Cobbett’s Pond

Wooden Boats & Canoes

We’ve been marveling at the boats on Cobbett’s Pond lately. $180,000+ for a boat! You could buy a condo for the same amount of money. What is the total assessed value of the boats on the lakes in Windham anyway? There’s a certain blue and white Chris-Craft Launch that looks good on the water at Cobbett’s Pond but what we’ve really enjoyed this summer is the sudden appearance of several old aluminum boats; many still powered by mid-century out-boards. Of course, back in the day before fiberglass, most all boats on the lakes and ponds were wooden. They were often built by hand by the people who owned the cottages. Then there were also the canvass lined canoes with their beautiful wooden interiors. The wooden inboards have always been stunning, with the mahogany gleaming in the sun. I had my windows open and I  was listening to boats on the lake, in bed the other night; I’ve decided there is nothing as distinctive as the sound of an old inboard engine, rumbling across the water.

Some of the photos include Joe and Mary Anne Alosky with their mom in a classic, wooden row-boat with outboard.

A gorgeous wooden sailboat that was once kept at a cottage on North Shore Road.

Johnsons in boats and canoes.

The Aloskys again in a wooden boat on Cobbett’s.

George Dinsmore Sr. and his daughter Dorothy in a wooden canoe.

The “East Shore of Cobbett’s Pond.”

In the fifties and sixties there were hundreds of black and white wooden row-boats, clogging the small pond, filled to the brim with passengers, rented at Dunkin Beach.

Finally, My mom tells the story that she and her sister Lal could out paddle my Dad’s power boat in a canoe when they were kids