Nemoirs of G.B.DORR 1930-1944 Continuation of the Mountain-to-Oceanfront Road through Bear Brook Valley In the late summer of 1935 Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. drove over from his home at Seal Harbor to talk with me concerning the continuation of the Park road then building over Great Pond Hill and round the Great Meadow, on its northern and eastern sides, for which an allotment of $350,000 had recently been made and for which surveys were in process. The matter he wished to discuss with me was that of taking the continuation of the road past the northern base of Champlain Mountain instead of through the Gorge as originally planned. I told him he might count upon my cooperation but I did not take up with him, nor he with me, the question of upon what terms or conditions the Government might acquire the necessary lands. Mr. Rockefeller then asked, referring to my state- ment that I would cooperate: "How about your executors?" Upon this I laughed and said: "You think it then so immediate?" He replied that he closed up his affairs every night; and I asked, humourously, whether he did not really think that once a week would do. 2. From speaking of my land he passed on, after looking around to make sure that no one was within hearing as we sat on my porch together in the late summer sunshine, to talk of the difficulties he was encountering in regard to the Livingston and Palmer lands beyond my Bear Brook quarry. I told him I Arthers thought he might get help on this from my neighbor, Mr. Arthur Train, who had lately spoken to me of the Train matter. Mr. Rockefeller had no knowledge, I found, of what I had already given; it was his road only that he was interested in. He did, however, bring up the question of whether I had not lost my control of the situation by permitting the Government to build across my land the present road connecting that which I had given the Government previously to give the public access to the Champlain Mountain trails, with the land which I had obtained for it from the Morrell estate, where it had built its campground. I told him the information given him in regard to this was wrong; that though left open to the public I had built the road at my own expense and, lest the question should at any time come up, had kept my cancelled checks in record. 3. Mr. Rockefeller left soon after, having an engage- ment to keep at home. I understood at the time that he would come over again to talk further on the matter, but he never did so, though coming more than once, I later learned from Mr. Train, to talk with him, on my suggestion, concerning the further continuation of the road through the Livingston and Potter Palmer properties. I made a study of the matter myself, however, as to how the necessary crossing -- at other than surface grade -- of the County highway through the Gorge might be made, without objection from the Town, and obtained its consent at its next annual meeting to make the crossing, it being the only way in which it could be done without injury to the highway. Long Field The Long Field I rember walking out to one Sunday afternoon in the summer of 1379, when our Oldfarm house was building and we were boarding at the DesIsles House in the village. Colonel John Markoe and Mrs. Markoe were spending the summer in a house nearby which they rented from one George Douglas, of whom there is incidentally a talo to tell, and it was with them and a gay group of younger folks who were staying with them that I was walking. Tall spruces of the native wood that had covered it had just been out and the ground was being cleared of roots, the soil sold and hauled away to make the lawns of summer homes along the Bar Harbor shore. There was then no town road that led to it, nor to the Great Meadow beyond, which remained hidden from any view from any public road until twenty years later, when I planned and the read connecting the County road to Otter the Down way to Hardon Farm. Entrance to obbalmod only by a haul-way around the northern 02 Strewborry Hill, avoiding the brook which swept the narrow gorge below from side to side. 2. Some sections of this early way still remain, for few things are more enduring than a roadway once established, however crude. The Great Meadow basin was then completely locked away, shut in by woods, no road approaching it. A single farm, called after its owner 'Harden Farm, I reached down to it on the northwest, at the foot of the Kebo range, and a right-of-way road lod to it from Cromwell Harbor road to give it entrance. Climbing one looked down on the Meadow from its encirclement of mountains; else, near as it was to Bar Harbor, it remained -- when life was at its fullest in the big hotel days and early period of summer home construction -- unvisited and unseen. But an old Indian trail, leading through the Gorge from the northern shore to Otter Creek, ran past it on the west, around the mountain base, along whose line I later built the beautiful Hemlook Road past Sieur de Monts Spring. 