History of the Lake Size

[Rattlesnake Gal]

The topic of our lake having been nine separate bodies of water at one time was intriguing, but baffling. Here is what the Lake Winnipesaukee Historical Society reports on the subject.

LAKE WINNIPESAUKEE
In The Beginning...

Since the orbit and speeds of the earth were stabilized over four billion years ago, an extremely complex series of surface changes has occurred that are still taking place. Between various times and stages of relatively peaceful existence, like our present, cataclysmic events have upset
our land: monsterous earthquakes beyond conception, mountain and canyon forming upheavals in never to be recorded numbers, receding oceans and seas giving place to miles of depth of erosives and lava and ashes only to be replaced by other bodies of water, vast areas of volcanic action time and time again, Sahara-like deserts and post-glacial silt and sand barrens with storms beyond comprehension, and recently - several glacial periods; all of these and many more.

The landscape as we see it today is primarily as it was prior to the start of the last glacial period of about 50,000 years ago, plus the eskers, drumlins, boulder trains, cirques, kames, varves and other glacial remains. Few rocks that we can easily study are older than 350 millions of years (from the Cambrian and Ordovician parts of the Paleozoic Era). Some may be of Silurian date, since the oldest; but most have evolved from the igneous, metamorphosed, and sedimentary rocks during and since the Devonian time. Since the end of the Wisconsin Glacial Stage (nearly 14,000 years ago) in our present Cenozoic Era, topographic chn have been few and barely noticeable.

Here in our region there are no fossils (these are limited to the Littleton area), but many other geologic features are of interest: the meltwater channel which is Valley Street (Lakeport), the boulder trains from Red Hill socialite-nepheline-syenite and Ossipee Mts. Moat-volcanics and Conway-granite (reaching into the Atlantic), the world's most famous ring-dike formation of the Ossipee Mts., Rattlesnake Is. which is geologically part of the Belknap Mts., the huge water-shed boulder in the CoppleCrown Mts., the volcanic-vent on Mt. Belknap, and others. Your favorite library, rock-shop, or the N. H. Development Comm. will gladly help you with locations; but some of the books have misinterpreted the facts.

For the rock collector, mines and minerals in this region are limited to the iron deposit on Gunstock Mt., the sulphide prospects (gold, lead, zinc, etc.) off the Parade Rd., the quartz crystals on Ladd Hill (with a most magnificent view), the garnet sand of Paugus and Saunders Bays, the amethyst, sand of Long Is., Conwaygranite pockets in the Belknaps, the clay and quartz at the foot of Brickyard Mt., fluorescent socialite of Red Hill, crystals of the Ossipees, and very few others.

FORMATION OF WINNIPESAUKEE

Surficial and Bedrock Geology studies of New Hampshire indicate that prior to the Ice Age there was no lake here as we know it today. The quartz diorite (the primary rock of the Winnipesaukee basin) was decomposed in place before and during the glacial period, and the power of
the ice toward the end of the Pleistocene Epoch gouged out the loosened rock leaving hundreds of hills which are our picturesque islands in a hauntingly enticing water-world.

Geologists point out that the water level of this lake has remained about the same as today. Studies of the hillsides, streams, meltwater channels; intervales, and varved deposits preclude the possibility of any glacial dams or deep waters such as Lake Hitchcock that once filled the present Connecticut R. valley. The conclusion is that the Winnipesaukee River of 1969 is very nearly the same drainage channel that the lake has always had.

THE LAKE

This "Beautiful Water of the High Place" has always been held in very high esteem since primitive man first came to its scenic shores. Known as Winnipisseoke, or Winnipiseogee Pond, and dozens of others very similar, the present Winnipesaukee name was made official by the New Hampshire legislature of 1933.

With 183 miles of shoreline, an area of 71.8 square miles (45,952 acres), dimensions at 91/2 miles wide by 21 miles long, an altitude of 504 feet, and a flotilla of islands often estimated at 365, our Lake ranks very high among the world's inland waters. It is the largest of nearly 1311 ponds and lakes in 9,302 square mile New Hampshire. The depth of 169 feet of water lies beneath your boat South-East of Rattlesnake Island, with most of the Lake resting between 20 and 100 feet deep. The elevation is changed by the annual Spring runoff and by an occasional drought (in 1941 the lake contained approximately 14,600,000,000 less cubic feet of water than normal, and in 1826 it may have been even lower). Before man dammed the falls at Lakeport over a 150 years ago, the level was more than three to five feet below the present. Prior to 1832 the Weirs channel was ' a shallow way, and a short "river", before the advent of down stream damming,. of about a three foot drop over a possible width of 150 feet, until the 1803 bridge was built.

Lake Winnipesaukee was marked in 1899 with the first inland waterway bouts in the United States, over 300 hazards being indicated, with the present number of markers, .light-bouys, and other navigation aids about 600.

Over 60 streams run into the Lake, from small hillside brooks to the short Hill River system in the North and the narrow Merrymeeting River of the South.. Several dozen small lakes and ponds drain into Winnipesaukee. It may never be known how such a large and wholesome lake can maintain itself from such a confined watershed.

In 1811 a charter was granted for a canal from Alton Bay to the Sea by way of Merrymeeting, Cocheco, and Piscataqua rivers. Though the Little Pequakit Canal Co. came into being in 1819, no work was done on a proposed project that was intended to eventually extend from the Atlantic Ocean through our Lake, to Squam Lake, and the Connecticut River, and on to Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence.
Full article from Lake Winnipesaukee Historical Society