Champlain Mountain Copy 2 6/2/38 copies 111 1898 Mitchell 7avand The Summit of Champlain Mountain S. The summit of Newport Mountain -- now Champlain - B. Farrand Mountain by the Government's renaming -- I obtained, (Ni Jones) together with the great cliff upon the eastern side, in gift from Mrs. William Bliss, step-mother of Robert HCTPR Lat #28 001.1915. Bliss and mother of Mildred Barnes, his wife. Mr. and Mrs. William Bliss came to Grindstone Neck later at Winter Harbor to make a summer home there, in the 18905 later eighteen-nineties, but after some seasons they decided they would rather live in the wider social atmosphere of Bar Harbor and bought the William Page property, extending from the shore opposite the great eastern cliff on Newport Mountain, across the meadow at the cliff foot and up the cliff to the mountain summit, an exceedingly important tract to preserve in public ownership. Mr. and Mrs. Bliss never built upon this property, but ultimately made an all the year round home in California and after that Mrs. Bliss, the actual purchaser of the property, came but seldom to the Island; he, never. 2. At the time they bought the land, I knew them pleasantly in a social way; they used to come over from leter Winter Harbor in their boat now and again and take 1890's their lunch with us at Oldfarm, for my mother was still living at that time. The meadow at the mountain foot was then a dense mass of alders, native willows, and rank marsh grasses, which, as the meadow dried in summer, became a serious fire-hazard to the whole stretch of woods along the shore. . A fire, once starting there, with the strong south winds of summer, would sweep the shore toward Bar Harbor for a mile or more, without a chance of stopping it. One day when they were lunching with us, I spoke of this to Mr. Bliss and he said he would be glad to clear the meadow and put it into grass as I suggested and asked my advice about it. I told him that I would gladly take charge of the work on account of its importance to the shore if he would like me to; and he took my offer. From the top of the cliff on Champlain mountain, one looks directly down upon the meadow and I planned to clear no more than the level meadowland, making it 3. into a pasture-land such as I had often seen cattle grazing on among the mountains in the Tyrol. Later that summer when work was underway, Dr. S. bestive your Weir Mitchel of Philadelphia, an intimate friend at our house, came to me and said that Miss Beatrix Jones, who had been studying to become a landscape architect, had completed her studies and that it would be an opportunity for her if I would let her take charge on a professional basis the Bliss work on the meadow. To this I willingly agreed, Mr. and Mrs. Bliss consenting, and the carrying out of this project became Forean the present Beatrix Farrand's first professional job. b. It did not work out as we had hoped, however, either performance for herself or for the parklands of the future, for, in get the ambition of her new career, she undertook too much, clearing further than I had intended toward the mountain foot and involving her employers in an expenditure which led to the abrupt termination of the work when half done. Years after, when the Park was formed, this made it difficult for me to get the land I wanted along the mountain foot but the cliff that rises up beyond the meadow, where now the Precipice Path ascends, and the 4. summit heights above I obtained later, after patient waiting, from Mrs. Bliss at the time of her visit to Bar Harbor. Ultimately the meadow and the property opposite it upon the shore passed by inheritance to Robert Woods Bliss and his wife. He had held important posts in the diplomatic service and he and she together had done splendid service for relief at Paris during and after the World War. I knew them personally and they would gladly have given me what I wanted for the public at the mountain foot had they returned to Bar Harbor but they never came again. And presently the land was sold for investment, at the beginning of the depression, to Mr. A. Atwater Kent, the purchaser of other proper- ties along the shore. [G.B.DORR]