Bar Harber: 19th-Century F 29 B3 BAR HARBOR: S32 1920 THE FORMATIVE YEARS By RICHARD A. SAVAGE A THESIS Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts (in History) The Graduate School University of Maine Orono June, 1970 BAR HARBOR: THE FORMATIVE YEARS By Richard A. Savage An Abstract of the Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts (in History). June, 1970. This is a study of the impact of profound social and economic changes upon the inhabitants of a small Maine village, Before 1844 Bar Harbor was a humble fishing and farming hamlet relegated to the poverty of its neighbors to the east and west. After 1844 all of this changed, and rapidly. Through the influence of a few artists, America's growing leisure class "discovered Bar Harbor, and, almost overnight, the hamlet became a thriving resort. By 1885 it was second in prestige and popularity only to Newport. This thesis examines the "old" Bar Harbor, viewing it as a typical New England coastal town, and then analyzes the changes that gave birth to a "new" Bar Harbor. It is shown that much of the resort's success can be attributed to the efforts of native Bar Harbor- - ites, and that only after the difficult early years had faded into the past were non-residents ready to invest considerable sums in resort enterprises. 2 By 1870, the local economy was becoming dependent upon summer residents and tourists. The occasional vis- - itors of the 1840s were followed by summer boarders, and after the Civil War, hotels and boarding houses were built in large numbers. During the 1870s the hotel era was at its height. But by the early eighties, social supremacy had passed to the rapidly growing cottage colony, and the day of the old-time "rusticator" was gone. By 1885, the gulf between the boarders and cot- - tagers was widening. Bar Harbor "society" was becoming more formal, and the arrival of men of great wealth clearly charted the path of Bar Harbor's future develop- - ment. This account terminates in 1885 when the stage was being set for the ostentation of the "Golden Nineties. " The pace of life at Bar Harber was quick - ening, and even the year-round inhabitants exhibited a new life-style. At least to a degree, provincialism was giving way to cosmopolitanism. For other Maine residents there was something to be learned from the Bar Harbor experience. Tourism offered a way to an improved economy and a higher standard of living. The lesson was not lost, and the State of Maine soon became one of the nation's prime vacationlands. 2 PREFACE The town of Bar Harbor, Maine, derives its name from the sand bar that connects the village to nearby Bar island at ebb tide. Originally known as East Eden, Bar Harbor was a small and insignificant part of the larger town of Eden until the middle of the last century. Most of the history of Eden during the first fifty years after the town's incorporation centers around its larger com- - ponents: Hulls Cove, Salisbury Cove, West Eden (Town Hill), and Eden proper. In consequence, any history of Bar Harbor must, if it is to begin at the beginning, deal with the history of the rest of the town of Eden, at least until after the Civil War when Bar Harbor's prc - digious and unprecedented growth as a resort thrust the mother-town into obscurity. To present-day Americans, and even to some of the "international jet-set," thoughts of Bar Harbor bring to mind the wealth and ostentation of the "Gilded Age." Some still living know well its brief but glorious ren- naissance during the twenties, Newport of course remains first in the hearts and minds of most of America's social elite, though today the memories of Mrs. Astor's Newport fast are fading into the realm of legend. 3 The fact that the two New England resorts are often compared. if not equated, speaks well for Bar Harbor, by far the younger and more remote of the two. Newport has been a vacation place of note from colonial times, when the wealthy residents of Charleston, South Carolina fled the malarial swamps that surrounded that center of early American culture, and joined with more mundane New York- ers in sharing Rhode Island's cool and invigorating ocean breezes. Soon the "summer at Newport" became an inte- gral part of the lives of America's social set. Other reserts developed - Saratoga Springs, Southampton, Long Branch, Nahant, and a few more, but Newport reigned sup- reme, the giant among American watering places. By what process, then, did that humble Maine hamlet popu- - larly called Bar Harbor come to challenge Newport's as- cendency? And what were the effects of resort develop- - ment upon the lives of those who made Bar Harbor and en- virons their year-round home? Certainly the social, economic, cultural, and political changes that occurred in Bar Harbor were profound and far-reaching, and it is the purpose of this thesis to examine and analyze them. In 1840 Bar Harbor village was populated by members of four pioneering families - the Hamors, Higginses, Robertses, and Rodicks; and the Lynams lived at not-too- distant Schooner Head. While Newporters attended their gala parties, these hardy people eked out a living as 4 subsistence farmers, or, in the case of the Redicks, as fishermen. One or two of the younger men in that day of large families might have gone to sea, but most of the seafaring members of these families lived in the larger villages of Eden. For all Edenites life was difficult. However, such a way of life was not to be their destiny, for these settlers were beneficiaries as well as captives of their rugged environment, All around were the unique beauties of Mount Desert's mountainous eastern shore, and such beauties could not long remain hidden from the pro- - bing eyes of those Americans who were striving to create a distinctly "national" art. Once discovered, an irre- - sistible and irreversible process would begin, and, at least during the summer months, the quiet and solitude that were the historic possessions of the Bar Harbor ro- - gion, would be shattered. The "discovery" came in 1844 when Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School of landscape art, journeyed to Bar Harbor. Frederic Church, Fitz Hugh Lane and other artists soon followed, and through their works (and by word of mouth) the public "discovered Bar Harbor. Cole and the others merely helped to plant the seeds of popularity, however, and their widely exhibited canvasses of Bar Harbor and Mount Desert Island by no means assured the development of a resort. A positive response was from the permanent residents was required if Bar Harbor 5 was to grow and prosper. The economic alternatives to resort development were not promising. There was not enough timber or lum- ber for export on a large scale, and barely enough to sustain local shipbuilding. Shipbuilding held out little promise as a basic industry once steamers began to re- place sailing vessels in the 1830s and after. Mount Desert's soil was too thin and rocky to support large- - scale farming. Therefore the challenges of building a resort were welcomed at Bar Harbor. though there were to be sure a few skeptics, and, with the aid of some outsido capital, the challenges all were successfully met. The resulting development of the town from hamlet to world- famous watering place is one subject of this thesis. The second area of investigation concerns the nature and impact of the changes wrought upon the local inhabitants and the local life-style by the process of resort development. Certainly the economic changes were the most far-reaching, New occupations rapidly replaced the old. Many men and women became salaried workers for the first time in their lives, while others who nominally remained "independent" were increasingly dependent upon the resort trades for their livlihoods. As the resort grew, a year-round professional class developed, and, at the other end of the economic spectrum, the growth of an increasingly affluent cottare colony during the 1870s 6 and 1880s led to the development of an ever larger ser- - vant class, New demands also were placed upon the local economy as the nature of the resorters changed and the wealthy with their distinctive sub-culture began to dis- - place the more easily serviced rusticators of old. Culturally Bar Harborites slowly awakened to the needs of the summer colony, and both boarders and cottag- ers contributed to the cultural enrichment and enlighten- ment of the year-round community. Summer residents also became involved in local politics, and the town's gov- - ernment was expanded and modernized to meet the needs of a rapidly growing and heterogeneous community. Another consequence of change was increased social stratification. The distinction between resident and non-resident had always been made, but it now became necessary to classify further non-residents. Thus there were boarders (transient and seasonal), and cottagers. The boarders usually fell into distinct categories - intellectuals, professionals, artists, politicians, clerics, or just plain "aristocrats," that is, those with the correct family tree. Cottagers on the other hand were either very rich, moderately wealthy, or not quite SO well-to-do. But despite Bar Harbor's growing sophis- tication, there remained considerable social intercourse between and among the various cliques and classes that constituted Bar Harbor "Society." Even during the 1880s boarders and cottagers still communicated. Although town life was at its peak during the summer months, the cold winds of winter could not dull the optimism and enthusiasm that had become a part of Bar Harbor life. The old, routine existence, staid and static was no longer to be the lot of Bar Harborites. This study is, then, both a social history of Bar Harbor - the story of the permanent inhabitants and of their responses and adjustments to a new way of life, and a history of Bar Harbor "Society" during its forma- tive years. This account closes in 1885. for by that date Bar Harbor's future course of development was clear- ly charted. A new breed of resorter was becoming dom- inant, and the foundations were being laid for the ex- travagance of the "Golden Nineties." Pecumiary emulation was breeding conspicuous consumption, and Bar Harbor, like Newport, was to be a showcase for the ostentation bred by excessive wealth. Bar Harborites were partaking, albeit in a small way, of the spoils of capitalistic enterprise. The story of Bar Harbor's early years could not be told without the able assistance of innumerable people. Many native Bar Harborites have shared valuable infor- mation with me, and Mrs. Barker and Mrs. Snowman in the Municipal Offices have been most helpful. Special thanks go to the following advisors whose criticisms 8 have been most valuable: Leslie Decker, John Hakola, Arthur M. Johnson, and Edward Schriver. The author also appreciates the many courtesies extended him by James MacCampbell at Forler Library. Special thanks go to Robert G. Albion whose encouragement and friendship have persuaded this student not to abandon history, and who has always served as an example of what a professor can and should be. TABLE OF CONTENTS PROLOGUE. MOUNT DESERT 10 CHAPTER I. EDEN 18 CHAPTER II. BAR HARBOR 39 CHAPTER III. THE HOTEL ERA 70 CHAPTER IV. THE SUMMER COLONY 98 CHAPTER V. CONCLUSION 129 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 133 BIOGRAPHY OF THE WRITER. 1 1 73,#1 (2000). Book Reviews Inventing Acadia: Artists and Tourists at Mount Desert. By Pamela J. Belanger. (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England. 1999. Pp. 174. $39.95 paper.) Inventing Acadia is the companion volume to an exhibition orga- nized by the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine. Both media, text and exhibition, give a somewhat new spin to our develop- ing understanding of the nexus between tourism and nineteenth- century class formation by considering works of art in theoretically in- formed material, economic, social, and cultural contexts. Echoing the cultural geographer David Lowenthal's point that the identity of a na- tion, in Belanger's words, "is not simply the product of geology, cli- mate, or the intrinsic physical conditions of place" but the result of "a complex process in which images and language about the environ- ment are transformed to serve social, economic, and political needs" (p. 7), Belanger, along with J. Gray Sweeney, illuminates art's primary role in the "invention" of a regional identity that is deeply informed by, as well as fundamentally constitutive of, an emerging national consciousness. Belanger's study, accompanied by Sweeney's essay on the invention of national parks, puts the work of landscape painters in the fore- ground of this process of invention. Such "artist-explorers," as Sweeney calls them, as Thomas Cole, Frederic Church, and Fitz- Hugh Lane did for the region around Mount Desert Island and Bar Harbor, Maine, what Albert Bierstadt did for the Rocky Mountains. The painters not only composed dramatic images which drew tourists to those regions, but they fabricated the very ways of seeing that en- abled tourists to make sense of the wilderness areas on a range of lev- els. The artists' work, in essence, helped crystalize the region's reli- gious and nationalistic significance at the same time as it propelled the state's commercial development. Here the techniques of art historical inquiry become especially useful tools for the cultural historian. The compositional formulae governed by such aesthetic categories as the sublime, the beautiful, and the picturesque were adapted to topoi like wilderness, pastoral, and seascape. Internalized by nineteenth- 159 160 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY century tourists, such aesthetic criteria became the standard by which they enjoyed and gave meaning to the rural sites to which they in- creasingly flocked. Moreover, in what is by now a fairly familiar art historical formula- tion, the aesthetic function of landscape representation served many Americans not only as the basis for a quasi-religious symbolism of na- ture but as a marker of class status, reassuring them that their place in the social hierarchy was, as Kenneth Myers in particular made clear, a "natural" fact based on intuition rather than learning. This reassur- ek. ance and its consequent reinforcement of class boundaries was ac- myers. complished, for Myers, through an ideological process of "forgetting." While I find no specific reference to Myers's work in the present vol- ume, it is clearly beholden to such analysis of the cultural construction of landscape, and Belanger and Sweeney might have done well to take this particular point into consideration as a way to refine their own not always fully sophisticated ideological analysis. Landscape, as opposed to the much broader category nature, calls attention to its status as artifact. Aside from their appreciation of the crucial role played by composition and point of view in making natural prospects "readable," artists like Cole and Church were quite capable of altering the actual disposition of what they painted to make it more theatrical. To offer up a more pristine and powerful vision, they at times expunged extraneous or man-made details. Insofar as they thus heightened the visual appeal of the landscapes depicted, artists en- hanced the region's commercial possibilities. As Belanger notes, "Wild and compelling pictures of the Island with just a hint of accom- odation [sic] served to entice tourists to experience Mount Desert firsthand" (p. 58). Belanger's ultimately rather conventional art historical analysis gains much from her patient contrasting of actual site and artistic in- vention. While continuing to pay close attention to the religious and nationalistic implications of nature for the artists and their patrons, a favorite topic in American art scholarship, she sustains an interest in the ideological subtexts at stake as well. The result is a significant expansion of our understanding of the role played by image making in the increasingly consumeristic world of the nineteenth century. Sweeney's valuable essay makes this role explicit: "In their paintings of the [Mount Desert] Island, and of American scenery more gener- ally, Cole and Church self-fashioned themselves to make it appear as if they acted solely out of concern for higher artistic, cultural, and na- tional interests. However, it is evident that privately they understood BOOK REVIEWS 161 how the images they produced directly supported the emerging in- dustry of tourism, and that these two seemingly dissimilar fields of production 'one of the high art visual culture of the reigning artist- explorers and the other of mass tourism' had many interests in com- mon" (p. 138). What ties two such dissimilar fields of cultural production together is the common denominator of consumerism, a process engulfing and transforming values and relationships at every level in the second half of the nineteenth century. The production of consumeristic desire vis- à-vis nature, as Belanger shows, was readily reconcilable with growing scientific awareness and close observation of the geological distinc- tiveness of the wilderness prospects portrayed in art. It was also a key element in the emergence of the preservationist impulses that culmi- nated in the establishment of Acadia National Park, impulses that were in turn closely connected to the consolidation of class elitism as well as to nationalistic sentiments. If Belanger and Sweeney's mode of analysis at times sounds overly deterministic in its focus on the pro- motional aspects of art, as in the latter's statement that "for producers of high art who aimed at attracting elite patrons, feigning a certain disinterest in the business of art was advantageous" (p. 140), their general approach comes as the latest installment in an overdue cor- rection of longstanding scholarly emphasis on the formal analysis and spiritual interpretation of works of art. David C. Miller teaches at Allegheny College. He has published on nineteenth-century American art and literature and is currently work- ing on a book on visual-verbal interaction in nineteenth-century New England. Literary Federalism in the Age of Jefferson: Joseph Dennie and "The Port Folio," 1801-1811. By William C. Dowling. (Columbia: Uni- versity of South Carolina Press. 