[carguy]

I remember seeing some "stuffed" Rattlesnakes at the Libby Museum in Tuftonboro that were supposingly caught on Rattlesnake Island. I also heard the stories of the island being set afire to get rid of the snakes.

Speaking of Lumbering Operations, I recall seeing photographs where portions of the island were denuded of trees due to the lumbering operations on the island. I also read that the island was used for sheep grazing when there were meadows on the island. Looking at the island now it is hard to believe that there were once meadows on the island.

In the mid 1950's myself and a group of fellow teenagers camped overnite on the island on a few occasions. In the early 1950's I don't recall there being any structures on the island. I remember when the Wolfeboro Real Estate Broker, J.I. Melanson, had the island surveyed and divided into lots. The lot numbers were nailed to the trees at the water's edge.

On my first camping experience on Rattlesnake Island in the early 1950's a group of us from Lake Shore Park motored over to the island in our flat bottom Dory boats with a small outboard motor. We pulled the boats up on a flat rock ledge just opposite Ames Farm. I didn't sleep a wink that night because I thought the chattering of insects were noises coming from the Rattlesnakes.

A couple of years later in the late 1950's on another camping excursion we docked our boats in the cove on the NW side of the point where it meets the main part of the island. Previous hikers had marked a trail to the summit of the island. We camped overnite on the island at the summit with a rock ledge being the backdrop for our campfire. Boy what a view of the lake from up there. I believe the elevation is around 900' at the summit. Shorly thereafter the island was developed and that put an end to our camping excursions on Rattlesnake Island.

Back in the late 1950's and early 1960's there was a measured mile with markers on the northwest coast of the island. We use to check out the speed of our boats on the measued mile. Not having been on the Lake in a boat since the late 1990's, I do not know if that measured mile still exists.

Finally, I nerver ran into any Rattlesnakes on the Island. If I had, I probably wouldn't have been here to write this posting, having died of a heart attack upon sighting the snake.