Biography First draft (2008)- a Chronological Narration. Pt. 2 1875-1917. GEORGE BUCKNAM DORR Ronald H. Epp, Ph.D BEGIN 1875 (November 8, 2008) 1875 With his Harvard degree in hand, the Dorr family could think more seriously about the prospects for the new graduate. His opportunities included a wide array of possibilities. Family precedent surely suggested entrance into a commercial venture. A fortune had been assembled by grandfather Ward and with uncle Samuel G. Ward at the helm of the Barings Brothers investments firm surely George could follow in the footsteps of his cousin Tom and apprentice there. Both Dorr and Ward relatives had a wide circle of contacts that George could have pursued. On the paternal side, his grandfather Samuel Dorr's business contacts-- secured in amassing his comparable fortune--offered other venues for worldly success. Yet nothing in the historical record suggests that a career in business appealed to him. He could have remained within the academy and prepared himself for a professional life in law, medicine, or a variety of scholarly disciplines as many of his classmates chose to do. Nonetheless, despite the willingness of his parents to support their youngest son, young George could have bolted from the family confines and headed off to succeed or fail through the worldly application of his own skills. Here again there was the family precedent of the Lenox pioneer uncle Samuel G. Ward. Charles Hazen Dorr offers his youngest son the opportunity to apply the historically rich Harvard education to a family quest for the homes of their Puritan paternal ancestors. The two would travel abroad and continue the cultural enrichment process that a year earlier had enabled Dorr to complete his Harvard curricular requirements. Sixty years later, Dorr's memoirs will explode with a superabundance of essays on his post- graduate years, abundantly demonstrating the lasting importance of this next phase of his character development. More than a dozen rough drafts written in the late 1930's survive. One might suppose that he was guided by notes from this earlier era, a diary, or correspondence--yet no documentation survived. Each draft is brief, marked with revisions, and left incomplete. (The Harvard Book, a multivolume historical, biographical, and facilities-centered study is published. It documented the culture that Dorr had just lived through, "the familiar scenes and faces of College days which every student at the end of his four-years' life at Harvard desires to carry away with him." No other period of Dorr's life is given this degree of attention in his memoirs. No other is repeatedly described as among the most pleasant-the happiest--of his life. The incompleteness suggests that words failed to recapture the thoughts and interests "which are as strong upon me today as they were then, the source of accomplishment and the source of failure." Repeatedly he tries to impress upon the reader how "this quest after the homes of [my father's ancestors opened up before me an understanding DORR1875 Page 1 of 20 and intimate vision of the past which has stayed by me always." This was no mere textbook exercise for the empirical richness of the quest caused him to reflect anew on what the Puritans believed and why they held their most cherished principles. Dorr held that his father's generation was the first "to get away from the narrowness and limitations of the Puritan doctrine which, in their turn, had been SO great and bold a break from the luxury and pride that preceded them." (Dorr Papers. B. 2. f.3) "All the time my father and I had our own ancestors in mind, searching out their homes and the homes from which our New England people had come." The search finally settled on Dorset and Dorchester where they discovered that Edward Dorr actually sailed from Devonshire. Yet this was no straightforward genealogical quest for the two sailed the rivers and lakes famous in English verse and prose, investigated ruined abbeys, marveled at the Roman villas scattered throughout the countryside, toured grande estates, and stood in the aisles of the great Gothic cathedrals. The travel experience of Charles Dorr--who was not college educated-- differed from that of his son. His son was prepared academically and yet appears at times overwhelmed by the intensity of the word embodied. (At the Emerson Centenary, Charles Eliot Norton offers a comment about Emerson that rings true for Dorr as well: "Emerson told me much of his early life. He was often in a mood of reminiscence, and in the retrospect all life lay fair behind him, like a pleasant landscape illumined by the slowly sinking sun. The sweetness and purity and elevation of his nature were manifest in his recollections.. [and] he returned over and over again to the happiness of life and the joy of existence." ["The Emerson Centenary, May 25, 1903," DSocial Circle of Concord records. Private Collection. Concord Free Public Library Special Collections. p. 55] "This is the side of history that interested me, bringing the people of the past to life. That is what my father and I sought to do with our ancestors." Ever the scholar, even the experience of inanimate noble architecture and other cultural artifacts makes him again turn to works of literature for further comparisons. The Dorrs walk the countryside with books in hand. Young Mr. Dorr later acknowledges that what was learned led "directly on our return to the building of our old home at Mt. Desert and the establishment of the first true pleasure garden on MDI...for without this interest the work I later did at home would never have been done nor Acadia National Park come into existence." (Dorr Papers. B. 2. f.3) Mary joined her husband and younger son in Europe during the winter of 1875-76, devoting time to studying old English houses as models for their proposed summer home in Bar Harbor. Many a recent graduate traveled abroad alone, testing their independence and openness to the unforeseen. But for Dorr travel that had begun with his brother during his early years of college in subsequent years included his parents--who had "long postponed" the satisfaction of their desires to travel abroad. Dorr is committed to the communal nature of travel: "One must travel with others, and with others thoroughly sympathetic with ourselves to get the full value and enjoyment out of travel. One must share in order to appreciate. He then concludes this thought with the perplexing statement that "...the people one can share with are happily few. (Dorr Papers. B. 1. f. 2) Wanderjahr experiences were not uncommon for Dorr's peers. Sometimes travel was a corrective for health issues that arose prior to graduation. In 1872 Barrett Wendell entered Harvard but within six DORR1875 Page 2 of 20 months "fragile health" (described by BW as "probably hysterical paralysis") led to a period of medical confinement at a relatives summer cottage in Swampscott prior to ten months travel around the world. M.A. De Wolfe Howe, Barrett Wendell and his Letters, pp. 19-21 describes this and remarks that it serves as "convincing evidence that an American youth, rapidly maturing, and inalienably American at heart, was educating himself to become, in a measure quite uncommon then or since, a genuine citizen of the larger world." Yet the wanderjahr can also be one aspect of a career avoidance strategy that another Harvard graduate would characterize when he addressed the Harvard Union in 1907. Just a few classes behind Dorr, Theodore Roosevelt feared that Harvard and other colleges graduated men "too fastidious, too sensitive, to take part in the hurly-burly of the actual work of the world... [and stood] aloof from the broad sweep of our national life in a curiously impotent spirit of fancied superiority. (T. Roosevelt. The Works of Theodore Roosevelt [New York: 1926], XIII, 563, 565) There was no shortage of alums who exemplified during the Victorian era what became known as "Harvard indifference." Henry Adams was the "paradigm of the Harvard graduate who, because of his aristocratic ideals and vocational incompetence, was relegated to an inactive, ineffectual role in post-Civil War America." (Joan D. Hedrick, "Harvard Indifference, New England Quarterly 49, #3 [1976] : 358) Dorr's Memoirs provide no evidence that unrealized occupational expectations was discussed within the family during the wanderjahr or in the years of foreign travel that followed. Were Charles and Mary Dorr tolerantly waiting during those years for young George to find himself? Were their travels designed to expose their sons to options unavailable within the Harvard Yard? Did they consider their son to be immature? Did they overindulge his inclinations? Living off income generated from their investments, they could afford to underwrite the continuing education of their sole surviving offspring. Nonetheless, as we shall see, nearly two decades will pass before Mr. Dorr establishes in 1896 The Mount Desert Nurseries. No vocation precedes the establishment of this innovative business and one may well wonder at the objectives of the young man's serpentine journey toward later events that will bespeak his maturity. The first momentous step involves a geographical redirection Down East. On his return home that winter, "it was with a mind full of new impressions and questions that I wished to solve; and I took back with me from England books that fully occupied my time that winter." (Dorr Papers. B. 1. f. 14) Yet Charles Dorr turned his attention Down East toward Mount Desert Island where he purchased additional acreage, completing his ownership of the original Henry Higgins' tract. On the West Coast, commencement exercises at the University of California recognized a young man who was to have a significant relationship with the Dorr family. Josiah Royce had specialized in the classics and received a bachelor of arts degree, not awarded by University of California President Daniel Coit Gilman who had left several months earlier to make preparations for his new role as the founding President of Johns Hopkins University, the first institution entirely committed to graduate studies. Royce's relationship with the new leader of America's first institution of graduate education was fortuitous. In the years ahead Gilman would provide backers for his Royce's studies abroad, subsidize Royce himself, and offer encouragement and advice to the young scholar. DORR1875 Page 3 of 20 According to the reminiscences of Royce's son, Stephen, Gilman gave his father letters of introduction to influential men in the East. Even though corroborative evidence is lacking, Stephen Royce's anecdote about the first encounter between his father and George B. Dorr together has considerable biographical appeal: "On the appointed evening Royce came early to the Dorr home, wearing his only suit, already threadbare. Mr. Dorr came down stairs in full evening dress. Said Dorr, 'Royce, I think you are right: it's too hot for formal clothes this evening. If you will excuse me, I'll run upstairs and change. Dorr and Royce were the only men at the party in informal clothes. Ten others were present, including George Herbert Palmer and William James, to meet the young Californian not yet twenty years old." (James Harry Cotton. Royce on the Human Self. Cambridge: Harvard U.P., 1954) No less an authority than Royce scholar John Clendenning states [email September 17, 2007] that this story "rings true" despite Cotton's inaccuracies on other matters. What are we to make of this memorable second-hand anecdote? To begin, the timing appears to be at odds with Royce's July 11, 1875 letter to Gilman from Brooklyn announcing that he arrived in New York the preceding week and that he will set sail for Europe within a few days. (Daniel Coit Gilman Papers. Johns Hopkins University Archives) The interval between graduation and his arrival in Brooklyn is likely too short a timeframe to sandwich in a social gathering on Commonwealth Avenue, Boston. Then again, what chain of events leads one to believe that Gilman was the intermediary between Dorr and Royce? Gilman may have become familiar with Dorr directly as a result of his frequent Boston visits from 1872- 1877, a period in which President Eliot entertained Gilman in his home as their relationship broadened and matured. A strong supporter of the establishment of Johns Hopkins University and its new President, Eliot's correspondence with Gilman reveals his personal familiarity with recent Harvard graduates; Eliot suggested to Gilman that several were suitable for fellowships or graduate school faculty appointments. Eliot may have informally recommended the newly graduated Dorr as a contact for the young scholar from California. Alas, no facts support the Eliot, Gilman, and Dorr familiarity immediately following Dorr's graduation. Finally, an alternative model for dating these social introductions is suggested. On Royce's return from Germany in late July 1876 enroute to his Johns Hopkins University appointment, he writes to Gilman that he spent "three months in Boston for the purpose of special studies in libraries there. [and] at each of these libraries I was introduced by letter." This timeframe better fits the circumstances that Stephen Gilman recalls (See Gilman Papers. Letters July 1, 1874, May 20 & 24th 1876, January 11, 1877). Despite Dorr's own memoirs and published accounts in Harvard College class notes that he was absent in Europe from 1874-1878, is there reason to believe he would not have returned to the United States with his parents at roughly the time when Royce was engaged in library research? The clear fact is that the unexpected death of William Ward Dorr in May 1876 while the remainder of the family was abroad brought his father Charles home to make funeral arrangements at Mount Auburn cemetery. Mary and George accepted the consoling invitation of the Earl of Carlisle to stay at their residence. The Dorr's could have returned from Europe in September following the death in his seventieth year of life of George B. Dorr's namesake who was interred September 3rd at Mount Auburn. Yet this date is not early enough for George to write letters of introduction for Royce's use of the libraries at the Boston Public Library, Athenaeum, and Harvard; it is early enough to provide the venue DORR1875 Page 4 of 20 for Royce's Commonwealth Avenue introduction to the celebrated Harvard faculty. Taking everything into account, Stephen Royce's charming anecdote is at odds with Dorr's repeated claim that it was not until 1878 that the family returned from Europe. (May 1, 1939 letter to Arno B. Cammerer. ANPA. B. 4. f.1) William James begins teaching psychology at Harvard (from physiology) when there were no professors of psychology in American universities- sets up first experimental laboratory. 1876 As the nation prepared to celebrate its Centennial, it also mourned the death of Samuel Gridley Howe (1801-76) . There is no indication that Mary Gray Dorr was prompted by this news to contact her estranged friend, Julia Ward Howe. Within several months, the Dorr family would face its own immediate grief. Within a year, Julia and her daughter Maud embark for England during the fortieth year of the resign of Queen Victoria where they spent their days-often escorted by Henry James-- a bewildering round of dinners, dances, garden parties, races of boats, of horses; matches of cricket, of football; 'shows' of pictures, flowers, vegetables, dogs!" (Elliott, Three Generations, 139); among those whom she met were Washington Irving, Prime Minister Gladstone, etc. (See Julia Ward Howe, Reminiscences, ch. 19) We learn more about the Dorr family travel abroad from Richard Henry Dana (in his Hospitable England in the Seventies) who received his Harvard law degree in 1875 and spent the next fifteen months touring Europe. He discusses travel through Naples in early February enroute to Rome where he took in the sights of the ancient city before delivering letters of introduction to the American Minister. He then went to services (3.12) at the American Church there and that evening "dined with Mrs. Dorr, of Boston, 'very informally' as by invitation. Miss Trollope, a niece of Anthony Trollope, and Baroness Hoffman, nee Lily Ward, were the guests." (p. 241) The pleasures of months of socializing came to an abrupt end when the Charles and Mary Dorr received news in England that their son, William, was seriously ill. Charles immediately boarded a ship for America yet received communication mid-voyage that his son had died on May 15th William was interred in Lot #1151 at Mount Auburn Cemetery on May 18, 1876 surrounded by family friends and his father. (On November 2nd his father purchases a separate family lot [#4474], in close proximity to the Ward Walnut Avenue lot purchased by George's maternal grandfather; on November 4th the order for removal is executed to relocate the remains of William W. Dorr to Lot #4474. The traditional Dorr lot acquired by James A. Dorr in 1845 is located adjacent to the Crematory. [See Dorr Papers, 1, f. 13 and Mount Auburn Cemetery Historical Collections, #235, 4474]) Mary and George Dorr grieve this loss in the U.K. where they had accepted an invitation to be house guests from artist George Howard (Earl of Carlisle) and his wife Rosalind Frances [Stanley] Howard, a philanthropist known for as the 'Radical Countess' for her lifelong advocacy of Women's Rights. Lady Howard was seen by some as arrogant and authoritarian, qualities that would later be attributed to Mary Dorr. Dorr describes Rosalind as a product of "fair-haired, strong-built, Saxon stock [while] Carlisle was just the opposite, typical of what we DORR1875 Page 5 of 20 associate with the Normans artistic, critical, kind of heart and full of prejudice." (Dorr Papers. B. 2. f. 2) Dorr was privy to a sufficient number of conversations at Castle Naworth to discern that the sympathies of the Earl were "with the south in our Civil War; his wife's were with the north and equally positive." Here the Dorr's found temporary refuge in the family life of this colorful, Liberal, and privileged couple, experiencing a level of opulence rare by Boston standards. The families first met in Rome the preceding year. 1875) The Howard's now insist that Dorr's come to their house in Paris Green "looking out most pleasantly upon Kensington Park" before relocating to Naworth Castle on Charles's return, not far from the Scottish border. (Naworth Castle is extant and available for conferences and purs[www.naworthco.uk) It is not certain whether the Dorrs were entertained at their more recognizable Palladian estate at Yorkshire, Castle Howard. Recently it was the site for the televised dramatization of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited) The Dorr's were encouraged to extend their stay for many months. As a diversion from their family loss, the Howard's might have taken them to see the gardens and woods of Castle Howard. (See John Dixon Hunt, Gardens and the Picturesque. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992. Pp. 19-48. See also Venetia Murray. Castle Howard [New York: Viking, 1994] and Charles Saumarez Smith's The Building of Castle Howard. [London: Faber and Faber, 1990]) Mary Dorr's sorrow was somewhat alleviated by her efforts to make contact with the spirit of her son William through a new spiritualistic technique called automatic writing. More importantly, her emotional distress was tempered by her considerable interest in the profession of the Earl of Carlisle. For George Howard was not simply a member of one of the great Whig aristocratic families but a talented Pre-Raphaelite artist, a contemporary movement in the arts that greatly appealed to Mary who met at their home leading artists like Burne-Jones and Frederick Layton. The Howard's eldest daughter Mary Howard would later be married by the formidable translator Benjamin Jowett to classicist Gilbert Murray in the Castle Howard chapel on 30 November 1889. In his unfinished autobiography, Oxford Professor Murray recalls his first encounter with Rosalind Howard in 1884 where "there was cricket with the villages around, and lawn tennis, and bathing and walks; but, above all, there was an extraordinary atmosphere of lively discussion. It was sometimes based on the news or parliamentary debates [and] sometimes it was ideas and the purposes of life. She was impetuous and formidable, but we all felt free to say what we thought." One may surmise that nearly a decade earlier, George Dorr may well have been exposed to comparable experiences at that celebrated estate, with Rosalind Howard buoying his spirit as Murray recounts "the inspiration she brought into the lives of us eager young men. It was fun. Of course it was fun. But there was no luxury. It was breakfast at eight and no nonsense. There was no alcohol. Smoking was not forbidden, but hardly anyone smoked. But the horizon was somehow larger than we had ever known before." (Gilbert Murray: An Unfinished Life. Eds. Jean Smith & Arnold Toynbee, pgs. 87, 100. The fullest study of the Earl and Countess of Carlisle is Virginia Surtees. The Artist and the Autocrat. London: Michael Russell, 1988. Charles Robert offers a more pointed study of the life of Rosalind in The Radical Countess. Carlisle: Steel Brothers, 1962.) No mention is made by the Howe's of interaction abroad with the Dorr family though it is possible that Mary provided the link with George Howard whom Maud described as "tireless in helping us see the best DORR1875 Page 6 of 20 ancient and modern art a man of exquisite refinement and great reserve, ill fitted, it appeared, to take part in political life. He had married Rosamond, daughter of Lord Stanley of Alderley, who inherited the family gift for politics and was already prominent as a reformer, though still very young, with a nursery full of children. I date my lifelong passion for sight-seeing from those hours spent with Mr. Howard at the British Museum, the National Gallery, and other picture galleries and studios" (Elliott. Three Generations, pg. 144. See also George Howard and His Circle, 1843-1911. Carlisle: City Art Gallery, 1968. On The Amberley family and Rosalind Howard, see comments by the most celebrated Amberley family intellectual. The Amberley Papers: Bertrand Russell's Family Background. Eds. Bertrand Russell and Patricia Russell.Vol 1. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1937, pp. 26-27) Maud details their London life, "kaleidoscopic, brilliant, shifting, little bits of fashion, art, sport, philanthropy, politics all jostling each other and making a brilliant whole" (146) Maud's account here covers the same geography, nearly identical cultural influences but seen through female eyes of a close acquaintance. For the next several years they are in France, Italy, Switzerland, and then Egypt, Palestine, and Greece anticipating some of the adventures of the Dorrs a decade later. During the winter of 1880-81 the Howes are in Boston where "wherever my mother was, she immediately became the center of a large circle" ( Ibid. Pg. 195) George B. Dorr's namesake uncle offers the new Boston Museum of Fine Arts that summer. A massive cast of the caryatid porch of the Erechtheum on the Acropolis dominated the other exhibited Greek artifacts (Walter Muir Whitehill. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: A Centennial History. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970. I. Pg. 33-34) The donors death a few months later was another blow to Charles who remained in Boston while the family resided with the Howards at Naworth Castle. Even as he made arrangements at Mount Auburn Cemetery for the a new family plot, Charles Dorr's attention would now be drawn to Lenox because of arrangements made following the death of Dorr's namesake. (He purchased a 300 sq. ft. family plot (#4474) at Mount Auburn Cemetery with perpetual care provisions. The Raven Path property is within a stone's throw of the Ward family lot and its proximity to his wife's family lot is hard not to see as deliberate. A handwritten early November letter from Charles H. Dorr to the cemetery superintendent remarks on his site visit and the "removal" of his son's remains to the newly purchased lot, to be covered with myrtle next spring when he will be in Europe. The Dorr family lot # 1151) on Pine Avenue purchased in 1845 by August James Dorr, however, is far removed from this site; between 1845 and 1889 sixteen Dorr family members will be interred in this partially filled 952 sq. ft. lot where even today ample space is available. (Mount Auburn Cemetery Historical Collections, #4474) The Highlawn property had been divided into shares. The two surviving paternal aunts made the following arrangement. "That year Martha Ann and her husband Henry Edwards left their share to MIT, reserving life estate for Martha Ann and Susan and a provision for their nephew George B. Dorr's repurchase of their interest from MIT after their deaths." (R.S. Jackson & Cornelia B. Gilder. Houses of the Berkshires 1870-1930. New York: Acanthus, 2006. n. 32) Just two years after his Harvard graduation-and following the death of his brother William-twenty-three year old Dorr is the sole survivor of the next generation. That he could secure this estate following the death of his aunts had to influence his thinking about his future, presuming that he was privy to this information. DORR1875 Page 7 of 20 Elswehere in Lenox the maternal side of his family was building for the future. Samuel G. and Anna Barker Ward (1813-1900) hire renown architect Charles F. McKim to design a "masterful" Shingle style Lenox country house "on a big budget." "On a sloping site beneath Bald Head and overlooking the Stockbridge Bowl, McKim created a loosely interpreted colonial Georgian summer cottage." The idealistic Samuel and Anna Ward who thirty years earlier had pioneered the development of Lenox at Highwood were now grandparents in the sixties, "mature social and intellectual leaders in American cultural life." Oakwood soon was recognized as "primarily a hospitable private home beloved of the Wards' wide circle of friends of all ages. (Houses of the Berkshires 1870-1930 provides the most thorough discussion of Oakwood) 1877 An event in Concord this year provides some insight into Ralph Waldo Emerson's continuing regard for Samuel G. Ward as both friend and citizen. Emerson reexamines his 1849 Journal where he had identified six historical figures for his then forthcoming Representative Men. Beside each name he had written the name of a friend and contemporary, with Thoreau matched with Napoleon as demonstrating one facet of the composite great man (See the highly insightful essay by Nancy Craig Simmons, "Thoreau as Napoleon; or a Note on Emerson's Big, Little, and Good Endians," Emerson Society Papers 4, # 1 (Spring 1993) : 1-4.) In the nearly thirty years since this pairing was completed, Emerson opted to replace several contemporaries and for our purposes the substitution of J. Elliot Cabot and Samuel G. Ward for Thoreau is instructive. Here "Emerson was looking for an engineer, a forceful, practical man of the world who could get things done men [who] combined superior intelligence and sensitivity and an aristocratic background with executive skill." Simmons, pp. 3-4) In Simmons judgment, both Ward and Elliot--who would later be the Concord Sage's literary executor-were selected because Emerson fully believed that best balanced the ideal with the practical, the abstract with the demands of the material world. Ward was judged after nearly forty years of association with Emerson to be a "new American hero, the man who would combine the old world's appreciation for culture with the new world's reverence for character." (Simmons, p. 4) Would young George traveling abroad at this time with his parents on routes similar to that which his Uncle Sam had taken forty years earlier embrace those formative aspects of European culture that had been SO defining for his mother's brother? In 1938, during Dorr's most prolific period of autobiographical productivity, he describes an experience in Italy in the late 1870's with a young Philadelphia woman. It is the only surviving account of an infatuation by Dorr and is the only relevant part of the Dorr memoirs that could have given rise to the mistaken notion of Dorr being smitten with unrequited love that ruined him for life (S. Collier. The Triumph of George B. Dorr) One of the women who joined Dorr at a picnic at an ancient volcanic lake east of Rome in the Alban Hills was Mrs. Craig Wadsworth, Lina Peters by her maiden name. This was there first meeting though he grew to know her better throughout the winter. She recounted to Dorr what it had been like to have men worshipping her for she was "one of those rare beings who seemed afterwards to have disappeared completely from our world, a beautiful woman, beautiful like some Greek goddess of the olden times Women do not seem to stand out in these days as some did then, and the world is the poorer as I think for it. For it means the loss of an DORR1875 Page 8 of 20 ideal, the loss of something that does not enter into the world of fact.' (Dorr Papers. B. 1. f.1) In ancient times the lake where they met was known at "Diana's Mirror" because the reflection of the moon on what later became known as Lake Nemi (the sacred wood) could be viewed from the adjacent cult temple that was dedicated to the Greek goddess Diana. Someone SO well versed in ancient literature as Dorr would know that since the 6th century B.C. the Italian goddess Diana was identified with the Greek deity Artemis, sister of Apollo. She was a goddess of women with specific functions associated with children and childbirth. In a concluding paragraph Dorr mentions in passing "another woman, less beautiful" whom he met at the same picnic, the unnamed daughter of an old Southern family. Nothing in Dorr's account suggests that either woman had a romantic relationship with him. Indeed, Dorr is overwhelmed by the beauty of Linda Peters and situates her with the historic associations of an earlier time and a religiously revered place. To think that Dorr's bachelor status, however, results from this episode of unrequited love is to ignore the complexity of the man and the myriad reasons over time for choosing not to marry. Samuel G. Ward and George Cabot Ward forward a portrait of T.W. Ward, Treasurer of Harvard College, to Harvard, thereby fulfilling terms of his will. 1878 Despite plans made years earlier to build a permanent Bar Harbor summer home at the site purchased by Charles Dorr and his real estate partner, through the first part of 1878 the family was still in Britain in the final months of their four years of travel. The Dorr were in no hurray to return to Bar Harbor where the community was recovering from the effects of a typhoid epidemic that began in 1876. It had been brought on by citizen neglect of "sanitary measures but the effect on summer life. .still lingered and "no land was being sold, no houses built. (May 1, 1939 letter to Arno Cammerer) The Dorrs had not intended to be abroad for this length of time. Dorr later recalled that the death of his brother "unexpectedly prolonged" their stay in Europe. Moreover, with sufficient financial resources they could live abroad in the moment and follow new interests as they arose. One wonders whether the George's indifference about a vocation was more tolerated by his parents to a greater extent following the death of William-the "all we have now is George factor." In an all too brief discussion of these travels and his parents character, Dorr writes sixty years later that those years of intimate companionship with his father and mother, moving quietly about from place to place of interest or beauty as the spirit prompted, reading much and thinking much, were among the richest in my life and laid the foundation deep for future growth and study. Dorr revealed as much about the wellsprings of his conservation philosophy to an interviewer at the end of his eighth decade of life. "The impelling causes of what people do may generally be found far back. What led to my own interest in nature and landscape, in their conservation, and in sharing the pleasure got from them with others came from years of association, both abroad and in this country, with my father and mother, who inherited in turn from older generations." (B. Morton Havey. "Acadia-A Boyhood Dream Come True," Maine Highways [1932-1933] Pg. 29) DORR1875 Page 9 of 20 Galvanized by the untimely death of William Ward Dorr, the three Dorrs pursued what the Continent had to offer. Charles was "what Chaucer would have called a verra parfait' gentleman, with constant thought for others, broad human interests, and no thought for self, though full of the capacity for great enjoyment in all things beautiful and good. We lived together constantly as we travelled on, in the humours of the moment, in our appreciation and thoughts our travels roused." With no day by day itineraries, no surviving diaries, no extant correspondence to or from family and friends during this period, all that remains are Dorr's recollections. After being separated from a certain social normalcy for the last four years, Mary Gray Ward Dorr will soon involve herself socially--in both Boston and Bar Harbor-in an array of activities that that will earn her the reputation as a exceptional hostess, perhaps unequal in her talents. But to the more critical eye of her only surviving son, Mary was neither a rationalist nor an empirically-centered person. She was "not given as I to argument and reason nor patient of them, but arriving straight at her conclusions by passages of intuition all alone. This was not due SO much to the fact that she was a woman as to inheritance, in which the artistic strain was strong and the warm interest in human life. In this she was remarkable; people came to her always for sympathy and help in their times of trouble for she was strong to lean upon." (Dorr Papers.B. f.3) Dorr concludes with the admission that such the independence cultivated by each of the three Dorr family members carried a price. "We all three had great reserves, even from each other, and lived our own lives out, not readily opening ourselves out to others." This privacy statement- "not readily opening ourselves out to others--is crucial to understanding the silence of each family member on their emotional responses to issues of small consequence-- as well as to the monumental. Charles was insistent on quality information which likely influenced his son's conviction that The London Times and New York Times "are better than books," a thought provoking statement for one SO frequently characterized as a scholar. These "years of intimate companionship abroad" with his parents moving from place to place "as the spirit prompted" were "the richest of my life and laid the foundation deep for future growth and study." (Dorr Papers, B. 2, f. 2 & 3) On their fall 1878 return from Europe after a stay of four years, Dorr speaks of a new life beginning for all three, centering the design and construction of a Bar Harbor home out of which sprang the National Park. George came back with a "mind full of questions and bent toward the study of philosophy." Before departing for Europe, the Dorr's selected a site on the broad, flat top of an old sea-cliff, facing north to the Goldsboro Hills across the long reach of Upper Frenchman Bay. To the North "the bold, rounded mass of Bald Porcupine," a dense island of ancient volcanic rock now densely wooded. To the West there was good mooring ground at the harbor, where Dorr later kept his boat, The Wren. "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 [near Bear Brook] on the all but precipitous slope of Champlain [then Newport] Mountain. "Some Thoughts Concerning Acadia National Park.' Typescript. Pg. 7. ANPA. B.2.f. 1.) It was his intent to sell off portions of this property as opportunities presented themselves. The property fronted directly the last safe harbor for vessels traveling south on that entire stretch of coastline. That shoreline was DORR1875 Page 10 of 20 interrupted by a prominent volcanic intrusion that George later named Dorr Point to honor his father. Later Dorr would insert granite blocks from his quarry at the base of the Point, creating a swimming pool where tidal water could enter and escape. On other occasions that spanned his lifetime Dorr would dive into Frenchman Bay off the Point when the tide was right, "running down from the house before I dressed in the morning. to plunge in for a glorious swim." Ever inquisitive about the geological origins of the Island, Dorr discovered in shells the remains of apparently extinct fish. His father's friend, physician Henry Chapman, had them identified and their distinctiveness led to their placement in the Philadelphia Natural History Museum (ANPA. B.3. f.7) Facing south along the Sols Cliff shoreline, these prominent cliffs flanked fertile farmland to the east. Near lower Main street a stream wended its way east to the pond adjacent to the new Storm Beach Cottage (which would serve over the years as the caretaker home, later as Dorr's residence when Oldfarm was rented, and most recently as lodging for NPS staff). Situated more than a hundred feet above the sea but lower than the cliffs to the east, a "craggy" hilltop granite ledge provided the foundation for Oldfarm, named for its earlier agricultural purposes when owned by Henry Higgens, a farmer who relocated a century earlier from Eastham on Cape Cod. (On the lot history, see ANPA. In the Colonial era, a member of the Baring family had owned extensive tracts of eastern Maine; Dorr's grandfather, Thomas Wren Ward, was the Barings' investment agent in America, a historic association that further deepens Dorr's attachment to Downeast Maine) Of course at that time, none could know what an integral role this property on lower Main Street would have on the founding and establishment of Acadia National Park. Beatrix Jones Farrand described the view from the residence looking seaward, a prospect shared at a slightly different angle with her home at Reef Point: "The trees along the Oldfarm waterfront are quite tall SO that one cannot see [the] coastline. This seems to give the effect of quite a big drop, that is, it looks as though the trees were on top of a cliff and SO gives the hill on which the house stands [a feeling of] more height. The middle distance is blue water-Point d'Acadie on left and Round Porcupine with its black cliffs on R. This is carried on to the 3 next Porcupines, and on the horizon to Goldsboro' Hills [on the Schoodic peninsula] According to her biographer, Jane Brown, she learned from Oldfarm the "lessons of framing a view, concealing some things and revealing others, and imitating the natural forms to emphasize atmosphere." Oldfarm applied Frederick Law Olmsted's second principle of landscape design, the "creation of designs that are in keeping with the natural scenery and topography; respect for, and full utilization of, the genius of the place." (Beatrix: The Gardening Life of Beatrix Jones Farrand. 1872-1959. New York: Viking, 1959. Pgs. 27-28; this description may be based on her first documented Oldfarm visit in September 1892. Oldfarm Guest Book. Bar Harbor Historical Society) Further details about the property are based on several largely repetitive Oldfarm essays Dorr drafted during the last decade of his life and several brief articles in the local newspaper. From these we learn that his father engaged New York architect .F. Oakey to draw up plans for the family cottage, and surviving renderings show a picturesque exterior structure reminiscent of the English Queen Anne style. (See American Architect and Building News, January 20, 1877, for a published rendering of Oakey's design) Yet in the end, the Dorr family selected as their architect the husband of one of the daughters of Julia Ward Howe, Henry Richards. DORR1875 Page 11 of 20 Following several years of modest success as a Boston architect, including editorial and administrative architectural roles, Henry Richards, his wife Laura, and three children moved in 1876 from Boston to Gardiner, Maine, responding to request from his brother Frank that Henry join him and brother John in the management of the family paper mill. Several years lapsed and Richards pursued and then accepted the Dorr commission, professionally challenged by the project and influenced in no small way by the pull of family ties. (The fullest published biographical account is Roger G. Reed's "Henry Richards 1848-1949," A Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Maine. Augusta: Maine Historic Preservation Commission, 1984- ) Laura Richard's autobiography refers briefly to this effort of her husband as unlike the typical professional-cli relationship; for to Laura Richards "Mrs. Dorr was an old and intimate friend of my mother's having been engaged in early life to my mother's brother. She was a kind friend to us both." Nearly a decade later, Mrs. Richards visited Old Farm (the Guest Book gives a date of 1887) and sitting on the rocks at Dorr Point, she saw at sea a distant lighthouse. An imaginative tale came to her mind and the quickly written "Captain January" novella was born, her most frequently purchased work. (Laura Richards, Stepping Westward. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1931. Pg. 327; one of the film versions was a showcase for the childhood star Shirley Temple) 1879 Richards begins working with the Dorr's in the design of a granite structure "of a warm reddish hue from the nearby Gorge and above that was covered with shingles hewn out of California Redwood, their tone blending well the granite and still remaining, after all the years, untouched by decay." (May 1, 1939 letter to Cammerer. ANPA. The foundation was dug several hundred feet from the lower Main Street entrance. Dorr describes Richards as "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." ("Some Thoughts Concerning Acadia National Park, op. cit. p. 10) Olodfarm was "built out of granite split out from tumbled boulders in the gorge, weathered and warm-toned." The two foot thick exterior granite walls rested on a 132 feet long and 52 feet wide foundation. Mary Gray Ward Dorr had been interested when abroad in the work of William Morris and worked with Henry Richards to carry out favored Morris design features. The 11,000 square foot structure combined elements of the Queen Anne Style with American Colonial Revival, though the residence does not strictly conform to any defined style. "Old Farm is representative of transitional influences of architectural theory which were soon to be fully developed as the Shingle Style." (Reed, op. cit., figures 1 & 2) Ordinary laborers could be hired for a dollar a day, skilled laborers commanded two and a half to three dollars a day. Dorr states that his parents spent liberally on the work. When the costs for the home and its landscaping were tallied, seventy thousand dollars had been expended on the first house in Eden to be built for summer residence. Perhaps overstating the importance of Oldfarm, Dorr believes this project DORR1875 Page 12 of 20 initiated the Bar Harbor real estate boom when shoreline real estate quickly doubled in value and the era of expansive estate development continued well into the next century. Large open halls were constructed on the two main floors, harkening back to an appropriate spacious context that would facilitate Mary Dorr reputation as a celebrated hostess. While the main floor contained public areas heated by five fireplaces, Richards designed the house to easily afford direct access to all the main rooms. The eastern and northern side was sheltered by a piazza, ideal for outdoor gatherings as was the adjacent brick terrace. Opposite the parlor was a library with a spacious window through which Champlain Mountain was visible, tempting Dorr to lay aside his scholarly tomes and hike its heights from Bear Brook. A spacious kitchen, butler's pantry, servants' dining room, and two pantries completed the first floor. Besides the six master bedrooms, three master baths, two fireplaces and four servants' bedrooms (and one bath) on the second floor, the third floor contained a master bath and four master bedrooms. Nearly fifty years after its completion, The Bar Harbor Times described Dorr's spacious 21 by 25 foot third floor Sea Room. Its "great fireplace, huge window seat and charming expanse of small-paned, winging doored windows, [looked] out over landscape and seascape incomparable in loveliness with anything else about the house.' (April 11, 1928) Bookcases lined the room. Interior woodwork included paneled walls and coffered ceilings. One of the first rusticator residences built for winter occupancy, nearly two decades would pass before electric lighting, town water, and the telephone arrived; still later, the furnishings were enhanced with family possessions from the family residence on Boston's Commonwealth Avenue. A large brick piazza was attached to the first floor parlor, easily accommodating guests outside. The large sunny brick terrace faced southeast was accessible from the public areas on the first floor. Richards states that the scheduled completion date for Mrs. Dorr's house was 1879, the drawings having been completed in 1877-78, "Just after we were all settled in the Yellow House and before I had found my place in the mill." (Ninety Years On, 344) Oldfarm, however, was occupied first in 1880. Paths meandered throughout the estate and crossed an entrance road that led several hundred yards to the circular driveway in front of the new family residence. There may have been some delay in the completion of supportive outbuildings for laundry functions, servant quarters, and resident housing for the chauffeur. A large farmhouse known alternately as Storm Beach Cottage or Compass Harbor Cottage was completed a year earlier. Storm Beach Cottage stands to this day, serving as a residence for park staff. Dorr described it repeatedly as a simple farmhouse, though unlike Oldfarm, its chief interest to him "is that I helped with my own hands to build it." (Dorr to Demaray. July 26, 1941. ANPA. B. 3. f. 11) The cottage and the DesIsles House in Eden were the family residences until Oldfarm was ready for occupancy. No record remains of the involvement of Richards in the landscaping of the property or the design and construction of Storm Beach Cottage and other outbuildings. In a rare show of interest among the gentrified of that era in native Americans, Richards "took a new boat, on a new line, direct from Bangor, down the Penobscot to Bar Harbor" in order to superintend Oldfarm construction. On this boat trip he met " a half-breed Indian birch canoe builder in Lowelltown, Maine, [who] was providing the canoes [and] some were of almost perfect construction and finally-after much haggling- DORR1875 Page 13 of 20 bought the one you all know SO well for thirty dollars and two paddles thrown in. (Ninety Years On, 345-46) In 2006, the grandson of Henry Richards, generously donated this craft to the Abbe Museum at the urging of Maine State Historian Earl Shettleworth, an exceptional artifact of MDI native American culture. Marian Lawrence Peabody provides a local context when describing canoe parades ten years later, held at the Canoe Club on the bay side of Bar Island, far removed from the woeful Indian village where the athletic field now services the YMCA facility on the site of the former Acadia National Park office. [To be Young was Very Heaven, 25] ) Noting that Oldfarm resulted in other Mount Desert Island contracts, Richards says that "the one which meant most to me was the big house at Saul's Cliff [sic], with the cottage on the hill opposite and the farm buildings-all for Mrs. Charles Dorr, who looked SO like a witch that the cottage was known locally as the Witch House. Mrs. Dorr was a noted character in Boston, charming when talking intimately, but masterful, arbitrary, and dictatorial in social relations. She had been engaged to Uncle Henry Ward (brother of Grandmother Howe), who died young, and seemed to regard me as one of her family." (Ninety Years On, pg. 315) Further evidence of the depth of Richard's negativity toward Mary Dorr is Laura Richards description of her husband's "wicked" comment when he was "in the throes of building Mrs. Dorr's house." He remarked to Laura that "the best thing your uncle Henry ever did was to die." (Danny S. Smith. The Yellow House Papers. Gardiner, ME: D.D. Smith, 1991. Pg. 81) The implication being that his premature death spared Henry a life spent with Mary. Richards emphasizes that the work he did for Mrs. Dorr "opened doors to many delightful and some very difficult interchanges between us. I made a trip with her to Lenox, to plan alterations for her house there, and she took me on to Stockbridge" for a weekend with her brother, Samuel Gray Ward. Since Richards notes that Mrs. Ward was in her seventies at this time, the date for the Lenox visit is likely in the early 1890' S. (315) As the Dorr's were developing their Bar Harbor property, landscape architect Ernest Bowditch's first visit to Isle au Haut inspired him to solicit the involvement of Boston friends in the establishment on the island of the Point Lookout Club. Within a few years club members owned more than 3,000 acres. While Mr. Dorr had strong ties to the Bowditch family, we cannot determine whether he played a role in their decision shortly after his death to donate over half the island to Acadia National Park. The Concord Summer School of Philosophy opens in July to great fanfare, the realization of Bronson Alcott's vision of an adult educational institution based on the ideal of Plato's Academy. Its establishment brought into the Boston area two new emphases: Harris' Hegelianism and Jones' Platonism. [See Fisch, pt. 2]. Since 1871 Samuel Hopkins Emery, Jr. had been the leader of a Plato Club in Quincy, published on Plato in The Journal of Speculative Philosophy and in 1879 presided over the first session of the CSSP. Early speakers included R.W. Emerson, Julia Ward Howe, William James, and Elizabeth Peabody; the school was a success, annually drawing hundreds of participants from throughout the country, more than half of them women! William Torrey Harris moved from St. Louis to Concord in 1880 (residing there until 1889) G.H. Palmer offered Harvard courses on Hegel's logic and history of philosophy. James wrote (12/25/80) that the Palmer-Emery duo "is making a very able and active propaganda here; and part of my fun this winter is trying to scotch it.' [Fisch, pt. 3, p. 21] With Alcott's death in 1888, the DORR1875 Page 14 of 20 School closed. ( At roughly the same time that the Concord School was being established, Harvard faculty members William James, Charles and James Putnam, and Henry Bowditch purchased the Boarding House in Keene Valley (NY) and set plans in place to establish the celebrated Adirondack compound known as Putnam Camp. [See Elizabeth Putnam McIver's recollections in Early Days at Putnam Camp. 1941]. For the next three decades the summer camp would be used every summer for leisurely interaction with a select group of acquaintances and friends-including Edward Emerson, Josiah Royce, and Dr. Richard Hodgson--under the most informal of conditions. Quite unlike the Concord School of Philosophy, the discussions that permeated the Yard in Cambridge were never far removed. President Eliot certainly had an ear for these diverse interests in matters philosophical. It was he who sponsored Emerson's lectures in 1870. He too was aware of the Metaphysical Club and the establishment in 1878 of the Harvard Philosophical Club, primarily for undergraduates. ) In the spring of 1879, to compensate for the abandonment of the College metaphysics requirement, this Club announced a series of lectures by Davidson, Howison, Peirce, and Fiske. [Fische, "Philosophical Clubs," pt. 2, p. 22]; the student discussed strategies for expanding the philosophy curriculum.) Eliot was keenly aware of the implications when James shifted his teaching to matters philosophical in 1879. Much later, Mrs. Dorr contributes to the development of the discipline when she suggests in 1889 to a then largely unknown Harvard philosopher that he deliver a series of public lectures on philosophical themes. The Ward-Emerson family relationship remains on a solid foundation as is evident from Ellen Emerson's visit to Ward's new Lenox home. She writes to her mother of the visit and describes the wonders of the house. It is in a letter to her sister that she reports her walks and talks with Ward." (Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ed. E. Tilton. Vol. 7, p. 37) 1880 Among the scattered autobiographical fragments in The Dorr Papers is an entry marked "Illness in 1880." It describes Dorr's "long illness with a complete break-down of nervous vigor and energy." Family physicians were unable to diagnose the affliction and it "looked as if I might not live." The chance discovery of a book on the power of suggestion led Dorr to consider a variety of options. Eventually he was cured after a few weeks by a form of "mental healing," which Dorr later credited to workings of "the unconscious mind." Though his motivation is nowhere explained, Dorr becomes one of many directors of the recently established Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children located near his Commonwealth Avenue home on Mount Vernon Street. At twenty-seven years of age he served as Treasurer but the following year the position passed to Charles F. Atkinson who held it for 30 years. (Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Fiftieth Anniversary Annual Report. 