Meredith program explores how New Hampshire and Laconia took flight amid golden age of aviation

MEREDITH — Return for an hour to the time when the sound of an airplane engine overhead was a cause for tremendous excitement, when an airplane ride over the blue waters of Lake Winnipesaukee was the thrill of a lifetime, and a trip to the Weirs just to see the floatplanes take off and land was the high point of a summer season.

That’s what the audience is invited to do at a program Tuesday, Nov. 4, titled “Bob Fogg and New Hampshire’s Golden Age of Aviation: Flying Over Winnipesaukee and Beyond,” an overview of the similarly titled book written by Jane Rice of Moultonborough and printed by Peter Randall of Portsmouth, a respected publisher of New Hampshire history.

This final program in the Meredith Historical Society’s 2025 Speaker Series will be held at the Meredith Community Center. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. with the program starting at 7 p.m.

“Transportation has always been a fundamental element in the evolution of Meredith,” said MHS President John Hopper. “We are fortunate to have a member of our own board of directors share her expertise on how aviation became part of that network.”

Rice’s research began with the knowledge that her grandfather, World War I aviator Thomas E.P. Rice had flown at the Weirs in the 1930s, just down the hill from her childhood home on Parade Road in Laconia. There, he briefly partnered with Bob Fogg, the man who introduced aviation to the Granite State.

Fogg brought New Hampshire’s first privately owned airplane — a war-surplus biplane trainer built of spruce, linen and wire known as a “Canuck” — to Concord in 1920, and established the airport there, as well as hopping passengers at Hampton Beach.

In 1923 Fogg brought another war surplus airplane, a Curtiss flying boat called a “Seagull,” to the Weirs summer resort and flew over the Big Lake each summer through 1938, carrying over 50,000 passengers, delivering air mail, and training many future aviators. 

“In an era when airports were few and far between,” Rice said, “New Hampshire’s numerous lakes and ponds provided convenient landing areas, and Fogg visited many lakeside resorts around the state. Other adventures in aviation included flying the mail into Vermont after the massive flood of 1927 and flying newsreel cameras to Newfoundland and Labrador to record the arrival of early transatlantic flights.”

For more information, visit meredithhistoricalsocietynh.org.