I recently had the opportunity to chat with Bill Muzeroll, cottage #60B. Bill has lived in Claremont all his life but spent a great deal of his almost ninety years here at Crescent Lake. You see, Bill has been spending summers at the lake since the late 1920's! That's when his father bought cottage #60 which is currently owned by Tom and Lani Sebastian. The former owner of the cottage called it "The When", but Bill's Mother suggested the more appropriate name "Sunset Camp" which is what it became.
     In those days Crescent Lake was still called Cold Pond. It would take a lot longer to make the trip from Claremont to Sunset Camp than it does today. You could drive from Claremont on the Second New Hampshire Turnpike as far as Unity center. The turnpike wasn't completed beyond that point and you were forced to take back roads that would approach the lake from the west. You would then drive down a dirt road along the south shore of the lake to reach the tiny cottage near the dam.
     Spending the summer on Crescent Lake back then was a simple existence. The cottages had no indoor plumbing and there was no electricity or phone service. Oil lamps were used for lighting in the evening. Limited groceries and gasoline could be bought at the store at Silver Beach. You could also buy ice for your ice box at the Silver Beach ice house.

     Bill did a lot of fishing on Crescent Lake when he was young.. He and his friends would take their boat up to the west end of the lake into what Bill called "the cove" because the fishing was better up there. They'd fish with long bamboo poles and use perch bellies as bait to catch pickerel.
     The north shore of the lake was pretty much undeveloped back then except for a few cottages in the cove. Bill remembers a couple of places out at the end of East Shore Road. At the very end of the road there was a place called Recreation Camp that had a large boat house with a yellow perch painted on the side.
     Eventually Bill's Father sold Sunset Camp to the Ginter family. Then in the early 50's Bill and his wife Jeanette wanted to find a summer lakeside getaway.  They spotted an ad in the Claremont paper for a piece of property on Crescent Lake. When they inquired, they found the property was a one acre lot next to the dam and was being offered by the Ginter family. Bill bought the property and built a cottage (60B) on the site. So once again Bill and his family were able to spend summers on the lake he knew and loved as a boy.

Larry McCluskey

Do you have photos or stories of Crescent Lake in years gone by? Please share them with us.
Email: history@crescentlakeassn.org