1928. Boston: MSPCC, 1928) Charles Hazen Dorr's chance train encounter with Prime Minister Gladstone. George Dorr's derogatory ethnic slur about Disraeli. Comments on daily subscription to The London Times (from at least 1880-1893) Dorr praises LT, Boston Globe, and NYT as "better than books" even as they are "not for the multitude." Dorr Papers two page characterization of "one of the epoch-making events in the whole history of mankind"-discovery of the cause of malaria. DORR1875 Page 15 of 20 Refers back to "malaria hung like a curse, dreaded and mysterious, over the Roman campagna and all southern Italy in those days," referring the risks of travel (abroad) in earlier years. The Eliots planned to spend the Summer in Europe. With his father's encouragement, Harvard sophomore Charles Eliot suggests to a dozen of his undergraduate peers that they spend summer on MDI, carrying on field research into the natural history of the Island, documenting the botanical, geographical, and historical features of MDI. A camp was established on July 5th on the east side of Somes Sound opposite Flying Mountain where research was carried out through August 25th A brief visit by Harvard Professor William M. Davis resulted in a scientific publications that still has standing to this day ("An Outline of the Geology of Mount Desert", in a publication by a fellow researcher, Edward L. Rand. Flora of Mount Desert. Cambridge: John Wilson and Son, 1894) Named the Champlain Society, the researchers continued their discussions after returning to Cambridge and Charles Eliot carefully planned the activities for the following Summer. "He found that he could plan and perform executive work, exercise authority over a considerable party and do business and give orders in a manner which satisfied the interested parties." (Charles Eliot Landscape Architect. Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1998, p. 26) Charles Eliot's meticulously detailed notes have survived, offering the reader a documented account of camp management, including scientific progress in diverse fields and an accounting of expenses and mundane camp assignments. (The Mount Desert Island Historical Society Archives contain these original logbooks) Champlain Society records contain what is likely the earliest surviving documents advocating the protection of local landscape though formal action was delayed for two decades. (See Margie Coffin Brown. Pathmakers: Cultural Landscape Report for the Historic Hiking Trail System of Mount Desert Island. Boston: Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation & National Park Service, 2007. Pp. 32-35) On Charles W. Eliot's return from Europe, his son Charles advised him that no better location for a summer home could be found than several sites between Somes's Sound and Seal Harbor. That Summer the Dorr's first occupy Oldfarm, though it appears that the landscaping and plantings would be delayed. Mary and Charles showed off their expensive residence to family members and their closest friends. (Seventy thousand dollars was spent on the residence before additional costs for outbuildings and landscaping were incurred) The Dorr Guest Book gives us a partial listing of those who were entertained by their hosts and the signatures of Charles and Elizabeth Rackemann, Ernst and Ruth Schoenberg, Margaret Terry, and nephew Ward Thoron fill the first pages. If Oldfarm was fully occupied, if the personalities of some guests clashed, or a guest favored solitude then Storm Beach cottage was readied for them. Elizabeth Delafield (Mrs. Lewis L. Delafield) who nursed William Dorr prior to his death with "heroism and devotion" occupied this modest residence with her children. Over the next two decades the names of hundreds of guests-many who will staying several days or weeks-will enter their signatures and remembrances into this record of hospitality. The United States Census documents four Old Farm inhabitants: Charles, Mary, George, and a 35-year old servant and housekeeper, Mary O'Brien. Two curious entries concern the occupation of father and son. Charles is listed as a farmer, though gentleman farmer better reflects his role on DORR1875 Page 16 of 20 the estate. Four years after graduating from Harvard, George is listed as a student. In July Theodore Roosevelt visits MDI following his graduation from Harvard. Although the college physician-Dudley A. Saegeant-had diagnosed Theodore's ailing heart and recommended an occupation free of violent excursion, the future Progressive President engaged in strenuous exercising, tennis, hiking, biking, and swimming while on the island. (Paul R. Cutright. Theodore Roosevelt: the Making of a Conservationist, 131-32). In late July the Jones family (including young Edith) visit Bar Harbor, likely for the first time. They rented one of the many cottages and "mealed" at the Hotel des Isles. According to R.W.B. Lewis (Edith Wharton: A Biography) it was common for the young to experience "canoeing and rowing on the enchanted mountain lakes [and] fishing and bicycling and looking for odd-shaped rocks along the shore" (79) Much less formal than Newport Edith found the environment and conversation invigorating and in this small enclave it is unlikely that she missed the opportunity to interact with George Bucknam Dorr. Following their return from Europe in late September, The elder Eliots are advised by their son Charles to examine carefully the coast from Somes Sound to Seal Harbor for a site for their home. That site was found in Northeast Harbor and the house was built in the Spring and Summer of the following year. 1881 A New York Times article on "Berkshire in the Winter," (2.7.1881) describes many of the homes and estates of past and present landowners, including land owned by "the Brothers Dorr, SO well known for many years in the social circles of New York, and whose then bachelor domicile in Washington-place almost forty years ago, was noted for its agreeably fashionable reunions. They [James Augustus Dorr (d. 1869) and Francis Fiske Dorr (d. 1871) ] are all gone, and this pleasant memorial of their latter life-work with its pictures of landscape in frames of vines and foliage, is now possessed and prized as it ought to be by their surviving sisters It is a place that every sojourner in Lenox visits at least once." Brief mention is given to Samuel G. Ward who "claims to be its [Lenox] first discoverer, and I believe he was the first to lead the way in its foreign occupation. He built what is now the Ballard House, years ago, and then tried various places, building at Newport, but finally bringing up at Lenox again as the ne plus ultra of Summer homes." In Lenox Ward's "aggregate of several houses in one forms the most picturesque feature of the Stockbridge Bowl." " March 3: Death of John Chipman Gray, Mary Gray Ward Dorr's uncle. The level of entertaining at Old Farm escalates. Ben Hadley later will characterize Old Farm as "a place of great hospitality. Beneath its roof-tree have slept the great and near great of America and Europe... a veritable cross section of contemporary professional, political and social life of a day now gone (Chron'74; see also Dorr Papers 32,f16. The most notable visitor to sign the guestbook is President Chester Arthur. Not too distant, the construction of the Charles W. Eliot summer house in NEH is undertaken on 120 acres of land about 100 yards from the shore and 50 feet above the water where they was a commanding view of the channel between the mainland and the so-called Western Way (Henry James, DORR1875 Page 17 of 20 Charles W. Eliot, v.1, 344). Asticou Foreside was occupied the greater part of every summer, except one, until President Eliot's death there in 1926. [See also G. Stebbins ("Random Notes") for context and description of the buckboard ascent up Green Mountain on horse road] Josiah Royce says that his meaningful "first acquaintance with James began one summer in 1877" where he went against advise of friends and 'poured out his soul' to James about his love of philosophy. (Letters of William James, V. 1, p. 200) Even with his doctorate secured the following year, the institutional opportunities would not arise until 1882-83 when James was looking for an opportunity to appoint him to Harvard position and thereafter they saw one another constantly. George Herbert Palmer and William James lobby President Eliot to approve Royce's hire in order to cover James's 1882-1883 sabbatical year abroad. Eliot approved the temporary position and "Royce resigned a permanent position and brought his family across the continent. When in later life I asked him how he had dared, he said that risks of this sort were inevitable for one who would go on to power and were safer the earlier in life they came." (George Herbert Palmer, "Josiah Royce," Harvard Graduates' Magazine XXV (1916) 167) Royce exceeded Palmer's expectations and was offered an extension when Palmer took his sabbatical 1883-1884, finally convincing the university administration that Royce could not be spared for "he was exacting with men of capacity, impatient with pretenders, and scornful in exposing careless ignorance." (Ibid., p. 168) In his third year Royce became an Instructor and the following year was promoted to Assistant Professor. Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association formed, incorporated in March 1891. One of the first functions was to take care of the Shore Path. 1882 Francis Hector Clerque and his colleagues announce their intent to build a railroad from Bar Harbor to Green Mountain, including the erection of a large summit hotel. Ralph Waldo Emerson's funeral held in Concord April 30th A list of distinguished persons present included an impressive academic community: President Eliot, Mrs. J.T. Fields, Professors James and Charles Putnam, Henry James, Mrs. Agassiz, Dr. Asa Gray, William Torrey Harris, and Sarah Whitman. (William Torrey Harris. Concord School of Philosophy Scrapbooks. Folder 4. Concord Free Public Library. Special Collections) The Concord School of Philosophy devotes a full day of it summer 1882 sessions to special exercises of the School in commemoration of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Among the ten speakers were Julia Ward Howe and Edna D. Cheney who characterized Concord's most esteemed resident. It was Frank Sanborn, however, who would most clearly relate Emerson to both the noble purposes of this School and the aims of the American enlightenment: "to cultivate in the men and women of our time, a serious contemplation of the most serious and lofty questions which confront us in the morning or the evening of our days-and to approach the problems, not doubtfully and with timid or malevolent apprehension, but with loving and brave confidence-in this purpose [Emerson] was not only united with us, but he had been for half a century our leader." (A. Bronson Alcott. Concord Lectures on Philosophy, 1883) "In the early 1880's" the Dorr family wishing to break in on the long Boston winter, journeyed to Florida; St. Augustine was their goal since the railroad went no further. It is GBD's first visit but this 3rd visit was most likely the last for the two elder Dorrs. (DorrPapers 1,13). DORR1875 Page 18 of 20 Contextually, during this decade Boston's population increased dramatically as waves of Irish and Italian immigrants arrived. For a fuller account of the decade see Henry James wry serialized novel, The Bostonians. Charles Eliot graduated from Harvard College, having decided to become a landscape architect. He entered Harvard's Bussey Institution in preparation for a career. His father continued reforming Harvard "aiming at nothing less than the freeing of American college education from the shackles of English tradition," and reflected in every annual report from 1879 to 1884. (C.H. Patton & W.T. Field, Eight O'Clock Chapel, p. 68) Frederick Rhinelander Jones purchases the original two acre Bar Harbor plot that will later be expanded to six acres lying between Hancock Street and Atlantic Avenue. Following preliminary discussions in Cambridge in 1881, the English Society for Psychical Research is established. First Bar Harbor celebration of the 4th of July. 1883 George Cabot Ward writes from Wall Street on behalf of his brother Samuel G. Ward to the Superintendent of Mount Auburn Cemetery requesting the addition of perpetual care with plants for the Ward lot (#235), following up on a similar request (May 1882) from SGW to have the property properly sodded and a fence removed. (Mount Auburn Cemetery Historical Collections, #235). Architect Robert Swain Peabody introduces his nephew Charles Eliot to Frederick Law Olmsted, who invited Eliot to apprentice with him and for two years would work on sections of Emerald Necklace, Arnold Arboretum, etc. Green Mountain Railway Company incorporated after negotiating the necessary leases with Daniel Brewer and others for 200 acres atop Green Mountain and a 96-foot wide strip from base to summit. Construction is completed and the line opens June 23rd GMR ridership declined after 1886 and by 1890 it ceased operation. Summit House will close in 1895 and be dismantled and by the end of 1896 most traces of the GMR are removed. In July Edith Wharton visits Bar Harbor and has her first encounter with Walter Van Rensselaer Berry, a self-described penniless lawyer three years her senior. The expressed their affection for one another by meeting at the magnificent five hundred room Rodick Hotel "Fish Pond" prior to bicycling, hiking, and canoeing together (R.W.B. Lewis, Edith Wharton: a Biography, 49). The Dorr's had progressed with their Oldfarm planting scheme. The incidental remarks that Dorr has left us about the landscape development of the estate provide no explanation for the delayed. Given the varied botanical interests of Charles, Mary, and George, each likely had a role in planning the gardens, though individual assignments resulted in the construction of steps leading down to a broad lawn before the cliffs, selection of appropriate flora to bring the altered landscape to the property structures, and final selection of non-native species throughout the lush woodland acreage. Given Mary's attachment to a selection of flowers she had propagated at their Jamaica Plain home, DORR1875 Page 19 of 20 responsibility for the varied flower gardens at Oldfarm would have been uncontested. Reef Point built by Beatrix Jones' parents, one of 22 buildings designed in BH by Rotch & Tilden. Not until 1917, shortly after Beatrix's marriage to Max Farrand, would Mary Cadwalader Jones sign over Reef Point to her daughter, enabling the Farrand's to begin "building a personal institution that married their scholarly and horticultural interests" (B. Farrand, The Bulletins of Reef Point Gardens, xiv) . Here they would promote ecological objectives that today are deemed intrinsic to appropriate land use. DORR1875 Page 20 of 20 "The Long Road to Mount Desert" EPP REVINEDITE George Dorr had secured his degree from Harvard and now had every reason to look toward a future of intellectual fulfillment. Four years of immersion in the culture of Harvard had equipped him with a keen sense of a life in which the pleasures of the mind were yoked with the companionship of like-minded souls. It was in this frame of mind that Dorr set out with his father Charles in the summer? of 1875 on what would become a nearly four-year odyssey around the British Isles and continental Europe. Charles' mission was to locate specific sites and pay a kind of homage to his Puritan forbearers. Father and son commenced their searches in Dorset and Dorchester, and were eventually led to Devonshire-the site of Edward Dorr's embarkation to America. As George and his father sailed the rivers and lakes made famous in English verse and prose, the history of the region and the genealogy of their own family were continually alive to them. Before leaving the U.S., George had certainly formed a picture of what the experience would yield. But the reality of casually meandering through the lush vales or of taking measured even paces through the dank air of ruined abbeys struck him with intensity for which he was not fully prepared. Standing amidst the long aisles of the great Gothic cathedrals or the outdoor serenity of those Roman villas scattered about the countryside produced feelings and impressions for which the young Harvard graduate had only intellectual constructs to use as his points of reference. Ever the scholar, even the experience of inanimate noble architecture and other cultural artifacts made him turn again and again to works of literature for further comparisons. The Dorrs walked the countryside with books in hand. George later acknowledges that what was learned led "directly on our return to the building of our old home at Mt. Desert and the establishment of the first true pleasure garden on MDI for without this interest the work I later did at home would never have been done nor Acadia National Park come into existence." 2 His less formally educated father, by contrast, concentrated his energies on the search for specific family landmarks and SO was less over-awed by the thought of historical generalities. Wanderjahr experiences were not uncommon for men of George Dorr's generation. Sometimes travel was a corrective for health issues that arose prior to graduation. But for Dorr travel that had begun with his brother during his early years of college was now revised to include his parents-- who had "long postponed" the satisfaction of their desires to travel abroad. Dorr seemed committed to the communal nature of travel: "One must travel with others, and with others thoroughly sympathetic with ourselves to get the full value and enjoyment out of travel. One must share in order to appreciate. He concluded this thought with the perplexing statement that `...the people one can share with are happily few. " (Dorr Papers. B. 1. f. 2) But there was a very real danger that the wanderjahr phenomenon would serve as an effective, albeit face-saving career avoidance strategy. Another Harvard graduate characterized as such when he addressed the Harvard Union in 1907. Just a few classes behind Dorr, Theodore Roosevelt feared that Harvard and other colleges graduated men "too fastidious, too sensitive, to take part in the hurly-burly of the actual work of the world [and stood] aloof from the broad sweep of our national life in a curiously impotent spirit of fancied superiority." (T. Roosevelt. The Works of Theodore Roosevelt [New York: 1926], XIII, 563, 565) . There was no shortage of alums who exemplified during the Victorian era what became known as "Harvard indifference." Henry Adams was the "paradigm of the Harvard graduate who, because of his aristocratic ideals and vocational incompetence, was relegated to an inactive, ineffectual role in post-Civil War America. " (Joan D. Hedrick, "Harvard Indifference," New England Quarterly 49, #3 [1976] 358) It is possible that George Dorr was engaged in a none-too- subtle gambit of "avoiding" decisions regarding a choice of career and of marriage. Yet, Dorr's Memoirs provide no evidence that unrealized occupational expectations were discussed within the family during the wanderjahr or in the years of foreign travel that followed. Were Charles and Mary Dorr tolerantly waiting during those years for young 3 George to find himself? Were their travels designed to expose their sons to options unavailable within the Harvard Yard? George Dorr, who would establish the Mount Desert Nurseries in 1896-with no preceding background or experience for such a venture-had left Harvard behind-almost as though he had decided to choose a new major. But he had not left behind the mindset of an undergraduate; a young man needing to explore the eclectic realms of the mind and sample a wide menu of intellectual diversions. Back home, America was in the throes of a national diversion of its own. The country was preparing to celebrate its Centennial, even as the Dorr family continued its peripatetic assault on Europe. Richard Henry Dana had received his Harvard law degree in 1875 and spent the following fifteen months touring Europe. In his Hospitable England in the Seventies, he recorded that he "dined with Mrs. Dorr, of Boston, 'very informally' as by invitation. Miss Trollope, a niece of Anthony Trollope, and Baroness Hoffman, nee Lily Ward, were the guests. " (p. 241) The pleasures of months of socializing came to an abrupt end when the Charles and Mary Dorr received news in England that their son, William, was seriously ill. Charles immediately boarded a ship for America yet received communication mid-voyage that his son had died on May 15th William was interred in Lot #1151 at Mount Auburn Cemetery on May 18, 1876 surrounded by family friends and his father. Mary and George Dorr grieved this loss in the U.K. where they had accepted an invitation to be house guests from artist George Howard (Earl of Carlisle) and his wife Rosalind Frances [Stanley] Howard, a philanthropist known for as the 'Radical Countess' for her lifelong advocacy of Women's Rights. Lady Howard was seen by some as arrogant and authoritarian; qualities that would later be attributed to Mary Dorr herself. The Dorrs were encouraged to extend their stay for many months. As a diversion from their family loss, the Howard's likely took them to see the gardens and woods of Castle Howard. Mary Dorr's sorrow was somewhat alleviated by her 4 efforts to make contact with the spirit of her son William through a new spiritualistic technique called automatic writing. More importantly, her emotional distress was tempered by her considerable interest in the profession of the Earl of Carlisle. George Howard was not simply a member of one of the great Whig aristocratic families but a talented Pre-Raphaelite artist, a contemporary movement in the arts that greatly appealed to Mary who met at their home leading artists like Burne-Jones and Frederick Layton. The Howard's eldest daughter Mary Howard would later be married by the formidable translator Benjamin Jowett to classicist Gilbert Murray in the Castle Howard chapel on 30 November 1889. In his unfinished autobiography, Oxford Professor Murray recalls his first encounter with Rosalind Howard in 1884 where "there was cricket with the villages around, and lawn tennis, and bathing and walks; but, above all, there was an extraordinary atmosphere of lively discussion. It was sometimes based on the news or parliamentary debates [and] sometimes it was ideas and the purposes of life. She was impetuous and formidable, but we all felt free to say what we thought. One may surmise that nearly a decade earlier, George Dorr may well have been exposed to comparable experiences at that celebrated estate, with Rosalind Howard buoying his spirit as Murray recounts "the inspiration she brought into the lives of us eager young men. It was fun. of course it was fun. But there was no luxury. It was breakfast at eight and no nonsense. There was no alcohol. Smoking was not forbidden, but hardly anyone smoked. But the horizon was somehow larger than we had ever known before. " George Dorr had thus found another hospitable, if temporary, venue for extending the range of his "undergraduate years." Yet, he could not allow himself to revel in that completely carefree state of mind that may have been his not long before. Just two years after his Harvard graduation-and following the death of his brother William-twenty-three year old Dorr is the sole survivor of the next generation. [NOTE: I have omitted the information about the Lenox estate but reference to it should be inserted here-KC-W] That he could secure an estate following the death of his aunts had to influence his thinking about his future, presuming that he was privy to this information. 