Situated in the heart of Boston, the iconic Swan Boats of the Public Garden have been paddling around residents, tourists and their young children since 1877. But even before the Swan Boats were created, Robert Paget was granted a license in the 1870’s from the city to give rides in a small row boat around the small lagoon. After being inspired by the opera Lohengrin, a medieval German story were the Lohengrin, the knight of the Grail crosses a river in a boat drawn by a swan to defend the heroine Princess, the Swan Boats were born.

Ever since, the same family has been running the business. For five generations the Paget family has worked on keeping the Swan Boats alive, just as they would have been seen in the late 1800’s. Although there have been a few minor changes since the inaugural Swan Boat, like the addition of a few more benches to accommodate more passengers, everything else has staid the same.

BostInno spoke to Lyn Paget, one of the current Swan Boat managers to learn more about the family behind the business. Lyn is featured in the middle of the following 2011 Women’s Equality Day picture.

Below is an edited version of the conversation we had together:

BostInno: When did you first start working with the Swan Boats?

Lyn: I started there when I was about thirteen years old and I was selling tickets at that point. I started in a similar fashion to many people in my family and families before me were you kind of go down to the dock and help your parents running the business.  All of us were involved with being on the swan boats on the dock when we were little but I got my official job when I was a teenager and I learned how to sell tickets. I did that through my high school years and then as I got into college I moved more into management.  

B: I noticed that the last people on the website who were running the business were Paul and Marilyn.

L: They are my parents. Before them are my grandparents John and Ella. The originators of the business would be Robert and Julia. Robert had rowboats in there until about 1870 and the Swan Boats started in 1877 and then he passed away. The most fascinating thing given the time and the era of the late 1870’s was that his wife Julia tried to maintain the business herself, which she was able to do even though she had young children and even though that wasn’t a common thing for women to do for the late 1800’s. She has since been recognized in the Boston’s Women Heritage Trail as one of the most influential women in the early history of Boston, which is really kind of neat. If she hadn’t made that decision I really don’t think the business would be around.

B: Can you describe the relationship you have with Boston tourism and the Boston Public Garden because the Swan Boats are seen as such an iconic image today?

L: I think that we are very fortunate to be in that position. The Swan Boats have become one of the many symbols of Boston. You see them a lot on the cover of tour magazines and we get a lot of requests from all over the world to use the image and to tell the story. I think that’s really terrific, not only because it is our business but also we worked pretty hard to preserve the integrity and the tradition of the Swan Boats.

The experience that kids and adults are having now is very similar to if they would have come in the late 1870’s. That’s really the most significant point that people gravitate towards the Swan Boats around is that it is the exact same as it was for their parents or grandparents. The Boston Garden and the boats themselves are ascetically really beautiful and I often find myself thinking that if you take the Swan Boats and put them anywhere else it really wouldn’t be the same experience.

B: How much does it take to keep these boats running each year?

L: We do a lot of maintenance and repair; in fact we do a lot of it in the off-season. Once we close down in September we start in October through March and what we are doing at that point is maintaining the pontoons, which are pretty incredible structures. These are the two pontoons that each boat sits on and there are 12 of them because we have six boats. They are framed, so they are hollow pontoons. They are wooden framed and covered in copper. We have to make sure of is that everything is ready to go by April because we would never want to pull a boat out of commission during the season. For example, we might take one boat and refurbish all the benches. The benches are oak and iron and perhaps can be 30-40 years old and we look at them and say ok they’ve gotten to the point were they are not in good shape so we are going to put all new benches on the boat.

B: How hard is it to paddle a Swan Boat?

L: The boat is probably most equivalent to riding an older three-speed bike up a hill. I mean that is something that a lot of people don’t do anymore because most bikes have more than three speeds but that would be kind of what the equivalent would be. Kicking a bike down into a low speed were you spin the wheels and pushing it uphill but not a hill where you really stand up on your bike and push but a pretty steady rotation. There are some structural things that we do to the paddle wheel to make sure that it stays in momentum. Not to say that it is an easy job at all. It is definitely a good workout.

B: Can you explain the contract that you share with the city?

I often find myself thinking that if you take the Swan Boats and put them anywhere else it really wouldn’t be the same experience.

L: We have a three-year contract with the Boston Parks and Recreation Department and they send out a request for proposals andthat will actually happen for next year. We are in the third year of our contract and, yes, there were some changes that were made so far as the reporting goes they upgraded the counting to reflect the technology that we now use on our registers and things like that. They built that into the contract as well. But is a three-year contract and it is an open proposal process.

B: What do you do during the rest of the year to compliment the Swan Boat business?

L: I don’t do anything different from my predecessors. Everyone before me, I mean it is a seasonal business only running from April to September and it’s weather dependent. It’s a little bit unpredictable from one year to the next in what’s going to happen. I actually work as a health policy consultant. I’ve worked in public health and in the non-profit sector and in healthcare planning, primarily around quality care for patients so that’s my career job. Then my grandfather and my great-grandfather all did the same thing. It’s the way that is has worked for the family and all of our employees who are primarily school students or college students who are working for us on the weekends and then during the week when they get out of school.

Images via Lyn Paget and SwanBoats.com