3 In 1899, to obtain for my mother and our friends and neighbors on the Eastern Shore a short and pleasant drive, not leading through the Twon but connecting with its western side, I made the Town & favorable offer to obtain the right-of-way and build E, road around the Western side of Strawberry Hill, connecting the Otter Creek county road with the Town's right-of-way road to Harden Farm, limiting the Town's expense to $2,500, an estimated one-half of what the road would cost, making myself responsible for the rest. The Town accepted, the road was built for me by the Mount Desert Nurseries and opened to use in the Spring of 1900. This road, opening up for the first time the Great Meadow basin made & beautiful quiet drive for use with horses. The meadow, its drainage blocked by the silting up of the brookbed, was a bog, with wild cranberries growing anid swamp grass on its eastern side, which turned to beautiful color in the later season, while on its western side, and embayed by the extension of the forest onto it grew the swamp-loving rhodora, mingled with Labredor pea and similar wild plants of the mosthenn DOGS. and forming brilliant sheets of color creey springe 4. Road construction requirements were simple in those horse-driving days, I drained the road-bed well and graded it, using such material as I found along the way and the Town has never had occasion since to make expenditure upon it, other than on surfacing it for motor use. Fifteen years later, when motor cars had come in use, I built, owning then the land, a road around the Meadow's southern end, continuing my e arlier road, so that people coming from Seal Earbor or beyond might take this shorter, better routs to reach the Building of Arts for concerts, flower shows and the like, XYP/ the Kebo Valley Golf Club, with its nine-hole course, or summer residencesodn Bar Herbor's western side. 5. When, in 1930, Mr. RockefeAler, having acquired the land on the Island's ocean front, from Sand Beach to Hunter's Brook, asked the Town if it would surrender to the Government its Ocean Drive that he might build,for the Park, replacing it, a motor road along this whole magnificent stretch of shore, bridging the Creek, and the Town agreed, he included in his offer the construction of a road connecting the Cadillao Mountain road where it rises over Great Pond hill with this ocean drive. His offer accepted, he brought surveyers down from New York to study this connection, who worked the whole following summer through, consulting also, in regard to it, eminent landscape architects, before giving the route publicity. But the result was not a happy one, limited as the study was to lands the Park already owned. And ultimately Mr. Rockefeller, giving the lands he had acquired for carrying out the plan, withdrew from his offor, leaving it to the Govern- ment to continue with it,placing it for execution with the Federal Bureau of Roads for further study. In this, familiar with the the territory as I was, I was able to helpe 6 The road originally surveyed was laid out over the Great Meadow's boggy bottom, where construction would be costly and no compensating view could be obtained. at high level The road I had aid out and built/ around the Meadow basin was clearly the place where the roi should go. In this, once stafted, all agreed, but none had thought it possible the Town would d yield the road to the Government. I thought it would, if given good p rmanent connection with the road when turned over to the Park and thi 8 connecti Iwas in position to make possible through my ownership of the Long Field, the one tract still left to me of the land I had originally secured for my Wild Gardens project. This I gave. The Tonw, the matter being laid before it at its next annual meeting, agreed, and my road of thirty odd years before round the Meadow's northern YX end and eastern side, was taken for the new Park road, leaving free from road construction the lake- like moadow bottom and inoidentally saving the Government a full half its estimated oost. In making my gift to the Government of the land down the Long Field, which alone made it possible to obtain the Town's consent to the relinquishment to the Government of its road around the Great Meadowm I asked in return one thing: The construction, planting and maintenance of 8 path over it and across the Great Meadow beyond, connecting the Town with Sieur de Monts Spring and the mountain trails which rise from it. This path, long since planned and partly built, lies wholly in its course over land of my giving and recalls, being full of association for me, my Wald Gandene plen which led on to the Park's creation. To this, referred to Washington, the Government, represented by the National Park Service, agreeed, as it did also to my having the plants intended for it grown in advance Eron under my direction by the Mount Desert Nurseries Dictaphon - January 15, 1941. Two things I am anxious for in Acadia National Park, the one that it should stand permanently for something more, much more, than a mere recreational national park area and summer travel goal for travel- lers and tourists; the second is that it should play war its part not alone in the present/emergency but permanent- ly as an important area in America's and the world's defense against aggression from abroad. Both these it things/can be made to serve uniquely and importantly, placed as it is upon our country's eastern border at the northernmost point where direct communication with Europe and the British Isles can be häd by sea and air. Bordering the ocean as it does, where the Arctic current descending from the north and the Gulf Stream flowing like a great oceanic river from equatorial seas meet and part, it has an extraordinarily rich field of study to offer the naturalist for the study of life in its original home of development, a field unmarred by human occupation unlike the great