Builder: Dolliver, 1928

 

Essay by Bob Farrell, November 1, 2008

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My time at Sunset Lake dates back to the early 1950s when I was a small child. One memory from that time is going to the family cottage after church on a beautiful summer day when I was three or four. I was transfixed by glimpses of the lake flashing between the cottages as we drove down the dirt road (no one called it Sunset Lake Road back then). And then one of my relatives took me out for a spin in the row boat, dressed in our Sunday finest. What a thrill! That was a long time ago, but the memory is still very vivid.

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I also recall a cold and blustery Fourth of July family gathering from around that same time in my early youth. Because of the unseasonably cold weather, we were all inside, and I remember watching with fascination my elderly uncle John tending his fiery potbelly stove in the kitchen. Born in the 1880s, Uncle John was actually a great uncle, being the brother of my maternal grandmother. Their father was Edward Dolliver who, along with his son John, built several cottages near the end of the lake. Uncle John built the cottage at what is now number 93 Sunset Lake Road around 1928, some four years after purchasing the land. The property has been in the family ever since. In the 1940s, he expanded the cottage and subsequently deeded the property to his only child, Dorothy Hannaford of Nashua, who was my mother's cousin. Aunt Dot, as we called her, let my family use the cottage throughout my youth. 

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In the mid-1970s, Aunt Dot deeded the cottage to my mother, who then added running water and expanded the cottage slightly. 

When my parents moved from Peterborough to Florida about ten years ago, my mother deeded the cottage to me. By then it needed some major structural work because it was slipping off the eroding dirt edge that was supporting one side. We tried some stopgap measures that proved short-lived, so in 2007 we undertook a substantial rehabilitation. Today the cottage is level, solid, and updated, but it retains its rustic simplicity that I remember cherishing as I was growing up. We have also retained the outhouse as a historic relic.

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Kelly has only known Sunset Lake as an adult, since meeting me in 1991; but she has fallen so entirely in love with the lake and the whole Monadnock area that it seems as though she too has been coming to the lake since early childhood. Together we relish mornings, when the lake is waking from its misty slumber; cherish the magical sunsets for which the lake gained its name; and gaze at the stars from our dock before turning in at night. We also love the wildlife at the lake, especially the variety of birds, and the surrounding deep woods in which the lake is nestled. 

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The music of the lake is very special—fish jumping to catch bugs, the bullfrogs, sounds echoing off Crotched Mountain, and the joyous squeals of children playing in the water. It seems like yesterday that I was one of those kids, but, alas, it was more than half a century ago. But Sunset Lake has not changed too much over the years. Today it’s a bit more developed and a bit less rural, but it is still a very special place.