1999. Pp. XV, 127. $24.95.) Digging for traces of civic republicanism in the Revolutionary and early national periods is an old game by now, and yet the excavation continues to yield new insights into American political and cultural traditions. Frankly acknowledging his indebtedness both to communi- tarian theorists such as Charles Taylor and to historians of the republi- can tradition such as Joyce Appleby, William C. Dowling in Literary Federalism in the Age of Jefferson discovers a common thread of civic Liberty of CULL Fogiera 1998 OF list. AS BAR BAR THE ILL record updated to IN PROCESS Record 12 of 73 ILL pe Record 27 of 73 CAN YOU SUPPLY ? YES NO COND FUTUREDATE : ILL: 4083906 : Borrower: HC7 : RegDate: 20020128 : NeedBefore: : 20020218 : Status: IN PROCESS 20020128 : RecDate: : RenewalReg: : OCLC: 27163612 : Source: OCLCILL : DueDate: 8 ? & 2002 : NewDueDate: Lender : *MEU, MEU CALLNO: AUTHOR: Bar Harbor Club. TITLE: The Bar Harbor Club : Bar Harbor, Maine. IMPRINT: Bar Harbor, Me. : The Club, [1930?] VERIFIED: OCLC : PATRON: EP BILL TO: Interlibrary Loan/Shapiro Library/New Hampshire College/2500 River Rd/Manchester NH 03106 SHIP VIA: mail : MAXCOST $10.00IFM : COPYRT COMPLIANCE: CCG BORROWING NOTES: willing to make "in house" use for our director's research : LENDING CHARGES: : SHIPPED: : SHIP INSURANCE: : LENDING RESTRICTIONS: LEMDING NOTES: RETURN TO: : RETURN VIA: maine HS2725.837 B37 OFFICERS BUILDING COMMITTEE EDWARD T. STOTESBURY, President GEORGE G. McMURTRY, Chairman CECIL BARRET WILLIAM McNAIR POTTER PALMER, Vice President PARKER CORNING OLIVER G. HALL JOHN S. ROGERS, Secretary CECIL BARRET, Treasurer OLIVER G. HALL, Assistant Treasurer and Clerk FINANCE COMMITTEE CECIL BARRET, Chairman PARKER CORNING WILLIAM McNAIR BOARD OF GOVERNORS GEORGE G. McMURTRY JOHN S. ROGERS CECIL BARRET GEORGE G. McMURTRY POTTER PALMER PARKER CORNING WILLIAM McNAIR HAROLD A. HOWARD POTTER PALMER PHOENIX INGRAHAM CHARLES B. PIKE TENNIS COMMITTEE A. ATWATER KENT JOSEPH PULITZER J. L. KETTERLINUS JOHN S. ROGERS JOHN S. ROGERS, Chairman CHARLES L. McCAWLEY EDWARD T. STOTESBURY CHESTER P. BARNETT JOSEPH T. BOWEN, JR. EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE ENTERTAINMENT COMMITTEE EDWARD T. STOTESBURY, Chairman CHARLES L. McCAWLEY, Chairman CECIL BARRET GEORGE G. McMURTRY HAROLD A. HOWARD J. L. KETTERLINUS WILLIAM McNAIR PHOENIX INGRAHAM 2 3 INTERNATIONAL CHARTER MEMBERS PARKER CORNING Albany, N. Y. GEORGE E. DADMUN New York AS OF JANUARY 1st, 1932 WALTER DAMROSCH New York DR. JOHN DANE Bar Harbor All the wives of charter members are also de facto charter members EDWIN H. DENBY New York FREDERICK J. DEVEAU Groton, Mass. MRS. ANNE ARCHBOLD NORMAN S. DIKE New York New York MRS. PAUL M. ARNOLD MRS. HENRY F. DIMOCK Washington Haverford, Pa. WALTER AYER JOHN R. EDIE Washington Chicago CHESTER P. BARNETT H. HOWARD ELLISON Philadelphia New York JOHN HAMPTON BARNES MRS. ELIZABETH D. ESPY Cincinnati Devon, Pa. CECIL BARRET MRS. SHEPARD FABBRI New York New York LLEWELLYN BARRY J. BROOKS FENNO Boston New York MRS. W. G. BEALE HAROLD FITZ GERALD New York Bar Harbor MRS. SAMUEL BELL, JR. EDSEL B. FORD Detroit, Mich. Philadelphia Miss CHRISTINE W. BIDDLE MRS. E. HOWARD GEORGE Milton, Mass. Westchester, Pa. G. HORTON GLOVER New York GIST BLAIR Washington GERALD BORDEN EDWIN GOULD New York New York DEFOREST GRANT New York JOSEPH T. BOWEN, JR. Lake Forest, Ill. ROBERT P. BOWLER Miss BELL GURNEE Washington New York MRS. EDWARD BROWNING WILLIAM PIERSON HAMILTON Santa Barbara, Cal. Philadelphia, Pa. HENRY D. BURNHAM J. M. HARTSHORNE New York Boston JAMES F. BYRNE HENRY R. HATFIELD Philadelphia New York MRS. MORRIS HAWKES New York C. CARROLL CARPENTER New York GEORGE C. HECK New York MRS. D. B. C. CATHERWOOD Haverford, Pa. MRS. D. CRAWFORD CLARK HAROLD A. HOWARD Chicago New York MRS. PLATT HUNT New York Mrs. MARY F. R. CLAY Philadelphia, Pa. PHOENIX INGRAHAM New York Miss FRANCES COLEMAN New York PETER A. JAY GEORGE E. COLEMAN Washington Garden City, N. Y. E. LEE JONES McLean, Va. MINTURN POST COLLINS New York DR. LUDWIG KAST New York THOMAS G. COOK New York DR. FOSTER KENNEDY New York 4 5 30205 A. ATWATER KENT Philadelphia MRS. HOWARD ROBERTS Philadelphia J. L. KETTERLINUS Philadelphia ARDEN M. ROBBINS New York JOHN W. KILBRETH New York JULIAN W. ROBBINS New York WALTER G. LADD New York JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, JR. New York MARSHALL LANGHORNE Washington JOHN S. ROGERS New York MRS. LOUIS C. LEHR Washington FRANK B. ROWELL New York MRS. LEA McI. LUQUER Mt. Kisco, N. Y. ARTHUR RYLE New York MRS. EDWARD P. MAY Boston CHARLES E. SAMPSON New York DR. D. HUNTER McALPIN New York HERBERT L. SATTERLEE New York CHARLES L. McCAWLEY Washington MRS. EDGAR SCOTT Lansdowne, Pa. Miss MILDRED McCORMICK New York HENRY SLACK New York ROBERT H. McCORMICK Chicago MRS. C. MORTON SMITH Philadelphia F. H. McCORMICK-GOODHART Hyattsville, Md. CAMPBELL STEWARD Goshen, N. Y. MRS. F. E. McCORMICK-GOODHART Hyattsville, Md. MRS. M. MASTERS STONE New York LEANDER McCORMICK-GOODHART Washington HOWARD STURGES Providence GEORGE G. McMURTRY New York THOMAS BELL SWEENEY Washington WILLIAM McNAIR New York EDWARD T. STOTESBURY Philadelphia EDWARD B. MEARS St. Augustine, Fla. JOHN B. THAYER Haverford, Pa. DR. JAMES F. MITCHELL Washington DR. AUGUSTUS THORNDIKE Boston GILBERT H. MONTAGUE New York H. H. THORNDIKE Boston MRS. THOMAS L. MONTGOMERY Philadelphia ARTHUR C. TRAIN New York WILLIAM S. MOORE New York Miss EMILY TREVOR New York HENRY MORGENTHAU New York WM. JAY TURNER Germantown, Phila. DAVE H. MORRIS New York JOSEPH E. WHOLEAN Washington GEORGE S. MUNSON Philadelphia MRS. A. MURRAY YOUNG New York MRS. A. MANSFIELD PATTERSON New York CHARLES B. PIKE Chicago POTTER PALMER Chicago WILLIAM PROCTER Bar Harbor JOSEPH PULITZER St. Louis MRS. M. TAYLOR PYNE New York FULTON J. REDMAN New York 6 7 QUIET DAY AT BAR HARBOR New York Times (1857-Current file); Aug 2. 1895; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times pg. 5 QUIETDAYATBAR HARBOR Society Takes a Rest at the Opening of a New Month. MUCH INTEREST IN OUTDOOR SPORTS Many Entries for the Tennis Tourna- ment Which Will Open Mon- day-Albert Clifford Bar- ney Entertains. BAR HARBOR, Aug. 1.-The first day of August was spent in a rather quiet manner by society at Bar Harbor. It seemed as though its members were taking a' much needed rest before getting into the whirl- and bustle of social gayety which al- ways characterizes this month. Kebo, however, had a lively day, its ten- nis courts and golf links being crowded from morning until evening. The grand tournament on the tennis courts will open Monday morning. Many already have en- tered, and the competition doubtless will be strong. Albert Clifford Barney gave a dinner and reception to-night. Twenty-four were pres- ent at the dinner. At the reception, held afterward. there was a large attendance. The whole affair was in honor of Miss Neeser, who is the guest of Miss Natalie Barney. Among those present at the dinner and reception were the Misses Morton, Miss Stokes, Miss Helen Stokes, Miss Sturgis, Miss Marzie Sturgis, John Ford of the En- glish Embassy, the Misses Coles, Mr. Colby, Charles T. Garland, Julian Gerard, Mr. Grinnell, Mr. Geary, Count Szechenyi, Comte Buisseret, Alfred Leghait, and Ma- vroyeni Bey. Mrs. Judge Edward Patterson gave a dinner to-night to a small party of friends, among whom were Mrs. Thomas Scott, Miss Bickley, Miss Mary Scott, Mr. and Mrs. Morris K. Jesup, Mr. and Mrs. Anson Phelps Stokes, and Mrs. Alfred C. Har- rison. Elaborate preparations are being made for a grand private dinner and dance to be given by James A. Garland at the coming- out party of Miss Louise Garland. It will take place at Kebo. Miss Pauline Whittler, the daughter of Gen. Whittier of Boston, is the guest of Miss Louise Garland, at Edenville. Miss Lockwood of Boston is also the guest of Miss Garland. Edmund Pendleton gave a dinner to-night to. a large party of friends at his Summer home, the Barnacles. Among those pres- ent were Mr. and Mrs. A. Howard Hinkle, Mr. and Mrs. Harvey Dulles, Mr. and Mrs. William Meldrum Rutherford, Miss Con- nelly, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Blair, Mrs. George Place, Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Geb- hard, and Mr. Bowler. Mr. Joseph Harriman of New-York gave a dinner to-night to a party of ten friends. Among those present were J. C. McCoy, Herbert Harriman, William Laimbeer, Mr. Lettauer, George T. Newhall, Mr. Hare, and William Lawrence Green. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner Further reproduction prohibited without permission A large ball is to be given to-morrow night at one of the hotels here. It promises to be a grand affair. The decorating is being done by a New-York firm. Edmond Kelly, Sherlock Swann, and Mr. Harvey of New-York were enrolled as members of the Kebo Club to-day. President Eliot of Harvard College and Prof. George Peabody, his brother-In-law, are enjoying a cruise along the Maine coast. They will return in a few days. The hotel arrivals to-day were Mrs. S. C. Thompson, Mrs. D. A. Gilman, Baltimore; Miss Jennie F. Fales, E. A. Butler, Seattle; William Garret, F. H. Jerrell, Ipswich; Mr. Penny, Hartford; C. H. Cressy. Henry Heaton, D. E. Cross, Boston; T. H. Ben- nington, Washington: C. B. Church, New- York; the Rev. Whittimere and Mrs. Whit- timere, Boston; M. P. Jones, Miss Jones, New-York; Miss A. L. Bakewell, Philadel- phia; F. S. Fisher, F. S. Swan, Boston; Mrs. J. W. S. Wittows, Baltimore; Miss Wittows, Mrs. Lewis, Mrs. A. J. Moulton, New-York; Mrs. John B. Morris, Miss Morris, Baltl- more: Robert Davis, Mr. and Mrs. Henry D. Cutier, John W. Pierson, Mrs. Maurice Ma- son, George B. Fletcher, Mr. and Mrs. W. M. Watson, E. T. Lewis, Mrs. Arthur Sulli- van, New-York; Miss Gertrude Sheldon, George T. Howell, Philadelphia; W. A. Henry, New-York; Mrs. James H. F. Gil- lete, Chicago. Miss Mary Gillete, Howard F. Gillete, Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan, Boston; Charles Eaton, Mrs. A. E. Douglas, Mrs. Ronald E. Curtis, John H. Roe, Mrs. Beale, Miss Beale, Miss M. S. Beale, Miss Isabelle Watts, Mrs. H. A. Barclay Lenox Miss Barclay, Miss Dubois, Dr. and Mrs. Clinton Wagner, New-York; William Disston, Philadelphia; George S. Monroe, Boston; Miss E. P. Thayer, Mrs. Lila Witherbee, Miss A. T. Witherbee, William D. B. Flint. Dr. and Mrs. Horace Packam, Col. and Mrs. R. W. Coles. New-York; Mr. and Mrs. S. G. Dubois, Boston; H. M. Pomeroy, New-York; Mrs. E. C. Roberts, Philadelphia; Mr. and Mrs. William Allen, Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Clendennin, Mrs. W. B. Hoffman, the Misses Hoffman, New-York; Miss Fannie A. Rob- erts, Philadelphia; Miss Lawrence, Mrs. Anna Lawrence, New-York; C. E. Nicker- son, Boston; Mr. and Mrs. S. H. Dulles, Philadelphia; Miss Ida Beal, Mrs. W. P. Harvey, Miss Harvey, Boston: Miss Mary Breman, Mrs. Joseph T. Low, Miss Low, Mrs. William Hazard Field, Mrs. William A. Perry, New-York. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner Further reproduction prohibited without permission before A Native's Memories of Old Bar Harbor By Nan Cole W E who were born and grew up in that Maine - of which my brother, Chester A. Wescott, was paradise that once was called Eden led a manager for sixteen years - but we felt no resent- double life. Each summer our town became the play- ment or sense of exclusion. After all, our visitors rep- ground for America's fabulously rich and famous resented the upper echelons of the entire nation families, whose arrival was heralded by an advance and we townspeople, who rendered key services, rev- guard of carloads of pure-blooded horses. With their eled in being part of the local grapevine, privy to coming, most natives buckled down to work around intrigues and escapades of which outsiders had no the clock through July and August, in order to relax linkling. On the other hand some citizens - like my with their profits during the remaining ten months father, George Wescott, a contractor who specialized of the year. in bringing to life Italian gardens created on paper Most people never seemed to understand the native by noted designers - were on terms of first-name willingness - independent Mainers though we were friendship with several impressive employers (DOWN - to cater to visitors who claimed our town as their EAST, July 1969). Also, the public events staged by own in the summertime by virtue of their purchas- our opulent visitors were ours to enjoy and few small ing power. True, we were barred from membership town citizens in the world were privileged to view in The Pot and Kettle Club and the Bar Harbor Club such magnificence of props and performances. 60 on Sundays makes one trip at 1:30 p.m. Passengers At left - Window view of upper Po are advised to make reservations at least a day Harbor with lobster pots piled hig in advance. wharves of the eastern shore and I Remote on its distant peninsula at Land's End, Port Island in the background. Above - Clyde retains many of the simpler ways of an earlier, lobster boats that have seen better less hurried time. The nearest supermarket is almost hauled out on the harb twenty miles away, but the sea lies always close at hand. Perhaps nowhere on Maine's Mid-Coast can there be found a seaside community quite like the village of Port Clyde. One such Arabian Nights dream was a lavish en- was recognized as one of the nation's most fash- tertainment given in 1899 for over 100 members of ionable events. the Bar Harbor Canoe Club at Chatwold, Joseph We never missed a day of the Horse Show through- Pulitzer's estate on the Ocean Drive, where natives out its history. Sometimes we sat in the grandstand lined up to witness the unforgettable highlight of to watch the celebrities at close range but, in the the party - a parade of canoes in the sheltered cove earlier years, we stood all day by the rail, munching on the ocean side of Chatwold. The hosts for the OC- on peanuts and popcorn. The boxes - reserved for casion were Mr. Pulitzer's daughter and her hus- summer people and their guests - each contained band, Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Green. eight hard, folding chairs and cost $500 for the three Most of the canoes, handmade from birch bark, days. The Show always opened with a thrilling blare had been purchased at the Indian Village off lower from trumpets and bugles, and everyone cheered as Main Street, now an athletic field - where Penob- Colonel Edward Morrell's luxurious tallyho led the scots from Indian Island came many years to camp, parade, followed by Philip Livingstone and eight or bringing for sale the products of their winter's ten other owners of equally elegant tallyhos. Each handiwork. The Indians also supplied members of the was manned by coachmen and footmen in bright Bar Harbor Canoe Club with hand-carved, individual red, gold-trimmed livery, and the passengers were paddles with the owner's initials etched into the beautifully-gowned great ladies, in plumed hats and wood, and many of the braves were employed to costly jewelry, sitting in stately fashion under fringed instruct the children of the rich in the art of paddling parasols, and squired by impeccably-attired gentle- the fragile craft over Frenchman's Bay. men. Each canoe in the spectacular parade was dazz- Following the tallyhos came the coaches and lingly decorated with lighted Japanese lanterns. The victorias. The magnificent horses, wonderfully great line of illuminated craft, carrying splendidly groomed and bedecked, high-stepped around the ring attired passengers, moved rhythmically around the with heads held proudly by means of check-reins. cove to the background music of dozens of strumming These scenes of overwhelming splendor ended in panjos, while a full moon shed its glory on the Bar Harbor with the last Horse Show in 1912, and breathtaking scene. soon the automobiles of both rusticators and natives A year or two later the Bar Harbor Horse Show replaced equestrian pageantry forever. The site of DOWN EAST, August 1967) - a community project the Bar Harbor Horse Show was presented in 1918 rranged by both natives and rusticators - was by Mrs. Louise Drexel Morgan of Philadelphia to the eld for the first of eleven fabulous seasons. It took town for its perpetual use, and it has been known lace at Robinhood Park for three days during the since as Morrell Park in memory of her late husband, ast week in August, and horse lovers from all over Colonel Edward Morrell. he country crowded into Bar Harbor on special Another regular entertainment of those lavish xcursions by railroad and steamship to attend what years were the weekly summertime concerts from rt Clyd I on th laspberr Two o days a or's edg made or a penormance, the firehouse adjoining the Green completely drowned out the n one in Bar Harbor ever purpo in a moment the Green was musicians, however, were stran The players had entered the ladder which, once they were beneath the platform until the tunately, the fire proved to the audience soon returned t lounging and smoking while a The stand on the Village ( July 21, 1910 by the President William Howard Taft. He was since 1890 - to visit us whi coming created a great furore week. Mrs. Evelyn Walsh McLear any social project, decided to the presidential yacht Mayflc distinguished guest. At the 1 Indians brought their baskets for sale. working in the uptown store C and happened to be on dut the bandstand on the Village Green in Bar Harbor. entered to inquire the price These concerts originated with a band of local roses. She was quoted a price musicians, each pridefully aware both of his talent a dozen for 12-inch stemmed and his bandman's uniform. The dark blue suits, for the 18-inch ones. Witho trimmed with gold braid, were topped by blue- Lean ordered 100 dozens C visored caps, and the brass buttons on the uniforms, roses, and Chet nearly faint as well as each man's shoes and band instruments only four dozens in the shc all were polished to a high luster that gleamed in touch with the manager, W the lights from the bandstand. New York to fill the order On concert nights, our family went equipped with dropped anchor offshore ( a blanket to spread on the ground and each of us cargo, went out in the laur carried a camp stool. While grown-ups chatted with reception committee. He V friends from neighboring towns, we children would gangplank, when a hand OJ run around and play until the music started. Then him, and a secret service m we joined our parents, and woe to any one of us he was doing there. Chet € who made a noise! Members of the band arrived at ten 8-foot boxes in the lau 7:45 and when, on the dot of 8, the conductor raised fetch them aboard, open the his baton, a hush fell and everyone stood for America. roses for viewing on the fl After a program of popular marches, the band con- plied and, after a thoroug cert ended with Good Night, Ladies. tion, the decorating was I don't remember just when our local musicians Next day, when Presider stepped aside in deference to talented visiting pro- what on such occasions W fessionals, but for many years a group of thirty THE LAKES Orchestra gav Green. On on when, in th whistle at th ed blasting. nd besides, n issed a fire, S deserted. Th the bandstand by means of ed, was store was over. For lse alarm an the musician ; rescue. was graced o United State rst President office, and h ar Harbor tha ys a leader te the salon honor of th y brother W esert Nurseril Mrs. McLea herican Beau an inch" - $ d $18 a doze tion Mrs. M onger stemme use there we ever, he got diately phone MEMORIES OF OLD BAR HARBOR reached the 18th hole, although h the Mayflow saved the day. The 17th hole at t h his fragra (Continued from page 62) Golf Club still is called "Howard T transported t to climb th ulder restrainé was bothered by how the committee would get O NE of the most colorful summe that portly President up and down the famous ladder I to know wh a period of years was William Pi without mishap. I was too short to see from the former partner in J. P. Morgan pointing to t crowd, SO I pushed and elbowed my way to the front was ordered though a tremendously wealthy mar row, not noticing that I was completely surrounded from lavish spending sprees to cycle 1 spread out th by men. President Taft was already in the stand and salon. He con ness. He purchased an enormous ti beginning his speech. My eyes were glued upon the Salisbury Cove, where he built mass sfactory inspe heavy gold watch chain, displayed across President paddocks - all painted barn red - ) begin. Taft's expansive chest, which he had a mannerism ; to speak fro breeder of champion horses. At that of fingering as he talked. Suddenly, I heard his Farms was the largest employer in to e "grandstand genial voice saying how much he appreciated the ton hired caretakers, gardeners, arch ied on page 6. welcome given him by "the citizens and the young jockeys, horse trainers, musicians, m lady in the front row" - which caused me to grin daily massages, valets, maids, an adoringly at him from then on! I never did learn galore. how he got up on the stand. As new buildings were erected at H During Mr. Taft's visit to Bar Harbor, he played gardens were designed and planted golf at the Kebo Valley Club, and did fairly well driveways were built. At one time, th Bethel, Mainuntil he reached the 17th hole, This difficult hole thirty men working on a road throug George Frencrequires a long drive to lift the ball over a sand trap, Each day, on the dot of 1 p.m., a and it took forty-two presidential strokes before he (Continue Sunrise over Highland Lake, Bridgton, Maine, In David HOMES DOWN EAST A Native's Memories of Old Bar Harbor (Continued from page 67) rung - the signal for every man in the crew to lay down his tools and take a siesta for an hour or two. This was the hour for Mr. Hamilton's daily nap, and he ordered everyone on the place to do the same to insure peace and quiet. When Mr. Hamilton awoke refreshed, the bell sounded for the men to ry of Union A HORSEMAN'S PARADISE resume work. arized in Be Modern, urban, horse-training establishment consisting of a orical nove very spacious 8-room, sensitively restored Cape with ell and Often Mr. Hamilton sent for his architect, or his isolated 5-room and bath apartment. In addition to the 3 visitors wh masseur, when the only service he wanted was a spacious bedrooms and bath on 2nd floor, the main house ore the local little comradely talk over a highball or beer. Once, consists of a 12' X 23' living room with fireplace, dining room ok may als 16' X 20', den 12' X 15', kitchen 18' X 21' with fieldstone fire- on impulse, he drove to Boothbay Harbor, where a place, large paneled family room 17' sq. with 2 walk-in closets friend of mine, Captain Howe, carried on a charter and 19th cer and trophy alcove. Attached barn with 10 luxurious box in the Ma stalls, large tiled tack room and office. 