populous coastal region to the south. On land it is a region also where the temperate and sub-arctic floras and faunas meet and mingle. It should be a home for naturalists in every field and all possible should be done to malte it so. Acadia National Park By George B. Dorr Acadia, has been for the past ten years the only park in the National system' east of the Missippippi, in the territory of the original thirteen States. It is the only one based upon the coast, lying along the ocean highway that gave rise to the first settlement of the country. And as yet it is the only National Park exhibiting, in any part, the flora and fauna of the East. It lies on the islanded, embayed, and harbored coast of eastern Maine, in territory that was once a part of the French province of Acadia, then passed to England as the spoils of battle on the battlefields of Europe and presently to Massachusetts, the parent state of Maine. The territory in which it lies, rich in old historical association, is the most beautiful on the North Atlantic shore, and the only one to the St. Lawrence Gulf where mountainous formations reach the sea. Until now the Park has been restricted to the limits of Mount Desert Island, with its dominating landscape feature that island Is mountain chain. Now, by a recent act, Congress has granted it authority to overstep that bound and include, in the discretion of the Secretary of the Interior, whatever tracts in that widely sea-invaded region may be offered for its increase and found desirable. And with this wider vision for the Park's development, Congress changed its name from Lafayette, with memory of a great but passing moment, to Acadia; with its deeply rooted historical significance and descriptive value. The Park sprang from the conservational effort of a little group of early Summer residents on Mount Desert Island, of whom President Eliot of Harvard WAS one, the writer another, to preserve in openness Origins to the public and freedom from commercial exploitation such portions of that splendid scenery as private generosity and public spirit might make possible. In 1914, half a dozen years after the first gift of land had been received, enough had been secured to make its permanent conservations under the protection of the National Government seem important. Two years later, in the summer of 1916, on the advice of Secretary Lane, President Wilson proclaimed the tract a National Monument, named for the founder of Acadia, the Sieur de Monts. When the war was over and Congress voted the Monument its first appropriation, the Appropriations Committee of the House advised that it be made a National Park, upon which a bill to make it so was passed and signed by the President on February 26, 1919 during the period of his return from Paris. In one respect, besides contact with the ocean on a beautiful and historic coast and its eastern situation near by land and water to great city populations, Acadia is unique in that it has been formed by gift--gift to the illimitable, fast-increasing public of the future through the National Government as trustee--and sets a precedent that may be widely followed. The question is in debate among those in authority and others who have the best development of the National Parks at heart as to what, primarily, is the purpose of a National Park, whether its true function be conservational, recreational, or educational, or in what degree combined. In the case of Acadia, conservation--the conservation of of inspiring quality and the safeguarding of the free access of those to it beauty public--was the impelling motive, both on accepted. part who by the and on that of those in authority who whether visited it gave Like a great work of art or be famous preserved ruin, in its unique many and inspiring or beauty few, and such spiritual a landscape significance should for the enrichment of the workd and its influence on the minds of men. features: its To. recreation Acadia National ever-changing Park offers two vision great of the sea, and many miles of mountain the ocean trail where with an archipelago of islands sheltered on a sub- merged coast with access to the open sea, once traversed boat from ocean- its contact with yields many hundred miles of picturesque by and the Indians waterways in their bark canoes and open now to every form of going Educationally, yachts to tiny Acadia sailing National craft. Park occupies a unique and position, fauna of representing natural province lying between the Massachusetts field the world's singly among the National Parks the flora coastal zone most and the various and crowded zone of life, the sea beach, rock pools, and a great Canadian, and including in its biological shallow coastal waters. educational aspect the Park is a museum filled with living, fashion self-perpetuating ecological relations, their reactions to uniquely Much has been In its forms and exhibiting in singularly instructive various physical their within a limited and readily traversed area. anywhere, it conditions studied and recorded on these lines, and here, if and its already should be possible to awaken people to the interest of nature processes. Placed at the crowning point of beauty on a coast whose whole in length, and the Maritime Provinces beyond, Acadia National as is from Portland east, is a resort, with splendid highways Park widely the making visited from the country over, and must be so increasingly and the number the of those who, inland or city dwelling, seek sight of receive or will population of the interior grows, airways develop, contact grows the sea upon their summer holiday. Impressions they nature with travel widely and be a leaven working through the land for all its conservation and the preservation of landscape beauty in many types and forms. 