Reprinted from "Farewell Old Mount Washington" by Edward
H. Blackstone ©1969
Early in the winter of 1881, the following item appeared
in the columns of the Boston Herald:
Mr. Herbert Blackstone, a graduate of the evening ship
design school of this city has just designed a 60-foot
steamer, to be run from The Weirs to Alton Bay, Lake
Winnipiseogee, N. H. The steamer will be built on the
shores of the lake and will be used as a pleasure yacht.
The contract to build the boat was awarded to the young
man who drew the plans, and when Blackstone arrived
at the lake it was mid-winter. He was met at Meredith
by Arthur Lamprey, for whom he was to build the boat;
his baggage and tools were loaded on a sled of the type
used for hauling cordwood, and he rode to Long Island
for the first time behind a team of horses.
At his direction, a list of building materials had been
assembled at Horseboat Landing. The material included
quantities of dry white oak, which had been cut on the
Lamprey farm. This was before the days of power tools,
so broad axes and adzes were used to hew a keel, a stem,
a sternpost, ribs and other parts of the frame from
this iron-hard timber. It was hard work, but the end
product had to be as strong as steel.
Despite the hard work, deep snow and severe cold weather,
the boat was completed and launched in the early summer.
She was propeller-driven and was the first steamboat
owned by this family fitted with a water-tube or tubular
boiler and a Payne engine. Incidentally, this firm of
engine builders, which was later known as Fitz-Henry
and Payne, supplied engines and machinery for many of
the best known steamboats on Lake Winnipesaukee. The
boat was christened "Belle Of The Wave" and
she soon became an important competitor in lake commerce.
Repritned from "Three Centuries on Winnipesaukee" by
Paul H. Blaisdell © 1936
The "Belle of
the Wave" was one of the first of the Blackstone-built
Winnipesaukee boats, having been constructed in 1881
by Herbert A. Blackstone for Ansel Lamprey. The hull
was seventy-two feet long with a twelve-foot beam and
was equipped with a Paine engine and an upright boiler.
When completed the "Belle" went into service
between Lakeport and Long Island, to connect with the
"Mount Washington."
The last of the trio
of well-known steamers to go during this era was the
"Belle of the Wave," a victim of fire. This
boat burned to the waters edge while tied up for the
night at Long Island, in the year 1884.