22 additional box stalls boat business, and always captained the boat him- at the Knd are located in the main barn and separate 30' X 110' barn. Well self because of the treacherous waters in the area. ventilated hay storage for over 200 tons. Lovely entrance When Mr. Hamilton arrived that day with a friend Union Fa through stone gate with 200' blacktop drive flanked with paddocks and rail-fenced 14-mile track. Rear of property is and his chauffeur, he told Captain Howe he wished loor woode wooded, with large evergreens, framing a modern 1/2-mile track. to hire the boat for the day and skipper it himself. $85,000. He was informed that another party already had soft gray BOND REALTY CO. Fair buil chartered the boat for the day, whereupon Mr. Ham- REALTORS uses a colle 12 Revere Street, Portland, Maine Tel. 207-772-0115 ilton asked how much they were paying and offered to double the price. When this was refused, Mr. 1200 antiqu Hamilton offered to buy the launch at a price so icles, kitch fabulous that Captain Howe finally agreed to sell. implement However, he still wouldn't allow the new owner to rlooms. T take the boat out that day without an experienced 1 is some 7 navigator. In the end, Mr. Hamilton told Captain 64 from E Howe to stay aboard, but after their return in the WS, a belov evening, he said he'd changed his mind about buy- businessma ing the old boat! Instead, he handed Captain Howe official at $1000 for the day's trip. an of Unio Ideal site for motel or development housing. 29 acres At another time, the economy side of Mr. Ham- 570' road frontage - view of Blue Hill Bay and Cadillac Mt. ilton would take command, and he become penny- arm in Sea $29,500. pinching to an alarming degree. He would roam born in 187 Robert W. Gray Agency Broker (Continued on page 95) Upper Main Street, Blue Hill Phone 207-374-2700 complete w he sink, a C rocking cha Fletcher Woods MAINE'S FIRST CONDOMINIUM COMMUNITY Designed to fit the needs of the mature adult who desires to combine gracious country living with freedom from the burdens of home ownership. Each unit consists of 2 bedrooms, liv- LOCATED IN HISTORICAL KENNEBUNK ing room with fireplace, dining room, R. E. MARIER, INC. equipped kitchen, 1 or 1 1/2 baths, at- REALTORS and DEVELOPERS tached garage and patio. One Fletcher Street, Kennebunk, Maine 04043 Tel. 207-985-3013 90 HOMES DOWN EAST MEMORIES OF OLD BAR HARBOR Continued from page 90) round proclaiming that money was to be saved and not spent, and demanding that all expenses be reduced Perkins Cove, trastically. During this phase, he would sell some Ogunquit f his horses and fight over all bills - with or with- ut cause. Frequently, he fired most of his employees Four-bedroom year-round ummarily, but the local ones, accustomed to his home with large studio, 2 round, ycles, simply waited for the mood to change when, fireplaces, overlooking Perkins Cove, 100' from Marginal Way. ortgage most invariably, they got their plush jobs back. Taxes only $439. Offered at $50,000 furnished. Fred Garnsey D CCASIONALLY, scions of the rich were involved GARNSEY BROS. Real Estate Broker NO No 1. MOODY POINT WILLS. MAINE 04099 Insurance & Read Estate SAVINGS BANK BUILDING. SANFORD MAINE easy in unusual shenanigans. For instance, the heiress ) a great American fortune once left an all-night arty at the Bar Harbor Club at five o'clock in the horning. She thumbed a ride with a streetcleaner ce nd, haughty in her evening gown and wrap, rode SWANS ISLAND 1970 is rounds on the truck. y mod- superb Another episode occurred at the Casino when the A few desirable 200' ocean front lots are being offered. These are choice deep-water sites in a rly A- on of a world-famous figure was seated, with a beautiful setting including a point and rockbound de with roup of college friends, in a box near the stage at coast - away from it all. Maine provides a 12- looking )' front- amateur prize-fight. Deciding that one of the car ferry service to the island of Mt. Desert, n yet this is one of the few areas free from over- ine vil- ugilists had hit a foul blow, the entire group crowding. A few back lots, with magnificent Rt. 95. umped from the box onto the stage and proceeded views and their own shore area, are also offered. 968. o start a free-for-all, while the audience egged them Prices start at $2500. in with delighted roars. A Bar Harbor policeman WILLIAM BANKS, Swans Island, Maine Tel. 207-526-2288 ee ntervened and was about to toss the great man's 4995 DEREP Central File P.O.Box 219, Machias, Me. 04654 the most complete list of properties for sale in WASHINGTON COUNTY, MAINE ! DEREP CENTRAL FILE IS NOT A REAL ESTATE AGENCY IT IS A REAL ESTATE BUYERS SERVICE WHERE YOUR RARE it is that salt water frontage at this location is ever PERSONAL DESIRES ARE CLOSELY HAND MATCHED WITH THE HUNDREDS OF DESIRABLE PROPERTIES LISTED IN OUR available. Five minutes from Portland on the shore at Fal- FILES; THE MOST COMPLETE LIST OF PROPERTIES FOR SALE mouth Foreside. This superior home has 21/2 baths, 3 bedrooms, IN WASHINGTON AND HANCOCK COUNTIES. MAINE. ne etc. Completed in 1958 and designed to last for generations. Write for FREE INFORMATION ! In the $70's. The Andrews Agency Real Estate Brokers 648 Forest Avenue Portland, Maine 04101 207-773-2200 The MANOR Designed by William Katzenbach French Provincial, in the manner of the small chateaux and manors of Normandy and Brittany, the MANOR has a graceful balanced simplicity - and the look of having been designed for future as well as present generations. Its many French windows welcome and embrace the surrounding grounds while its pleasant proportions - like good manners - help it to be at ease and at home tion in almost any setting: town or country, wooded hillside ouse. 120 or open meadow, seashore or suburbia. ely auto- Send $1.00 for Plans & Details of Our Products come of laude L. Henry S. Bickford and Associates 35 Elm Street Camden, Maine 04843 207-236-4371 A product of Boyne Fall Log Homes - Boyne Falls, Michigan 89 95 WN EAST wn teeth. My nephew said that his uppel rotruded and he was most uncomfortable, bu kidnapper" won first prize and gave Freddie playing his part. After I was grown up and with a family of wn, I often visited at the Malvern Hotel and ges, of which my brother Chester was mar. the time. One day we were at lunch in the ning room when a considerable commotion a he cause of it was that comedian Ed Wynn, S two attractive daughters, was being ushered e head waiter to a table close to ours. Air view of The Malvern, Bar Harbor. Ed Wynn was dressed in a loud-checked SI at, baggy trousers, a bright red shirt and a bla ral Mansion son out, literally by the seat of his pants, when some d-and-yellow tie. On his head was one of odernized for gracious living. one shouted out the youth's identity. Our red-face ny hats. His costume hardly was in keeping 1 and architectural importance. policeman loosened his grip and the incident wall staid, restricted conformity of the Malvern Hc 3-flight spiral staircase, splayed forgotten. ientele. Almost immediately one of the o SS box locks, grained doors and or has a large central entrance Once my nine-year-old nephew, Freddie, erks came to our table, very red-faced, and : ing room with pantry, modern drafted to aid a prank. At one of the regal partie my brother: "Mr. Wescott, I didn't know canopied porch and 1/2 bath. rooms and 2 baths. Third floor contestants in a scavenger hunt were asked to fin do. He just breezed by me with a giggle, sig ath. Full basement with laundry a red-haired boy with a front tooth missing. Ale register and said, 'We're having lunch here. Center of town location on 1 acre, with playhouse and green- astute young man located Freddie, who had re headed for the dining room." Chet assured house, nicely landscaped and hair but also a perfect set of teeth. The dauntles erk that he was delighted that Ed Wynn fenced for privacy. $55,000. party-goer rushed Freddie to a dentist's home, an osen the Malvern for lunch, where his prese cajoled the professional man into cementing a childready was adding zest to the usual subd gency REALTORS bridge with a missing front tooth below Freddietmosphere (Contini ne 04043 Telephone: 207-985-3361 Often limitated. never duplicated. A CLASSIC FA ard cabin Be the envy of your friends when you entertain them in your Ward Cabin. These charming cedar log homes are a pleasure to live in, a delight to own. Their easy maintenance make them especially SUMMER SPECIAL attractive in today's busy world. A great place for a big family on the shores of the cleanest lake in Maine. Fourteen rooms in a fine old Write for the Ward folder or send $2 for the (just painted) rambling home. Full bath, large modern colorful brochure of plans. kitchen, town water, 2 impressive wood stoves. On the shores of Big Indian Lake, St. Albans (Maine) room. a few minutes from Bangor off Rt. 95. Fine fishing, swimming and boating; plus swallows in the barn to WARD CABIN COMPANY keep the place bugless. Yours for $15,000.. Box 72-DE Houlton, Maine 04730 THE SAWYER AGENCY, 5 Bai HOMES DOWN EAST Every guest in the room was staring with un- abashed delight at the famous comedian and, for the time being, the impeccable service was at a stand- "Ye Old still. Noting that people were waiting for dessert Cordwainers to be served, Chet started for the kitchen to find out FO Shoppe" the reason for the delay. As he opened the swing- ing doors, he nearly knocked down a group of waiters A house with charm and waitresses, who were peering through the glass and history will be panels to see "The Perfect Fool" in the flesh. On yours with the purchase his return, Chet went over to Mr. Wynn's table of this 6-room home, built about 1827. In a fine resi- dential area in Belfast. Has unique cellar (or shop area) and told him laughingly that service was disrupted with a wooden floor and 2 ground-level entrances which while all of the help tried to get a peek at him. lead onto a rock terrace beneath the 7' X 27' porch. Ed rose in a flash and, giggling, shuffled over to Attached barn, 27' wide and 25' in length, is large enough for 2 cars. $12,000. the service door, which he opened, and swiftly planted a kiss on each of two embarassed waitresses. Country When he and his daughters had finished lunch he arose, bowed to the gaping audience which had Living watched his every motion, and departed. That was This could be the one the signal for the children to rush out to see him you have been looking As they passed Mrs. Robert L. Stevenson, she said, for. A 2-bedroom house "Hurry, hurry! Perhaps you can get his autograph!' in the country with a view of mountains and scenic country- side all around. A 10-acre field for viewing and an additional They were too late, for Ed Wynn already was on 25 acres, some in hay. Hot-air heat, artesian well and a his way to his yacht, which was anchored in the barn, 30' X 20'. $16,000. harbor. I had a distinct feeling that Mrs. Stevenson also CHAPMAN-WEAVER, Realtors would have liked to have had Ed Wynn's autograph 17 Main Street, Belfast, Maine 04915 That impression arose out of a Bar Harbor native's 207-338-2388 understanding of our distinguished rusticators who beneath all their affluent glitter and aloofness, were just as human as we were. FOR SALE A GOOD SELECTION OF: CASTINE SUMMER PROPERTIES One ancient marina on deep-water. YEAR-ROUND HOMES Two gracious Victorians on a shaded street. BUSINESS PROPERTIES One 18th century brick town house on waterfront. One magnificent 18th century federal house. ALSO COTTAGES FOR RENT Castine Real Estate LAWRENCE S. ROBINSON COMPANY Vincent J. LaFlamme, Broker P.O. Box 265, Castine, Maine 04421 SOUTHWEST HARBOR, MAINE TELEPHONE 244-3223 WANNA BUY THE OCEAN? PRIME, Deep water frontage in W. Gouldsboro, on Frenchman's Bay, (Atlantic Ocean) facing Bar Harbor, Acadia National Park and Mount Cadillac. Deep anchorage, swimming, KINGSLEY fishing, lobsters, clams in back yard; FARMS undiscovered fishing villages. Profes- sionally built roads, electricity. Golf nearby in Winter Harbor. From $11,990 (with your own beach) to $5990 with rights to private beach. 20% cash 1820 Cape-Type Home - Cherryfield down - balance 5 to 8 year mortgage - 81% simple interest. "For your protection," title insurance policy is available. Central chimney - hand hewn beams - pegs - Narraguagus River view - near ocean - 22 acres included. $17,500. Write: KINGSLEY FARMS Vernon E. Pettigrew, Real Estate Broker P.O. Box 15, Ellsworth, Maine 04605 3 CHURCH ST., CHERRYFIELD, ME. 04622 TEL. 207-546-7011 OR CALL: 207-667-2696 98 The University of Maine DigitalCommons@UMaine Maine History Documents Special Collections 1886 Bar Harbor and Mount Desert Island Liberty Printing Company Follow this and additional works at:https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mainehistory Part of the History Commons 53-page booklet. 1886. Repository Citation Liberty Printing Company, "Bar Harbor and Mount Desert Island" (1886). Maine History Documents. 101. https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mainehistory/101 This Monograph is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UMaine. It has been accepted for inclusion in Maine History Documents by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UMaine. For more information, please contact um.library.technical.services@maine.edu. Note: See also Lynne N.Manion. "A Playground Contested: Bar Harbor Natives and Rusticators, 1875-1925." HARBOR HAR BAR AND Mount Desert Island. "An island full of hills and dells All rumpled and uneven." "The gray and thunder-smitten pile Which marks afar the Desert Isle." PRESS OF LIBERTY PRINTING COMPANY, 107 Liberty Street, New York. PREFACE. nor much of the history of Mount Desert is contained in the following pages. To relate the story of this won- derful Island and its people would require a large volume. Nor is it claimed that much is contained here which has not already appeared in some other form. The purpose of these few pages is to give, in a brief and concise form, a descrip- tion of some of the more interesting places found here, to describe briefly the physical features of the Island, its bold and rock-bound shores, its coves, harbors and bays, its mysterious caverns, its wonderful mountains, its highland ponds and lakes, its curious geological formation, and, in addition, to give a few of the more salient points in its civil history, and the marvelous growth of Bar Harbor and vicinity as a summer resort. It is hoped that the matter is presented in a form that will be found intelligible, and that the numerous ques- tions which are sure to be asked by those who contemplate visiting Bar Harbor, or those who do visit it for the first time, are here satisfactorily answered. W. B. L. AUGUSTA, 1886. A road leading to the summit of the highest peak offers an eagle's view of Mount Desert Island with Bar Harbor below and Frenchman Bay beyond. I Remember Mount Desert by Frances H. Eliot photographs by Lawrence Lowry O FF the coast of Maine lies a wonderful island from the sea; woods and trails and streams for fish- which was discovered by Samuel de Cham- ing; a rugged coast, with coves and bays, beaches plain in 1604, named by him l'Isle des Monts D'eserts and headlands, fine harbors and safe sailing for the and named by some of us, who have spent seventy flect of racers manned by the young people. All is summers on it, "The Blessed Isle" or "God's surrounded by a sparkling ocean. Country." There are automobile roads following the coast, It seems to combine everything. It has a range of and one road, a marvelous piece of engineering, dozen mountains, some of them rising abruptly goes to the summit of Cadillac Mountain, our high- I 45 2. est hill. Near the foot of this mountain lies a charm- ing pond, or lake, with a "Tea House" near its dows, or tramping overhead. Just outside Rockland, in the usually gray and foggy morning, the stcamer shores. It is a popular place with mountain climbers, horseback riders, walkers, and automobilists. would slow down and stop, until it "picked up" the Whistling Buoy off Monhegan. T can hear that One now goes to Mount Desert Island by any modern mode of travel, but in the old days it was slosh of water on the steamer's sides, now, seventy remote and inaccessible and was approached almost years later. We reached Rockland at four a.m., where there was a great pounding on our stateroom entirely by sea. My family started going there in 1881. doors, for this was where we changed boats. We took the train to Portland, Maine, where we In those early years the only breakfast was boarded a sidewheeler-either the Lewiston or the served on the Rockland wharf so, after we had City of Richmond; they were old steamers with few dressed and got into warm union suits for the conveniences. They plowed through the rather rough change to a colder climate, we had our breakfast. waters to Southwest Harbor, the earliest settlement Of the food I can remember little, but I do recall on Mount Descrt Island, arriving at noon with hearing my father say that "the coffee may have most of us gray and silent from seasickness. been made from a photograph of peanut shells" There a sailboat, its large bottom filled with After leaving Rockland we wound among the stones for ballast, waited for us. On the stones our islands, coming so close to some that one could have many and large trunks were piled up, and we all jumped ashore. The wise old captain, just shearing clambered in and set sail for a sloping beach at the the reefs and shallows, knew his way around. I mouth of Northeast Harbor, where we disembarked remember his friendliness in allowing us children and climbed into a waiting buckboard. Our lug- up in the pilot house. He was a taciturn man, as so gage followed on a "jigger," a long, low horse- many "followers of the sea" are, but once he did drawn platform, and we proceeded about a quarter answer a passenger who showed amazement at his of a mile over a dusty country road to our destina- skillful dodging of dangerous rcefs. tion, the small white house belonging to Everett The passenger had asked, "Do you know where Kimball, a fisherman. all the reefs are?" By 1884 steamers not only ran direct from Boston "Nope," was the reply. to Bangor, but connected at Rockland in the early "Well," continued the questioner, "you must morning with a smaller steamer which carried us know where all the bucys are?" through thoroughfares and near islands to the har- "Nope," again came the answer, to which he bors-Southwest, Northeast, Seal, and Bar on Des- added, after a moment's silence, "I know where ert. It was not the Desert we know now; it was a they ain't." far-away island, reached with difficulty, and it was Charles W. Eliot, President of Harvard, traveled an exciting adventure for me and my sisters and on these boats each summer, and was once told by brother. We packed our large trunks and drove a member of the crew, "We fellows got talking who through steaming streets in a large hack to Foster's was the cleverest man we carried on this here 'bot' Wharf in Boston where we boarded the steamer for Rockland. and we voted it was you, Mr. President only we don't see why you ain't rich." "I never had the Some of the hardier ones in the family had picnic time," was the reply, which I am sure left them just supper on deck, but very soon the boat was out of as puzzled as before. the harbor and beginning to pitch and roll, so we Life was very simple in those days. The vaca- went to bed in our bunks to sleep fitfully, what with tioners were largely professional people, having passengers laughing and talking outside of our win- long enough vacations to make it possible to go so far from their winter homes. We counted many college presidents and professors in Northeast Har- Monhegan Harbor and town on Monhegan Island. bor. Harvard, Yale, Cornell, California, Johns Hopkins were all represented, and there grew a saying, "You have to have money but no brains in Bar Harbor; brains but no moncy in Northeast Harbor, while in Southwest Harbor you don't have to have either." It is still possible to live simply even though Rockefellers and Atwater Kents may be neighbors. Once when a son of mine was sailing toy boats with the Rockcfeller children, he asked Johnny Rocke- feller why his father didn't get him a real boat and was answered scornfully, "What do you think are, Vanderbilts?" 