1917 Nutritic 1. June 11 with the signing by President Wilson of the Aot changing Sieur de Monta National Monument into the present Acadia National Park, the first stage in the attainment of my goal was reached; a place in the sun had been won for our mountains by the sea, whose rugged heights, outlined against the western sky, had been a land-mark to the early voyageurs sailing out from Europe and the first welcome sight of land within out national bounds to greet the Puritans and other colonists of that early time on their long journey out. But this was a beginning only; much yet remained to do before the larger vision that had como to me should be transmuted into fact. A seaooast park, the sea-waves rolling in and breaking on its granite coast, (the first as yet within outpnational bounds : east of west) it had no actual contact with the sea, save where, as though guarding on the west the narrow entrance to Somes Sound, mountains purchases by a group of Northeast Harbor summor residents for the magnificent blimbs they afforded descend precipitously to the water's edge. Again, the first land acquired for the future Park had been the broad, level summit of Cadillao Mountain, the highest not only in our Mount Desert Island chain but on the whole eastern coast of the United States in the vicinity of the sea. 2. June 11 But the old road, steep and rough built over half a contury before by native enterprise when summer visitors first began to come in numbers to the Island, had now been almost wholly washed away by storms and the melting snows of early spring, leaving the mountain top, with its wonderful ocean ocean views, inaccessible to all but active alimbers. of those and other laoks I was acutely consoious but could only let them wait and bide their time, which, now the Park wa.8 established, I felt sure would o cme. But now a now factor entered in which was eventually to have a wide boaring on the Park's development though im- mediately to make it the subject of no slight controversy. Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., had proceeded quietly along in the construction of the horse-road system which, planned to be built partly on land he would a quire for the also purpose but which extended # necessarily, over land bolonging to the Government, which had been authorized by Secretary Lane when he came to say with me at Oldfarm in 1917, the Amphitheater Road 80 -called and had completed all but its last unit, on which kex con- struction was just commencing, when, in June, 1920, he drovo over to 300 em with a letter in hand fromMr. Goorge Wharton Popper, a loading summer resident of bNorthoast Harbor, which he asked mo to read. Mr. Pepper began by commending the roads that Mr. Rockefeller had already built, which had furnished so safe and pleasant a retreat from the public ways - now open to motor cars - for those who still retained their stables, but ended with requesting him to build no more. At this, Mr. Rockefeller, who regarded his Amphitheater Road as the olimax of his whole endeavor, was much perturbed but said that should it prove that Mr. Pepper's attitude was widely shared among his Northeast Harbor and Soal Harbor neighbors and friends, he would not wish to continue construction even though authority for it had been given him by the Government. And in the end he gave it up. To ascertain the feeling among the Northeast Harbor summer residents whom these roads particularly concerned, Mr Lincoln Cromwell of New York, president of the Northeast Harbor Village Improvement Association, offered to call a meeting of the Association for a frank discussion of the question and a vote upon it. Pending this, he invited a group of a to dozon or so to his house in Northeast Harbor/talk the matter over informally and Iwas asked, as the Government's representative, to come. Mr. Pepper was present and, answering some remark he made concerning the disfigurements resulting from such roads, I took issue with him, saying that rightly planned roads of such a oharacter need result in no disfigurement and spoke of the pleasantness and beauty of a bicyole path of wood-road 4. character which I had built myself twenty years before on our own land beneath Champlain Mountain where, oiroling a peaty, glaoial pool, it took its way onward through primoval woods of biroh and homlook; and, describing the scene in autumn when the leaves were falling, quoted some lines from Milton that came to me as I spokes "Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks In Vallambrosa, where th' Eturian shades High over-arch'd imbower." Later I got a letter from Mr. Pepper in which, referring to this, he said: "When you quoted Milton, I know my o ause was lost But lost it wa.8 not, for as the result of Mr. Pepper's opposition in which others joined, Mr. Rockefeller oeased construction. I had need at that time, with no roads of any kind nor even trails traversing the north and south-trending valleys of the Park of some way of simple wood-road character tp connooting the woodlands at the mountains' base on either side for ranger use and fire protection. And seeing Mr. Rockefeller's interest in