1866 Trup to Maine, Canada N.% NHard VT Diotaboon. 1 Sunday May 21, 1939 The Bummer of 1868 was the first that steamboat BOWLOO reached Bar HArbor and then it was only once a week. The 11no was that of Portland to Eastport, whose boats left Portland in the early evening twice a week, stopping from Rookland onj which it reached in the early morning, at various porte along the way where there was freight to get or leave on the way down or up. There was then no railroad reaching the eastern coast beyond and there was considerable freight all along the line, the boats stopping half an hour or three quarters of an hour oven at a single port loading and unloading. Passenger service t111 that time was incidental inly to freight, which bore the steep expense of operation and paid the dividends Soarsport, where the Bangor and Aroostook railroad now terminates, I refall and Buoksport where the Penobsoot enters upon Ponbosoot Bay, and Castine I remember well, and MO doubt there were others. Between Castino and Southwest Harbort where the steamer from the first stopped on these trips, there was Deer Isle. T111 1868 to reach Bar Harbor one got off at Southwest Harbor and took stage, a two-horse, covered wagon, open at the side with seats across, and had a ride of 16 miles through Somesville, the horses toiling patiently over the rough roads and long, steep hills. And so one did if one came, as mymother Kt once did I remember in that summer of 1868, on the steamboat other than the one that put Bar Harbor on its bi-weekly trip. BF 2. But the Bummer Vinitor business to Bar Harbor was growing, sporing rapidly, and for the next year to that of 1869 and that time on unt11 the railroad line was built from Bangor to the Borry at the head of Frenohmans Bay the Portland put atosmor Xppt In regularly on both trips and it became one of the events of the season to go down and watch the summer visitors oomo off the boat and be welcomed by their friends And who had dome earlier Then the Boono with the newoomers in their gay summer olothes, dressed for the occasion, and all their trunks and other baggage unloading on the pier and loading onto **/ baggage waggons sont down by the various hotels, growing bigger and bigger every yoard-made 1t a gay and entertaining scene. Then, though railroads ran nearer to Mt. Desert Island than Bangor, 1t was by that way that my father / who had heard of the beauty of the place from old friends and neighboro at Jamaica Plains, the Minots and the Wells and others, started to bring us down, ooming to Bangor Walds "Then and 1866 3 May 21, 1939 dusty vide. but ke heard such accounts at the Bangor note1 of the food and absence of accommodations at Bar HAPPOIN that no took ue off Instead to the White Mountains and Canada trip I remember well runining in Steamboat the famous Lachine Rapids whose name was given them by Champlain (look up) booauae he thought on roaching them that the way up led by the mich sought northern route to China. Thence wo wont on in Bome way that I do not now recall to Burlington on Champion. and up the lake by oto Imboat noxt day and into the Addrondacks reaching first where all as yet was very wild and primitive. What I remember best of the Adirondaoks the guides 16 a wonderful canoo trip we made up the Raquette River, carrying our canoos. over from a nearby lake to a forest trail and launching thom CORNO long battle upstream. The river was dark & full and narrow between wooded banks We passed no buildings nor any sign of mano The trees, deciduous trees I remember, dark overlyoons overhung the banks. Whither we went I do not now regall nor I/AKK had I any knowledge even then at the time ailent whore the dark, PHILIP atroam was flowing too It. stands out a pioture in my mind Another momory that oomes back to me 1s that of paddling out at dusk on some lake and hearing wild laughter of the loons and the ocoasional HA hooting of an owl. These, and Niagaran which we took in 88 we passed, are my recollections of the summer when we aimed at Bar Harbor first but failed to reach it.) 4. The summer when we and oamo two years later, pooplo_bogan too buy for num or residence, to community a growing future. doon and of land was Low, one homent to which 1t presently would some. It that my rather bought, then but 6 or 7 Oltoo In takon, banning two my three in the fiold the AgamonthHouro here people previous tonto nd camped, gotting their moals at the laten those who bought these a:but Glooping mooms and a Bitting room In them, dayolopin. from thostent idea, Outside the village, purchasing the weatorn ouitivated portion of the Henry Higgins traots Compart. wan Among the first. * [1868] Dictaphone. 19- August 5th. That whole summer's journey, coming when it did at the end of boyhood and reading had made me ripe for new experience, widened my horizon and gave me the background for much future reading. It sketched in the background for much historic reading, partly my own, partly with my father for whom the past held always a great interest. His interest rather in the fact of history; mine rather as I grew older in its causes and its meaning. He read XXXX/ aloud admirably and delighted in reading to us, my brother and myself, such things as he enjoyed himself for their poetry or humor. So it was a great boon to me that we were together on our trip that summer, sharing in the interest of what we saw. What the summer did for me, brief vacation period though it was, was to start me on lines of reading and thinking and questioning which reached to the ever- man's widening limits of knowledge of himself and of his past and of the world he lives in. I was fifteen at that time and had been a wide reader all my life, making others read to me exch/before I could read myself.. fairy stories x, tales of imagination and t ales of adventure, clean and wholesome stories all, according to my understanding of them. How truly, I began to ask myself did they interrupt life? And my answer after a long lifetime is that they interrupt man truly if not the world he lives in. That is, they interrupted as something other than a mechanism dealing with a world of fact; they interrupt him as a being compact of imagination, rich in heroic possibilities not limited by our present knowledge. On the other hand, they picture him as living in a world defined by laws we only dimly understand and controlled by necessities we cannot alter for they are part of own existence and all existent. To discover these is the true goal of history, as it is of science. And all that is beautiful and good is as much a part of that existence as what worked to our unhappiness. There is a spiritual guide to life we cannot fathom and we cannot limit. And as it is infinite like all existence, no boundaries can be certain. [G.B.Dorr] 1/28/20 Notes: 5/2/1939 Dictaphone transcription of events 71 years earlier. In 1866, failing to find accomodation on UDI, CHDarr took faxed to: A. White Houstains B. Canada (Ontares?) Lochine Rapids C. Burleyon, UT D. aderonalocks, Requette Pever E. Niagan falls In 1868 returned to MDI ad purchased western portson of Hoggers Tract.