Our chronicle now leaps through the years. It is 1768, and New Hampshire’s colonial governor, John Wentworth, has completed a province road from Portsmouth to Wolfeboro, where he is to establish his summer home, become the Winnipesaukee lakes region’s first summer resident, and give Wolfeboro just claim to the distinction of being the first summer resort in America. The Wentworth mansion did not sit on Winnipesaukee’s shores. It was much nearer the fine lake now known as Wentworth, but Winnipesaukee was known to these colonial visitors who embarked on its waters in some type of craft.
Events such as these brought forward the growth of settlements around the lake, Alton Bay having been the first in 1710, and with them came bark canoes and dug-outs, hollowed from huge tree trunks, for travel on the waters. With the growth of the little villages came navigation of Winnipesaukee as a natural means of commercial intercourse. The first recorded type of craft in these times was a peculiar model of sailing vessel. Incidentally, sails went out of favor on Winnipesaukee with the passing of these craft, and have only now begun to return to grace in the pleasure boat field.
These early sailboats were called “gundalows.” In retrospective mood one can believe, from factual information available as to their appearance that these craft were as picturesque as anything that has ever been navigated on the lake. It is established that “gundalows” were flat-bottomed, and frequently planked with hewn timbers to insure safety in case the craft were accidentally run on the rocks. Not a few were round at both bow and stern, an unusual piece of construction for the times, achieved by fastening blocks of timber together with wooden pins, then hewing the bow and stern to the shape desired. There was generally a stout railing around the sides; and it is said that these boats were among the safest ever operated, with no record of one being lost by accident, and no person drowned or injured who was in any way connected with their service. Motive power was from one, and sometimes two, sails. A few boasted a jib. All had two long oars, or “sweeps” as they were called, located generally at the stern of the boat. These were used for steering, and in calm weather a procedure resembling sculling was resorted to for propulsion. Either method was slow, and a twenty-five or thirty-mile trip often required two or three days. In an unusually good wind a speed of six or eight miles and hour was attained. The ‘sweeps,” resembling as they do the propelling implement of the gondola, may account for the unusual name of these boats.
One of the largest gundalows on Winnipesaukee was built by Nathaniel Shannon of Moultonboro. It was sixty or sixty-five feet long, and was used for transporting “boards, flour, fish, molasses, shook and bales of cotton to the mills of Lake Village.” Almost every trip also saw a supply of New England rum on board.
All gundalows carried merchandise between Alton Bay, Meredith, and Lake Village. Observe here the marked influence the early roads had on Winnipesaukee navigation, in influence that was to continue until the thousands of summer visitors to the lake region came, for the most part, in their own automobiles over a modern system of state highways. I have already indicated Wentworth’s road from Portsmouth to Wolfeboro. Other similar roads extended from the seacoast towns to the interior. Thus, supplies for the Winnipesaukee region first came to Alton Bay by team or stage. Likewise, first commercial passengers on the lake generally embarked at that point. Gundalows did not advertise to carry passengers, but did a limited business at 50 cents for a first class passage on the deck of the boat. There was but one rule for passengers, and a promise to obey it was required as a boarding credential. No interference with the crew!
Gundalows characteristically had two captains, one who officiated on one way of the trip while the other took command on the return. Friendly rivalry prevailed between the captains, in matters of time required for the journey and the ability to direct the entire course of the boat through any contingencies which might arise without asking help from the captain who was off duty.
These craft were doubtless picturesque, but uncertainty of wind and weather, which necessitated resorting to laborious man-power, inevitably spelled their defeat.
Gundalow Company