similar construction, I asked him if he would not like to undertake one along the western side of Jordan Pond and through the valley beyond it at whose further end the watershed was formed between it and that of 5. The territory, though in his neighborhood, was new to him, not given, as I, to climbing for its own sake, and, accompanied by his surveyor, he took his time to explore it. The following summer, that of 1921, Mr. Rockefeller came to me with a carefully studied plan for a horse-road system some seven or eight miles in length, encircling at high level the whole broad mass of Jordan, Sargent and Parkman Moun- upon 1 to course, north and south, tains and commanding wide-sweeping views of lakes and mountains and far horizons,upen-bt a system which would connoot to the east of Uppe Hadlook Pond with the what he had already built under Secretary Lane's permission. Along with this he offered, bearing in mind the motorists and their needs as if to compensate for their exolusion from the horse- roads, to contribute $150,000 for the building of a Park motor road, from the Bar Harbor-Somesville Road at Great Pond Hill to the foot of Jordan Pond, where it would find connection, through a town-road spur, with the county highway along the shore to Northeast Harbor. This joint offer I a coepted so far as with me lay and transmitted it in due course to Washington. In the meantime, word of Mr. Rooke- feller's offer spreading, bitter opposition to its acceptance sprang up among groups of the younger summer resident element at Northeast Harbor and Bar Harbor, who, vL th no experience of the disastrous effects of private ownership and apeculation 6, which I recalled 80 we 11 during the Bar Harbor boom-time a score of years before, resented road development of any kind within the Government lands as an intrusion upon Nature and invasion of their rights. Vut ours was not a wilderness area nor was it for any special group or class that the Government was taking over the great seenio portions of the Island to preserve for the people for all time their intrinsic beauty and freedom. It was no question now of whether this should be done but of how best to do it. And to this, with a long background of observation elsewhere, in other beautiful portions of the world I gave my own best thought and energies. My ohief preocupation was to do nothing that the future could not alter if better ways were found, and next to that to leave the way open as widely as possible for changes of such sort. Some Thoughts Concerning Acadia National Park, Planning for its Future. George B. Dorr December 10, 1940. Omitting studies in detail, my desire is to do what I may, while the opportunity yet remains, to create certain central points of interest in the eastern portion of the Park, whence it originated and where its planning and directive activities have always lain. The first of these concerns itself with the Park Office whose site I chose even before the thought of a National Park had clearly taken shape in my mind, and which was suggested by opportunities that had come my way for laying it out on the broad scale and striking setting it now occupies. Along with this, I wish to convey to the Park, as a central feature in it and giving it contact with the sea upon a harbored shore, my own inherited home at Compass Harbor on Frenchmans Bay, where my dream of the future Park first came into being and which was one of 2. the first summer homes built upon Mount Desert Island and rich for me with long, personal association. The third point I look upon as central is that of Seal Harbor where some of the earliest reservations, making possible the Park upon a broad and national scale, were obtained, and where so much has since been accomplished both on the shore and inland to make it the central landscape feature of the Park and Island, with its dominating mountains either side of the most beautiful lake basin upon Mount Desert Island. The Park Office site came to me in its entirety and including the Town Athletic Field it looks out upon, southward and toward the mountains, as the result of a combination of circumstances whose bearing upon my plan I recognized and, aided by others, took from the start full advantage of. That plan has as yet been only carried out in part, but it still lies in my power 3. to complete it in its original intention and make it permanent through the Government's ownership, which I now wish to do. This involves the inclusion in the Park of the land lying west of the Athletic Field where, as the maps accompanying this will show, the separate road system and path system of the Park shall take their start, commencing off Park Street, the road laid out by me for the Park offices to front upon. The land required for this, reserved for the pur- pose, lies in my power to give, freely and without con- sideration, and this I now propose to do. But certain modifications of the present Town road system will be required to give it full effect, and to obtain these some few early house sites of the town remain to be acquired. The whole plan for this, also, is clearly shown upon the accompanying maps. In planning for Park Street, my thought was to take the road across the whole breadth of the plain the Town of Bar Harbor is situated on, from the summer residences on the shore to the east, making use for this 4. of a road already built, named for Mr. Johnston Livingston of New York whose lands it bordered, to Glen Mary Park upon