5 But George Dorr's continuing education in Europe was not confined to books and ideas. At an ancient volcanic lake east of Rome in the Alban Hills, Dorr attended a picnic that included Mrs. Craig Wadsworth, Linda Peters by her maiden name. This was there first meeting though he grew to know her better throughout the winter. She recounted to Dorr what it had been like to have men worshipping her for she was "one of those rare beings who seemed afterwards to have disappeared completely from our world, a beautiful woman, beautiful like some Greek goddess of the olden times Women do not seem to stand out in these days as some did then, and the world is the poorer as I think for it. For it means the loss of an ideal, the loss of something that does not enter into the world of fact " (Dorr Papers. B. 1. f.1) In ancient times the lake where they met was known at "Diana's Mirror" because the reflection of the moon on what later became known as Lake Nemi (the sacred wood) could be viewed from the adjacent cult temple that was dedicated to the Greek goddess Diana. Someone SO well versed in ancient literature as Dorr would have known that since the 6 th century B.C. the Italian goddess Diana was identified with the Greek deity Artemis, sister of Apollo. She was a goddess of women with specific functions associated with children and childbirth. In a concluding paragraph Dorr mentioned in passing "another woman, less beautiful" whom he met at the same picnic, the unnamed daughter of an old Southern family. Nothing in Dorr's account suggested that either woman had- or intended to have-a romantic relationship with him. Indeed, Dorr was quite overwhelmed by the beauty of Linda Peters and handled his feelings by situating her with the historic associations of an earlier time and a religiously revered place. Dorr's life-long bachelor status cannot have resulted from this single episode of unrequited love. Dorr later recalled that the death of his brother "unexpectedly prolonged" their stay in Europe. Galvanized by the untimely death of William Ward Dorr, the three Dorrs pursued what the Continent had to offer. Charles was "what Chaucer would have called , a verra parfait' gentleman, with constant thought for others, broad human interests, and no thought for self, though full of the capacity for 6 great enjoyment in all things beautiful and good. We lived together constantly as we traveled on, in the humours of the moment, in our appreciation and thoughts our travels roused. " Dorr concluded with the admission that such the independence cultivated by each of the three Dorr family members carried a price. "We all three had great reserves, even from each other, and lived our own lives out, not readily opening ourselves out to others. " This privacy statement-"not readily opening ourselves out to others--is crucial to understanding the silence of each family member on their emotional responses to issues of small consequence as well as the monumental. By 1878, it was clearly time for the family to return to its native land. The Dorr Papers state that the Bar Harbor house "planned and looked forward to for SO long we started to build at once on our return from Europe in the autumn of 1878, after a stay unexpectedly long. " When they returned to Eden (Bar Harbor) that fall, the community was "just recovering from the effects of a typhoid epidemic two years before." In 1879 work began in earnest, applying some William Morris stylistic features that Mary Dorr favored during her stay in England. The Dorrs earlier selected a site on the broad, flat top of an old sea-cliff, facing north to the Goldsboro Hills across the long reach of Upper Frenchman Bay. None could know what a telling role their home and its landscaped property would have on the founding and establishment of Acadia National Park. Of the architects who submitted plans, the Dorr family selected the husband of one of the daughters of Julia Ward Howe, Henry Richards. Following several years of modest success as a Boston architect, including editorial and administrative architectural roles, Henry Richards, his wife Laura, and three children moved in 1876 from Boston to Gardiner, Maine, responding to request from his brother Frank that Henry join him and brother John in the management of the family paper mill. Richards began working with the Dorr's in the design of a granite structure "of a warm reddish hue from the nearby Gorge and above that was covered with shingles hewn out of 7 California Redwood. " Dorr described Richards as "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. Ordinary laborers could be hired for a dollar a day; skilled laborers commanded two and a half to three dollars a day. Dorr knew that his parents spent liberally on the work. When the costs for the home and its landscaping were tallied, seventy thousand dollars had been expended on the first house in Eden to be built for summer residence. Perhaps overstating the importance of Old Farm, Dorr believed this project started what was long referred to as the Bar Harbor real estate boom when shoreline real estate quickly doubled in value and the era of expansive estate development continued well into the next century. Dorr returned to America with a "mind full of questions and "bent toward the study of philosophy.' " Other fragments report his interest in physical science, studying the behavior of electrical currents under Professor Trowbridge in Harvard's Jefferson Laboratory; yet the Harvard Archives provide no documentation to this effect. Still more puzzling is an entry in the Harvard Class of 1874 Eleventh Class Report from 1924. The Dorr biographical entry noted that he returned from Europe in 1878 and entered the Harvard Graduate School, "and for three years read philosophy, history, and general literature.' He may indeed have devoted himself to these studies, enlisting private instruction of an informal nature. Again, there is no institutional record of formal enrollment at this time. In Maine, the construction of Old Farm progressed. Their new home was "built out of granite split out from tumbled boulders in the gorge, weathered and warm-toned. But the memoirs of Henry Richards offer another perspective. Noting other Mount Desert Island contracts, Richards says that "the one which meant most to me was the big house at Saul's Cliff [sic], with the cottage on the hill opposite and the farm buildings-all for Mrs. Charles Dorr, who looked SO like a witch that the cottage was known locally as the Witch House. Mrs. Dorr was a noted character in Boston, charming when talking intimately, but masterful, arbitrary, and dictatorial in social relations. 8 George Dorr's quest for additional learning and stimulation progressed as well. There were opportunities for Dorr's intellectual engagement both in Boston and beyond. The Concord Summer School of Philosophy opened in July to great fanfare; the realization of Bronson Alcott's vision of an adult educational institution based on the ideal of Plato's Academy. Its establishment brought into the Boston area two new emphases: Harris' Hegelianism and Jones' Platonism. Early speakers included R.W. Emerson, Julia Ward Howe, William James, and Elizabeth Peabody; the school was a success, annually drawing hundreds of participants from throughout the country, more than half of them women! William Torrey Harris moved from St. Louis to Concord in 1880 (residing there until 1889) ; G.H. Palmer offered Harvard courses on Hegel's logic and history of philosophy. James wrote (12/25/80) that the Palmer-Emery duo "is making a very able and active propaganda here; and part of my fun this winter is trying to scotch it." With Alcott's death in 1888, the School closed. ( At roughly the same time that the Concord School was being established, Harvard faculty members William James, Charles and James Putnam, and Henry Bowditch purchased the Boarding House in Keene Valley (NY) and set plans in place to establish the celebrated Adirondack compound known as Putnam Camp. [See Elizabeth Putnam McIver's recollections in Early Days at Putnam Camp. 1941] For the next three decades the summer camp would be used every summer for leisurely interaction with a select group of acquaintances and friends-including Edward Emerson, Josiah Royce, and Dr. Richard Hodgson--under the most informal of conditions. Quite unlike the Concord School of Philosophy, the discussions that permeated the Yard in Cambridge were never far removed. Rev. date 8/29/2008 GEORGE BUCKNAM DORR Ronald H. Epp, Ph.D BEGIN 1884 (August 28, 2008) 1884 Harvard Class Report [4th, 1884] contains one sentence on GBD, remarking that he has continued to spend "most of the time in Europe, where he is now; has not been active in business." This information came second-hand since it is also mentioned that there has been no report from him since graduation. President Eliot writes to William James (5.20) that "Your coming to the University and your career as a teacher and writer have been among my most solid satisfactions" (H. James, Charles W. Eliot, V. 2, 87). 1885 May 11th: New York State Legislature creates the Forest Preserve, forerunner of the Adirondack Park. Franklin B. Hough had won his fight to force the government to take care of the NY forests. [E. Williams, "Father of the Forest Preserve," Adirondack Life 37, #2 (April 2006) 76-9]. Charles Hazen Dorr's sister, Susan Elizabeth Dorr, writes (5.31) to Mount Auburn Cemetery questioning the suitability of recent plantings made at her expense. Mount Auburn Cemetery Historical Collect ions, #1151. August: Old Farm Guest Book documents visit by Julia Ward Howe who penned a poem in guestbook. By the middle 1880's the Dorr property landscape reflected several years of development. Dorr describes this collection of gardens as the first "true pleasure garden on Mt. Desert Island and, so far as I know, on the whole Acadian shore from the Penobscot east.' (Dorr Papers. B2.f.3) Unfortunately, no detailed property descriptions survive from this era. We know, however, that Great Meadow swamp grasses caught fire at this time and traveling north swept over Strawberry Hill, threatening shore homes, including Old Farm at a time when the Dorr's are wintering on the Riviera. Firefighters fought the fire with water drawn from a cistern that George and Charles had recently dug. (The nine foot cistern hole provided the Dorr's with museum quality shells of now extinct sea life). In the academic year 1885-86 Royce's reputation as a conversationalist "made him a darling of the Bostonian grandes dames chief among these ladies was Mrs. Charles Dorr Molly, as Mrs. Dorr was known to her friends, is well described by Jack Chapman [see J. Glendenning, Royce, 144] for extensive characterization. Wm. James sets up a psycho-physics laboratory and devotes time to large scale hypnotism experiments. Begins relationship with Mrs. William J. Piper. 1886 James writes on New Year's Day to Carl Stumpf asking whether he is familiar with the London Society for Psychical Research. A similar DORR1884 Page 1 of 22 society had been founded in America within the last year, James being the chief instigator [G. Allen, Wm. James, 281-2]. James writes an account of séances with Mrs. Piper published in the first volume of the Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research [G. Allen, p. 282-3]. Barrett Wendell, friend to Dorr and James, recalls in a 1919 letter that he "dabbled in it thirty years ago-being able to write 'automatically. The paper on the Salem Witches in my Stelligeri tells why I dropped it In general, I have thought occult experiment dangerous to critical intelligence and to strict sense of truth; both William James and Richard Hodgson-pretty intimate friends-unwittingly went, as I saw them, a bit to pieces. So far as I remember, only one friend whom I have known well bore the full moral test of this exploration without harm and on the whole with benefit. This was old Mrs. Dorr, George's mother, a woman of such remarkable quality than I have no better name for it than genius. With her the magic seemed white; elsewhere I have found it at best grayish..." DeWolfe Howe. Barrett Wendell and his Letters, 310.) The Oakwood estate of Samuel Gray Ward in Lenox was featured in an important essay on "American Country Dwellings" written by Mariana G. van Rensselaer which appeared in the influential The Century Magazine. (The Century Magazine 32, #1 (1888) 1-20) Recent interpreters have remarked that its design made this 200-foot-long house look "homey and welcoming," despite its rambling size. (C. Gilder & R.J. Jackson Jr. Houses of the Berkshires 1870-1930. New York: Aganthus, 2006. Pg.47) But it was not only the Ward family that focused attention on Lenox this year. As a consequence of provisions made by the Highlawn owners, George B. Dorr initiated this Spring a substantial remodeling of the Dorr property in the Shingle Style. "The sweeping gambrel roofs, asymmetrical fenestration, and inset upper floor porches were all part of the remodeling by the Clifford Company rendering it 'virtually a new house' by the middle of the summer." (C. Gilder. "Highlawn," quoting The Valley Gleaner, May 18, 1996, July 28, 1886 and referring to the well-known E.A. Morley "Highlawn" photograph reproduced in his Lenox, 1886) George contracted with the Clifford Company for the renovation to conform to the architectural style they had chosen years earlier when Henry Richards designed Old Farm. Highlawn did not attract the Dorrs as did Old Farm and over the next decade they appear to have visited Lenox irregularly. During that time the property was rented, frequently to families who were exploring local real estate options. (Gilder, op. cit., p. 4, identifies families that rented the property) Meanwhile back in Boston, the novelist Henry James publishes his highly critical but masterful portrait of American life, The Bostonians. Many readers of the day did not appreciate the insightful characterizations and balked at his descriptions of everything from street scenes, Boston residences, and the personalities who were dedicated to diverse reform movements. The renaissance of American letters is fast fading as the industrial age looms ever larger in the thought and actions of men and women of every social class. James contemporaries may have lacked the insight to admit what Irving Howe points out in his introduction to the novel's Modern Library edition: "Not one of the people in The Bostonians has a secure sense of what his culture expects from him All of them are displaced persons, floating vaguely in the large social spaces of America." (New York: Random House, 1956, xvi) One would be hard pressed to argue against the claim that George B. Dorr at 32 years of age fits DORR1884 Page 2 of 22 this characterization--the possible exception being that SO much of his life since his brother's death a decade earlier had been spent abroad. Marian Lawrence Peabody (1875- the daughter of Reverend William Lawrence, offers a colorful portrait of her childhood in Bar Harbor beginning in 1886 when the first rented a Bar Harbor cottage for the summer even though her father had been visiting with his friend George Minot since their Harvard freshman year, the Minots being one of the first to acquire a summer cottage on the shore in an open space called the Field (the parking area adjacent to the Bar Harbor Inn) Following this first visit, the Lawrence came to the house they built on Schoolhouse Hill at the head of Mt. Desert Street almost every summer "for the rest of our parents' lives. (To Be Young Was Very Heaven, 20) Charles Eliot, pioneering landscape architect, sets up a landscape practice on Park Street, Boston, quickly accepted as a partner in the Frederick Law Olmsted firm. The Dorr's spend late Spring and the summer on Mount Desert, sending the first of what will be annual invitations to the William James family to be their guests at Old Farm. William writes on August 8th that in 36 hours we start for MDI for a weeks visit to Mrs. Dorr "who has got back from 5 years in Europe, brown and thin, SO far as appears, having renounced many of her dignified peculiarities" [Corr VI). This is apparently the earliest surviving mention of the Dorr's by a member of the James family. He later writes to Henry James (8.24) following return from 12 day visit with the Dorr's during which time he spent 8 days with "loathsome fever attacks." A year later he will recall this site with longing for "that wondrous sunrise view of the Porcupines out of my sickroom window.' (Harvard University. Houghton. Correspondence of William James. III. 118. 7.11.1887) Presently, Mary Dorr is described "as restless and imperious as ever, but a woman of first rate conversation, and I believe of fundamentally warm heart. Whereas " George Dorr seems to have been completely restored to health by the 'mind cure. ! He isn't a bad fellow at all." (Corr II). Their final visit to Old Farm takes place two decades later in late August 1907. (Dorr Guest Book) 1887 Boston cleric Phillips Brooks (1/26, 3/3, 7/30, and 12/27) responds to Mrs. Dorr regarding invitations social invitations. Temple University Libraries secured these documents and a likely final note to Mrs. Dorr on January 31, 1--just two years before the January 1893 deaths of the Reverend and her husband Charles Dorr. Mr. & Mrs. Eliot went abroad before the spring of 1887 and remained eight months, first visiting Egypt and the Nile before turning northward to spend summer months about Europe. This is the only summer when he is not residing at Northeast Harbor. On May 4th the Dorr family learned of the very peaceful death Dorr's maternal uncle, George Cabot Ward (1824-1887), the youngest of his mother's two surviving brothers. Following the Episcopal ceremony at the Church of the Holy Communion in New York City, (NYT May 7, 1887) his body was interred May 7th in Mount Auburn Cemetery beside other Ward family members (Lot 235), with arrangements made by A. Augustus Low, his son- in-law; it is clear that Charles, Mary, and George were in attendance. (Mount Auburn Cemetery Historical Collections, #235). DORR1884 Page 3 of 22 Like his elder brother Sam, George Cabot Ward studied at Heidelberg and sailed around the world following his Harvard graduation yet before the founding of the New York City firm of Ward, Campbell & Co. In 1867 he partnered with Samuel Gray Ward-under firm name of S.G. & G.C. Ward--as American agents for Baring Agency until January 1885 when they withdrew from this exceptionally long business relationship with the Barings. Age and the strain of international business had taken their toll on the two surviving Ward brothers. As the summer of 1887 approached, only Samuel and Mary Gray Ward Dorr survived of the original eight children of Thomas and Lydia Ward. George He had been an "intimate friend of Secretary [of the Treasury] Chase, and was consulted by him on many points during the war.' (NYT May 5, 1887 obit) A founding member and officer of the Union League Club, a Trustee of the Unitarian Church of All Souls, a Governor of New York Hospital, "Director of the Children's Aid Society, the Bank of Commerce, the Union Trust Company, and the Iron Mountain Railroad." (Ibid) Described in one New York obituary as "singularly modest and retiring...he was a man of extraordinary simplicity of character and a rare capacity for devotion to his friends as well as those of the public." As a personal friend of Bryant and Emerson, he was attached to the transcendental philosophy. His speculative nature often made his conversation appear quaint and abstract "which made one wonder that the business life in this city should ever have been to his taste." (MHS. T.W. Ward Papers. B. 8. f. 4) Delighted to hear that Josiah Royce and Richard Hodgson will be her guests, William responds to Mary's invitation by lamenting that an entire year has lapsed "without a long and confidential interview between us on psychical research, and another one with George, on that and much besides." Canoe Club and the Kebo Valley Club established, both indebted after a fashion to the Oasis Club, the first of the Bar Harbor clubs (1874) (see C. Amory, Last Resorts, 305 f.) August: Charles P. Bowditch and family are guests at Old Farm. Harvard Professor Barrett Wendell also visits Oldfarm in August (will return again in 1889 & 1896). Thirty years later Wendell writes to E.S. Martin (3.30.1919) about automatic writing during this era stating that he "dabbled in it," and that his Stelligeri (1893) tells why he dropped it. Namely, that "occult experiment [is] dangerous to critical intelligence and to strict sense of truth; both William James and Richard Hodgson- pretty intimate friends-unwittingly went, as I saw it, a bit to pieces. So far as I remember, only one friend whom I have known well bore the full moral test of this exploration without harm and on the whole with benefit. This was old Mrs. Dorr, George's mother, a woman of such remarkable quality that I have no better name for it than genius. With her the magic seemed white; elsewhere I have found it at best grayish..." (M.A. DeWolfe Howe. Barrett Wendell and his Letters, p. 310) Judge Deasy's address at the 1919 dedication of Morrell Park refers to the late 1880's when "the only things on the island...that were dedicated to public use were some very dirty and muddy roads." For "in those days no man, woman, or child had a right to stand in any place, or sit in any place outside their own home and view these lovely beauties." Sets a different tone that tourist manuals about accessibility to the scenic wonders of MDI that park status provided in 1919-and also provides a rational for the establishment of the BHVIA since its mission is "the better regulation of the village pertaining to health, cleanliness, and DORR1884 Page 4 of 22 public convenience [and] to secure the best results in preserving the natural beauties of the place.' July 14th Mount Auburn Cemetery copy of letter to undertaker stating that the wife (Jennie) of Samuel Dorr of Louisville Kentucky "is near her end," and he wishes to buried in the Dorr family lot; the precise location is diagrammed. Her date of interment is listed as July 26th age 47. (Mount Auburn Cemetery Historical Collections, #1151). The Mount Desert Reading Room established to promote literary and social culture in a handsome new cedar shingle structure designed by William R. Emerson. This building became the new residence of the Oasis Club, founded in 1874. In 1987 it became the Bar Harbor Inn. A number of notable academics visit Old Farm during the Summer of 1887. In the earliest surviving letter (8/12) from Josiah Royce to George, he thanks the Dorrs for "a few charming days that I shall certainly never forget." Royce acknowledges his "temporary vexations, feeling the signs of a nervous disorder prior to his visit but closes by characterizing Mary Dorr as "a minister of comfort, pure and simple." George is also lauded for doing more than supporting Josiah's wife idea that her husband should take up bike riding-Dorr then ships him a bicycle. (HUA. Josiah Royce Papers, Letter to Dorr, August 12, 1887) ) Coming in on the heels of Royce, the family of a grandson of Nathaniel Bowditch are Old Farm guests. Charles P. Bowditch was an accomplished Mayan archaeologist, a major benefactor of the Peabody Museum in Salem, and in 1893 would assume responsibility as executor of Charles Hazen Dorr's estate. In a letter from twenty year old Cornelia Bowditch to her father (August 19th), she refers to Mrs. Dorr as "determined that we young people shall see everything, and she plans our days for us, SO that they are full of everything entertaining. Charles Dorr escorts the Bowditch daughters on excursions up Newport Mountain, visits with other summer residents, and repeated a tennis tournament. Cornelia is more fascinated with the tourists and is quite effusive about the impression that Old Farm has made upon her: "Mr. Dorr's place is the most beautiful on the island about fifty acres in the house lot, though he owns a good deal more land. The grounds are very well laid out, with a great many flower beds-and the house is very attractive, covered with vines in many places, and having inside, a great-many very beautiful things they have collected abroad. Altogether it is a very attractive place, and the view of the harbor is wonderfully fine." (Massachusetts Historical Society. Charles P. Bowditch Family Papers. Box 8. f. 4) Laura E. Richards, daughter of Julia Ward Howe, is welcomed at the Dorr Old Farm residence that he husband designed nearly a decade earlier. She pens a poem in the guest book well aware of the closeness of her mother and Mary Dorr during their early adulthood. E.E. Hale writes to Mary (9/29) regarding the "excellent" information provided about her grandfather, the privateer. December: Bar Harbor merchants Elihu and Ralph Hamor and J.J. Carr organize the Green Mountain Carriage Road Company to purchase, lease, and acquire land from base of Green Mountain to the summit on which to locate, control, and operate a toll road-it opened July 26, 1888 and stayed open until October 1 attracting 3,000 people, competing with the GMR. DORR1884 Page 5 of 22 Edward Everett Hale writes (12/17) to Mary Dorr regarding a manuscript- likely the Ward privateering days during the Revolution-that he thinks could be privately printed or as a magazine article. 