Excerpt from Lake Winnipesaukee Historical Society:
Shipwrecks were the distinguishing feature in the life of Winnipesaukee’s first steamboat, the Belknap. Two years in the building, the Belknap was a prodigious effort for the Lakes Region shipbuilders —ninety-six feet long and thirty-three feet wide on the decks —and was powered by a steam engine salvaged from an old saw mill Her first misadventure happened the day she was launched at Lakeport in 1833. Full-ahead was located where reverse should have been in her crazy-quilt pilot house, and the proud ship plowed backwards into a raft of logs instead of sailing majestically out into Paugus Bay. The trouble was soon located, however; the Belknap finished her maiden voyage on schedule and continued to operate on the lake for eight more years, until another raft of logs again caused an accident that finished her career for good. On that cold October day in 1841, the lake witnessed its first serious shipwreck, and another one of its 365 islands received a name.
It was late in the season, when the nor’easters make boating hazardous on Winnipesaukee just as they do for seamen everywhere. The Belknap was sailing out of Center Harbor that day, towing a raft of logs that slowed the ship down to a speed of about three miles an hour. Somewhere between Six Mile Island and Birch Island a gale struck the steamer. Unable to make any headway with her heavy burden, the Belknap swung onto the point of a small island, smashed against submerged rocks and sank almost immediately. Although the machinery was later salvaged, the hull still remains on the lake-bottom near “Steamboat Island,” as it has been called ever since.
During the eight years of the Belknap’s service, other steamers were put into service on the lake, all of them powered by old locomotive or sawmill engines. About eight were built altogether, fashioned along the scow lines of the Belknap; they were noisy and clumsy, but they proved that scheduled steamboat transportation was a practical and profitable business. Population was growing, the railroads were coming and businessmen recognized the need for inter-town transportation. But by the time that the Belknap made her last voyage, all the early sidewheelers had been either worn out or destroyed, and steamboating on Winnipesaukee came to a standstill for several years while the region waited for a newer type of common carrier.
Steamboats of Lake Winnipesaukee