46 Northeast Harbor itself was wild and wooded, a wonderful shelter from the storms. I can remember when it was so closely packed with fishing vessels that one could walk across their decks almost to the opposite shore, and many a time I rowed up the har- bor and with my oar prodded the seals sunning on the rocks, to see and hear them splashing into the water. The native people of this island are proud, inde- pendent and honest. In the older generation, the speech was Elizabethan English, such as is still heard in the Kentucky mountains. One man who worked for my father, upon being asked how he had disposed of a dead cat, replied, "I hove her into the deep." Also there was the answer of the farmer, whose wife was expecting a baby, to the eager question asked him each morning when he Somes Sound, a sheltered sea at Mount Desert. left the milk. After many "Nopes," one day he answered "Yep." "Boy or girl?" he was asked, to for many years, and its great roomy hall was nick- which, after scratching his head, he replied, "Wall, named "the Fish Pond," supposedly a place for the ain't saying it ain't a gal!" Not long ago when I maidens of that era to "catch" a beau. Shabby was driving my car on a lonely road I stopped to shops lined the main street and after visiting them buy water lilies from a very small barefoot boy, who and lunching at one of the hotels, we clambered answered my query as to the name of the pond aboard our buckboard and at the cnd of two or from which he had got his flowers with, "It goes by three hours' driving, walking, and singing we the cognomen of Lily." reached our little village once more. Quaint ways are still evident even in these money- President Eliot was the first summer resident to making times. Only last summer my daughter and build his house. That was in 1881. Bishop Doanc of I were seeking a tea house only to be told when we Albany was next, in 1882. On Sundays Bishop Doanc found one "they had given up serving tea-so many held services-first in his house and later in the small people asked for it that they couldn't keep it in wooden chapel he built, called "St. Mary's-by-the- stock." Sea." But those of us who were not Episcopalians The climate in the old days was colder than it is went to the services held in the tiny schoolhouse. now. We wore flannel suits all summer and I Itinerant preachers, usually Baptists, held forth, and remember wearing mittens when we went sailing. I used to go just to hear the stout solemn deacons on Indeed, I recollect very clearly that one day when the platform shout "Amen" with surprising sudden- I was out sailing it snowed! The statement was ness when they approved of the preacher's senti- doubted by my hearers, until I found it verified in ments. Later on, a stone church was built which we the spring of 1948 in the Boston Globe in an article called "The Union Church," although the Episco- (telling of "The cold summer of 1881 when it palians dubbed it "Saint Charles-in-the-Wood" as [snowed in Maine!" against their "St. Mary's-by-the-Sea," the former Our summers were spent climbing the bare rocky being the result of the initiative of President Eliot. mountains, berrying, and going out on the water. Our captain, a piratical-looking old "salt," wore I think a description of Bishop Doane deserves a separate page, for he walked straight out of Trol- gold hoops in his ears and had "the meanest back in Maine." Distances were great, and roads steep and rocky. Once or twice a summer we would hire The Nelson Rockefeller house, built like a ship. a buckboard to take us on the long drive to Bar Harbor, the metropolis of the island, over such steep hills that we really walked most of the way- up the perpendicular hills to save our horses and down the hills to save our necks. Driving over the great shelf of pebbles at Long Pond was always exciting. We had to get out of the buckboard and walk there, too, to prevent the wheels from sinking up to their hubs. Bar Harbor in the carly days consisted chiefly of ast caravansaries, called hotels-large wooden affairs. "Rodick's" was the largest hotel in Maine 47 4 lope- - a strange anomaly for a New England village Bear Island Light stands at the to grasp. Hc was rather a stout figure, with promi- entrance to Northeast Harbor. nent features and sandy-colored hair forming a fringe around his bald head. He wore a large- spruce was selected for a midsummer tree. to which brimmed, flat-topped, black felt hat; black frock all the children were invited. It stood high up on a coat, and on his waistcoat rested a large-linked gold rocky mound laden with gifts. Bishop Doane in all chain holding a gold cross. He wore gaiters from his regalia (and a most picturesque sight he was) his knees down, ruffles at his wrist, and a very stood beside the tree with his dainty little grand- large ring on his forefinger. It was certainly a new daughter beside him. Below the two were gathered type to be among the very puritan Yankees. He the "tenants"-pardon mc! I mean the other always carried a gold-topped cane and was accom- children-who, as their names were called, came panied by his large mastiff dog. forward and upward to receive a present. It was all I often wondered what had attracted him to such we could do not to "bob a curtsey" or "pull a a far-away village. Was it missionary zeal to profess forelock" his Episcopal belief? Was it a real love of nature's Living was pretty primitive in those days. There beauty and simplicity of living? Probably both. He was no doctor nearer than ten miles and no drug never forgot he was a bishop, which was an annoy- store. A butcher who served also as dentist drove his ing trait to some, such as my father, who resented cart to the different harbors twice a week, with the pat on his shoulder and resented being addressed various joints of animals swaying from hooks in the as "dear child." But he won his way into enough of back of his cart, along with a large pair of forceps the plain people's hearts with his kindness, so that with which to extract painful teeth of his patrons, he did build a small wooden chapel and converted when necessary some of the native people to Episcopalianism. Many boats plied between the harbors and our On Sundays, after the Union Church had been life was spent largely on the sea. We learned to built, we all used to pile into the long boat which swim even in that cold water, as well as how to had been built for President Eliot at Friendship, row, sail, and manage a boat. It was the simple life Maine. It had oar locks for three pairs of oars and personified. So-called civilization has caught up held a large company, sometimes as many as with us, but the hills and pastures are still good for eighteen people. In that way, like an expedition, berrying, the mountain trails still becken, WC would proceed across the harbor and then have streams and ocean are still ready for the fishermen a half-mile walk through dense woods to the little and boats are to be had in which to explore church-an expedition reminding one of the pic- fascinating coast and many enchanting islands that tures we see of Swedes and Norwegians doing the lie about. same. I know of no place that offers such interest and In regard to the long boat, there hangs a tale. beauty-the possibilities for a simple life, or a gay After we had had this boat for two years, Bishop one, a place where "evil communications do not Doane asked President Eliot where he had had it corrupt good manners," a place of friendliness and made and was told, "at Friendship, Maine." The neighborliness. next summer there appeared on the waters an exact replica, except for a flag flying from its stern with large letters on it spelling "The Only." To say we Footnote were astonished is putting it mildly indeed! The bishop's little granddaughter asked her N the summer of 1901 a small group of summer residents on grandfather why he didn't have a Christmas tree Mount Desert Island formed a corporation known as "The in summer, so the idea was considered and a large Trustees of Public Reservations" in order to preserve the natural beauties of the island for generations yet to come. It received many gifts of mountain tops and beaches and by 1913 had acquired about 6,000 actes of land. The trustees offered the land as a gift to the government for a federal park. On February 19, 1919, President Wilson signed an Act of Congress by which the National Monument became "Lafayette National Park. later changed to "Acadia National Park" gift 10 the people forever. Camping sites are provided; forest rangers take care of the fire question; and thousands of tourists come each summer to enjoy the island's beauty. Bar Harbor, well-known 10 readers of society columns, but only a part of Mount Desat. 48 The following excerpts are from VIA Minutes, Vol. 1 September 27, 1881: A preliminary meeting of Bar Harbor Citizens and others interested in village improvement was held at the Cottage Street schoolhouse pursuant to a published call of the meeting in the Mount Desert Herald. Dr. Hasket Derby was elected chairman and Mr. Joseph Wood, secretary. The matter of a village corporation for the better regulation of public affairs was discussed and met with general approbation. The chairman appointed a committee on Permanent Organization. October 11, 1881: A committee was appointed to introduce an article at Town Meeting that hereafter the meetings of the Town of Eden be held in the Village of Bar Harbor. The committee of three was appointed Committee to Wait-on Selectmen. October 24, 1881: Mr. C.S. Leffingwell, reported for Committee on the Constitution, with preamble and by-laws. The first article of the Constitution declares that the society will be known as the Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association. Constitution adopted and meeting adjourned. November 14, 1881: Proclaimed First Meeting of the Association, the meeting elected the Association's officers and Executive Committee. February 20, 1882: VOTED to insert an article in the Town warrant that all Buckboard Tax money derived by the Town be given the Association to be expended on the streets of Bar Harbor, under direction of Executive Committee. March 6, 1882: A code for the sanitary regulation in the village of Bar Harbor was revised and adopted. The Executive Committee advised that these regulations be adopted by the Town of Eden and be enforced at once. 1885: (Note of Secretary): On the 6th of March, 1885, the Town of Eden at its Annual Meeting voted "That the polling place of the Town of Eden be changed to the village of Bar Harbor". All Town meetings have since been held in the village. On Saturday, March 25, 1885, at a Special Meeting of the Town of Eden, the code of sanitary regulations, approved and recommended by BH VIA, March 6, 1882, was adopted by the Town. July 20, 1889: The first meeting was called to order at the Music Room of Hotel St. Saveur, by Parke Godwin, president of the temporary organization, and upon report ot Constitution Committee, the constitution was adopted. Officers and Board of Managers for '89-90 were elected.It was voted that the new Association be considered as a continuation of the V.I.A, formed in Bar Harbor in 1881. September 9, 1890: In regard to report on hacks and electric lights, the matter of hack drivers and public carriages carrying lanterns and the subject of electric lights burning until dawn in summer was referred to the Committee to Wait on Selectmen, for consideration at Town Meeting next March. And VOTED to authorize Executive Committee to lease for the Association for one year, land near West St. Cove, owned by Mr. T. L. Roberts, for the priviledge of tearing down shanties and the place put in order. February 5, 1891: A meeting was called at the suggestion of Mr. Jesup, who thought the Association might do something to prevent the Legislature of Maine in granting additional priviledges to the Mount Desert Railway, and to send committee to Augusta. VOTED $100 to oppose the street railway scheme. W.H. Sherman, sec. September 11, 1891: VOTED that $150 be appropriated for the purpose of removing certain old or dilapidated houses in the area of West St. known as Peanut Row, or be used at direction of Sanitary Committee for similar purpose. Roads and Paths Committee reports that a rock crusher of the best and most modern construction as an implement for producing desirable material in the construction of roads and sidewalks is necessary. The matter of purchasing machinery is now under consideration by Special Town Committee. The committee and the VIA should encourage and assist the Town Committee with presentation at Town Meeting in March. September 26, 1896: Provisions by Sanitary Committee are VOTED for a VIA Board of Health (consisting of five medical practitioners) and request of Town of Eden Selectmen of appointment of Health Officer, with power to enforce sanitary regulations. August 17, 1897: Appointed committee for the establishment of a village hospital. September 20, 1898: Voted that the Sanitary Committee be requested to insert regulation of grave depth and that all coffins be lined with lead, and where burials should be allowed. July 18, 1899: The Sanitary Committee reports that a telephone was placed last fall in the temporary hospital by the VIA and has proved to be of great service and comfort for Mrs. Higgins and the attending physicians. A bill of $24 for balance due for telephone is presented. September 10, 1901: The Village Committee reports on street cleaning from Hulls Cove to the Ocean Drive. Up to September 7th, 240 days work for men had been paid by this committee, and fifty-one and a quarter days for a one horse cart. For seven weeks a boy was employed to go about on a bicycle all day from Ocean Drive to the Bay Drive and collect the loose papers which are SO unsightly, but at the end of that time he grew tired of what would have been a pleasure if there had been no idea of work connected with it, nor could the committee fill his position for remainder of season. July 20, 1902: Resolved, that the thanks of the Association be tendered to Dr. C.C. Morrison, Representative from Eden in the legislature for his co-operative effort that the Association's committee and success in securing the passage of a law prohibiting the hunting or shooting of deer on the island. September 8, 1903: The Sanitary Committee reports that the isolation hospital, called the Pest House, at Witch Hollow, is now owned by the Town, and this committee's requests were reasonable and it is in a very efficient condition. The Board of Health has just completed a number of improvements. All physicians of the Town are urged to attend the committee meetings. 1907 BHVIA 26 LIFE MEMBERS LIFE MEMBERS 27 Hart, Mrs. H. C. Newbold, Mr. C. B. How. Mr. Charles T. Ogden, Mr. D. B. Hubbard, Gen. and Mrs. Opdycke, Mr. L. E. LIFE MEMBERS Jackson, Mrs. C. C. Peabody, Mrs. A. P. Jaques, Mr. Herbert Peabody, Mr, F. H. Givers (Jesup, Mr. and Mrs. M. K. Pendleton, Mr. Edmund of Jones, Miss Beatrix Place, Mrs. George Jones, Mrs. Cadwalader Platt, Mrs. A. E. $25 in one sum Kane, Mr. and Mrs. J. I. Price, Mrs. J. M. P. $10 annually for three years Kennedy, Mr. and Mrs. Pulitzer, Mr. and Mrs. J. or $5 annually for seven years Kingsland, Mrs. W. M. Rice, Mrs. W. B. Leeds, Mrs. M. E. Robbins, Mrs. G. A. (By-Laws, Article I, Sec. 3) Livingston, Mrs. J C. Schieffelin, Mr. and Mrs. Livingston, Mr. Johnston Schiff, Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Longstreth, Dr. Morris Scott, Mr. and Mrs. Edgar Abbe, Dr. and Mrs. R. Coxe, Mrs. A. B. McCagg. Mr. and Mrs. L.B. Sears, Miss Helen Anderson, Mrs. N. L. Crafts, Miss M. E. McCormick, Mrs. R. Hall Sears. Mrs. J. M. Auchincloss, Mrs. J. W. Crocker, Mrs. U. H. Maitland, Mr. and Mrs. A. Seely. Mrs. W. W. Babcock, Mr. and Mrs. Davis, Mrs. A. J. Markoe, Mrs. John Sherman, Mrs. Gardiner Banks, Mr. and Mrs. A. B. Dehon, Miss M. H. Matthews, Mrs. Nathan Smith, Mr. and Mrs. C. M. Barney, Mrs. A. C. Derby, Dr. Hasket May, Mrs. J. Frederic Smith, Mrs. Edward A. Bass, Mrs. E. W. Dimock, Mrs. H, F. Minturn. Mrs. John W. Smith, Miss Josephine Bass, Hon. J. P. Dodge, Mrs. W. E. Mitchell. Dr. and Mrs. Stewart, Mr. William R. Biddle, Miss C. W. Dorr, Mr. G. B. Morgan, Miss C. L. Thompson, Miss Anne Blair, Mr. and Mrs. Duncan, Mr. W. B. Morgan. Mr. and Mrs. P. Trevor, Mrs. John B. Bowdoin, Mr. and Mrs. Emery, Mr. and Mrs. J. J. Morrell, Mrs. Edward Tucker, Mr. and Mrs. A. Bowen, Mrs. J. T. Emmons, Mr. R. W. Morrill, the Misses Vanderbilt, Mr. and Mrs. Brigham, Mr. L. F. Fahnestock, Mr. H. C. Canfield, Mrs. A. C. French, Miss C. L. W. Carpenter, Mrs. M. B. Gurnee, Mr. A. C. Cassatt, Mrs. A. J. Gurnee. Miss D. E. Clarke, Miss Anna M. Gurnee, Mr. W. S. Coats, Mr. and Mrs. A. M. Harrison, Hon. F. B. Condon, Mrs. T. G. Harrison, Mr. and Mrs. J. 14 COMMITTEE REPORTS COMMITTEE REPORTS 15 Report of Village Committee Report of Trees and Planting Committee The work of the committee has been reorganized. GENERAL PLANTING. Papers and rubbish have been removed from the The chairman reports that work was done by Mr. Shore Path and elsewhere every day by one em- Grant last autumn, in planting on the village streets ployee. Another has been employed to cut the grass and in caring for planting done in previous years, at and trim the village streets. A helper was required an expense amounting to $233,-no work having been for this work for five weeks, from July 9 to August done by the committee since that time. Care of 16. The barrels have been emptied daily, a contract previous planting, of vines especially, is now necessary of $3 a week having been made for this part of the and fresh planting along the roadside where opportu- work. The committee requests that occupants of nity has arisen. The places of certain trees, more- cottages along the Shore Path do not allow grass or over, which were wantonly destroyed a year ago rubbish to be thrown on the rocks, or in the water during the visit of the fleet along the walk on lower near the shore. Main street, need to be refilled by others, which can The appropriation of $500 was insufficient to be obtained from former plantations on the roadside meet this year's expenses, and an extra appropriation that it would now be better to thin out. On this of $150 was given to finish the work. The sum of various work $200 could be expended with advantage $64 was contracted for last autumn. before the present if this is more than can be spared from other work committee took charge. The expense of purchasing $150 would serve for doing what is urgent in the and painting 30 barrels has been $37, the lettering committee's work. $16.25, making a total of $53.25. The repairs to the cemetery wall and rear fence, and other necessary VILLAGE GREEN PLANTING. items have come to $25. The total expenditures All the trees planted last year and this are doing have been $608.51, which includes all bills to date. well, with the exception of certain canoe birches at The committee asks for $600 to continue the work the western end of the Green which were attacked for the coming year. last autumn by an insect working its way between the ELIZABETH RUSH PORTER, Chairman. bark and wood, around the trunk. The trees thus attacked will need to be