1888 Horticulture and its relationship with kindred disciplines received new public scrutiny due to the efforts of a celebrated relative of the Dorrs. During George Dorr's undergraduate years, Charles Singer Sargent became Director of the Harvard Botanic Garden and Professor of Horticulture. Seven months prior to Dorr's graduation, his distant relative-related to the maternal Gray family line--became Director of the newly founded Arnold Arboretum. In the last fifteen years he had made significant strides in turning a worn-out Jamaica Plain farm nearly ruined with extensive pasturage into a botanical showcase containing hundreds of trees and shrubs introduced as a result of botanic expeditions worldwide. While working on his classic Silva of North America, he issued in February 1888 Garden and Forest, its lead article being Sargent's obituary of the eminent Harvard botanist Asa Gray. With no peer, Garden and Forest covered botany, horticulture, forestry, and landscape design. Published through 1897, Sargent's weekly publication also roused public interest in forest preservation and awareness of the importance of establishing new national parks that would conserve distinctive American landscape. No other horticultural reference is cited more often in Dorr's memoirs. (See E.H. Wilson's encomium in Harvard Graduates' Magazine 35 (1927) : 605-615) On February 29th the weekly periodical Garden and Forest was inaugurated written by Charles Sprague Sargent. Mr. Dorr will make frequent references to this publication in his Memoirs. Sam G. and Anna B. Ward build a new house in Washington near the White House in the late 1880's. Two years later their Lenox home, Oakwood, was sold to Anson and Helen Stokes who found the place too restrictive and they began construction of the vast Shadow Brook. Converted to stables in 1893, Oakwood went up in flames in April 1903. Rev. Phillips Brooks writes (7/30) to Mrs. Dorr regarding the hopelessness of his visiting Old Farm. American branch of the English Society for Psychical Research is inaugurated under the supervision of Richard Hodgson. It continued until his death in 1905 when the present independent American Society for Psychical Research, under James Hyslop, was incorporated. August Oliver Wendell Holmes is Old Farm guest and authors famous poem, La Maison d'Or. September: Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association established to "the better regulation of the village pertaining to Health, Cleanliness, and Public convenience [and] [ to secure the best results in preserving the natural beauties of the place." (BHVIA Minutes 9.20.1888). Charles Hazen Dorr was a charter member and Mary Dorr would soon figure prominently in selected committee activity which now covered finance, entertainment, roads and paths, sanitary, and trees and plantings. October: The National Geographic Magazine begins publication. Monthly issues commence in 1896. Mr. Dorr's article will appear in 1914. DORR1884 Page 6 of 22 During the last days of the fall, Dorr enrolls in Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Just shy of his thirty-fifth birthday, he is one of six students entering between terms. (Harvard University. Archives. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Admission Books. 1886- 1911. B.1) One might suppose that his evolving friendships with professors Royce and James might motivate his desire to deepen his knowledge of matters philosophical through formalized instruction. Yet his selection of courses shows that was not the case. (Harvard Unbiversity. Archives. Yearly Returns. 1889-90) Since graduation fourteen years earlier Dorr had not found a suitable vocation or career path. His memoirs are silent on both his concern about this matter as well as this new Harvard academic exercise that spanned three terms. What can be gleaned from the course documents in the Harvard University Archives is that Dorr enrolled in five graduate courses in chemistry, physics, and mathematics and either dropped the course or received no grades. His instructors in these disciplines simply record that he was absent from examinations; similarly, there is no evidence of his borrowing library resources at this time. (Harvard University. Archives. Student Records of the Graduate Department: 1887- 1892. p. 117; Library Charging Records. 1887-1889) Little survives regarding Dorr's activities during the eighteen months beginning in the first days of 1889, although the growing family relationships with professors Royce and James likely re-energized his interests in academic matters. One might speculate that Mary Dorr's lifelong interest in spiritualistic matters at this time became more focused on psychical research-an area with which her son would later show an empirically grounded interest. Harvard graduate courses in the sciences may have appeared to offer Dorr the opportunity to formally explore mental phenomena. Unfortunately, such speculation does not cohere with the array of courses Dorr selected, leaving the vexing matter unresolved. Letter (12.26) to "Aunt Mary" (from Tom Ward, likely). 1889 Seventy-two year old Samuel Gray Ward and his wife Anna residing in Washington have little face to face interaction at this time with the Dorrs. However, we have reliable third party information regarding their well bring from the witty pen of James Russell Lowell. Harvard's Charles Eliot Norton receives a letter from him sent February 15th from Washington recounting his "interesting" interactions with his hosts: novelist and physician S. Weir Mitchell and retired banker and artist Samuel Gray Ward. "They are always good company and hold out, having native springs in them, and not being merely taps of the general system of milk-and-water works. Ward is wonderfully young and like his former self. Hanging before me as I write are two landscapes of his in pastel, as good in their way as anything of the kind I ever saw, and his interest in good things is as lively as ever. Mrs. Ward, too, is little changed since I last saw her, and together they give me a queer feeling that I have come back to a place where we called a halt twenty years ago, and that in retracing my steps I have abolished the years between. (Letters of James Russell Lowell. Ed. Charles Eliot Norton. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1894, V. 2, pp. 364-365) John D. Rockefeller retires in his mid-50's, four years prior to his son' entrance into Brown University. DORR1884 Page 7 of 22 Josiah Royce arrives at Old Farm in early August. It was a busy time at the Dorr property where 15 other guests will sign the Guest Book that Summer, including physician S. Weir Mitchell who will have a significant role to play in the development of Bar Harbor during his lifetime and posthumously when Dorr champions his scientific achievements as part of his conservation strategy. Royce will be one of the most frequent Old Farm gests over the next seven years. President Harrison visits Bar Harbor (8/7), stays at Secretary of State James Blaine's home, Stanwood on Cleftstone Road for a planned week long stay. Steamer "Sappho" takes him and 75 guests to Somes Sound. Other parties and receptions for hundreds before his departure on the 13 th President Arthur had visited in 1882 and been an Old Farm guest. In Lenox, the October wedding of Sam and Anna Ward's granddaughter Louise Thoron, was being planned, "the most acclaimed social event of Oakwood's brief history." (C. Gilder & R.J. Jackson Jr., op. cit., p. 48) The groom was the son of Grover Cleveland's recently appointed Secretary of War and bore his name, William Crowninshield Endicott of Salem. The deep New England roots of the Endicott family trace back nine generations to John Endecott and the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Marriage into the Endicott family for a Ward family descendant is of importance because it is to this relation that Dorr remains most closely attached for the next half century. When Dorr receives news of Louisa's engagement, he tells the bride to be that he feels "unalloyed pleasure" on hearing the news. While he knows Endicott only through their common friends, he "likes him well, already. And how pleasant to think of what we here must all look upon as your homecoming to New England. I have no near cousins here now-you will be doubly welcome, here, to me." (Dorr letter, January 27, 1889. Massachusetts Historical Society. Endicott Family Papers. B. 29. f. 4) The Ward, Dorr, Thoron, and Endicott families would be joined at the wedding by Lenox friends, the wife of President Cleveland, and other Washington dignitaries when Louisa and William wed that October. Over the next decade, the relationship between W.C. Endicott Jr. and George B. Dorr matured into an enduring friendship in large part because of their shared beliefs in the importance of conserving the landscape and history of New England. In the course of his career Endicott will have official responsibilities with the Society for the Protection of New England Antiquities, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Essex Institute, the Museum of Fine Arts, and serve as President of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Later, Endicott's influential circle will be of conspicuous advantage to Dorr as he gathers support for his conservation objectives. A Hancock County Trustee of Public Reservations, Endicott later served as President of the museum that was established in Acadia National Park through the efforts of Dr. Robert Abbe. Royce to Mrs. Dorr (10/31) refers to Mrs. Whitman and offers a description of his lecture schedule. Royce gives series of twelve lectures (1889-1890) beginning in early December one per week and titled "Some Noteworthy Persons and Doctrines in the History of Modern Thought." Expanded and rewritten they were published as The Spirit of Modern Philosophy (1892) Royce writes to Mrs. Dorr (12/19) asking for her reaction to the first lecture. DORR1884 Page 8 of 22 The 5th Report of the Class of 1874 published in 1889 states that GBD "Has entered no profession or business since graduation; has traveled much in Europe and in this country, but has been at his home in Boston most of the time of late, spending his summers at Bar Harbor." Professor N. Shaler publishes geological maps, plates, diagrams, and illustrations in his "Geology of the Island of Mount Desert." The first of eighteen surviving letters from William James to George B. Dorr is sent in late October dealing with "queer new facts" about the subconscious contained in Pierre Janet's de l'automatism psychologique which Dorr is advised to read. (Harvard University. Houghton. Correspondence of William James. III. 119. 10.25.1889) Royce writes to Mrs. Dorr (12/19) asking for her reaction to his first lecture. 1890 The young man who had pursued scientific studies-under the rubric of The Champlain Society--of Mount Desert Island while a college student in the late 1870's, graduated from Harvard in 1882. In less than a decade Charles Eliot had completed graduate studies at Harvard's Bussey Institution, apprenticed with Frederic Law Olmsted, developed sections of Boston's Emerald Necklace Park System, carried our field work studies in the eastern United States and Europe, published a series of articles on country estates, and opened his own office in Boston with numerous private and public clients. (His papers are available in the Harvard School of Design Library) Eliot's growing interest in metropolitan planning was geographically broadened in late Winter when the premiere American horticultural journal of its day--Garden and Forest-published three landmark formative essays that led in the short run to the establishment of the Massachusetts Trustees of reservations-and in the long term, to his father's proposal for the incorporation on Mount Desert island of the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations. The first essay on "The Waverly Oaks" appears to be a modest preservationist proposal to justify-on the basis of their stature, age, and site uniqueness-the preservation of twenty-three large Oaks and one large Elm growing on a three acre terminal moraine in nearby Belmont. Rapid development now threatens the area and Eliot calls for the "establishment of a small public park" within walking or driving distance of greater Boston. A second essay on "The Coast of Maine" describes in rich language the character of the Maine coast, its cultural history, and the exploitation since 1860 of this picturesque environment by land companies and speculators who wish to profit from the sale of the most attractive sites, robbing the area of "that flavor of wildness and remoteness which has hitherto hung about it, and which in great measure constitutes its refreshing charm The readers of Garden and Forest stand in need of no argument to prove the importance to human happiness of that refreshing antidote to city life which fine natural scenery supplies, nor is it necessary to remind them that love of beauty and of art must surely die, if it be cut at its roots by destroying or vulgarizing the beauty of nature." Eliot proposes that a site such as Great Head could be preserved for public use by local, county, or state authorities. He concludes that the "material prosperity" of the citizenry would be improved if legislation was passed to encourage the formation of "associations for the purpose of preserving chosen parts of her coast scenery." It is Charles Eliot who provides the vision for the Trustee DORR1884 Page 9 of 22 organization that his father would formally establish for his adopted State eleven years later. The final essay draws our attention back to Massachusetts. This landmark essay outlines a conservation plan for the preservation of "The Waverly Oaks as well as other areas of natural beauty within the borders of his native State. He acknowledges the parochialism of communities that resist spending funds that will benefit neighboring municipalities. He points with pride to the recent establishment in greater Boston of a metropolitan drainage commission to manage the threat to public health posed by improper local sewage standards-with expenses assessed on the towns that benefit. Eliot insists that a crowded population thirsts for surviving fragments of the primitive New England wilderness, "bits of scenery which possess uncommon beauty and more than usual refreshing power." He suggests analogously that as the Museum of Fine Art is to its works of art and the Boston Public Library is to its book collections, geographical sites of superior natural qualities ought to managed in the interest of the public. Whether it be a State Commission or an incorporated association he argues that "only an authority which can disregard township limits can properly select and establish the needed reservations." (See President Charles W. Eliot's 1901 homage to his son, Charles Eliot: Landscape Architect. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998, ch. 17 & 18) Two weeks later Eliot used his office as a member of the Appalachian Mountain Club Council to invite a mix of fellow Councilors and nonmembers of stature-Charles S. Sargent, Francis Parkman, and T.W. Higginson-to further develop the framework for this conservation organization. He secured from the larger Council the general endorsement of the idea and the establishment of an AMC Committee "to meet and consider a plan for preserving natural scenery." The very next day he used this endorsement to extend a widely distributed invitation to a May 24th conference to be held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Enclosed was Eliot's own structural outline of a Trustee organization to preserve for public enjoyment site of natural beauty but also those of historical interest, the latter reflecting AMC Committee interest. Eliot informs us that in preparation for this meeting his son examined the statutes and acts under which the then existing reservations had been established by national, state, and municipal authorities. More than a hundred people gathered in Cambridge and from their fruitful discussions a "better piece of machinery," yet another committee was established "to prepare a scheme of organization for the proposed Board of Trustees," with Eliot providing the narrative fourfold rationale. (Ibid, pgs. 329- 333) Following Eliot's circular invitation to seven hundred prominent individuals across the state who had expressed interest in the Trustees, a significant percentage attended a May 10, 1891 hearing before the Judiciary Committee of the State Senate. Approval by both Houses and Governor Russell was secured and on May 21st the Trustees Public Reservations became a reality, accomplished within fifteen months of inception. Eliot is appointed secretary of the Trustees and Chairman of the Standing Committee. His vision, strategic planning, thoroughness, nurturing persuasion, and steadfast motion toward his goal bear a striking resemblance to the tools that Dorr employed more than twenty years later in establishing the Sieur de Monts National Monument. (For a revealing assessment of Eliot's life, see Norman T. Newton's Design on the Land: The Development of Landscape Architecture. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971. Ch. 22) DORR1884 Page 10 of 22 The elder Eliot was not only busy this year with the advancement of Harvard University. Dr. Eliot had set himself the task of publishing in The Century Magazine a largely forgotten essay that we can now appreciate as a significant benchmark toward the establishment in 1901 of the Maine conservation organization that provided the framework for the establishment of Acadia National Park. "The Forgotten Millions" describes the "common American mode of life" which is rarely communicated by the media of Eliot's day where emphasis is laid on the "cruelest of industrial practices, the most revolting human habitations, and the most depraved modes of life which anywhere can be discovered-in miner's camps, factory villages, or city slums." Yet in the last decade of the 19th-Century three-quarters of the American people remain scattered in communities where people "live comfortably and hopefully, and with as much contentment and gladness as can be expected in people of their rather joyless lineage." Eliot chooses the town of Mount Desert on the island of the same name for his highly detailed description of the economic, social, and physical condition of the families that reside therein. "The Forgotten Millions: A Study of the Common American Mode of Life," The Century Magazine 40, #3 [1890] 556-565.) Though this essay unfortunately remains unknown to all but a few of the current residents of the island, Eliot argues that "this sequestered, wholesome, and contented community affords a fair type of the organization of basal American society.' Critics could argue that it is a conservative manifesto for the status quo. I think that this is a misreading of the text. If we put aside our own assumptions and approach the essay with a fresh eye, above everything it shows a heightened sensitivity to the circumstances of the "forgotten millions" that is rarely attributed to someone of the Brahmin class. Moreover, Eliot did not give lip service to the native residents of the island where he had resided each summer for the past twenty years. His arguments for the character of the habits and conditions of the local population are based on a wide array of empirical data drawn from local town records. Eliot clearly admired his island neighbors even if they regarded him with reservation since he was after all, "from away." Twenty year old Katharine Bowditch writes to her father (March 6) and asks whether he has heard "that dear Mr. Dorr came up here Sunday to ask me to dinner the next night." One might suppose that it was George but the context reveals that the invitation comes from his father who intends for her to meet "two young English men. It was very sad that I could not go but it necessitates another call on Mrs. Dorr and some how I don't look forward to it with great pleasure." (Massachusetts Historical Society. Charles P. Bowditch Family Papers. B. 8. f. 10) As we have seen, this desire to avoid Mrs. Dorr is not isolated to the Bowditch family As was increasingly commonplace, Oldfarm would prove to be very active with summer guests. While the Sam and Anna had journeyed north into coastal New Hampshire to visit the poetess Celia Thaxter on the Isle of Shoals in 1889, they were unable to visit her that summer. (Baldwin, Puritan Aristocrat, p. 262) The Dorr guest book does not provide evidence of their travels further north to Old Farm as it does for their children. Nonetheless, Royce visits Old Farm again in August as was journalist Edwin Lawrence Godkin-editor of The Nation--and his wife. So too was William C. Endicott whose family connections with the Dorr's will later prove fortuitous for the survival of family manuscripts. DORR1884 Page 11 of 22 On the 11th of August Royce writes to Mrs. Dorr from North Conway thanking her for the Old Farm visit. At the same time William James writes to Dorr relieved that his Psychology is completed, updating Dorr on some collaborative fund raising. He asks Dorr to return funds to Sarah Whitman, enclosing a blank check for Dorr to complete for "such is my confidence in you. (Harvard University. Houghton. Correspondence of William James. III. 119. 8/12/1890) Many years later a student of William James would subsume "confidence" within a larger context by describing James in terms that reflect what challenged Dorr and others with whom he associated: "James lighted up the depths of human personality because he cared for it, it glowed with value and interest in his eyes, even in its most unlikely specimens. Thereby he lighted up the latent powers in men He blew away the prejudice, the numb routine, the snobbish superstition that will not accept discovery and power if they come from the ill-educated, the 'irregular, the abnormal, the wicked, or the crude. He showed us the flimsy stitching of custom that prevented us from shaking out our minds." His Principles of Psychology would soon be published and continue to add to his standing as the foremost philosopher and psychologist that this country had produced. (Dickinson S. Miller, "Mr. Santayana and William James," Harvard Graduates' Magazine 30 (1921) : p. 362) In October Congress creates three national parks under Department of Interior administration: Sequoia, General Grant, and Yosemite, 18 years after Yellowstone was established. [See Dilsaver & Tweed's Big Trees, ch. 4]. GBD and Mrs. Dorr are listed as members of the Society for Psychical Research. Dorr will remain a member until 1939 and serve as its Vice President placing him at the center of many controversies. In the 1890's Mr. Dorr purchased land along Schooner Head Road, Cromwell Harbor Brook, and the Great Meadow where he later built public paths for walking, bicycling, and carriage drives (HHTSMDI) Mrs. Edward Dunham (then Mary Dows) spent summer at Seal Harbor. She talked of its charms to her brother-in-law, George B. Cooksey who first came in 1891. [Dana Address]. The Principles of Psychology published. We gain insight into Mary Dorr through a letter to her brother authored on this last day of the year by the 28 year old attorney John Jay Chapman, whose later career as a writer will prompt Edmund Wilson to characterize him as the foremost writer on literature of his generation. He writes in part to warn Sam about comments he has made in his recent book on Emerson since he is "a little afraid that in the second part I have said all sorts of things which you won't like a good deal of talk about what he was not. I have to speak of the abolitionists, the Transcendentalists-a whole era with which I am very imperfectly acquainted-persons like Margaret Fuller whom I did not know but here to guess at-and I have done it-I want to say brutally. There is a good deal of positively hostile criticism of New England and the puritan spirit which people are not used to and the result is that Mrs. Dorr to whom I showed the proof practically begged me not to publish it. But her objections went SO deep that they were like the protest of the spirit of the whole age-not to be met, not to be placated in detail or by qualification-so that I was obliged to say to her in substance through not in word what George William Curtis wrote to his father on the publication of his Nile novel. 