the west. The portion of this road frontage opposite the Athletic Field, some five hundred and twenty feet in length from Main Street to School Street, is what I am now offering to the Government in its entirety for its administration buildings, for which it forms a dignified and spacious site. On the corner of Main Street, where Park Street commences, I built, in anticipation of the Government's acceptance of the lands I offered, the present Park Office building, planning it most carefully with the help of a competent local architect, and rented it to the Government when the Park was created, so that from the first that site has been associated with the Government's administration of the Park. This office, ample for earlier needs, suits ad- mirably the need for information, suggestion and ad- vice to the great stream of visitors who come now 5. seasonally to see and explore what the Park has to offer. But this need, grown great beyond all anticipation, re- quires practically the whole building and the work of the Park administration now absolutely needs a separate building where the office of the Superintendent and his assistants may be placed spaciously in a dignified, at- tractive setting. The want of such a building, long felt, is provided for in the present plan, the site selected, after careful study, being opposite the center of the Athletic Field, with most attractive plantings of trees and flowering shrubs on either side long since set out, with all due care, and growing well. The only request I wish to make in connection with this building is that it be designed, since it will represent the Government to all who now come in such numbers from the whole country over, in a style characteristic of the best old-time New England architecture. The land west of School Street, fronting upon Park Street, has now been accepted by the Town of Bar Harbor 6. for its office and administrative needs, for which it forms a most excellent site, looking out upon the lands offered to the Government and tying up together in the happiest way the Town and Park administrations to the gain of both, the whole forming the most attractive road frontage in the Town. Along with this broad development of the Park Office site and the secure and permanent possession of it by the Government which it provides for, I offer, in connection with it, my old family home, Oldfarm, upon the shore of Frenchmans Bay with which the whole develop- ment of the National Park has been, from its inception on, most intimately associated. This, one of the earliest and best-situated summer homes upon Mount Desert Island, was for many years the scene of generous hospitality, till those who made it so, my father and my mother, had passed on, leaving to me the spirit of that hospitality, to which, extended to a wider, national field, Acadia National Park, in its origin, is due. 7. Chinform The site occupied by this home is that of one of the earliest cultivated farmlands on the Mount Desert coast, settled by migration from Cape Cod. This farm- land, with the woodlands and wild lands associated with it, is, owing to the bold, rocky character of the coast beyond, the last tract of farmland character capable of being cultivated upon the western coast of Frenchmans Bay or the coast beyond until Seal Harbor and the island- sheltered entrance to Somes Sound is reached. It also fronts directly upon the last good harbor for small vessels along that whole stretch of coast, lying closely outside the extensive sheltered basin of Upper Frenchmans Bay created by the breakwater extended by the Government, at great expense, from Round Porcupine westward toward the Bar Harbor shore, with passage-way left open between for smaller craft. The original Oldfarm grant acquired by my father extended back from the Compass Harbor shore and the Storm Beach point beyond for a measured mile, ending on the all but precipitous slope of Champlain Mountain, 8. the easternmost mountain in the Liount Desert Island chain, which, with Bear Brook and Beaver Dam Pool at its base, was one of the earliest gifts of land, made by myself, which now constitute Acadia National Park. This Oldfarm tract, which, in its entirety, I. inherited from my father, is one of extraordinary in- terest and variety, with its harbored shore, its cul- tivated farmland, its bold granite heights above the cottage that I now occupy, its tiny lake, Compass Harbor pond, and the stream that winds its way down from it to the harbor. And along with these the tract across the public way, the Schooner Head Road, which I gave early to form part of the group of public reservations that presently became the National Park. Wide extended as the Park now is, it has, even yet, no frontage upon any harbored shore until Somes Sound is reached, midway of Mount Desert Island. The Oldfarm tract I now offer will fill this want, and in the most complete and satisfactory way. 9. The house itself, Oldfarm, built by day labor under my father's, my mother's and my own direction in consultation with the architect and the builder, is, owing to the care taken of it, in as good. con- dition now as it was when it was finished, sixty years ago, and no repair to it is needed, within or without. It occupies a magnificent situation above the shore and harbor and is completely furnished, having been rented to friends of mine at intervals throughout the years. This furniture is included in my offer. Private roads, avenues and foot-paths