replaced. Once established, the canoe birch is one of the hardiest of trees and not readily subject to the attack of insect or other dis- 16 COMMITTEE REPORTS COMMITTEE REPORTS 17 leases, but it is liable to suffer in removal even under which would ultimately bring a good as well as perma- the best conditions and is then subject to such attack nent return. while its vitality is impaired. The forestry conditions on such land upon the One or two of the large poplars on the northern island are distinctly good. Growth is rapid and pro- side of the lot, which suffered from the drought last duction quick the woods which can be grown are year, are also dying and need to be replaced. Other- valuable and all the wood grown will always be readily wise the only planting to be done upon the Green is marketable on the island itself ; and there is a large that of a few Norway maples along the southern side extent of land upon the island, many thousand acres of the long path, corresponding to those planted on probably-which, while it is of little or no value for the northern side this spring along a portion of the other purposes, would be fertile in tree growth. Such walk. These uniting with the others will presently lands rightly treated would be permanently productive, make this walk a shady one throughout the greater and as in good forestry the woods would be merely portion of its length and add considerably to the thinned from time to time until their main crop of pleasantness and beauty of the Green. trees had reached full size and marketable value, not For these various plantings on the Green your over two per cent. of these woodlands at most would committee recommend an appropriation of $200. ever be cut over in any single year. And this cutting After this planting is done but little further appropria- would be massed each year in special areas selected tion for tree planting on the Green will be required. with regard to the growth of trees upon them and to future work. and SO selected also as to exert a con- FORESTRY. stant check upon the spread of fires upon the island- An attempt has been made this summer by the an important matter in forestry investment as for the Tree Committee, jointly with the president of the landscape. The constant disfigurement now caused association, to initiate a movement looking toward by cutting in small, scattered areas along the roads investment by the summer residents, either individu- and paths, and the danger that exists at present from ally or in association, in such lands on the island as fires starting or spreading in the brush left in them an expert may judge to be of permanent forestry value which should be burnt, would be avoided under such and not of greater value for other purposes and their treatment. scientific forestry treatment for the purpose of busi- Under it by far the greater part of the forestable ness investment under the direction of a competent lands upon the island would always have good woods expert. The chairman of the committee, having -and a considerable portion of them old and fine given some study to the question himself and con- ones-growing on them and subject to good care and sulted experts upon it, believes that sound investment forestry treatment. This would be infinitely better can be made in such lands on the island, investment than the present state of things or anything that could otherwise be hoped for, and would help, more than 18 COMMITTEE REPORTS COMMITTEE REPORTS 19 anything else could do, to ensure the permanent UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE beauty of the island, and to add to its attraction as a FOREST SERVICE summer home. Nor would it hinder at all but help Washington, the outright purchase of such portions of the older Branch of Silviculture, September 3, 1907. woods as might seem to be specially important to MR. GEORGE B. DORR, keep permanently forested for the pleasure of our Bar Harbor, Maine. drives and walks. Such portions would be but a Dear Sir small part of the land capable of good forestry treat- Mr. Pinchot has undoubtedly written you that he is ment, and piece by piece they could be acquired as very much interested in your plan for taking care of the woods on them became mature, and held as the forests on Mount Desert Island. Your scheme public reservation. for preserving the forests not for purely sentimental The chairman of the committee believes that this or aesthetical reasons but also for financial considera- scheme is practicable and economically sound, and tions is a very sound one and is in full accord with the that aesthetic results of great importance to the principles of true forestry. A work of this kind suc- island would inevitably result from its adoption. There cessfully carried out would be of great value to is no question moreover that the price of wood is forestry in general, and would serve as a conspicuous going to advance steadily for many years to come, object lesson to other forest owners and forest inves- until the forest crop becomes a profitable one to grow tors of what can be done in this line The forests on in more arid regions than ours and under conditions Mount Desert Island seem to offer a good opportunity less favorable to forest growth. for such an enterprise. and the Forest Service will be The first step towards such investment is a very glad to do all that it can to help you in carrying thorough forestry study of the island by a competent out your plan. expert and the preparation of a report upon it and I do not think it will be possible this fall to make forestry map. This the chairman hopes it may be as thorough an examination as would be necessary for possible to get done within the coming year. The a full and authoritative report on the situation, which acquisition of land for forestry purposes would follow is absolutely essential for your purpose. Unfortunate- after slowly, land being only purchased when it could ly, Mr. Cary cannot visit the island this fall. I shall, be acquired at a price reasonable in view of its own however, be very glad to send Mr. S. T. Dana, of the actual value for the end in view and that of the stand- Forest Service. about September 15, to talk matters ing wood upon it. In confirmation of his opinion in over with you and to make a preliminary investigation this matter the chairman of the Tree Committee sub- of the conditions there with a view to completing the mits a letter just received by him from the Forestry work next year. Very truly yours, Department at Washington. (Signed) WM. T. Cox, GEORGE B. DORR, Chairman. Assistant Forester. 22 COMMITTEE REPORTS COMMITTEE REPORTS 23 Sub-Committee on Newport Mountain Road- Report of Village Green Committee way and Bicycle Path The Green has made great strides this past year, One hundred dollars will be needed next year for both in beauty and usefulness. The extensive plant- resurfacing and repairs on the Newport Mountain ing in the spring ; the gift of two spruces by perma- roadway, which is much worn by use and rains, and nent residents last winter ; the successful transplant- which, if not put in order before another season, will ing, in midsummer, of six trees from the new High have to be repaired later at increased expense. School lot, with funds specially contributed by six Fifty dollars will be required for the repair and care summer residents the gift of two trees from Miss of the Bicycle Path, on which some resurfacing is Washington and Mrs. Stanton ; the handsome stone now in progress at its westerly end. For this work a seat given by Mr. Roberts ; and the graceful cement gravel pit has been opened on adjoining land. bench presented by Mr. Norris -all have combined GEORGE B. DORR, to add not only to the adornment but to the comfort of the Green. Chairman Sub-Committee. Inspired by the success of the entertainment last winter, certain ladies among the permanent residents are planning to organize another festival this winter, by which they hope to raise more money to be expended on the Green. Our committee tenders them hearty thanks and good wishes for this expres- sion of their interest. and in SO doing is sure that it voices the feeling of the Association as a whole. It is pleasant to record that scarcely a day passes without some word or appreciation of the Green. From side streets that have lost all evidences of country life, come old people who can no longer walk to the green fields ; and in troops come the children. -the older one entrusted with the babies because, as the busy mothers say, 'It's so safe on the Green !" Increased care and interest have been shown by 36 CHARTER CHARTER 37 none upon its individual members ; and to make by-laws not inconsistent with law for the regulation of its membership and its government. CHARTER SEC. 3. The first meeting of this corporation may be called by any of the above associates, by a notice published two weeks successively before the time of LAWS OF 1891. CHAPTER 186 : said meeting in any newspaper published at Bar Harbor. An Act To Incorporate The Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association SEC. 4 This act shall take effect when approved. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Repre- sentatives in Legislature Assembled as follows : SECTION 1. Parke Godwin, Fred C. Lynam. Wil- liam H. Sherman. Morris K. Jesup, Robert Amory, Charles T. How, De Grasse Fox, Luere B. Deasy, Edward Coles, Serenus H. Rodick, Henry Sayles, William B. Rice, David A. Bunker, Elihu T. Hamor, Addie B. Higgins, Mary G. Dorr, Augustus Gurnee, A. W. Morrill, Iphigenia Z, Place, Frances E. Wood, George W. Vanderbilt, Gertrude S. Rice, Louisa S. Minot, F. G. Peabody, Abby A. Potter, Francis M. Conners, John E. Clark, George M. Wheeler, Eugene B. Richards, and their associates and successors, are hereby incorporated under the name of the Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association, for the purpose of instituting and maintaining public improve- ments in the village of Bar Harbor. and other parts of Mount Desert Island. SEC. 2. For the purpose of its incorporation this Association may receive and hold real and personal property not exceeding fifty thousand dollars in amount; make contracts to be binding upon itself but Properties | Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association Page 1 of 1 Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association Quietly working behind the scenes to keep Bar Harbor beautiful. since 1881 Properties The Bar Harbor VIA owns several properties in Bar Harbor: Bald Rock Glen Mary Park How Memorial Town Clock We also help the Town maintain the following properties: The Shore Path Veteran's Memorial Village Green and Agamont Park Fountains Share this: Twitter f Facebook G. Google Like Be the first to like this. Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association The Twenty Ten Theme. Blog at WordPress.com. o Follow http://barharborvia.org/holdings/ 1/10/2016 History | Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association Page 1 of 4 Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association Quietly working behind the scenes to keep Bar Harbor beautiful. since 1881 History Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association: a private corporation for the benefit of public welfare and early town planners THE BAR HANDOR HOUNTAINS. MAINE The Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association was the first of its kind organized on Mount Desert Island, in the Town of Eden, in the summer of 1881. Later in the 1890's, similar societies were established in the Town of Mount Desert in the villages of Northeast Harbor, Seal Harbor and yet later in other island villages. These societies appear to be unique to Mount Desert Island. Reported in the Association's First Annual Report of 1890, that is was at the suggestion of a distinguished and public spirited citizen of New York, (Mr. Morris K. Jesup), that "this society was organized to carry out such work of amelioration and adornment, as might from time to time be suggested to science and good taste, in order to bring the village itself into a greater conformity with its beautiful environment." Mrs. Charles Dorr (mother of George Dorr) is also recognized and credited with the formal establishment of the VIA. Other charter members included the Association's first elected officers, Parke Godwin, William Sherman (Eden's town Clerk), Fred C. Lynam (first-elected and longest serving officer), Dr. Robert Amory, Morris Jesup, and Hon. Luere B. Deasy. Many other local and summer residents served on the Association's Board of Managers, such as E.T. Hamor, Serenus Rodick, Charles T. How, Augustus Gurnee, Mary Dorr, and George Vanderbilt. From its inception the Association was a very democratic society with progressive thinking, particularly by standards of the 1890's; the by-laws stated that the Board of Managers consist of forty members, twenty of whom may be ladies. By the Second Annual Report the by-laws state that the Board of Managers may consist of not less than thirty members, nor more than fifty members, of which half may be ladies. The objectives of the Association, as expressed in its Constitution, is to preserve and develop the o Follow http://barharborvia.org/about-us/history/ 12/8/2015 History Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association Page 2 of 4 natural beauties of the place, and to enhance their attractions, by such artificial arrangements as good taste and science may suggest. These lofty ideals were expressed in the speeches of its officers at Annual Meetings printed at length in the Association's earliest Annual Reports. Eloquent speakers like Vice-president Deasy stated that attention must be devoted to adorning the streets and opening new avenues of access to the beautiful hills and lakes, and to the grand outlooks, which make of the island of Mount Desert one of the most picturesque, if Bar Harbor is to retain its obvious advantages, and to acquire a real supremacy as a watering place, among the many rival resorts springing up in its immediate vicinity, along the coasts of Maine, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey, vigilant and constant spots on the face of the globe." Early reports reflected the members' far-reaching concerns. Included in the Association's Annual Reports were updates from committees on Sewers, Roads, Sidewalks and Wood Paths, the Waterfront, the Water and Milk Supply, Trees, Fire Escapes at local hotels, a proposed police station and lock-up, and a troublesome area known as "Squaw Hollow" on the shores of Cromwell Harbor Brook. The Third Annual Report reports the Association passed a resolution that the committee communicate and advise the Town Selectmen of the unsanitary and threatening condition of the possibility of cholera from "Squaw Hollow", suggesting the only safe way to deal with these conditions was to empty the place of its inhabitants and have the whole neighborhood disinfected. Extensive committee reports on the sewers of the Town included the locations of, and relocating of, stables within the village. Before the strong central organization of town government, that we know the talant today, and before the town changed its name to Bar Harbor, the VIA took on the responsibility each summer of street cleaning. The VIA provided wooden rubbish barrels and public settees from Corniche Drive along the bluffs, to village streets and Ocean Drive. In addition to street cleaning, many of the town's roads were improved, including the Ocean Drive and Otter Cliffs Road. Wood paths, all inclusive on the eastern side of the island, were cleared of fallen trees and kept in passable order for the many summer sojourners by the VIA. The responsibility for the many miles of roads and trails was delegated to one of the Association's foremost committees, that of Roads and Paths, first chaired by George B. Dorr. The Roads and Paths Committee, which reported annually till 1941, was served by an illustrious group of gentlemen through the years: Waldron Bates (credited with design of the island-wide network that connected trails of eastern paths to the southern group of trails supported by the other Village Improvement Societies of Seal Harbor and Northeast Harbor), Professor Brunnow (whose vision created the spectacular Precipice Trail), among others. This committee was also charged with the building of several memorial trails, and created maps for resale. The Sanitary Committee consisted of all medical practitioners of the town and was first headed by renowned New York surgeon Dr. Robert Abbe. This committee reported on the water and milk supply to Bar Harbor. Among the influential recommendations proposed by the committee was the establishment of a Board of Health and a health officer to enforce sanitary regulations, and the allocation of monies for the building and operation of a hospital (1897). A special committees appointed in the summer of 1892, the Village Clock Committee, wrestled with the contentious issue of where the clock should be placed. (LINK)Finally, in the summer of 1896, a village clock Follow http://barharborvia.org/about-us/history/ 12/8/2015 History | Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association Page 3 of 4 purchased by the Association for the sum of $1250 from the renowned clockmaker, E. Howard & Co. of Boston, with tower, was placed in front of Bee's on Main Street - only after obtaining permission from Mr. Albert Bee. Later in 1904, the Association approached the Town Selectmen to lease the empty "town lot" located on the corner of Main and Mount Desert Street for the purpose of building and landscaping a village green. The "town lot" had been the site of the Grand Central Hotel which was razed in the winter of 1899, leaving an unsightly hole in the ground with cellar walls. The town meeting had turned down the proposal that a Town Hall be built there. The VIA lease of the Village Green remained in effect through the 1920's when a new generation of VIA members thought the Town should be maintaining upkeep while the Association got back to the basics of "improvements." The new generation produced and commissioned long-range plans for the adornment of village streets, the Village Green by Beatrix Farrand, and island-wide surveys by Dr. Charles Eliot. - Green Bar Mo When the first lease was negotiated by the VIA, the Town Selectmen suggested that the clock be removed from Main Street's narrow sidewalk to the proposed village square at the Association's expense, since the Association owned the clock. Again, the placement of the clock sparked controversy as to which direction it would face and about its location in the square. President Parke Godwin appointed George Dorr's committee to resolve this on- going controversy. In his eight page Report of the VIA Committee on the Village Green, he suggested widening the sidewalk along Main Street for the relocation of the clock and that it face North/South SO as to provide the best visibility from both ends of the street. The report was accepted and its proposals approved by the Association, and the clock found its present location. Another controversial committee was appointed the next year regarding the restriction of the automobile in Bar Harbor. The Association voted to secure the cooperation of its sister societies on MDI to adopt a similar manifesto excluding automobiles from the whole island. Efforts for a joint committee of island societies was formed to address this most important issue. The automobile issue left summer residents and local residents on different sides. Later, after the automobile issue was resolved in the State's Supreme Court, and automobiles were allowed in all island communities, general complaints persisted on the speeding of automobiles on island roads. As late as 1926, the Association hired extra police duty to enforce the 15 MPH limit along Ocean Drive. By 1919, the Association had grown to include 400 members. In the 1919 Annual Report, excerpted below, the Association detailed its expanding list of concerns. "The Town Planning Committee begs to emphasize the fact that Bar Harbor needs a plan to develop: Follow http://barharborvia.org/about-us/history/ 12/8/2015 History | Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association Page 4 of 4 Better approach to wharf path; Better sidewalks (possibly from Bar Harbor to Hulls Cove); Better planning for small houses; Some shore front open to all; Law to prevent roadside advertising; Judicious trimming of trees on Ocean Drive and road to Hulls Cove; All these matters are entirely feasible and will be done when the public realizes the wisdom and economy in doing so. (Signed) Beatrix Farrand Chairman, Town Planning Comm." All projects were supported by the Association from membership fees and individual contributions. In its early years, the VIA membership boasted over one hundred fifty members, but some issues like the automobile and then, much later, the length of the Shore Path, in addition to the declining number of wealthy summer residents, resulted in a lessening of membership from which the once vital and influential Association has never recovered. BAR ISLAND AND THE BAR Local interest and support has always been welcomed by the Association. Today, the VIA consists of a small number of concerned citizens "quietly working behind the scenes to keep Bar Harbor beautiful", just as their far sighted and much revered predecessors did in years past. Compiled by Phil Cunningham 2006 Memorable excerpts from our early Annual Report archives Share this: Twitter f Facebook 29 G+ Google Like Be the first to like this. Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association The Twenty Ten Theme. Blog at WordPress.com Follow http://barharborvia.org/about-us/history/ 12/8/2015 Who We Are Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association Page 1 of 2 Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association Quietly working behind the scenes to keep Bar Harbor beautiful. since 1881 Who We Are The VIA board is elected during our Annual Meeting, which convenes at the Historical Society on the third Thursday of August. Our current Board includes: a. M. President: Dick Cough Vice President: Andy Shea Treasurer: Jon Nicholson Secretary: Kathy Macleod Directors: Les Brewer, Phil Cunningham, Jeff Dobbs, Debbie Dyer, Ellen Grover, Tom Testa, Scott West The VIA would like to acknowledge Les Brewer, who acted as President for over 35 years. Under his quiet and competent direction, the VIA continued to grow, thrive and provide stewardship for our properties. He continues to be a valuable resource to us. All visitors to Bar Harbor, as well as residents, are cordially invited to join the Association. Become a member with an annual contribution of $20, or become a Lifetime Member for $250. Join today! Who We Were Historically, VIA membership read like a Who's Who in America, a venerable mixture of local and summer residents. Prominent members included the likes of John S. Kennedy, Mrs Joseph Pulitzer, Mrs. J.P. Morgan, Mrs. George Vanderbilt, Ernesto Fabbri, Dr. Augustus Thorndike, Alfred Dupont and Dr. Robert Abbe (Ezra Cough, great grandfather of Dick Cough, the present president, was also a past member of the BHVIA). Waldron Bates, George Dorr and Beatrix Ferrand were among the most distinguished of our early members. These farsighted individuals were instrumental in designing Bar Harbor's downtown, parks and gardens, as well as Kebo Valley Golf Course and the boundaries and trails of Acadia National Park. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to these tireless and giving individuals; their vision created the town and park that we know and love today! Waldron Bates (1856-1909) joined the BHVIA in 1892. He was chairman of the Paths Committee from 1900 to 1909 and President from 1904 to 1905. Mr. Bates was renowned for designing and constructing trails that would hold up under any conditions and heavy usage, including Cadillac Cliffs, Canon Brook and Giant Slide. Bates was tragically killed by a train 1909 at the age of 52. His signature trailmarker, known as a Bates cairn, is still used throughout Acadia and plaques honoring his contributions are located on the Gorham Mountain Trail and in the Kebo Valley parking lot. Follow http://barharborvia.org/about-us/who-we-are/ 12/8/2015 Who We Are Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association Page 2 of 2 George Dorr (1854-1944) first visited Bar Harbor in 1868. He dedicated his life and personal fortune to the preservation of Mount Desert Island, eventually acquiring the land, funds, and federal support to successfully establish Acadia National Park. Dorr acted as the first superintendent, and is remembered today as one of the Park's founding fathers. Beatrix Ferrand (1872-1959) was one of America's most celebrated landscape architects renowned for private gardens, many of which were located in Maine, as well as consulting work for some of the country's most prestigious universities and colleges. Over the course of her long and distinguished career, she received more than 200 commissions, mostly from East Coast society families. One cannot underestimate the influence of these early VIA contributors, who shaped not only our community and National Park, but also our country: One day in 1889 a prominent Virginian, John Wise, burst into the office of the Speaker of the House, Thomas B. Reed of Maine, yelling out, "Who's running this government anyway?" Reed calmly replied, "Why John, the great and the good are running it of course." "Well then," said Wise, "the great and the good must all live in Maine. Here I come to Washington to do business with the Secretary of State, and I find he is Jim Blaine of Maine. I call to pay my respects on the President pro tem of the Senate, and he is Mr. Frye of Maine. I want to consult the Senate's majority leader and they send me to Mr. Hale of Maine. Then I must take up a tariff matter with the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee of the House, and who is he but Mr. Dingley of Maine. Then there is a naval bill I am interested in, and who chairs that committee but Mr. Milliken of Maine. I have to see about an appropriation for a public building in Richmond, and who's in control but Mr. Boutelle of Maine." "Yes, John," said Reed, "the great and the good and the wise. The country is still safe," And out they went arm in arm to have lunch with the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Mr. Justice Fuller of Maine. Originally broadcast in 1971 by Ernest Marriner on the 1000th episode of his radio show, Little Talks, in Waterville, Me. The full audio is version is available here. Share this: Twitter f Facebook G. Google Like Be the first to like this Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association The Twenty Ten Theme. Blog at WordPress.com Follow http://barharborvia.org/about-us/who-we-are/ 12/8/2015 Judith S. Goldstein. Crossing Lines: Histori's s of Jews and gentiles in Three Communities. CHAPTER 8 N.Y.: William Morrow Inc. 1992. A Summer Empire ONLY FORTY-FIVE MILES from Bangor, the coastal resort of Mount Desert Island flourished in summer splendor. Despite the short distance, the inland lumber city and the remote va- cation land occupied vastly different worlds. In the late nine- teenth century, when Bangor lost its grip on stardom and prosperity, the island-especially Bar Harbor-blazed forth to fame. Capital and native-born men and women flowed out of Bangor. Famous magnates and money poured onto Mount Desert. Alas, Bangor no longer represented the American dream come true. But Bar Harbor, separated in idyllic seclu- sion, represented an American dream that was still coming alive. Bangor cast a jealous eye and sought to make connections. The Bangor Daily Commercial led the way: "An erroneous idea prevails with many in regard to Bar Harbor that should be corrected. Many think that Bar Harbor, with its beautiful scen- ery, its wonderfully invigorating air and all its natural advan- tages, is a place where only the very rich can afford to spend the summer." The paper reassured its readers: "There is room enough for all classes of people and they all can enjoy them- selves in their way." And yet a caveat was in order. "To be sure, it might be difficult for a man of moderate means, but who had 152 CROSSING LINES MOUNT DESERT ISLAND: A SUMMER EMPIRE 153 aspirations to social life, to come to Bar Harbor and have entree Though fresh as ever Nature's beauties smile, to the old aristocratic families of the country, but he could have How changed thy people since that former day, thorough enjoyment in his own sphere and hearty enjoyment at When, dwelling lonely in their peaceful isle, that." They cast their nets, or raked the fragrant hay! The warning was disingenuous but important. "Aspirations Thy fishermen, thy farmers, where are they? to social life" was what Bar Harbor was all about. The resort No in their stead are monied landlords found; gave and withheld entrée to its rich new society for all to see. Thy sons as drivers win the stranger's pay; Gleefully, William Pattangall measured the summer social Thy daughters, where the swarming flies abound, yearnings of Joseph Bass, owner of the Commercial and one of On clamoring boarders tend and pass the chowder round. the few Bangor men who owned a cottage in Bar Harbor. "He longs for a position in society. Longs for it! Rather does he By the mid-1870's, Mount Desert had been discovered. hunger for it, thirst for it, crave it as the opium fiend craves the Not yet a stylish place, Mount Desert already had a stylish name. drug, or the degenerate craves the exaltation of passion The brilliant mountain scenery, good air, and summer fun kept Gaining acceptance was a serious business from the late the "clamoring boarders" coming, especially to Bar Harbor. nineteenth century on. Mount Desert Island was a social fron- Steamships and trains broke the isolation of the island. Boats tier as well as Maine's most conspicuous connection to the from Rockland and Portland increased their runs. The rail- Gilded Age. Along with other new resorts, Mount Desert pro- road, in 1884, finally made its way east from Bangor, opening vided a geographical escape from the cities and a social release up the Coastal Line, which stopped at Mount Desert Ferry, at from deep conflicts in American life: Christian superiority and Hancock, before going downeast to Calais. The Maine Central homogeneity versus a pluralistic creed; exclusivity versus equal- ferried train passengers eight miles across Frenchman Bay ity of opportunity; and prejudice versus acceptance of Jews. from Mount Desert Ferry to Bar Harbor, and then farther on Before the summer folk arrived, there had been peace and to Northeast Harbor and Southwest Harbor. By the mid- tranquillity in the stunning landscape of mountains, seas, lakes, nineties, over twenty-five thousand people were vacationing on cliffs and forests. The derisive poetry of Henry Walton Swift the island. and Dacre Bush in 1873 recalled the pristine days of untouched Developers-the native-born, along with those from nature: Bangor south to Philadelphia-bought properties, built houses and opened up roads into the hills behind the hamlets and along the water. Speculators, led by Francis H. Clergue of Thou favored isle, from busy haunts afar, Bangor, put a scenic railroad up Green Mountain (called Ca- Whose wildness mocks at man's destroying hand, dillac Mountain in later days) with a $100,000 investment that No smoky industries thy beauty mar, failed after just a few years. Enterprising natives and others No envious spires, no swelling domes, expand from around the state speedily brought a service industry to In insolence their petty forms, where stand life. In the frantic crush to turn the coast into gold, they built a With shadows creeping o'er their changing green, tawdry commercial waterfront at Bar Harbor. "To the lover of Thy mountains, solemn, beautiful, and grand; beauty," the writer Susan Coolidge, who vacationed in North- Yet has thy loveliness a softer mien: east Harbor, observed, "it would be hard to find a more dis- That sun in all its course gilds not more fair a scene. couraging object of contemplation than the town proper, with its irregular huddle of shanty-like shops and ungainly tene- Alas, before the tourists and cottage owners had appeared, Bar ments, painted in inharmonious colors and dominated over by Harbor, Northeast Harbor, Southwest Harbor, Seal Harbor monstrous hotels of the same flagrant architecture, whose ev- and Somesville had been little fishing and farming hamlets. ery line seems an affront to the canons of taste." The ugliness 154 CROSSING LINES MOUNT DESERT ISLAND: A SUMMER EMPIRE 155 mattered not at all to those seeking summer solace. By 1890, Philadelphia from June to the middle of September, its streets they poured in to fill Bar Harbor's nineteen hotels with four and drives are thronged by the gaily dressed migratory butter- thousand rooms-those great "wooden barracks," including flies of the world of fashion, airing their silken wings in the cool seven hundred at Rodick's alone. sunshine of the Maine coast, after comparative inactivity during But crudeness and crowding did not last for long. Instead, the winter of the large cities." Bar Harbor would ensure its success by a spirited display of There were Vanderbilts, Schiefflins, Opdyckes, Morrises, family wealth and position. As a resort, it would rank second Ogdens, Bowens, Thorndikes, Amorys, Palmers, Jesups, Thay- only to Newport, Rhode Island. In a time of escalating for- ers, Lawrences, Dorrs, Fabbris, and Pulitzers. A host of advan- tunes, with the emergence of approximately four thousand tageous marriages were carefully encouraged as old names American millionaires between the Civil War and the 1890's, crossed with new money. Eventually, it would seem, everyone legions of the rich, as well as well-established families, descended who mattered became related to everyone else in labyrinthine on Bar Harbor. Reaping wealth from running railroads, indus- connections that tied an emerging and aspiring intercity aris- try, utilities and investment banks, the nouveaux riches, or tocracy tightly to each other. "squillionaires," mixed with the "old gentry" of good names and A special mix of American improvisation and pride, social valued lineage: doctors, lawyers, small manufacturers and "civic ambition and European taste flourished in the culture of out- leaders." door life on Mount Desert. European travel was an active ref- The railroads and steamers carried vacationers with cosmo- erence point for both the old gentry and the nouveaux riches. politan tastes, exacting standards of hygiene and the ambitious Returning to the island, they reassured themselves that the desire to replicate resplendent homes and institutions- Mount Desert landscape was equal to the beauty of the Bay of churches, clubs and associations-of their native cities. Families Naples, the mountains of Switzerland, the lake country of staked their claims on Mount Desert-many with a tenacity and Northern England and the fjords of Norway. attachment that continues to this day. Prime parcels were bought From Sea Urchins, her newly built cottage in 1889, the up. Another great American land boom took off. Religion, phi- piquant writer Mrs. Burton Harrison exclaimed: "How aston- lanthropy and culture took root. Bar Harbor's summer residents ishing are these Aladdin palaces at Bar Harbor! One year, one spawned an impressive set of institutions: their own Congrega- sees a barren height, with rocks & firs & junipers & bunch tional, Catholic, Episcopal, Methodist, Baptist and Unitarian berries, its only inhabitants, the next season, one goes into a churches; a hospital, a YMCA, a YWCA, the Jesup Memorial Li- lighted portal, with flunkies right & left, across velvet carpeted brary and a Greek-like temple, the Building of Arts. Starting in steps with a hall where 'family' portraits are hanging-there is the 1880's, the magnetic mix of land, money and the beau a dinner cooked by a chef, and after it, music by a secretary of monde flourished in Bar Harbor. the Russian Legation & a new baritone from Dayton, Ohioh By the late 1890's, summer residents, or rusticators as they [sic]!" were popularly called, had hurriedly built (or bought) 250 cot- The commodious and richly furnished cottages were built tages. Spectacular homes and grandiose gardens, such as Blair to accommodate families of parents and children, aunts, uncles, Eyrie built by the New York investment banker Dewitt C. Blair in-laws, cousins and numerous guests. The sheer numbers re- and Kenarden Lodge owned by John S. Kennedy, a leading quired huge staffs of gardeners, drivers, stable hands-even railroad financier, embellished Bar Harbor and spread its fame. footmen-along with maids who did endless cleaning, washing, The summer residents-the comfortable, the quietly rich and ironing and cooking. Some homes were more formal than oth- the extravagantly rich-formed complex strata of a beguiling ers. Louise de Koven Bowen from Chicago settled with her new society. "The cottages, or villas which encircle the town," family in her palatial, manicured, French-colonial cottage in W. Lapham wrote in his laudable guide to the island, "rep- Hulls Cove, a few miles from Bar Harbor. Baymeath had eleven resent the best society of New York, Baltimore, Newport and bedrooms and ten bathrooms, a room for arranging flowers 156 CROSSING LINES MOUNT DESERT ISLAND: A SUMMER EMPIRE 157 with two hundred vases of every size, and a stable for twenty- Record wrote of George Vanderbilt's Pointe d'Arcadie, "give two horses. In the splendor of her cottage at the edge of French- promise of equaling the famous roads that were built by Caesar man Bay, Mrs. Bowen entertained thirty-five for lunch every in the days of yore." Equally astounding was the landscape afternoon. work of Beatrix Cadwalader Jones, the daughter of Mrs. Mary Summer residents imported some of America's finest ar- Cadwalader Jones of New York. "A young lady who moves in chitects to design cottages, churches, clubs and libraries. Pea- the upper circle of Bar Harbor society," the Bangor Daily Com- body and Sterns; Roche and Tilden; William R. Emerson; mercial noted, works in a "short skirt which comes to the top of Bruce Price; Andrews, Jacques and Rantoul; McKim, Mead a clumsy pair of rubber boots plodding about in the clayey soil and White; and Frank Furness produced some of their best directing the men how they shall wield their axes. Miss Jones work on the island. Fred Savage, a gifted architect and native of is a decidedly new woman." Northeast Harbor, was the most prolific. By 1906, he had de- The "season" throbbed to the invigorating beat of rigorous signed over three hundred buildings on the island. The archi- sports and entertainment: canoeing, sailing, hiking, climbing, tects built in a versatile array of imitative and innovative idioms: biking, riding in horse shows and driving over the island in a Italian, French, English, Swiss, Tudor, Queen Anne, Medieval, full array of sporting carriages. Society gathered in their cot- Renaissance and shingle styles. "It is the fashion to call these tages and exclusive clubs: the Kebo Club for horse shows and country houses cottages," the architect Bruce Price commented golf, the Canoe Club, the Reading Club for the covert con- with judicious acumen, "but the cottages exist only in name. sumption of alcohol in a dry state, the Pot and Kettle Club for The cliffs of Newport, the rocks of Mt. Desert, the shores of male comradeship and gastronomic pleasures, the Bar Harbor Shrewsbury have cottages that would be mansions in En- Swim Club and the Yacht Club. Picnics, teas, dinners, recep- gland, villas in Italy, or chateaus in France." tions, dances and fetes, along with exhilarating conversation, In the annals of American architectural history, Mount pleased residents and visitors alike. "Intelligent, lively and Desert claims a small but honorable place. It was on the island entertaining"-and far superior to that of Newport-was the that the taste for Queen Anne structures evolved into the splen- way Edith Wharton responded to the conversation at Bar Har- did shingle style to house the informal activities of large, vaca- bor when she visited her sister-in-law, Mrs. Mary Cadwalader tioning families. William R. Emerson, a