A relic of Boston’s bygone days, a ride on the swan boats on the tranquil lagoon of the Public Garden offers 15 minutes of serenity.
The story of the slow-going swan boats goes back to 1877. Robert Paget developed a catamaran with a pedal-powered paddlewheel. Inspired by the opera Lohengrin, in which a heroic knight rides across a river in a swan-drawn boat, Paget designed a graceful swan to hide the boat captain.
While today’s swan boats are larger than the 1877 original, they still utilize the same technology and are still managed by Paget’s descendants.
