Place:Sunapee, Sullivan, New Hampshire, United States

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source: Family History Library Catalog

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Sunapee is a town in Sullivan County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 3,342 at the 2020 census. The town is home to part of Lake Sunapee and includes the village of Georges Mills.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Like many other towns, this one went through name changes before its incorporation in 1781, including "Saville" in 1768, "Corey's Town", and then "Wendell", after John Wendell, a Masonian Proprietor. A village at the western edge of town and a marsh near Sunapee Middle-High School still bear Wendell's name. The name "Sunapee" was substituted for "Wendell" by the legislature in 1850. The town, Lake Sunapee and Mount Sunapee share the name which comes from the Algonquian words suna meaning "goose", and apee, meaning "water". The Natives called the area "Lake of the Wild Goose" because it is shaped like a goose, with the beak being in Sunapee Harbor.

Before Sunapee was a sizable tourist attraction, it was an industrial area. One factory produced 110 clothespins a minute. After the factories faded away, the major attraction became the pristine lake, once surrounded by a number of grand hotels. People used large ferries to get from hotel to hotel around the lake, but the ferries were mostly gone by 1915, when the automobile was widely introduced to the area. Lake Sunapee is the only lake in New Hampshire with three working lighthouses, which were originally built in the 1890s by the Woodsum brothers and are currently maintained by the Lake Sunapee Protective Association.

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