Boston architect, Jones. started the shingle tradition in 1879 with his design for Red- The society of the rich attracted the society of the power- woods, owned by Charles J. Morrill. Shingles covered the cot- ful. There were visits by Presidents, Vice-Presidents, ambassa- tage from top to bottom, blending harmoniously with the land dors, consuls, cardinals and bishops. The appearance of the and sea. The house captured the ocean breezes and the striking American and British squadrons further revved an already coastal light. With seeming abandon, Emerson and his fellow frenzied social life. It hardly seemed to matter that the Amer- practitioners of the shingle style employed a varying range of ican navy was barely a navy: according to one of its critics, the forms: towers, bays, porches, piazzas, porticoes, loggias, leaded navy was too weak to fight and too slow to get away. No matter glass windows and gables. what, it had enough power to get to Newport and Bar Harbor, The art of "floriculture" thrived on Mount Desert. The dazzle the summer population and stir the towns with recep- transformation of the physical landscape, through planting and tions and romances. replanting, was almost as stunning as the erection of the cot- Such a social life was prime material for boastful writers tages. "It is a common sight to witness trees coming along and residents in the 1880's. Mrs. Burton Harrison, ever the through the village streets with their tops extending above the prominent and watchful figure in New York, Washington and roofs of the houses on the side of the streets," the Bangor Daily Lenox society, observed the doings of Bar Harbor with both Commercial stated. The magnitude of change led to exaggera- enthusiastic and ambivalent amusement. "It is so much nicer tion and awe. "The drives about the estate," the Bar Harbor here," she wrote her son at Yale, "without the people! The 158 CROSSING LINES MOUNT DESERT ISLAND: A SUMMER EMPIRE 159 houses are filling up, however, & the Philistines will soon be dents took pride in the simplicity of their lives: their closeness upon us. Already two or three stylish buckboards have dashed and respect for the local population, the moral and spiritual up, laden with frills & finery, to leave cards at the Sea Urchins, cohesiveness of their community, and, above all, their harmo- alas! If I could only live in a place where there was no necessity nious, educated counterpoint to the brassy and irksome display to 'make and [sic] effort'!" But efforts she made. She attended of Bar Harbor. flower parades by day and boat parades by night. In fact, approximately twelve miles-but many hours by Best of all was the visit of President Benjamin Harrison to carriage over bumpy dirt roads-from the muted life in North- the neighboring home of Secretary of State James G. Blaine. In east Harbor, traffic in Bar Harbor was congested and the streets the President's honor, Mrs. Harrison (no relation) organized a were far from clean. Conditions were SO poor that an indignant flower parade. "Many people familiar with those flower drives Mary Cadwalader Jones appealed to the commissioner of sani- in Nice & elsewhere," she proudly wrote, "said the decorations tation in New York City to send some of his workers-the "white wings"-to clean up the mess in Bar Harbor. "Simply vile It of this were ahead of any they had ever seen." Another day, the President, in a flower-bedecked steamboat, went on a boat trip interferes terribly with our summer enjoyments," she was for several miles around the coast to Somes Sound. Filled with quoted as telling a reporter from the Bangor Daily Commercial. diplomats and high society, the boat hit fog and rough seas Yet, however much Bar Harbor and Northeast Harbor dif- around Schooner Head, conditions which "had the effect of fered in taste and style, they still shared a set of underlying val- reducing many of our gay members to solemnity, not to say ues and beliefs: a desire for exclusivity, social safety, and relief silence His Excellency, who retired to the pilot house, from congested cities and the problems of new immigrants. looked rather white, ditto Mr. Blaine Mavring Bey, the The social landscape changed quickly: Boarders at Bar Har- Turkish Minister, was first to succumb, and lay prone upon the bor's big hotels soon felt unwelcome; throughout the island, cabin sofa, murmuring 'Mon Dieu, Mon Dieu, pourquoi-est-ce excursionists-and certainly lower-class immigrants-were dis- que je suis venu? [My God, my God, why did I come?]' couraged; and the local population was transformed into a ser- As the boat entered Somes Sound, the fog lifted, the waters vice class that tended the luxurious needs of summer residents. calmed, and the presidential party sailed gingerly around the In 1890, the ever-curious and analytic Charles W. Eliot island away from Bar Harbor. They saw a serene landscape: nu- wrote an essay that praised the simple life of the local popula- merous small islands lying off of Mount Desert Island; vistas of tion in the township of Mount Desert on Mount Desert Island. cleared, vacant land; scattered, isolated farms and houses; a few Men worked as farmers, fishermen, or shipbuilders; the women modest summer cottages; and several medium-sized wooden ho- spun wool, made butter, and tended children and the home. tels, which thrived with quietly contented summer boarders at The men were independent, self-sufficient and content. "One Seal Harbor, Southwest Harbor and Northeast Harbor. who engages a Mount Desert laborer or mechanic to do a piece Did anyone inform President Harrison that Northeast Har- of work," Eliot wryly commented, "will probably receive the bor possessed a different aura and mystique from other places impression that it is the employed who consents to do a favor to on the island? Already, it was a summer enclave with its own the employer." carefully controlled dynamic: slow growth, a quiet commercial Just fourteen years later, Eliot presented a markedly dif- life, and a discrete, unpretentious appearance. The community ferent picture. By this time, many local residents had sold much grew serenely, seemingly from within. Centered around the of their land to summer people. The men and many of the founders of the community, Charles W. Eliot, president of Har- women worked for summer residents, tending shops, provid- vard, and the Episcopal bishop of Albany, William Croswell ing food, gardening, doing laundry, working in hotels and Doane, Northeast Harbor promoted itself through a network teaching the summer children how to sail. In return, the sum- of relatives, friends and acceptable friends of friends from Bos- mer people benefited the town in innumerable ways: they built ton, New York, Philadelphia and Albany. The summer resi- new houses, roads, schools, libraries and mountain trails. They 160 CROSSING LINES MOUNT DESERT ISLAND: A SUMMER EMPIRE 161 established churches, which significantly improved the religious Yet the relationships with the service class and local pop- life of the local population: ministers now regularly performed ulation were more complicated than such incidents would sug- christenings, marriages and burials. gest. Local residents were admired and often idealized for their In his typically confident manner, Eliot expressed no skills, fortitude, traditions and uncomplicated ways. "Just as the doubts about the contributions of the summer people to the white man," E. Digby Baltzell wrote, "symbolized by the British year-round residents. Neither did George Street, a Congrega- gentleman, was roaming round the world in search of raw ma- tional minister from Exeter, New Hampshire, and a summer terials for his factories at Manchester, Liverpool or Leeds, so resident in Southwest Harbor. In his history of Mount Desert, America's urban gentry and capitalists, at the turn of the cen- first published in 1903, Street lauded the improved standard of tury, were imperialists seeking solace for their souls among the living for the local population. "If they [the summer residents] 'natives' of Lenox, Bar Harbor or Kennebunkport Those introduced some undesirable luxuries, emphasized some un- natives had once owned all the land, they had a pride in their fortunate class distinctions, and were responsible for some vices own culture and families, they were sturdy and competent, and formerly unknown, yet on the whole their influence was healthy they were Protestant. in matters sanitary and social and religious." Some of the natives, however, had surprising forebears, as Class distinctions showed up in many ways. A native of Charles W. Eliot discovered. "John Gilley: Maine Farmer and Northeast Harbor, Emily Phillips Reynolds, remembered as a Fisherman" was Eliot's homage to one Northeast Harbor fam- child saving a dollar to have her hair washed and combed at a ily. Eliot called the Gilleys "the true American type." With deft- beauty shop in Northeast Harbor. Happily she climbed the ness, Eliot traced their family history, through maternal and stairs to the second floor and asked Mrs. Coburn, a black lady paternal lines, from their present home on Sutton Island off from Philadelphia, to do her hair. "When I made my request Northeast Harbor, back to Gloucester, Massachusetts. Interest- she said she didn't do Natives. Crestfallen, I left and was very ing antecedents were found in the alliance of Hannah Lurvey disappointed and perplexed for I had never been called a Na- and William Gilley, the parents of John Gilley and their eleven tive before." Emily Phillips Reynolds also learned that the sum- other children. As expected, Gilley was an English name. But mer people were not to be disturbed or annoyed. "Keep out of the name Lurvey, Eliot wrote, was a corruption of the German the face and eyes of the Rusticators was a common lesson we Jewish name Loewe. The Lurveys acknowledged that the first learned early." Loewe who went to Massachusetts was of Jewish descent from In Northeast Harbor, they may have appeared for the first Archangel, Russia. "It is noticeable that many of the Lurveys time in 1898 when membership in the newly built swim club was have Old Testament names, such as Reuben, Levi, Samuel, for summer residents only. At the Bar Harbor Swim Club, it was Isaac, and Jacob, and that their noses tend to be aquiline." rumored that when, by chance, a local resident fell into the pool, Bishop Doane, who was always interested in souls, pro- the water was drained and the pool refilled. In Hulls Cove, Mrs. nounced a loving judgment on the natives of Northeast Har- Bowen remembered a discomforting incident with Larson, bor. They had known adventure at sea and bravery in the Civil whom she brought from Chicago to run her stable and oversee War. "The competency on which they lived simple and un- the liveries for all her drivers. The only time she ever saw Larson spoiled lives, of home comfort and neighborly companionship, angry was when he wanted to purchase a stretcher for the men's was gained by honest toil and careful frugality." They were breeches, which the Bowens required to be laundered regularly "fond of dwelling upon the old times, and full of reminiscences and which tended to shrink while drying. ''Oh, Larson, that is of the island in its early condition, intelligently interested in SO expensive! Can't you and the men put on the breeches and let public questions of the time, and with a fresh and original way them dry on you?' He really was quite annoyed and replied, of putting things, which gave the zest of real raciness to their 'I would not take cold even for Mrs. Bowen,' SO the stretcher was talk. And they were kind and cordial in all their attitudes to us bought and the breeches were frequently washed." who came from outside." MOUNT DESERT ISLAND: VISIONARIES 171 (owned by Moe Levy of New York, one of them having a thou sand fully furnished rooms), fourteen garages, two gasoline CHAPTER 9 factories, car works and train sheds." One of Train's friend ran "Foley's Furious, Frantic, Frenzied Terrific Twenty-five Cent Tours Round the Island in Forty Minutes." The old car riage drivers waited on tables at Moe Levy's hotel. Mount Deser Island, Foley cried, was just like Coney Island. Visionaries If Train's prophecy was dire, the pressures for change were real. Disputes were erupting on Mount Desert Island: car versus carriages; the clash between local businessmen and th summer residents; popular access to the island versus private exclusion. Nonetheless, the old ladies, their maids and thei horses stayed around. The farmers did not come. Society di not leave the island. The Kebo, the Pot and Kettle, and th other clubs thrived. There were no fires and, for the moment no autos. And, in Bass Harbor, there were no Jewish owner running their thousand-room hotels. But there were, as Train well knew, a few acceptable ex ceptions. Already, a small number of Jewish summer resident IN 1907, ARTHUR TRAIN lamentingly called his beloved summer and merchants were present on Mount Desert. The powerful home "The Isle of Mt. Deserted." Writing for the Bangor Daily iconoclastic and eccentric owner of the New York World and S Commercial, Train imagined the worst on all fronts: autos on his Louis Post-Dispatch, Joseph Pulitzer, was one. The publisher o island, farmers in the towns, Jewish hotel operators on the America's largest newspaper was an immigrant from Hungar scene and low-class tourists all around. "It was on July 4, 1920, whose parents were Jewish. He was married to Kate Davis, ten years after the evacuation of Bar Harbor by its summer non-Jewish woman in high standing in St. Louis society, wh residents, that I determined to revisit the scenes of my youth had learned to her dismay, only after their wedding, that he and observe what changes, if any, time had wrought there." husband was Jewish. The rich Pulitzer brought his family t There were more than he could bear. Gasoline had ignited Bar Harbor in the 1890's and established them in Chatwood fires all over the island, charring the land and causing summer When Pulitzer lavishly renovated the cottage to include a "towe residents to flee. Bar Harbor was being forsaken even by the of silence," as the locals called it, his family became one of th local people who had built hotels for the auto tourists. The most conspicuous on the island. Walter Damrosch, the musicia fancy and rich did not drive over. But the farmers did. In and conductor, was another Jew who settled in Bar Harbo the deserted town one reckless farmer ran his car over some Married to the daughter of James G. Blaine, Maine's venerate dogs, hit the village clock, and rammed into horses and the post senator and later U.S. secretary of state, Damrosch was easil office. A day later "six hundred and ninety-seven old ladies who accepted in Bar Harbor society. In both instances, Jewish me boarded at the hotels called for their time and left town. They married Gentile women, and their children, who were Gentile took with them one thousand three hundred and twenty-nine were accepted in society at the summer resort. maids and nieces Neither Pulitzer nor Damrosch tested the boundaries ( Train spun out his calamitous tale. Hoards of excursionists the liberality of Bar Harbor's society, but Jacob H. Schiff did. I came by railroad to the terminus at Bass Harbor, the new cen- terms of power and prestige in business and philanthrop ter of island life. It was a "thriving town with two large hotels Schiff easily qualified for membership in the cottage commu 172 CROSSING LINES MOUNT DESERT ISLAND: VISIONARIES 173 nity. Schiff had come to America in 1865 from a Frankfurt He was married to a Jewish woman, Theresa Loeb Schiff, Jewish family, long distinguished by its prominent bankers daughter of a founding partner of Kuhn, Loeb and Company. and rabbis. In 1875, he was invited to join the firm of Kuhn, Compliant and respectful, she joined her husband in maintain- Loeb and Company, which had started a New York commercial ing rituals of Jewish observance for their extended family of bank a few years before. Ten years later he was its senior Schiffs, Warburgs and Loebs. According to his nephew Paul partner. "Aggressively ambitious, adventurous, opinionated, Warburg, Schiff's religion was "a strange mixture of orthodoxy and strong-willed" was how his nephew James Warburg ac- and ritualistic liberalism he had concocted for himself " He counted for Schiff's impressive success. Short in size, imperious said prayers after meals, observed all religious holidays, blessed and formal, Schiff was a forbidding figure to many people. his children and grandchildren each Friday evening, insisted From the 1880's through the second decade of the twen- that his two children marry Jews, attended Temple Emanu-El tieth century, Schiff, as the head of Kuhn, Loeb and Company, in New York each Saturday, and did no work on the Sabbath. was one of the most powerful investment bankers in the coun- Within his own family, who regarded him as authoritarian try. Schiff placed American railroad and government securities and rigid, Schiff encountered mild tolerance and slight interest in foreign markets. Along with other bankers, railroad tycoons in religious observance. When his nephew James Warburg was and industrialists, he rode the attendant wild waves of prosper- engaged to a non-Jewish woman, his parents never expressed ity and panic. He advised the Pennsylvania Railroad, for which any objections. Schiff, however, was unable to contain his dis- he raised more than a billion dollars in financing, and other appointment and concern and telegraphed Warburg: "I wish railroads, including the Union Pacific and Northern Pacific. you joy but cannot refrain from telling you that I am deeply Schiff sat on the boards of the National City Bank, the Equita- disturbed by your action in marrying out of the faith in view of ble Life Assurance Society and other large corporations, as well its probable effect upon my own progeny." Schiff's fears came as political commissions and many philanthropic organizations. true. Most of his many grandchildren married into upper-class Power, however, did not necessarily bring social prestige. Protestant families. Schiff was the only one of the elite group of financial magnates Regardless of his strong identification as a Jew, Schiff who was not listed in the Social Register at the turn of the cen- found respect and tolerance for himself and his family on tury. (The key listing of prominent figures along with their Mount Desert Island. Starting in 1903, every other August, professions, clubs and church associations was first published in Schiff and his wife visited the island with their son Mortimer, 1887 in New York.) According to the historian Frederick Lewis their daughter Frieda, who was married to Felix Warburg, and Allen, the omission was due solely to the fact that Schiff was "a the many Schiff grandchildren. They rented one large cottage Jew, and the Jews constituted a group somewhat apart; the after another until they finally settled on Farview on Bar Har- fashionable clubs were almost exclusively gentile; and the Social bor's Eden Street, a house with elaborate pseudo-Italianate de- Register was virtually a gentile register." sign: fine gardens, terraces and a flower-filled inner courtyard. Schiff was not only Jewish, but he was the leader of Amer- The entourage traveled with sixty pieces of luggage, a ican Jewry in the realms of philanthropy, public policy and nurse, a valet, a maid and a governess in Edward Harriman's the growing fight against anti-Semitism-helping to establish private railroad car, joining the many other private cars on the the foundations of Jewish life in America in the twentieth cen- Bar Harbor Express, which went to Mount Desert Ferry. Ed- tury. His reputation for wealth and charity followed him wher- ward M. M. Warburg, one of Schiff's grandsons, remembered ever he went. In 1899, Bishop Potter of New York maintained the joy of the trip to Bar Harbor. "Each car was a house on that Schiff was the greatest philanthropist of his day in their wheels with brass beds in the master bedroom, sleeping accom- city. modations for the whole family including upper and lower He was unique. Wherever he lived-in Maine, New Jersey