'My dear father, if I had written a book DORR1884 Page 12 of 22 to please you, I should not here publish it because it wouldn't have been what I meant, and I have written this book to please myself. (University of California. Santa Barbara. Library. Ward-Perkins Papers. B. 3. f. 17) 1891 President Harrison (3/3) sings bill that allowed the president to create forest reserves for conservation purposes; that is, the President could decree the permanent withdrawal of selected public lands from sale SO that they might be preserved, as forests, in public ownership-a radical change in federal land policy. Charles Hazen Dorr writes to the Superintendent of Mount Auburn Cemetery (4.28) to relate Mary Ward Dorr's wishes that honeysuckle would be preferable to lilac at the family gravesite, including a sketch of the favored trellis design. (Mount Auburn Cemetery Historical Collections, #4474). Royce writes to GBD (5/2) asking how Mrs. Dorr might prefer that the Spirit of Modern Philosophy be dedicated; he says that "the lectures are SO largely hers..." Earlier (2/21) he had written Mary asking for her thoughts on the book's title. Mr. Dorr's interest in Royce persisted over the next four decades; in March of 1936 a note in The New York Times prompts him to write to Boston's Old Corner Bookstore requesting that they secure Daniel Gregory Mason's article which refers to Professor Royce-and when they are unresponsive, he follows two months later with a reminder [ANPA. B2.f.2) Mason (Harvard '95) refers to William James and Josiah Royce as the "two most magnetic personalities" of all the teachers he encountered in The Yard. We don't know whether Dorr secured this article, but if he read it he was likely moved by Mason's assessment hindsight: "In everything, great as well as small, he seemed more impeded than his more worldly and charming colleague [James], and for that reason more perceptive and pitiful, more familiar with hardship, effort, and puritan loyalty and aspiration. He was the most loving, devoted friend imaginable; there was no trouble he would not take in order to bring help to a suffering soul; and this was because he had a great heart, and because he knew much of suffering himself." ("Harvard in the Nineties," New England Quarterly 9 [1936], 68- 69) Royce's acknowledgement of Mrs. Dorr should not be dismissed as a mere formality. In the final decade of the 19th century many emerging leaders were coming to realize that a very distinctive generation of elder New England women was passing, and that their intellectual, political, and social influence could no longer be ignored. Judge Robert Grant devotes a chapter of his autobiography (Fourscore) to this "group of fashionable women who stood out from the rest by mental agility or aesthetic culture as tacitly acknowledged leaders-leaders in the realm of ideas, yet not always with coquetry." (p. 281) These included Julia Ward Howe, Annie Fields, Sarah Orne Jewett, Edith P. Wolcott, and Mary Gray Ward Dorr. Judge Grant describes Mrs. Dorr as "A woman of cultivation and great energy, she managed Society with a capable but slightly heavy hand, for at her bidding her guests-of whom as a young man I was often one-had to change seats at dinner halfway through to suit her fancy." All these women "bore a cousinly resemblance in their mental suppleness to the no less fastidious, but more elegant and more widely cultivated, women of France of a century earlier. Unconscious as this ambition might be, it aimed at all events at getting near to refined truth as possible." (PP. 281-82). In 1892 Houghton, Mifflin, & Company publishes The Spirit of Modern Philosophy and the reviews by fellow philosophers are positive despite the fact that they these lectures had been delivered in "a DORR1884 Page 13 of 22 simple and non-technical fashion" before Royce's circle of friends. (J.E. Creighton. Philosophical Review. 1 [1892]] Several years earlier the Ward's had relocated from Lenox to Washington where they acquired a home several blocks from the White House. Oakwood was sold in 1891 and Anson and Helen Stokes-the new owners--began constructing the vast Shadow Brook nearby. The relevance of Oakwood diminished in their minds and its function changed from hospitality for humans to equine stables. "The wide front hall, through which the nation's first lady had been ushered only six years earlier, was now trod by the hooves of the Stokes' well-bred hunters.' (C. Gilder & R.J. Jackson Jr. op. cit. p. 49) In April 1903 a conflagration consumed the building. The Massachusetts Trustees of Public Reservations incorporation by the Massachusetts legislature signed into law on May 21st establishing it as the nation's first private statewide conservation and preservation organization. Charles Eliot is appointed secretary of the Trustees and Chairman of the Standing Committee, their governing body. Letter (5.27) to "Aunt Mary" likely from Tom Ward thanking her for Royce's lectures which she had loaned him. He asks her if she has the recipe for the brown wafer that he and George munched that evening. (TWWPapers B3, f28). Announcement in BH Record (5/28) that all three Dorrs will spend the winter in the East, chartering a new steel dahabeah (vessel) called the "Hathor" from Thomas Cook & Son. Mary will makes use of "Hathor" stationary to describe their Egyptian "wanderings." " Boston Daily Globe (5/31) reports that the Dorr's were among the first to arrive in BH but their visit was brief; they usually make several trips back and forth in the spring. This year they reside at Old Farm only through June-entertaining Mary Cadwalader Jones, Richard Hodgson, and John Jay Chapman-- before sailing for Europe 1st of July for the remainder of the summer. Immediately prior to their departure, William James writes on June 29th from Cambridge recommending recent publications, wishing that George was nearby to discuss impressions, and wishing the family "a happy voyage, safe return." (Harvard University. Houghton. Correspondence of William James. III. 118) Lengthy handwritten undated incomplete 1891 letter from Mary Ward to Samuel Gray Ward (first and last pages missing) on Cook's Dahabeahs on the Nile stationary. Discusses trip, stateroom, itinerary, and describes one day as "absolutely perfect," and says that the Greek islands were "beautiful beyond words." See also J. Ahtola article on "Thomas Cook and Son" and other titles dealing with this tourism giant. In the first journal entry about Mary Dorr in a quarter century, Julia Ward Howe (6.21) notes that she was visited that afternoon [in London] by Mary, Lady Aberdeen, Henry Harland, and Arthur Mills. Lady Aberdeen (wife of the Earl of Aberdeen, Canada's seventh post-Confederation Governor-General) had discussed women's suffrage with Julia while visiting Boston (Doris French. Ishbel and the Empire. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1988, p. 115) : she was president of the International Council of Women, an advocate of political and social reform, and "quite the opposite of the prototype Victorian lady, she dominated, energized, antagonized, and battled and won over whole battalions of Canadians who remember her today in some awe as 'Canada's Governess-General. (p. 7) Julia is asked to come to lunch at wherever Mary Dorr is lodging while DORR1884 Page 14 of 22 abroad. While we don't know whether lunch with Mary Dorr two days later was realized, Julia says that in her June 25th entry that "Mrs. Dorr and George made a long visit." Julia also records the next day that "Mrs. Dorr took me to lunch with Lady Carlisle. She had mistaken the hour and we found the luncheon well on, indeed at dessert [and] after lunch Lady Carlisle kept me for some talk about Miss Villard, Lady Henry Somerset, T. Suffrage, etc." (JWH, "Journals," trans. E. Cochrane, YHP, RG 18) . Charter of the BHVIA now refers expansively to "public improvements" extended to "other parts of Mount Desert Island." First Bulletin of the SHVIS is issued. In 1931 Mrs. Dunham authors for the Annual Meeting of the SHVIS (8/12) a 3 page account of the early years. She credits to Mr. Stebbins "the successful establishment of our little colony.' " On this same date the literary world receives news of the death of the former Harvard Professor of Belles Letters James Russell Lowell. The Dorr family would likely have agreed with the assessment offered of their friend by their Thomas Wentworth Higginson: "His death took from us a man rich beyond all other Americans in poetic impulses, and in readiness of wit; sometimes entangled and hampered by his own wealth; unequal in expression, yet rising on the greatest of occasions to the higher art; blossoming early, yet maturing late." (Old Cambridge. New York: Macmillan Co., 1899. Pp. 147-96) Twenty-acre Virginia Woods in Stoneham acquired as The Trustees' first property. Charles Eliot helps establish the first Massachusetts regional park district called the Metropolitan Park Commission. Announcement that Mrs. Dorr is "abroad for the season." It is most likely that the Dorr's booked their travels with the phenomenally successful London travel organization, Thomas Cook & Son. This organization had two decades of experience in the countries where the Dorr's traveled. J.M. Cook managed in the field, and the winter of 1891 was his eleventh consecutive season passed in Egypt, India, and Palestine. (W. Fraser Rae. The Business of Travel, pp. 244-45) Charles Sprague Sargent begins publication of his eventual 14 volume Silvia of North America, the seminal work on American dendrology. 1892 The sickly sister of William and Henry James, Alice James (1848-92) succumbs to breast cancer in Kensington, England, on March 6th (See The Diary of Alice James. Ed. Leon Edel. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1934. pp. 11-16) Royce writes to Mrs. Dorr (3/17) apologizing for not writing when he sent her the book dedicated to her. Notes that that over the 1891-92 winter Mrs. Whitman listened to nine ethics lectures. Bar Harbor "captured from Newport one of the largest lions of the day in the person of the sixty-three-year-old Philadelphia physician and author S. Weir Mitchell" (Amory, Last Resorts, 283) where he remedied his Newport-induced 'intestinal neuralgia" by hiking the mountain trails with Bishop William Lawrence, soon investing his bountiful energy in the BHVIA. In early Summer, the Dorrs return from winter travel on the Nile and spring in Palestine and Syria. Mary writes to her brother Sam from Old DORR1884 Page 15 of 22 Farm apologizing for her "long silence" for she was taken ill in Lenox and failed to complete the letter begun in Boston where psychical researcher Richard Hodgson met them full of extraordinary accounts of people that the Dorrs knew, including Mrs. Thomas Perry. She informs Sam that she was "barely able to muster the strength to come [to Old Farm for] my trouble has been as most of my later troubles have been-fever and eye sensitiveness with a necessity of almost total abstinence of the use of the eye, and this time it has been accompanied by a good deal of prostration and pain-but I am already much better.' (University of California. Santa Barbara. Library. Ward-Perkins Papers. Letter dated June 28, [1892]] Her optimism was unfounded inasmuch as this acute and painful glaucoma resulted in surgery that cost her sight in one eye. Three decades later George develops glaucoma in a non-acute form in both eyes when he would have been of comparable age. Despite the shortened season, festivities at Old Farm attract psychical researcher Richard Hodgson, the budding landscape gardener Beatrix Jones [Farrand], and an assortment of Harvard notables: John Chipman Gray, John Jay Chapman, and Josiah Royce who writes William James (10/17) that during the summer he traveled over 5,000 miles, including a visit with the Dorrs at Bar Harbor. "Mrs. Dorr is very loving now, and very gracious, but has reached such a spiritual height since she saw Egypt that I can but grovel in her presence, and weakly babble a little about hypnotism to please her." Royce writes to Mrs. Dorr (9/21) that he enjoyed visit and refers to GBD as "captain in many well-planned and wisely directed walks," referring to Charles as "my gracious friend" to "whom somehow I can never express how much I honor and enjoy his personality." This statement, four months before Charles's death is our most timely evidence about the Dorr's father. Following visits to Old Farm the previous two summers, American essayist and reformer John Jay Chapman offers Mrs. Dorr his impressions of the James Eliot Cabot's recently published Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson, a good book but too long," though he faults Emerson's official biographer for making no effort "to sum up Emerson in his relation to the rest of the world-his significance, his context and his influence. (Harvard University. Houghton Library. Additional Papers of John Jay Chapman. 7. Letterbook 6-8) Insight into the Dorr family reading habits is further suggested when Chapman asks if she or Charles have read "the most interesting and wonderful book I've come across since childhood," John Fiske's Discovery of America. Samuel G. Ward writes to Mary (9/8) regarding the secret of good gardening: unfailing supply of water. Apologizes for not visiting BH but his physical instability is the reason. The Dorr Guest Book contains the signature of Beatrix Jones. Whether she signed following a social call, lunch or dinner invitation, or resided overnight cannot be ascertained following the earlier documented visit of Mary Cadwalader Jones who left a poem following her visit the previous July. On the conservation front important changes are initiated. Modeled on the Appalachian Mountain Club, the Sierra Club is founded by John Muir and others to protect America's natural environment. (For its mission statement see Dilsaver, Big Trees, ch. 4]. On the East Coast, the New York State Adirondack Park is created by its State legislature as the nation's largest forest reserve which "shall be forever kept as wild forest lands." In New England, the Massachusetts Trustees of Public DORR1884 Page 16 of 22 Reservations publish "The Province Lands Report" which reveals human abuses on the sand dunes of Outer Cape Cod; legislative approval of a state management program for these 4,000 acres results. Published as well is an inventory of "The Public Holdings of the Shore Towns of Massachusetts," demonstrating the rapid privatization of state shorelines and loss of public access. In Maine Dorr draws on his financial resources and cautiously begins to purchase Mount Desert Island undeveloped land that his thoughtful walks over the islands landscape reveal to be worthy of protection. Over the next several years he acquires properties along Schooner Head Road, Cromwell Harbor Brook, and the Great Meadow. On this land Dorr would build public paths for walking, bicycling, and carriages. (See Margie Coffin Brown. Pathmakers. Cultural Landscape Report for the Historic Hiking Trail System on Mount Desert Island. 2006. Pp. 58 ff. Later he would articulate the guiding principle for such construction. For Waldron Bates and Dorr, "the island's two pre-eminent path makers," whenever possible trails should follow the precedents established by the ancient path builders, native Americans. In his correspondence with National Park Service officials he often referred to these Indian paths a single-lane footway only wide enough for one person that followed the island topography. "The earth led the path, not human inclination to 'challenge' the landscape." Even later refinements on these paths were not intended to manipulate landscape but to adapt to it. (See Tom St. Germain and Jay Saunders. Trails of History: the History of Mount Desert Island's Paths from Norumbega to Acadia. Bar Harbor: Parkman, 1993. Pgs. 9-11, quoting Dorr memoranda from 1917 to 1920 to NPS official Horace M. Albright) With unreserved enthusiasm William James turns his laboratory over to Munsterberg, obtains a Harvard sabbatical, and takes entire family to Europe. Mrs. Munsterberg remarks in her husband's biography that he "indeed reached Cambridge in the golden age, when Charles Eliot Norton..gathered chosen spirits in his hospitable old house on the hill in 'Norton's woods" when the sprightly Kentuckian, the geologist Nathaniel Shaler, the philosophers Royce and Palmer, and after his return from Europe, James, the venerable Greek scholar Goodwin, the physiologist Bowditch, and the inimitable President of Harvard himself, entertained companies remarkably harmonious, serious, and genial withal." (Margaret Munsterberg. Hugo Munsterberg: his Life and Work, p. 42) Samuel Gray Ward writes to Mary (12/23) that he is returning the interesting letters from "sixty-five years ago," reflecting on their father and his illness and work habits. 1893 The first month of the New Year was waning when the deaths of two Bostonians was announced. One of the most influential preachers in America, Episcopalian Phillips Brooks towered over his Trinity Church congregation (1868-1893) and the Diocese of Massachusetts until his death on January 23rd. George Dorr's father, Charles Hazen Dorr, died in Boston five days later. The Bar Harbor Record published Dorr's obituary notice while his death went unnoticed in the Boston Globe and the Boston Evening Transcript. The omission of Dorr's obituary in the Boston papers might be interpreted as indicative of his lack of standing; an alternative explanation is that the papers had too much copy about this DORR1884 Page 17 of 22 internationally renown theologian. "The death of few persons in our national history has had such wide coverage in all the newspapers of the large cities and in the semiweekly and weekly papers of the more remote areas across the entire land for several decades the anniversary of his death was observed with special services and addresses." (Raymond W. Albright. Focus on Infinity: A Life of Phillips Brooks. New York: Macmillan Co., 1961, pp. 392-400) Well into February, newspapers throughout the country focused on honoring Reverend Brooks, documenting the funeral details, and reporting the community response to this loss. It is telling how Dorr recalls this event in his Memoirs: "My father had passed away on the winter following our return from Egypt, along with Bishop Brooks [Jan. 26th the greatest preacher I have ever heard who left all doctrine behind to get to the heart of things." In trying to assess the Dorr family attachment to the formal religion of their day, correspondence relating to the spiritualism associated with psychical research dominates. Four brief letters, however, from Brooks to Mary Gray Dorr covering the period 1887 to 1891 are extant. All concern requests from Mary for personal spiritual counseling or invitations to social gatherings that she arranged. A July 30th, 1888 letter offers us some insight into their relationship. Brooks other appointments force him to express regrets that he cannot "present myself at the gateway of Old Farm. [where] I know how much I should enjoy the days you offer me and how pleasantly I should remember them. I must be content with you having asked me, which I value very much. With all good wishes and with kind regards to Mr. Dorr and your son." (Dorr Family Correspondence. 1861-1929. Temple University Libraries. Special Collections. MSS014. f. 2) On Charles Hazen Dorr's death date, son George writes to the Mount Auburn Cemetery Superintendent informing him of his father's death, requesting that a grave be prepared in the 300 sq. ft. Ravens Path family plot (#4474). The permit for burial lists "pneumonia" as the cause of death. He is interred January 30th (Mt. Auburn Cemetery Historical Collections, #4474). Additional letters in April and May are directed to clarifying the applications of "perpetual care" as well as making sure that the area is covered with myrtle. Mary Ward and family nurse Elizabeth Hind will also be interred here and in 1945 a gravestone for George Bucknam Dorr will be placed there following his cremation. Julia Ward Howe's "Journal" records the "very fine sermon" she heard from Charles Gordon Ames on Phillips Brooks. Following her return from Trinity Church, Fanny Perkins astonished ["astonish"] Julia with "the news of Charles Dorr's death. I wrote at once to Mary and heard twice from her, the second time receiving an invitation to attend the very private funeral, tomorrow [30th] (JWH, "Journal," trans. E. CVochrane, YHP, RG 18) The Dorr Family Papers (DorrMs NEHGS CHE Ver2) contain six letters written to George and Mary by friends following the death of Charles. Understandably they express sympathy and the reader might suppose more than a hint of hyperbole. But they are the most revealing verbal portraits of Charles Dorr available to us. A few examples: (1) Mrs. William Hunt, wife of the artist and one of CHD's oldest friends, writes (3.9) to GBD, describing herself as a "life-long admirer of the beautiful character and accomplished mind of your father." Louisa D. Hunt's words lead one to conclude that he did not suffer. She stresses that in life he claimed SO little recognition for himself, understood a variety of perspectives on any issue, showed DORR1884 Page 18 of 22 sympathy for others, and showed "wit." She concludes that she "can hardly recall another SO free from blemish." (2) Dr. Francis S. Watson, GBD's schoolmate and friend who operated surgically on CHD, refers to his "many lovable and noble traits of character his extraordinary patience, pluck and cheer at the time when I operated on him at Bar Harbor. In all my experience of courageous and enduring people in sickness, I have never known his conduct on that occasion equalled He had a quality of endurance and of readiness to meet and accept whatever might be in store for him which was entirely apart from anything I have ever seen in anyone else.' (3) Mary Elliot, wife of one of Dorr's classmates and sister of CHD's friend, Col. Henry Lee, wrote (1.29) that CHD was a "true gentleman." She recalls an earlier gathering "with you at Lenox was one of the most completely happy days I have passed. I have seldom seen a Father and Son whose relations to each other seemed SO happy and so perfect as yours.' (4) Mrs. William James (Alice H. writes (3.4) from Florence of "that loss of that great and beautiful presence to think of him as quietly stepping over the boundary and entering his spiritual inheritance." Though she knew him but "a little" she recalls that Mary seated CHD next to her at their most recent visit to Bar Harbor "I always felt serene after being beside him; he dwelt in SO beneficent and sweet an air." (5) From William D. Curtis, old Lenox innkeeper (2.28) who had known Mary "since her girlhood days.' CHD "was one of God's noblemen and made everybody and everything he came in contact with better and purer Executed July 11, 1891, the will of Charles Dorr assigned to Mary Dorr following the payment of all debts "all my property real, personal or mixed." Should she not survive Charles, then the same would apply to his son George B. Dorr. (Massachusetts Judicial Court Archives. Probate Record Book. Vol. 799, pgs. 8-13 Should neither survive him, Charles Hazen Dorr gave the same to a charitable trust wherein the revenue would be used as his trustees deem fit "for the benefit of the New England States and especially of Boston [to] make the general life of the people more vigorous and healthful, mentally, morally, or physically without being in their character specifically religious or political." He elaborates that funds should not be targeted for "the alleviation of already existing evils" arising from "unwholesome conditions" such as hospitals and higher education, although he is supportive of funds being used for "practical education for working men and women" that widens their interests and opportunities. Charles P. Bowditch is appointed "first Trustee" and given authority to appoint a perpetual board of trustees. (It is noteworthy that when this will was received in Maine at the Hancock County Registry of Deeds, the copy made in Ellsworth misstated the date when the will was executed in Suffolk County, Massachusetts. The names of witnesses Francis V. Rotch, Charles A. Rackemann and Felix Rackemann follow text the date July 11, 1893, four months after Dorr's death) In the years that follow, considerable legal activity took place as is evident from documents attributed to Probate Judge Robert Grant. The Trustee account of Charles P. Bowditch was finalized in 1900 through payments of $19,194.85 for the period Feb. 16, 1893-March 27, 1900. (April 12, 1900. Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives, docket #92160; head archivist Elizabeth Bouvier confirms in her e-mail message of January 5, 2006 that at his death "Charles left a personal estate of $19, 151.11. DORR1884 Page 19 of 22 The Sierra Forest Reserve Act signed by President Harrison, withdrew almost the entire central and southern Sierra from sale to private parties, containing 4 million acres it protected all the areas John Muir mentioned in his 1891 Century article. Before Lenox cottagers can leave for Chicago to attend the World's Fair, severe snows limit mobility. Four months after Dorr's fathers death, the Table Gossip" column in the Boston Globe (5/21) notes that Mrs. Dorr and her son are at their Old Farm estate. Mrs. Dorr still in deep mourning for her late husband and will spend a very quiet summer. A week later the same paper refers to Dorr's at Old Farm and the death of Charles Dorr, which "deprives Bar Harbor of one of its oldest and most esteemed cottagers," a loss that "will be sadly felt by villagers as well as cottagers." From May until October nearly twenty-seven million visitors attended the Chicago World Columbian Exposition. Nominally the quadricentennial celebration of Christopher Columbus and his voyages to the New World, we know that Dorr ventured West but the dates are uncertain, as are his impressions. The Exposition included diverse expressions of Columbiana from the structures that houses the historic artifacts, to music, drama, poetry, and dance. In To be Young Was Very Heaven, Marian Lawrence Peabody described her Exposition visit in early June while Charles Sprague Sargent made the 32-hour trip from Boston in mid-October with his wife and youthful landscape student, Beatrix Jones. Horticulture in the 1890's was celebrated at the Exposition, with lavish space assigned to Horticultural Hall (67,200 sq. ft.) at a time when in our nation's history when horticulture and forestry were of national significance, newsworthy subjects of economic importance. At twenty-one years of age, Jones profited from this exposure which enabled her to contrast her Maine coastal garden experience against a more varied botanical landscape. Nonetheless, biographer Jane Brown reminds us that Beatrix Jones held the gardens of Mount Desert in high regard. She found much "to admire and emulate" in Mary Ward Dorr's garden-that " the fashionable eulalia, lyme grass, if planted in a sheltered spot would survive the island winter; that a generous planting of hollyhocks and larkspur looked wonderful against the 'solid background' of the arborvitae hedge, and SO on. We know that two small lilac bushes flanked the Oldfarm front doorway while a larger lilac sheltered the kitchen. Jones was critical of Mary Dorr's "unfortunate" weakness for magnolias and other exotics that were contextually out of place. (Jane Brown. Beatrix: the Gardening Life of Beatrix Jones Farrand 1872-1959. New York: Viking, 1959. Pg. 28) Dorr forms the BHVIA Bicycle Path Committee to further his interest in pleasure cycling routes from Bar Harbor to scenic locations. William writes to his brother Henry James (7.28) that Mrs. Dorr's Bar Harbor residence is "the best place there" and Old Farm's hostess is a "character" who would gladly receive a guest. (Corr II) In The Last Resorts, Cleveland Amory compares Lenox, Saratoga, Newport, Bar Harbor and other Eastern resorts that competed during the Gilded Age. "To the Bostonians, characteristically, goes first credit for pioneering the search for simplicity in resorts" while acknowledging that the "simple virtues" might be more clearly found in Seal Harbor or Northeast Harbor than in 'wicked' Bar Harbor (P.123) Yet we cannot be too centered on centers of local-albeit-transient culture for Mount DORR1884 Page 20 of 22 Desert Island had a "scenic splendor unequaled by any other American resort [and its] combination of mountains and ocean dwarfs anything that any other resort offers in natural beauty" (269) and so-called 'walk and talk' seasonal residents "have dutifully trod the hundreds of miles of torturous trails which crisscross Mount Desert; at one time a person's social prestige depended on the number of pedestrian miles accomplished up and down each summer" (272) The economic contraction that began this January becomes by August a financial depression where there was a sudden and striking cessation of industrial activity with no section of the economy exempt from the paralysis. The so-called Depression of 1893 would last well into the Summer of 1894 when the economy grew for 18 months before it was hit by a second recession that lasted until June 1897. Henry Steele Commager is quoted widely affirming that of the events of the decade, none had a greater significance than the economic depression. Internationally, the US depression was in part fueled by the collapse of the Baring Brothers banking house in 1890 after speculative loans it underwrote went bad; the result was a panic in Great Britain necessitating liquidation of British investments and outflow of gold from the U.S. September: Psychical researcher Frederick W.H. Myers is Old Farm guest. William James returns with his family from Europe and finds America ravaged by a financial depression that severely depletes his savings. At nearly forty years of age, Dorr is selected to serve on a Harvard University committee. In order to remain more attentive to the activities of academic departments, Visiting Committees were appointed to be the eyes and ears of the Board of Overseers. Alumni were appointed to evaluate the quality of academic departments and empowered to investigate every activity at the department level. Departments were expected to comply to all committee requests and Committee chairs were expected to produce periodic written reports for the Board of Overseers. Dorr accepted appointment to the new Philosophy Visiting Committee where he first served with the esteemed historian Brooks Adams. (Harvard University. Archives. Reports of the Visiting Coimmittees of the Board of Overseers of Harvard College. Academical Series II; visiting committee reports appear occasionally in Harvard Graduates' Magazine) Within a few years he will assume chairmanship of this Committee and be charged with responsibility for raising funds to erect the first academic building in the United States devoted to the discipline of philosophy-Emerson Hall. Surviving documents do not provide clear evidence for the selection, appointment, and reappointment of committee members. The most likely explanation may seem contrary to the intended critical purposes of these committees. That is, that professors James and Royce-given their closeness to his family- were Dorr advocates. After all, such partiality in the face of an established review process is not peculiar to academic communities. The anti-systematic unconventionality of James as a thinker was by now a mainstay of Harvard culture and his cultivation of talent would not have been regarded with suspicion. Put somewhat differently, James found ways to promote self-esteem in those whom he deemed worthy (Eugene Taylor. Interview. Harvard Faculty Club. August 22, 2007; see also Taylor's "William James and Depth Psychology," The Varieties of Religious Experience: Centenary Essays. Ed. Michel Ferrari. Charlottesville: Imprint Academic, 2002, pp. 11-36) Following the death of Charles Hazen Dorr that January, James may have situated DORR1884 Page 21 of 22 Dorr!s son where his leadership potential could be fostered close at hand. Samuel Gray Ward writes from Washington to Mary (12/23) returning letters she loaned him. Does this anticipate his 1900 publication of The Ward Family Papers? He recalls events sixty-five years earlier at their Park Street residence, remarking that at that time Thomas Baring visited his father (T. W. Ward) who was nearly a year recuperating from "the accident . Nearly a year after Charles Dorr's death, Julia Ward Howe's "Journal" documents "a delightful Sunday dinner" (12.10) with Mrs. Dorr, in the company of Mrs. Fields, Fred Stinson, and Mne. Blanc where there was "much talk of books, writers and celebrities. (JWH, trans. E. Cochrane, YHP ) Dec. 17: William James accepts presidency of the British S.P.R. DORR1884 Page 22 of 22 GEORGE BUCKNAM DORR Ronald H. Epp, Ph.D BEGIN 1894 (November 20, 2008) 1894 Conservation-minded individuals purchase or donate land to the BHVIA to be used as public parks, including Glen Mary Park given by Mrs. Mary Shannon this year-with adjacent land donated by Dorr and A. Thorndyke. These are dispersed parcels. It will take another 15 years until large tracts of connected lands are purchased and/or donated for preservation. (HHTSMDI) An increasing number of marked paths attracted the walking, hiking, and rock climbing activities of Island residents and tourists in the 1870's and 1880's. The Island village improvement societies and associations later formed roads and paths committees to examine and report on the condition of roads, paths, sidewalks and sign posts, including recommendations for improvement. Their mission initially was not conservation. Beginning with Bar Harbor in 1881, Northeast Harbor in 1897, Seal Harbor three years later, and Southwest Harbor in 1914, these village improvement organizations extended their efforts beyond village centers and worked cooperatively through a Joint Trails Path Committee. (Margie Coffin Brown. Pathmakers: Cultural Landscape Report for the Historic Hiking Trail System of Mount Desert Island. Boston: Olmstead Center for Landscape Preservation/NPS, 2008. Pp. 42-57) If you resided in the shadow of one of the Island summits, the chances were almost certain that you and Dorr would have come close by without either of you knowing it. For the better part of half a century, under the cover of the summits and the dense woodland, hundreds of miles of paths connected areas of landscaped splendor. Traveling along a road in Otter Creek you catch a glimpse of the Cadillac Mountain South Ridge Trail, unaware that Dorr was making the steady ascent, not even winded in this his fortieth year. On another day the ocean may have lured him on the Anemone Cave Trail to the cool light of Frenchman Bay. From Kebo Mountain he could look beyond the Island and see Maine coastal villages. Walking the east side of Jordan Pond, a few months later, you would not know that a winded Dorr had completed the ascent of South Bubble and was now descending. To be sure, the dense forests afforded a different experience. If headed toward Jordan Pond from Northeast Harbor on the Asticou Trail, you might pass Dorr coming the opposite direction--if he had not decided to bushwack his way to a well known adjacent path. Perhaps he was headed for the easy Pond Trail to nearby Seal Harbor before Mr. Rockefeller decided to reroute a portion of it. But what Dorr favored as he grew older were the memorial paths that he developed later in life-the Jesup, Emery, Schiff--radiating from the Sieur de Monts Spring area. Day after day, month after month, year after year Dorr traversed this Island, retracing his steps, climbing one more peak even though he has been there too often to keep count. More often than not it is a solitary effort but often he hiked with friends and village improvement acquaintances. He observes not only trail conditions but the flora and fauna about him. Possible new trails are mapped and in many instances he is the foreman in constructing new paths. By the end of the first decade DORR1894 Page 1 of 19 of the 20th-Century the breadth and depth of his knowledge of the Island knows few peers. For the remainder of his life this command of topographic detail and his ability to recall landscape minutia will make him the largely unquestioned authority on park planning. President Eliot simply would not challenge Dorr on such matters and both Mr. Olmsted and Mr. Rockefeller were highly cautious about digging in their heels when disputes arose. Marian Lawrence Peabody says that "Bar Harbor which had been such a paradise when we were children, went right on being idyllic as we grew up. In 1894 she wrote that "Bar Harbor is the most heavenly place on earth," a sentiment that is reflected in her autobiography published seven decades later. (To be Young was Very Heaven, 107) President Eliot is honored with great enthusiasm at the June 27th Harvard University Commencement, celebrating twenty-five years of his Presidency. Earlier in the year the Arts and Sciences faculty circulated a memorandum recognizing the unprecedented progress under Eliot's leadership. The Century Illustrated Magazine publishes F. Marion Crawford's "Love in Idleness: a fortnight at Bar Harbor," the "center of civilization" which is described in appealing if not romanticized detail. What is not treated here is the sacrifice of wilderness SO directly described more than a decade earlier by tourist writer Clara Barnes Martin: "The forest primeval is gone; but huge stumps and scathed trunks show what the axe and the fires have done. The three western mountains are the Twins are covered with a second growth, but the other summits are bleak and bare.' (Mount Desert on the Coast of Maine, 6th ed., 1885, p. 47) Sam G. Ward writes to Mary (7.6) regarding her painting. Royce writes to Mrs. Dorr (8/11) thanking her for the few days spent at Old Farm. Two months earlier she had written to William and Alice James inviting them but in early July he informs her that he can't come in August because of a "heavy bit of work, two years in the waiting." James spent the summer routinely at their Chocorua New Hampshire home where between his "mountain tramps" he and Alice entertain guests (Harvard University. Houghton. William James Papers. 892-893) U.S. economic depression continues for another three years. In 1893 more than 15,000 business firms failed and 74 railroads went into receivership. Boston Globe reports that the "heirs of the late C.H. Dorr are paying the highest nonresident tax at Bar Harbor, $1,497." Notes that Mrs. Dorr "is very feeble, and goes out very little, even to drive." Dorr is quoted in the Harvard Class of 1894 Report that "my home is still in Boston" and "an autumn and winter spent upon the Nile, and a spring in the Holy Land, is the only traveling of any special interest that I have done in the last five years." William James writes to his wife from Cambridge (9/26) that his "Mt. Desert visit was a success, especially yesterday with its fine weather, which we spent on a big walk over the Mountains. I had no idea of the strength of that Island..." He spends a day and one-half with the Dorrs, finding Mrs. Dorr "excessively friendly to me ." George Vanderbilt, Mary Cadwalader Jones (1850-1935) and daughter Beatrix have dinner with William, Mary, and George. [Corr. VII) On that same day in a letter to colleague J.M. Baldwin he characterizes Mount Desert similarly: DORR1894 Page 2 of 19 a glorious day yesterday-steam launch to Seal Harbor then over Sargent's Mountain...) never saw SO much character in SO few miles." (William James: Selected Unpublished Correspondence 1885-1910. Ed. F.J.D. Scott. Columbus: Ohio State U. P. 1986, p. 123) Boston's North Station opens for the Boston & Maine Railroad. Edward L. Rand and John H. Redfield complete work stated by the Champlain Society in 1880, compiling the first published botanical survey of the Flora of Mount Desert Island, Maine. The authors include a lengthy essay by Harvard scientist William Morris Davis, "An Outline of the Geology of Mount Desert" situating the flora in their ancient rock strewn home. (Cambridge: John Wilson & Co., 1894. Pp. 43-71) The Boston Daily Globe reports (11/18) that Mrs. Dorr and her son "still linger at Bar Harbor the last of the summer cottagers." Mr. Dorr "is having considerable work done on his place." Unfortunately, the lack of documentation does not allow us to determine whether this the Fred Savage renovation of Old Farm (See the MDIHS Archives for scores of undated Old Farm blueprints) Mary Dorr is chair of BHVIA Committee On Trees, her son serves with Beatrix Jones on the Committee on Roads and Paths, and Trees. 1895 William James invites Dorr to a "Philosophical Conference" at his home in early January, suggesting that he attend in "his official capacity" as a member of the Philosophy Division Visiting Committee. (Harvard University. Houghton. Correspondence of William James. III. 119. 1/13/1895) While the specifics of the meeting are not known, the very next month Royce writes to GBD (2/26) thanking him for proposing that they take a course in brain embryology, continuing evidence of Dorr's continuing interests in the sciences. The scientific approach of James may well have contributed to Dorr's thinking about a career, perhaps more pressing since his father's death. Unlike his Harvard colleagues, the career of William James was indirect and took several turns in its maturation. James had little formal schooling and came to philosophy without graduate studies in the discipline. His education came through the attention of formal tutors, his facility in French, German, and Italian were the practical consequence of years of foreign travel. He earned a M.D. degree abroad and approached the perennial problems of philosophy with a clinical perspective, infusing the many static issues of philosophical discourse with a dynamic perspective rooted in the kindred biological sciences. Straying from the formalized solutions of other philosophers he expected others to experiment with ideas and to find their meaning in the difference they make. At this time this pragmatic principle is not yet developed but when Dorr's establishment of the Mount Desert Nurseries is so close at hand, that with the extensive coursework available at Harvard in the botanical sciences, Dorr chose not to apply some Jamesian-inspired empiricism end deepen his horticultural knowledge. On the other hand, several years earlier his graduate work at Harvard showed a clear lack of commitment that may have left him convinced that like James his experience was now sufficient to chart his own horticultural career. Julia Ward Howe records (2.22) that "A miniature of my dear brother Henry, which had been given up for lost, turned out to have been returned to Cousin Annie by M.G. [Mary Gray] Dorr, just before her DORR1894 Page 3 of 19 marriage. I was overjoyed to find that it had not been lost. The face is very lovely and is much as I remember him." (JWH, "Journal," trans. E. Cochrane, YHP). April: Carl Alwin Schenck is hired by George Vanderbilt to manage forest development on the Biltmore property in North Carolina, an estate that eventually exceeded 120,000 acres of mountain land. In the following decades he would SOW the "seeds for what was to become known as sustained-yield in the 1920's multiple use in the 1960's and sustainable forestry in the 1990's." (Cradle of Forestry in America, Ed. Ovid Butler, 1998, p. i). Schenck characterizes Gifford Pinchot and George Vanderbilt. Louise deKoven Bowen (see her Bar Harbor memoirs Baymeath) and her husband build their own cottage, expending vast resources to build a 1,000 acre estate that took 36 gardeners to maintain (Mac Griswold, Golden Age of American Gardens, 33), fronted by flowering terraces leading down to Hulls Cove as laid our by Herbert Jacques. Annie Fields is an Old Farm guest in July when Mrs. Dorr hears once again from William James in Chocoura. He has committed himself to a month of lectures and can't get away. He regrets that they did not see one another last winter but hopes that she is feeling "hearty again in the strong air that bathes Old Farm." (Harvard University. Houghton. William James Papers. 895) Mrs. Dorr was likely aware that her brother Samuel's granddaughter was vacationing at the Northeast Harbor Kimball House. A letter to her family from Elizabeth Howard Ward (later Mrs. Charles Bruen Perkins), George's cousin, describes the ecclesiastical atmosphere of the place following a memorable introductory experience as her vessel neared Mount Desert: "I was oppressed all the way up the Harbor, by noticing a striking resemblance in one of the mountain profiles to Aunt Mary in her best cap. There she was watching me from the top of the Island. She became less terrific on a nearer view.' (University of California. Santa Barbara. Library. Ward-Perkins Papers. Letter of July 14, 1895) Professor Edward S. Dana first visits Seal Harbor and within weeks has purchased property from Cooksey. [Dana Address]. He credits G.L. Stebbins with assistance for so many who settled here in Cooksey's absence. This was also the year that McIntire began his work at SH, especially path work. In cooperation with H. Jaques, Mr. Dorr builds a 0.5 mile long connector path for walking and carriages through heavily wooded area from Schooner Head Road to base of Newport to Otter Creek Road (Path #372). As Chairman of the BHVIA Bicycle Path Committee, he completes 0.8 mile Bicycle Path (Path #331) around Beaver Dam Pool on Bear Brook Valley lands, a woods road project started five years earlier. Marian Peabody Lawrence described the "lovely" path as "heavenly smooth with pine needles and the sun just flickering through." (To be Young Was Very Heaven, p. 108) In the BHVIA Minutes there is a companion article where Dorr discusses his earlier placement of a dam across the outflow, creating a pool "of extraordinary beauty." Dorr also purchased lands along Cromwell Harbor Brook and the Great Meadow at this time. Coffin-Brown rightly claims that he was motivated to apply his family's ample financial resources to protecting land; when Dorr first came to the island at 14 years of age the island was undeveloped and accessible and he witnessed significant change in the 25 years since 1868. DORR1894 Page 4 of 19 For reasons that are nowhere specified, Dorr purchases 22 shares in The Bar Harbor Water Company. Despite the growth of tourism and the resident population in the last decade of the 19th century, there was little concern about the ability of Eagle Lake to meet the needs of the town both in terms of quantity and quality. BHVIA Path Comm. calls attention (July) to "the work done by Mr. George Dorr on the roadsides and contrast it with the horrible eyesores with which our [eyes are] met on most of the roads on the island." The oldest document in Dorr's hand are several pages that describe his early "fortnight's canoeing and camping trip made with Sam Warren and his wife through the north-Maine wilderness from Moosehead Lake to the St. Johns at Connors." (ANPA. B. 1. f. 16) Britain's National Trust established with government funding to preserve country houses, parks, and gardens. 