connect the house widely and directly with the lands now already included in the National Park, and it seems more natural and right to have the Park extended across the public way to Compass Harbor and contact with the sea and to the house that was my own. O Oldfarm, the house, was built by the day, and most extraordinarily well. Our architect was Henry Richards of Gardiner, Maine, a recent graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who took the keenest interest-in his work and followed it closely, consulting constantly with my mother, my father and myself as the work went on, unhampered by any contract. Whatever changes suggested themselves as the work progressed, adding to the comfort and convenience of the house, were promptly made, for we planned for the future and an enduring home. The lower story of the house was built of granite, using, for effect's sake, the old oxidized surface from a new quarry in the Gorge opened for the purpose; cut stone was only used for the window frames and doors and the effect was excellent. The rest of the house was splendidly framed in wood, the best Maine could supply, with strong and heavy beams that made the structure of this portion as enduring as could be built in wood. The upper stories and the roof were shingled with California Redwood, imported for the purpose. The Redwoods all possess some quality that prevents decay -- they never rot, though they may wear thin and crack with time. This was a suggestion 14 of our architect, who used them for their warm, reddish tone, fitting well with that of the granite used in the lower floor. The house was built sixty years ago the present year - 1940 - and no renewal or repair even of these shingles has ever been required, save for those upon the roof which ultimately wore thin and cracked and which I had replaced, as better fitted to the climate and exposure, with the best native cedar shingles pro- duced in Maine: We planned the house spaciously, that we might have our friends come to stay with us freely, and it became at once, with the rare gift for entertaining that my mother had, a social center of the pleasantest sort. It is the recollection of those days and the good times we had that makes me desirous now of making our old home serve the Government in recreation and in rest, if it so might be, for those who shape, at Wash- ington, the policies of the National Government. c. 19442 X authorize It is desirable to me in the thought and feeling that has prompted my offer of Oldfarm to the Government that it be understood that I make it as a gift, carry- ing with it all the sentiment and feeling attached to it as a home, rich in traditions of hospitality and intimate to my own and my mother's and my father's lives. These are things one cannot buy and sell and they enter importantly, too, into relation with others' gifts of places precious to them in memory, to which my own gift, I hope, may lead the way. There is, however, much land attaching to Oldfarm in my offer to the Government that carries with it no such intimate and personal association and which may very well be used in replacement of the Park Office and headquarters site as a. basis of the payment I asked of the Government in return for the loss of rental payments to me involved in the Government's becoming owner in fee simple of the office and headquarters site, which I propose. The corporate form in which I had placed the ownership of the site makes it simpler, I am told, and should take the form of a gift and not of a sale and 2. purchase, by substituting other lands essential to the Government, retaining the headquarters site and accepting the associated gift of Oldfarm and the land connected with it, bringing the Parklands to the sea. The first of these is the land west of the Athletic Field, fully described elsewhere in my letter to Washington of July 26th, 1941 and the fairly estimated value given. The second would be the property west of oldfarm, on the Compass Har- bor shore, surveyed out for me years ago as a separate property intended at that time for sale, when sale of it seemed desirable. This property, in the beauty of the view it offers across the Bay, in the delightful beach it possesses and frontage on a harbored shore, I have held, and hold, scarce less valuable in itself that the site we built upon at Oldfarm, while it is, in all that it carries with it of orchard and other lands, much more extensive tlian our Oldfarm home itself. 3. This property has upon it at the present time the old farmhouse of the original land grant purchased beside by my father in 1868, the first year that purchases of land for summer residences on Mount Desert Island were made. It is a picturesque building of the olden time which has served for many years as the comfortable home of the successive managers of the Nt. Desert Nurseries; and, in the Park's possession, may serve, being in excellent condition, some similar purpose of a most attractive area from the public point of view, which will need in the future, on the Government's taking possession, responsible guardianship and pro- tection. The property has, besides, the headquarters build- direct ing of oldfarm, viewed as a farmland of the olden time, stripped with grasslands, orchards and vegetable gardens which my father built, in order that the character of the place, denoted by the Oldfarm name, might be continued into the future under his ownership and that to follow. 