The Hermitage", a roughly 35-acre (14 ha) grove of large Eastern White Pine trees that is preserved by The Nature Conservancy.

In 2003, the Appalachian Mountain Club acquired a 37,000-acre (15,000 ha) property upriver from Gulf Hagas that it named Katahdin Iron Works.

Early European surveyor Moses Greenleaf translated the Abnaki name Munnalammonungan for the west branch of the Pleasant River as "very fine paint."

They also built eighteen stone beehive kilns to convert wood to charcoal for producing about 2,000 tons of pig iron annually.

When Pingree died, a group of Bangor, Maine businessmen formed the Piscataquis Iron Works Company to take over the operation in 1876.

They refurbished the boarding house as the Silver Lake Hotel for the tourist trade; and hired a Swedish mining engineer in 1877 to improve the iron by reducing the silicon content.

[2] The railway began operating in 1882, but a hurricane fanned sparks from the kilns into a fire which caused major damage to the plant.

By 1885 a rebuilt plant was selling high quality iron for railroad car wheels and cruiser engines for the United States Navy.