berths, which naturally we children adored. Each car also had or New York-Schiff considered himself to be a religious Jew. its own kitchen and dining compartment from which one could 182 CROSSING LINES MOUNT DESERT ISLAND: VISIONARIES 183 scenes and noises amid which the greater part of their lives is Given his stature in the academic world and on the island, inevitably passed." The signs of city life came most forcefully Eliot's wishes were hard to resist. As president of Harvard, he with the automobile. When year-round residents sought to spent the last years of the nineteenth century building a great bring them on the island, the struggle with the summer popu- university through cultivating its graduate programs, improv- lation was fierce. ing the quality and diversity of the faculty and converting the In 1909, for the first time, clashing economic and class undergraduate curriculum into a new system of elective stud- interests were explicitly exposed. John T. Hinch, a dentist in ies. He was independent, deeply religious, outspoken and in- Bar Harbor and the head of the local automobile committee, veterately curious about matters great and small. (Mrs. Eliot accused the "city millionaires" of trying by "every means in once asked a neighbor in Northeast Harbor what he thought of their power to make Bar Harbor a quiet, exclusive resort where a portrait of her husband. After looking at it for a while, the their little clique can have full sway and where no state of Maine farmer commented: "Yaas, that's him sure, but he ain't asking man is welcome." The cottage people, he wrote, knew that autos no questions.") would bring a different kind of visitor who would revitalize the Eliot also wrote and spoke prolifically about the great hotel life. With a surge of defiance and independence, he wrote: public-policy debates of his time: the Spanish-American War, "The businessmen of Bar Harbor are beginning to realize that the nature of wealth, the restriction of immigration, and World what the millionaires want is unreasonable and unjust." War I. Equally free with advice on minute matters of behavior, Another issue, one of enduring importance, was also com- he once informed Bishop William Lawrence of Massachusetts ing to the fore. Preservation of the natural landscape was a that he should hire a secretary to answer his mail and tele- matter of growing concern to many of the leaders of the sum- phone. "Of course," Eliot told the bishop, "you should never go mer community, especially Charles W. Eliot, whose call for ac- to the telephone yourself, or be called upon to decide anything tion invoked the idealism of his son, Charles, who had died not on only telephonic notice." long before. A visionary democrat and landscape architect, Eliot's meeting in 1901 was another triumph for him. He young Charles had organized the Trustees of Public Reserva- convinced his fellow residents on Mount Desert Island to es- tions for Massachusetts to preserve scenic and historic areas. He tablish the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations. had been equally concerned with Maine's future. "Can nothing Two years later, the association was incorporated by the Maine be done," he wrote in 1888, "to preserve for the use and en- legislature "to acquire, by devise, gift or purchase, and to own, joyment of the great unorganized body of the common people arrange, hold, maintain or improve for public use lands in some fine parts, at least, of this seaside wilderness of Maine?" Hancock County, Maine, which by reason of scenic beauty, his- In 1901, the father convened an illustrious group of min- torical interest, sanitary advantage or other like reasons may isters, scientists and summer residents including George B. become available for such purpose." Dorr, George Vanderbilt and Bishops William Lawrence and The person whose life was most affected by the Mount William Doane. "By what means," Eliot asked them, "can some Desert Island conservation movement was George Dorr, an im- public reservations of interesting scenery be secured for the portant summer figure whose family had built Oldfarm in Bar perpetual use and enjoyment of all the inhabitants of Mount Harbor in 1878. At the age of forty-nine, Dorr carried an air of Desert, natives, cottagers and transient visitor alike?" Eliot ex- formality and aloofness as well as evinced a strong physical plained that over the past twenty years, he had seen beautiful vigor. He was a scholar, a professional horticulturist, an inde- spots on the island become inaccessible. "Place after place where fatigable trailblazer on the island and sole heir in a family of I was in the habit of walking or picnicking has been converted wealth and high social standing in Boston and Bar Harbor. In to private uses, and resort to it by other than the owner has response to Eliot's campaign, Dorr donated a large portion of become impossible." his own lands, aggressively bought additional properties for the 184 CROSSING LINES MOUNT DESERT ISLAND: VISIONARIES 185 trustees and pursued gifts of land and money from his peers. ing the advice of Dr. Simon Flexner and his wife, Helen, JDR, By 1913-just ten years later-Dorr's efforts had accumulated Jr., moved to the quieter and less pretentious town of Seal nearly five thousand acres, including some of the island's most Harbor. Both he and his wife, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, sought scenic mountaintops. to connect their lives closely to simple New England virtues and Success on one front, however, produced difficulties on the beauty of the island. In 1910, he purchased The Eyrie, a another. Southwest Harbor, with the smallest and least- mock English cottage set on a high ridge overlooking the East- powerful summer community, had voted in 1911 to allow cars. ern Way and the Cranberry Isles. Along with significantly en- In 1913, pressure built up in the state legislature at Augusta to larging The Eyrie, JDR, Jr., an amateur landscape architect, force all of the island's towns to allow automobiles. Within the started to design and build carriage roads on his extensive prop- year, Bar Harbor capitulated, while Northeast Harbor and Seal erty just as he had done at the family's Pocantico Hills estate Harbor held firm for only two more years. near New York City. As a result of the introduction of the automobile and of con- In his earliest appeals to Rockefeller in 1914 and 1915, flicts between land speculators and the trustees, in January 1913 Dorr explained that the trustees could not afford to protect the state representative from Bar Harbor introduced a bill to re- their land either from fire or from the threat of taxation. Eliot, voke the charter and tax-exempt status of lands owned by the on his part, informed Rockefeller that Dorr could not afford to Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations. Although finance additional land purchases and the verification of deeds Dorr was able to get the bill defeated, he realized that the trust- on his own. In response to the joint appeals, Rockefeller agreed ees needed greater protection than they could find in Augusta. to contribute $17,500, his first substantial gift to the trustees. With Eliot's backing, Dorr turned to the federal govern- It was the beginning of a close and fruitful relationship ment and the national conservation movement, where he felt among Dorr, Eliot and Rockefeller. As they moved through more at home in Washington than in Maine's state capital, Au- intricate negotiations into the larger public domain of the fed- gusta. He had numerous friends-and friends of friends-in eral government, the triumvirate took over the leadership of the small, elitist federal government. Bearing the grace and the island. Slowly, they stretched their concepts of public access wealth of a Boston patrician, Dorr had immediate entrée to the to the island far beyond the privileged boundaries of the small highest officials in Woodrow Wilson's administration, including Protestant summer colony. Rockefeller became the active but the President himself. Dorr embarked on a campaign to give cautious patron of Dorr's preservation campaign. Eliot became the trustees' lands as a gift to the federal government in the the intermediary between the other two: while pressing Rock- form of a national monument or national park. efeller for more and more generous contributions, Eliot had to The process took two years of arduous work and increased justify Dorr's frenetic activities to the orderly and meticulous financial commitments from the summer residents. While Dorr patron. perfected the deeds and boundaries, Eliot solicited funds. He If Mount Desert Island and Bar Harbor were to be sold to turned to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., with whom he served on the people of the United States, the island could not be pro- three of the Rockefeller philanthropic boards, including the moted as an exclusive resort for the rich. Therefore, Dorr Rockefeller Foundation set up in 1913 with an endowment of turned to ornithologists, geologists, botanists and historians to $100,000,000. Ever ready to assess character, Eliot viewed convince the public that the one hundred square miles of Rockefeller-forty years his junior-as a serious, diligent, cau- Mount Desert Island were unique. A flood of scientific detail tious and reserved man. was set loose, describing the island's thirteen granite peaks, A relatively recent property owner in Seal Harbor, Rock- nine clear freshwater lakes, many bays, the fjord at Somes efeller was perfectly suited in temperament and interests to join Sound, the molten masses, glacial movements, ice sheets, for- Dorr and Eliot's crusade. On his first extended stay in 1908, he ests, trees, cliffs, gorges, boulders, coves, harbors, meadow- had rented one of Bar Harbor's largest cottages. Then, follow- lands, marshes, aquatic life, migratory patterns of sea and shore 186 CROSSING LINES MOUNT DESERT ISLAND: VISIONARIES 187 birds as well as vegetation that was uniquely situated at the country, people who would be responsive to the beauty and crossroads between the southernmost boundary of the Arctic inspiration of its scenery, and can get away for a brief or longer zone and the northernmost boundary of the more temperate holiday. They are going there now in numbers, but what we area to the south. A rich history was called forth to retrace the want to provide for specially is the need of people of moderate exploits of the early explorers and settlers. The colonial strug- or narrow means who would appreciate what it has to give in gles involving the French and English were retold through his- beauty, interest, and climate." tories of Pierre deu Guast (Sieur de Monts), Samuel de Dorr submitted letters of endorsement from such distin- Champlain, Antoine de La Mothe (Sieur de Cadillac), the Jesuit guished summer residents as David B. Ogden, George W. Wick- mission at St-Sauveur, Samuel Argall, Mme. de Gregoire, Mar- ersham, Rev. A. W. Halsey, Rev. William T. Manning and quis de Lafayette, Sir Francis Bernard and Abraham Somes. Bishop William Lawrence. A letter from Jacob 11. Schiff to the While Dorr was selling Mount Desert, a struggle was under chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations was in- way in Washington to promote a national constituency for a cluded: unified park system and to convince Congress to create a na- tional park service under the jurisdiction of the Interior De- I have been a resident of Mt. Desert Island during the partment. Both Franklin K. Lane, secretary of the interior, and summer for the past fifteen years; have visited almost his assistant, Steve Mather, became strong supporters of Eliot every nook and corner of the island, and in my travels and Dorr's efforts. The year 1916 turned out to be climactic: all over the United States and in foreign countries, I Congress created the National Park Service; President Wilson have found no section that Nature has made more accepted from the trustees five thousand acres of land as a "free attractive than Mt. Desert Island. I really believe that gift" to the United States under the designation of the Sieur de the island is one of the finest gifts God has bestowed Monts National Monument. upon the people of the United States, and it is but For Dorr, the Sieur de Monts National Monument was only right that they should show themselves worthy of this the first step toward the proper maintenance and expansion of gift by seeing to its proper protection and preserva- the lands the trustees had brought together. More and more he tion. turned to Rockefeller, who wanted to extend his carriage paths over lands owned by the trustees and federal government. Dorr As Schiff and Dorr hoped, Congress joined the Mount needed money to expand the holdings of the monument and Desert Island lands to the National Park Service. The Sieur de convert it into a federally supported national park. In 1916, the Monts National Monument became Lafayette National Park in trustees and federal government granted Rockefeller the per- February 1919, when President Wilson signed his name to the mission he sought. At the same time, Rockefeller started to bill. (In 1929, it was renamed Acadia National Park.) A few fund the acquisition of lands on the western part of the island. days later, Dorr wrote to JDR Jr. to thank him for his help. "It In pursuit of additional moneys, Dorr presented his case in is the first National Park to be created east of the Rocky Moun- 1918 before the appropriate committees of the House of Rep- tains, and the first created in this country by the gift of citizens." resentatives. In a hearing before the Subcommittee on Public Dorr's achievement was extraordinary, but it carried some Lands, Dorr tried to meet all the popular concerns of the con- searing personal costs. Although he was the superintendent of gressmen. To counter any dubious objections, he twisted and the new park, he began serving without pay, while his financial stretched his arguments. When asked about accommodations situation became more precarious than ever. In July 1919, a around the park for the traveling public, the patrician Dorr committee of over fifty permanent and summer residents raised spoke of hotels and boardinghouses in Bar Harbor-but never a public appeal for $25,000 to pay Dorr for lands that he had of the fancy cottage community whence he came. "Our idea as purchased on behalf of the trustees and the new park. to the park has been to develop it for the brain workers of the To protect their lands, Eliot, Dorr and Rockefeller turned 188 CROSSING LINES MOUNT DESERT ISLAND: VISIONARIES 189 from the isolated and exclusive summer colony of the rich and beauty and grandeur. "Today we had one of those glorious Bar entered into a complex relationship with the federal govern- Harbor days," he wrote to his son Mortimer, "when one can see ment. Yet, on the surface, not much seemed to change. The almost through the sky into heaven." new public park slipped easily into the private, elitist world. In recognition of Schiff's generous contribution to the Vil- The "brain workers" that Dorr spoke of at the congressional lage Improvement Society, Dorr named a trail for him on Dry hearing did not pour into the town. The multitudes from the Mountain. And in recognition of his attachment to the island, cities-neither the native born nor the immigrant-did not con- Schiff enjoyed the honor and departed from his usual posture verge on the island. In 1920, there were 150,000 visitors to the of philanthropic self-effacement. Refusing to allow any dedica- park, many in automobiles, but they hardly changed the tenor tory plaques to honor his gifts to various institutions and causes, of the resort. Schiff maintained that recognition should come only after a Within a few years, the railroads and steamships saw less donor's death. But a trail on Mount Desert was different. and less traffic. The Maine Central would soon abandon Mount In September 1920, Schiff died after a year of poor health. Desert Ferry and the trip across Frenchman Bay. Passengers "Mr. Schiff enjoyed the life here at Bar Harbor and was inter- would travel to Ellsworth and then by car or bus across the ested in the resort, being especially fond of the scenery here. bridge to the island. Eliot sold his carriages and horses. Mrs. He had many friends among the summer colony and was much Bowen sent Larson, her erstwhile driver, to visit Detroit. In- respected by the residents of the town." Thus, the Bar Harbor stead of horses, he now cared for cars. Times wrote about Schiff's death in a front-page column. The Society life in Bar Harbor securely held to its own pace and long obituary echoed The New York Times in cataloging Schiff's pleasures. Each summer, with unequaled hospitality and outstanding business and philanthropic deeds. aplomb, Mrs. Bowen sent out invitations to the privileged pub- Several months later, Charles W. Eliot paid homage to lic of Bar Harbor-to "all the summer visitors, and to those of Schiff in the Menorah Journal, the publication for Jewish stu- the natives I knew." The enticing invitation read, "Mrs. Bowen dents in college. Eliot wrote of the "intimate friendship" be- at home in her garden on pleasant Sunday afternoons in July tween himself and Schiff. Proudly, Eliot referred to Schiff's and August from three until six o'clock." Sometimes as many as generosity-amounting to $250,000-to Harvard's Semitic de- two hundred of the select visited her home to share the plea- partment and museum. "I have never met a keener intelli- sures of Baymeath. gence, a more sympathetic yet discriminating maker of gifts In 1920, Arthur Train's fantasy of fear had not come true. large and small, a truer disciple of the nameless Good Samar- There had been no conflagrations, no railroad tracks on the itan, or a more grateful patriot, Jewish and American com- island, no Foleys and no frenzied tours. Arthur Train was still bined." there, but Moe Levy had not arrived. The few Jewish families Their relationship involved an honest exchange of views in Bar Harbor-never more than five to seven at any one time- on many subjects as well as a common love for Mount Desert. continued to live quietly and run their modest shops. Their The two men, Eliot recalled, discussed "business ethics, labor religious life and Jewish communal activities remained spo- union problems, international peace and the best way to de- radic, except in 1918, when as part of the nationwide relief velop and conserve for future generations the landscape beau- campaign for eastern Europe, the Jews in Bar Harbor raised ties of Mt. Desert Island. We wrote to each other rather $2,000. Schiff helped them to meet their quota. frequently, and in summer we walked together on the rough Jacob Schiff remained the one Jew who was accepted by trails through the woods and up the hills of that wonderful the summer community. He was the only one who belonged to island." the Bar Harbor Swim Club and the only Jew who rented on a It was a unique friendship-one that flourished on Mount regular basis. Clearly Schiff felt at home. He visited with the Desert-between the educator and the philanthropist, the brah- Eliots. He climbed and tramped over the island and relished its min and the German immigrant, between the Unitarian and HIRSCHL & ADLER GALLERIES, INC 190 CROSSING LINES the Jew. They were exceptions-in their liberalism, their active opposition to immigration restriction, their confidence and hopes for the future. In his belief in American diversity and improvement through education, Eliot championed the Jewish immigrant and encouraged Jewish students at Harvard. Unlike Schiff, Eliot even supported a Zionist state. Nonetheless, it would take several more decades before Mount Desert Island would be home to more than a handful of Jews within the Gentile population. On the Porch at Birchcroft, No. 2 by Carroll Sargent Tyson, 1911. This group portrait shows Tyson's sister, and father and mother, Carrol senior and Clara, on the porch of their cottage in Northeast Harbor NORTHEAST HARBOR LIBRARY Rosserne overlooks Somes Sound in Northeast Harbor. Designed b Fred Savage, the summer home originally built in 1891 for Rev. Co