4. The cost of this building, in whose planning and construction my father took great interest and which is still as sound and adapted to this use as at the beginning, was undervalued in the estimate obtained by Mr. Rodick and sent on to Washington, to an extent explicable only on the &round that the real estate agent whom Mr. Rodick consulted looked at the matter from the point of view, not of the usefulness and good condition of the building but of finding a purchaser in the present condition of the market for a building of such character. I took pains myself to have this building thoroughly examined by one of the leading expert builders in this region who reported to me, after thorough examination, that it was substantially as good as when first built by my father and had a replacement value, should it chance to be destroyed, of not less than $9,000, at present prices, while Mr. Rodick's real estate agent put it in the statement forwarded to Washington at only $2,000, or less than one-fourth of its true value for anyone seeking to continue, as I feel should still be done under the Government's ownership, the simple, old-time character of the tract, of which the name Oldfarm, taken over by the Government, must henceforth always tell. 5. Altogether, there is ample in the lands including those I have just spoken of and those giving connection with the existing parklands beyond the Schooner Head Road and the extensive, wooded hill-lands east of the Nurseries, independently of Oldfarm itself, to more than justify -- its irreplaceable value to the Park apart -- the purchase by the Government which will relieve it of all future rental charges and establish it permanently in the place it has occupied from the foundation of the Park on. for STATANDA v concertion from this Weither other that dravatto bround Court pass creation of great the and original stringing UR with adidas not narration inter rut Both Sprang from the area and fundamentalo The one the drive that is inevi ably coming percention Pust to the origi motivor of the Landscape exhibita for the 10 great works of are If other education 19 brought Lorward 100 phrelled and cufficia it cound ground wh be transport establishment in every Statesend rettion alotho country 2 Monal parks alone daysupply the imaginativo appeal that LD pada The older Dando works of artified mino and old this tosto dishociation think the pair waston should be barred on reasorvation to the future the undeparded in torest and appeal of representative Arean exhibits of the mode Landscapes of countr-7 And that recreation, in the popular monpay and Maint the sports A Instruction enterial should be kept to and not thrustrinto front place. Crade too. the parks people not dram by 13 mr Can the open associated with DO Leading by this stromphore 2t creates to the the parkal position among thoughtful bazoro the Nation. aboutdoba clearly defined and world propol Community expease wild as It helps to understanding of the natural history of the party Ata past story, The parka undertake the work of Universities in general history though over facility should be provide that Contress for that use as natural muscums by T those nd DO them for research OTA plana instruction. They constitute the in point of Sace natural history succures of the and should justify largo annual expenditures by the to since they not only exhibit but connerve and purpotuate thing then and show it in its natural ecological environ- dainy the intalltrantly.com such pulposes, thoughts demovically for and sistlar $ 6 each opparato beeting of the with-loss expenses not Suportant or beaching, nor are the associated universal but whore of Canor preparentlods protected Ling dach climatic sone biotory research valuable too for concern tion. bird contugos are a stop toward think Such it national group not mode parks or intended for selected for they shelter phyalook conditions affective and dostmed to cover without DRIVER States, would forman wonderful singing Lung whether for redearch or teaching, start could-ba GIM the parks oloan, which would however unito inkit and could box auth extension of Lta acope be placed under the management of the National Park Service. Nor roud the additional administrativo experied be relatively streat. Printendent castorn member of Cross Bill In old French-londled corritocy upon shop 0. cantorn Disney III foot, bumbay our that the on our her been for two the the real grantful upporture the eculpsured forms and war oroston frest and weathering, a was the mountaine! bare read HILL Smet the westorn which 2ed that continuent in the Bay of WOOD our Date boundary now commences at St. Crotz-to the den-Monta deporte's, the Ioland or and VIA and Bolitary position Originally the meztin granitey intruded under terrific prossure free-unknown depths below into the yet older Cambrian overley SU then OF Total surround 16 formed's sincle-mail (be length of the prepant Island cost and went. democation of unmeasured agos, the repent Sodenbeeth thousands of foot in thickness and bear Note Driger 242 identical to "What Dollational Porks StandFor?" 2 Sparks and supply the Imprinative appeal that L made 1. by and works Ket by relas and old HOTALIO associational DO Think The pational park water should be based on predervation to the future La interect and of exceptional or representation areas aditing the Assupes the Country And reareation in the popular patter the party as instructic white should both be Lept to EXIC and