Glittering within New Hampshire’s Lakes Region, itself created by the likes of Little Squam, Silver, Squam, Waukewan, and Winnisquam lakes, is Lake Winnipesaukee, one of the three largest to lie within the borders of a single state. And plying it for three-quarters of a century is its flagship, the “M/S Mount Washington.” A cruise on this very, and venerable, symbol is obligatory for becoming acquainted with the area.

Volcanic Belknap and Ossipee

Sandwiched between volcanic Belknap and Ossipee mountains, the glacially-formed and spring-fed lake was first discovered by white men in 1652 when surveyors dispatched by the Massachusetts Colony to determine its northern boundaries realized that the point they sought lay three miles up the Merrimack River. Embarking on a secondary expedition in a sailboat, they reached the village of Aquadoctan, then the largest Indian community in the area, located in the north and west foothills.

The point itself, marked by a plaque on today’s Endicott Rock, stands in present-day Weirs Beach, named after the triangular, rock-and-log-fishing trap found nearby. The 72-square-mile lake of Winnipesaukee, with a 25-mile length, one- to 15-mile width, and 182.89-mile shore line, equally derives its name from an Indian word which has several translations, including “the smile of the great spirit,” “beautiful water in a high place,” and even “smiling water between hills.”

Encircled by the major port towns of Alton Bay, Center Harbor, Meredith, Wolfeboro, and Weirs Beach, and comprised of 274 habitable islands, it is a magnet for summer tourists, offering an array of accommodation types, restaurants, shops, water sports, and boating activities.

Because of its size and its number of communities, intra-lake transportation had been vital and integral to its existence, whether it be for passengers, freight, or mail, since surface, lake-perimeter conveyance, particularly during pre-motorized days, had been laboriously slow.

The first such aquatic surface vehicle combined the buoyancy of a hull with the horsepower of the actual animal. Two such horses, positioned at its aft treadmill  Lago Maggiore on an open, 60- to 70-foot boat, turned its side paddle wheels as they trotted, producing a two-mph speed.

Further integrating travel models, railroads strategically positioned stations next to steamboat docks, facilitating passenger interchange.

One of the lake’s first such boats, the 96-foot-long, 33-foot-wide “Belknap,” was inaugurated into service at Lake Village in 1833, propelled by a retrofitted sawmill steam engine. Redirected onto rocks by gale force winds eight years later, it sank from sight.

Succeeded by what became a virtual symbol of the area, it passed its wake to the “Lady of the Lake.” Constructed by the Winnipesaukee Steamboat Company in 1849, the 125-foot-long boat was launched from Lake Village and carried 400 passengers during its maiden voyage to the Weirs, Center Harbor, and Wolfeboro.

Lady of the Lake

But even the “Lady of the Lake” could not covet the crown earned by its competitor, the “Mount Washington,” which became reining queen after the elderly lady herself had been retired in 1893.

Powered by a single, 42-inch-diameter piston which generated 450 hp, the wooden hulled, side-wheel steamer was launched in 1872 from Alton Bay and exceeded 20-mph cruise speeds.

Technology climbed a step on the “Mineola.” Constructed in 1877 in Newburgh, New Hampshire, it was both the first propeller-as opposed to paddle wheel-steamer and the first to have been large enough to carry both passengers and cargo.

What was to become the end of the “Mount Washington’s” long, illustrious career in the 1920s only became its beginning. The Boston and Maine Company, its owner, withdrew it from service, but Captain Leander Lavallee, unable to accept the icon’s demise, purchased it and operated lake excursions for tourists during the summer months until even this resuscitation abruptly lost its air when a fire unexplainably erupted at the Weirs train station and spread toward the dock where it had been moored only two days before Christmas in 1939, reducing it to a mostly submerged char and ending its career in the very water which, for 67 years, had ironically given it life.

Still undeterred, Lavallee could not see its name sink with it. Citing the $250,000 of an all-new design as prohibitive, he embarked on a search for a second-hand “Mount Washington II” replacement instead that was ultimately located on Lake Champlain in the form of the “Chateaugay.” Built in 1888, the iron-hulled, side-wheel steamer, owned by the Champlain Transportation Company, had been operated between Burlington, Vermont, and Plattsburgh, New York.