Steamboatin’ during the nineteenth century was big business. If we were to compare the old dirt roads that connected the towns and villages of the Lakes Region, its easy to see that water travel was fast, convenient and accepted means of transportation for decades. Railroad stations were a common on every public dock throughtout the Lakes Region, where trains would transfer passengers to one of the railroad owned steamboats for the next jaunt. You would find on any given day more than a dozen steamboats throwing soot into the air as they carried passengers and freight to all points throughout the Lakes Region.

The lakeside towns were laced together by boat lines, with railroad boats joining the larger towns, and smaller craft acting as connecting carriers between the islands and smaller villages. On any day in the mid-1800’s, a dozen or more steamboats belched soot into the air as they carried freight and passengers around and across Lake Winnipesaukee. Business and vacation region for the wealthy was the history of the lake beginnings.