Sunapee

Sunapee lies in the lake and woodland country of central New Hampshire, where Lake Sunapee and its streams drain the surrounding hills. Western Abenaki people hunted, fished and gathered in these woods long before colonial settlement, following river and lake routes between the hills and the coast. In 1768 the colonial governor of New Hampshire granted a charter for the township of Saville, covering much of the land around the lake. During the American Revolution the settlement was incorporated as Wendell, in 1781. Farms and sawmills spread along the streams in the following decades.