A rustic cabin owned by Dartmouth College that burned down last Friday night was the temporary resting place for Concord’s Colin Van Ostern and several friends on a hunting trip before flames sent them fleeing.
The Hell Gate Gorge Cabin in northern New Hampshire is open only to Dartmouth alumni or employees and their guests. Van Ostern graduated from Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business in 2009, according to his profile.
Van Ostern, a former Executive Councilor who was the Democratic nominee for governor in 2016, told the Union Leader he was staying at the cabin with Democratic politician Gray Chynoweth, Superior Court Judge Will Delker, Cory Von Wallenstein, and Todd Quinn. Everyone escaped injury.
Van Ostern was busy with meetings Friday afternoon and unavailable for comment, he said.
Fire officials responded early Friday morning to the fire at the Hell Gate Gorge Cabin in the Second College Grant, a swath of almost 27,000 acres of Dartmouth-owned land northeast of Dixville Notch.
Dartmouth officials told the Valley News the fire “completely destroyed” the cabin. The three-room cabin slept nine people and had a wood stove for heating, according to the Dartmouth website.
Van Ostern said one of the men in the hunting group got up in the middle of the night to use the outdoor bathroom and noticed a glow near the base of the chimney. The men tried to stave off the flames using a fire extinguisher – even climbing on the roof of the cabin to put out the fire – but were unsuccessful.
The cabin near the Hell Gate Gorge on the Dead Diamond River was built in 1974 and replaced an old cabin used for logging, according to the Dartmouth Outing Club.
Dartmouth spokeswoman Diana Lawrence said college officials are awaiting a report from the fire chief in nearby Errol.
After running for governor, Van Ostern was nearly successful in his attempt to oust Bill Garner as New Hampshire Secretary of State, narrowly losing in a second round of voting in the House of Representatives.