Sunapee's Sunken Treasure, The Weetamoo
By George Montgomery

There is sunken treasure in Lake Sunapee. Not gold or silver, but the Weetamoo, a 55-foot, 100-passenger steamship more than a hundred years old. This is the story of its time on the lake, how it got to the bottom, and what is left of it.

After the Civil War in the 1860s, as railroads offered easy access to the lakes and mountains of northern New England, Sunapee became one of the favorite resorts for "flatlanders" seeking relief from sweltering cities. Without cars, it was difficult to provide access to the entire lake, so enterprising shipwrights moved from the coast and built steamboats to accommodate these tourists.

The most accomplished of these builders were the Woodsum Brothers who assembled half a dozen steel boats of various size to provide access to campsites, then to small communities, and finally to grand and spacious hotels which graced Lake Sunapee's shores by the turn of the century. Steamboats were a prime factor in the development of settlements and eventually towns along the shores of New Hampshire's lakes. Weetamoo was among the last of those built. It was launched in 1902 and named for the daughter of an Indian chief featured in John Greenleaf Whittier's epic poem, "Bride of Penacook." It plied the lake for almost 25 years, providing milk, mail, and other necessities to lake dwellers, and transporting summer visitors. Then one night, without fanfare or even mention in the local Argus newspaper, Weetamoo was scuttled off Pine Cliff near Newbury. It sank upright in 70 feet of water and there remains, the only known unmodified and still intact lake steamboat of its era, complete with wheelhouse, upper deck, boiler, steam engine and drive train. It lay undiscovered for nearly 60 years but now provides a treasure chest of archaeological information regarding steamships of 100 years ago.

Ten years ago members of the Maritime Archaeological and Historical Society (MAHS), a group based in Washington, DC devoted to preserving America's underwater heritage, began archival and oral research on the ship and her sisters, and raised funds to perform a scientific survey of the Weetamoo. Within a year, the State issued a permit for the project, and the Lake Sunapee Protective Association (LSPA) offered a grant to support the project as part of the Centennial Celebration of its stewardship of the environmental aspects of the lake and its surroundings. Other essential support was LSPA's pontoon boat for a dive platform and Wayne and Judy La Porte's Dive Shop in Newbury which provided air, tanks and invaluable support and advice about diving in the lake's 49-degree water at 70 feet down.

In June 1998, five archaeology-trained MAHS divers arrived from various parts of the country and began an extensive survey of the wreck. Staying with two MAHS members living in Sunapee, they and their hosts performed 95 dives on the wreck, recording more than 1,000 data points to establish Weetamoo's dimensions, as well as dozens of sketches, still photographs, and videotape. Thanks to the cooperation of MAHS and the La Portes, expenses to LSPA were less than $500. Unfortunately, dive visibility was decreasing due to normal turnover of lake water by this time of year and was less than ten feet by the time full professional photo equipment arrived. Nonetheless, sufficient data were available to accurately plot the complete interior and exterior of the ship, and the drawings were provided to the Sunapee Historical Society Museum and were the main feature of a report to the Society for Historical Archaeology at its annual meeting in 2000. Further research continues on Weetamoo's propulsion and construction details.

This article is a revised version of one written some years ago for LSPA's publication "The Beacon." Fells volunteers George and Jill Montgomery have lived in Sunapee since 1996 and direct the Weetamoo Project. George gave a presentation at The Fells on the Weetamoo on September 13, 2007 as part of the collaborative history series "1920s and '30s: Pastimes and Amusements Around Lake Sunapee."