1896 The friendship between Samuel G. Ward and Charles Eliot Norton ripens and the intercourse between the two "was like that of two seafarers who had sailed in youth from the same port, and meeting near the end of life, sat down to bridge the intervening years and weigh the new against the old." (Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, ed. Sara Norton & M.A. DeWolfe Howe v.2 p. 238) Norton writes to Ward (2.10) Samuel Gray Ward writes to Superintendent of Mount Auburn Cemetery (3.25) requesting that his nephew, George B. Dorr of Boston, be contacted about lot $235 matters since-given his Washington residence-- he is "too far away." Mount Auburn Cemetery Historical Collections, #235. Jordan Pond Teahouse started by Thomas A. McIntire and his wife in leased farmhouse as offshoot of restaurant there begun in the 1870's. JDR Jr. will acquire property in 1923 and donate it to Acadia in 1940. It will be destroyed by fire in 1979. Mount Desert Nurseries founded, "the result of the first pleasure garden on Mount Desert Island, that of Oldfarm the outcome of earlier gardens in Massachusetts which went back in succession to Colonial times." He elsewhere reiterates that "my own interest in public reservations had an ancestry different from that of President Eliot and his son, for it had its root far back in old Salem and Medford gardens and the England from which they came." In the 1926 Mount Desert Nurseries Catalogue Dorr makes it clear that the thirty year old nursery was formed especially to grow the old-fashioned flowers that had made North Shore gardens, like the English, famous. In his unpublished and undated essay on the Mount Desert Nurseries he personalizes gardens be emphasizing that his earliest recollections are the distinctive gardens developed by his parents and his maternal grandmother. The Boston Commonwealth Avenue property provided no space for gardening. Dorr points to the stimulating influence of the Boston flower shows, the experimentalism of the Arnold Arboretum under the direction of his cousin Charles Sprague Sargent, and "most inspiring of all," the weekly serial Garden and Forest. Dorr did not restrict nursery plant stock to the so-called aristocratic members of the flora world. One might suppose that the summer residents DORR1894 Page 5 of 19 might be partial to certain elevated species but like cousin Charles Sprague Sargent the proprietor of Mount Desert Nurseries offered for sale any locally tested species appropriate for the rugged environment. Despite the demands of this business venture, Old Farm was busier with summer guests than at any time since 1889. Harvard was represented by the Barrett Wendell and yet another visit from Josiah Royce. In thanking George for the gifts sent along for his two boys, Royce remarks that his children "think that your island must be a very wonderful place, about which they now wish to ask many questions. I answer as I can, feeling unable to tell them where the real wonder of the place lies, but hoping that they may one day know friendship as kind and as inspiring as yours [Mary's] has been to me." (Harvard University. Houghton. Josiah Royce Papers. September 20, 1896) Two physicians, S. Weir Mitchell and Fremont Smith, and George Dorr are appointed members in late September 1896 of a new BHVIA Sanitation Committee. Its task is to secure expert assistance for the local Board of Health in dealing with the present epidemic. The William James Presidential Address to the British read in his absence-draws a parallel between their research efforts and that of the "role of a meteorological bureau" living for years without "definitive conclusions" but confident that as data accumulates "the natural types (if there are any) will crystallize out." [G. Allen, Wm. James, 379]. In late June, James informs Dorr that he is preparing for a lecture tour in western New York and may turn up in Bar Harbor in August. A month later he informs Mary Dorr that he had spent July on a northeast lecture tour where all he did was "sit, eat, and chatter." Before he heads to Chicago for a lecture later in the month, he needs a "restorative vacation," and in this instance it is not Bar Harbor that will be best for him since his nervous system is "inadequate to social life." He and his son Harry head for the Adirondacks since what "my whole organism now needs is the wilderness." ( (Harvard University. Houghton. Correspondence of William James. III. 119. 6/25/1895 and The William James Papers. 895) We don't know whether Mrs. Dorr was disappointed by this third year of non-compliance with her invitations. After all she could anticipate the visit of his colleague to look forward to. A month later Royce wrote to her (9/20) thanking her for three days at Old Farm. That his boys were delighted with George's gifts is contained in a very effusive letter which is followed two months later with the class conscious assertion that the LeConte's "are among the very few people in the world whom I consider really worthy to meet you...' John Jay Chapman writes to Sarah Wyman Whitman (10.9) that he wonders how Boston will react to his "psychological critique of Emerson" (in Emerson and Other Essays, 1898), a matter that he has just written about to Mrs. Dorr and which is suggested to her in his 1892 letter to her about Cabot's biography of Emerson. Chapman sent up literary trial balloons; unfortunately, Mrs. Dorr's responses have not survived. Two months later in a letter to Elizabeth Chanler (12.29) he notes that Mrs. Dorr "begged me not to say some things about Margaret Fuller" since these comments interfered with the general high tone of his essay; further, the only two people who have yet seen the manuscript-including Mrs. Dorr-"have deprecated its publication." A month later writing to her nephew, Thomas W. Ward (1.2.97), Chapman asks for his review of the second part noting again Mrs. Dorr's disapproval of certain passages. (M.A. DeWolfe Howe, John Jay Chapman and his Letters, 120-123) DORR1894 Page 6 of 19 Following three years of service on the Harvard College Committee to visit the department of philosophy, Dorr is appointed chairman, a position he will hold for the next decade. In a demonstration of leadership the committee--William B. Sturgis and Richard H. Dana- assembles its first-and last-published assessment of undergraduate philosophy instruction. (Harvard University. Archives. Report of the Visiting Committees of the Board of Overseers. Academical Series II. 1874-1909) As the year comes to a close the Committee provides the Harvard Overseers with a departmental analysis that reveals the well organized, thorough, and clearly articulated results of several years of fruitful interaction with faculty and students. Finding that the department "is doing work of great value, instinct with new life, work wisely planned and well carried out," it recommends among other important matters an expanded roles for students in not only the selection of coursework but in formalized sharing SO that "men hear their own work and that of their companions read, appreciated, criticized, and discussed not by their teacher alone but by one another." Although we might accept this as fine pedagogy today, it certainly must have disturbed many Harvard faculty who had first resisted and then come to accept many of President Eliot's changes to the status quo. For our purposes, this report surely provided fuel to the concerns that would soon being about public awareness of the need for a separate campus facility for philosophy-and George B. Dorr would be charged with responsibility for raising funds to make Emerson Hall a reality. 1897 President Eliot at this time had unrivaled personal issues on his mind. His eldest son, Charles Eliot, is stricken with cerebro-spinal meningitis while developing his architectural plans for Keney Park in Hartford, Connecticut. Within the week he dies (on 24 March) at 37 years of age. "The shock of this blow which fell without warning was almost prostrating to [Charles W. Eliot [and] it was apparent that Charles's death submerged him in grief." As Henry James recounts in Eliot's biography, that death left behind four little daughters" and to the father no death among his family and friends has "seemed to me such a heavy loss and calamity as this one" (p. 91-92). In their sincerity and depth of feeling, the responses of family and friends surprised him and signaled his arrival at "a truly cordial relationship with his associates at Harvard." In 1916 Eliot will speak about his son at the August 22nd Building of Arts ceremony celebrating the establishment six weeks earlier of the Sieur de Monts National Monument. He credits to his son the conception for this "noble public park," which was "copied from the Massachusetts Board of Trustees of Public Reservations which my son not only conceived, but carried into effect. (SMMP # 2) After seven years of organizational growth and a healthy treasury, the Massachusetts Trustees establish two reservations, at Rocky Narrows and Mount Ann Park. None had anticipated the passing of their founder: "Charles Eliot found in this community a generous but helpless sentiment for the preservation of our historical and beautiful places. By ample knowledge, by intelligent perseverance, by eloquent teaching, he created an organization capable of accomplishing his great purposes, and inspired others with a zeal approaching his own." (Records of the Standing Committee of the Trustees of Public Reservations. #42. March 26, 1897) On a scholarly plain, Beatrix Jones published "The Garden in Relation to the House" in Garden & Forest (4.7) stressing that the efforts of the landscape gardener and the architect should from the start supplement DORR1894 Page 7 of 19 one another as sisters in a common enterprise, views that would have been known to Edith Wharton as she awaited publication of her The Decoration of Houses. On a more practical plane, Beatrix tells a Sun reporter that at about this time she had "drained a 25-acre swamp and put it in trim for cultivation, cleared a 40-acre forest lot in Bar Harbor of superfluous trees and made it into a pleasing grove" (quoted by C. Zaitzevsky, "A Career in Bud," 22). This description refers to the wetland project that Mr. Dorr says that he assigned to young Beatrix Jones, crediting to himself the first professional commission for the acclaimed landscape gardener. (Mount Desert Island landscape architect Patrick Chasse recently questioned the historical accuracy of this claim, wondering whether such an assignment qualifies as a professional commission and suggesting that "sour grapes" may have been at the root of Dorr's recollection). On the positive side, as landscaping interactions between the two unfolded in the years ahead- especially in the development of the Rockefeller carriage road system- it is clear that both would adhere to Charles Singer Sargent's wise dictum 'to make the plan fit the ground and not twist the ground to make the plan. American Academy of Sciences establishes a committee on forests, chaired by C.S. Sargent, which takes a census of the nation's forests and calls for their active management. From Chocoru William James sends a request to Dorr that he might have time to meet in Bryn Mawr College philosopher Dickinson S. Miller who will be vacationing in Bar Harbor. James is reluctant to make requests of Dorr "knowing the social strain to which you are exposed," but on the other hand James is much impressed with Miller and thinks the effort is worth the time. (Harvard University. Houghton. Correspondence of William James. III. 119. 6/29.1897) Old Farm is busier this summer than at any time since its first occupancy. Prominent British liberal politician Viscount James Bryce and his wife visited, psychical researcher Richard Hodgson returned for the second year in a row, and Harvard was represented by Lowell, Endicott, and James family members. Following three years of invitations to Old Farm that The James family were unable to honor, Mary Dorr tries once again and the philosopher responded by writing that "your letter is too sweet -there is no other word for it, and non-compliance is impossible." Two letters of his offer perhaps the best example of the Old Farm hospitality he received during that visit in August. (Harvard University. Houghton. William James Papers. 897-898) Following a period of rain and fogh in late July, each August commonly was a period of fair weather along Frenchman Bay. (Islesford Journals of Dr. Vincent Y. Bowditch. V. 1. Islesford: Islesford Historical Society, 1992. Pg. 23) Following his August 10th arrival on Mount Desert Island, William writes to Alice that "I was warmly welcomed, the air deliciously cool and redolent of the sea. I had a fairly good night, and am just in from a walk up 'Pickett's Hill' with Hodgson, Morton Prince, and William Endicott and his wife [Tom Ward's niece] who are all in the house. Am dressed for dinner. Mrs. Whitman has probably arrived in our absence [she will grace the Old Farm guest book with a poem]. The James Bryces, & Fred. Stimson are coming on Thursday. I have been with Miller & Strong, met Jas. Thayer, & Mrs. Charles Lowell & Carlotta, lunched with Mrs. Mont. Sears [Sarah Choate Sears (1858-1935) ], all alone and had her take 7 shots at me through a big camera The place is simply magnificent Geo's horticultural and arbocultural operations superb-a tremendous life and stir everywhere, which makes Intervale shrivel up like a scroll You would deeply enjoy it I know-though Mrs. D. is more imperious than ever" DORR1894 Page 8 of 19 (Corr. Wm. James, V. 8) James emphasizes to Ms. Ellen Emmet (8/11) that "I am now here at a really grand place, the Dorrs." He went to a fireworks display and then to a domino party (G.E.Myers, William James; the Kebo Valley domino ball was sponsored by Mary Dorr and more than 30 others) Regarding Mrs. Henry Whitman (Sarah de St. Prix Wyman Whitman, 1842- 1904), Samuel Eliot Morison offers insights into a woman who not only shared "Molly" Dorr's appreciation for pre-Raphaelite art and artists but created notable works stained glass that today grace regional institutions from Berwick Academy to Harvard University. At this time Morison was a young lad whom Sarah Wyman Whitman treated "as graciously as if I had been her friends Henry James or John Jay Chapman Every Christmas she gave me something beautiful to help form my taste: a framed photograph of an old master, or a small piece of glass to hang against a window. I count her my dearest friend of that generation-about halfway between those of parents and grandparents-and as one of those who encouraged me very early in the way that eventually I chose." ( One Boy's Boston: 1887-1901. Pg. 76) , Whitman's partiality to young Morison reflected her overarching philosophic commitment to intertwine friendship and patronage in her quest to become a professional artist. (Betty S. Smith. "Sarah de St. Prix Wyman Whitman, SPNEA Old-Time New England, Spring/Summer 1999, pp. 47-64) Judge Robert Grant refers to Whitman as a "spiritual protagonist devotedly interested in the development of the American woman, especially in the arts." Her eccentricities in attire-ostrich feathers, beaver bonnets, and fans--we would now dismiss as forms of self- expression. (Fourscore, 283-84) Admired by Judge Grant for the external expressions of her diverse enthusiasms, the surviving Letters of Sarah Whitman provide the best introduction to the spirituality of her inner life which is what likely appealed most to Mary Dorr. On James' return to Chocorua he sends a thank you note to Mary Dorr stating that he has been "bragging to Alice of the great life of your [Old Farm] house. I have rarely had such an impression of vitality anywhere, and if you will invite us again, I shall see to it that she does not stay behind." To her son he writes that Dorr "is a good and honest man my few days with you are the high water mark of my 'social' existence." (Harvard University. Houghton. Correspondence of William James. III. 118. 8/17/1897; 119. 8/20/1897) ) Mrs. Dorr is on committee of ten to plan and execute the V.I.A. large and fashionable ball at the Kebo Valley Club House. Northeast Harbor VIS incorporated. Many trails already marked at time of formation, some used and likely marked by the Champlain Society in the 1880s while others built by the BHVIA under leadership of Waldron Bates. James Gardiner is Chair of Roads, Paths and Trees Comm. (1897-1910) an engineer, Gardiner laid out two of the most scenic MDI drives: Cooksey Drive (1892) and Sargent Drive (1902) Publication of Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman's The Decoration of Houses. Following his graduation from Brown University, John D. Rockefeller Jr. begins working at the 26 Broadway (NYC) address of Standard Oil. With little fanfare on the last day of October, the academic title associated with William James officially changed. In June James made it DORR1894 Page 9 of 19 known to President Eliot that since Hugo Munsterberg was returning to Harvard as Professor of Psychology it was his wish that he resume his former title since "psychology is not a big enough subject to be represented in the titles of two full professorships." (Scott, F.J.D. op. cit., p. 161) Samuel G. Ward writes a lengthy letter (11.26) to the Superintendent of Mount Auburn Cemetery thanking him for earlier letter about four inscriptions on the Ward Monument, asking now that an additional four names be added in specified locations: Lydia (7.30.1788-10.7.1874) George Cabot (11.4.1824-5.4.1887), Mary Ann (3.24.1828-11.20.1880, wife of George Cabot), and Anna Barker Thoron 19.22.1841-11.24.1875) (Mount Auburn Cemetery Historical Collections, #235) A follow up letter (12.11) from S.G. Ward instructs the Superintendent that herewith Ward's son Thomas Wren Ward will be the proprietor of Lot #235. Charles Eliot Norton writes (11.28) to Samuel G. Ward that "What you say of our real existence being in our relations with other men, seems to me admirably true. It is the achievements of good men that give shape to our own ideals, and the little which anyone of us can do for his fellows (that is, the true end of life) consists in his attainment of such relations to them as may enable him to contribute his mite of individuality to the improvement of the common ideals." In the same Letters (v. 2) he writes to Leslie Stephen (12.20) that a "month or two ago Sam ward sent to me copies of some of Emerson's letters to him and asked me about publishing them. They were, as I thought, full of Emerson at his best, and SO they are to be published in a little volume which one may read through in half an hour Ward does not want his name to be known to the public, SO that not even the publishers are aware who the friend is to whom the letters were addressed. Of course it will leak out..." Sam G. Ward writes to Mary (12.20) a holiday greeting on his 801 th Christmas, signing it "Love from Anna and me to George and you.' (TWWPapers B3 f28). 1898 Royce writes to Mrs. Dorr (1/9) on religious philosophy and symbolism. Spanish-American War precipitated by February 15 explosion that destroys the U.S. battleship Maine in Havana harbor. Abstract of title of 20.2 acre land conveyed by George B. & Mary G. Dorr to Mount Desert Nurseries. Both James and Royce write lengthy letters to Mary Dorr explaining why they are unable to visit Old Farm. In Royce's case the rapidly approaching Gifford Lectures presently require all of his energies. On the one hand it may be unwarranted for Royce to credit to Old Farm inspiration for the Gifford Lectures. In providing several pages of details about his scholarly habits, he states that "the memory of you and of your home and spirit and sympathy are with me, and do help me, in preparation for the task. However, what is paramount are the Lectures for "they are, or ought to be, in a purely technical or academic sense the effort of my life. If I cannot do them rightly, I shall do much more than fail; I shall be a false servant of Harvard if I do not do them rightly, I shall be false, also, to the friends who have obtained for me this high trust, and to the cause of serious thinking on Religion." (Harvard University. Houghton. Josiah Royce Papers. August 7, 1898) DORR1894 Page 10 of 19 Another letter is received from a son of Harvard, her nephew Thomas Wren Ward. He thanked her for her thoughtfulness highlighting "Old Farm and its varied interests. The wonderful flowers, the roads, the paths, and drives and above all yours and George's companionship and presence." (TWWPapers B3 f.28). Sir William Markby and his wife are September guests at Old Farm following their travels throughout North America. While the Markby's may not have known the Dorr's, the intended Bar Harbor destination was overcrowded with "children and grandchildren, SO in the hospitable American fashion Mrs. Dorr came to the rescue, and would not hear of our going to a hotel. The week at Bar Harbor was a round of gaieties [and] we drove over to East Harbor [sic] to lunch with President Eliot. (Lady Markby. Memories of Sir William Markby K.C.I.E. p. 104 Immediately following a four year term as Chairman of the Philosophy Division (Palmer now in leadership position), Royce writes on October 25th to Dorr requesting that as Chair of the Visiting Committee he sets himself the goal to "look into our Philosophy work... [since] I know nobody, other than yourself, whose sympathy and criticism I should equally value as I should yours." This general response is prompted by an earlier undocumented query from Dorr about recent department graduates. Royce then offers suggestions for new visiting committee members, including Franklin Benjamin Sanborn. Royce offers Dorr useful political advice, warning that Palmer does not have a high opinion of visiting committees and "drives them off [whereas] James does not care a copper. Munsterberg is new to the business, and probably would care little." Royce nevertheless says that if Dorr has the time he will help him prepare a report even though "I have no time to do more than breathe and work, and sleep between times." (There is no evidence that a report was prepared. Josiah Royce Papers. Houghton Library, Harvard University. October 25, 1898) In due course the philosophy division faculty will increasingly pressure the university for new classroom, laboratory, and office accommodations befitting their academic stature. Dorr's committee will then find itself with the daunting task of developing effective strategies to secure donations to cover the expenses for the first academic building devoted to philosophy in the United States. Congress imposes first federal inheritance tax. Gifford Pinchot appointed chief of the Division of Forestry in the Dept. of Agriculture and initiates conversion to scientific forest management. Carl Schneck states that Pinchot would succeed due to several factors (many that overlap with GBD) : he was financially independent; he was not a federal servant when he appeared before a Congressional committee, a peer who could receive in his Washington home any senator as a guest; and he was personally acquainted with many congressmen and other political leaders; and instead of writing voluminous reports he offered reports on practical work done by his division. (Cradle of Forestry in America, Ed. O. Butler, 78-79) . Massachusetts Trustees establish their third Reservation: Governor Hutchinson's Field in Milton. Wm. James responds (12.17) to a letter from Sam G. Ward claiming that he has heard from Mrs. Dorr that "you are an enthusiastic expansionist" DORR1894 Page 11 of 19 which James attributes to "something intoxicating in the Washington aid" that is wanting among Boston "retractionists" who are content with "older American ideals" (Corr.Wm. James 8) On 28 December James writes again (from Newport) where again the conservatism of Ward is contrasted with James's liberalism regarding foreign diplomacy. 1899 Biltmore Estate Director of Forestry, C.A. Schenck, responds on March 13 to Dorr's note of March 2nd. Describes forestry in America and the need for educated foresters. Oddly, he next states that "I am afraid that there is no place for you open in the U.S. now." To the Biltmore archivist this suggested that Dorr was looking for a position; the other alternative is that Schenck's unfamiliarity with the language led him to misinterpret Dorr's note which times well with his efforts to create a Maine forestry preserve (Biltmore Estate Archives: Forestry Department Corr.2.1/2 Vol. III. Curiously, Cleveland Amory (The Last Resorts, 322) remarks that Mr. Dorr was described by Bar Harbor barber Hod Pettingill as looking 'like a forest. While there is no corroboration of the claim that Dorr walked the hills wearing a pith helmet sustained only by a single cold biscuit for lunch, Amory's characterization of this "extremely popular" man as "a scenic wonder himself-a tall, lean man with shaggy eyebrows and a striking down-sweeping mustache" is accurate and will remain SO over the remaining decades of his life. Charles Eliot's father, Charles W. Eliot, president of Harvard University, begins to organize and assemble his son's professional correspondence, public reports, travel writings and other documents in order to celebrate-and memorialize--his son's achievements. He also publishes "John Gilley," a 31-page homily of one of 'the forgotten millions' who lived his span of years on an island off the MDI coast. His other son, Samuel A. Eliot, publishes in New England Magazine a detailed historical essay on three centuries of cultural evolution on an island known well to all the Eliot family. In "The Romance of Mount Desert" Rev. Eliot emphasizes that the summer colony that has been drawn to the island was "recruited from the ministers of city churches, from college officers and professors, and from wealthy families who find refreshment and delighted in the unequalled charms of sea and sky and mountain." (New England Magazine. N.S. 20, #6 (1899) : 682-697) The issue of conservation is not raised therein though there is a brief passing allusion to the "parties of college students," a likely reference to the Calf Island scientific investigations of brother Charles nearly two decades earlier. Eliot's concentration was not likely much diverted by a letter from Dorr that introduces us to an important-though largely unrecognized--figure in the development of Acadia National Park. The Bar Harbor Superintendent of Schools was traveling to Boston later in April. Dorr asks Eliot for a letter of introduction to Boston educators who might provide him "new ideas and the larger horizon." (April 1, 1899. HUA. Records of the President of Harvard University. Charles W. Eliot. B. 36) The young attorney in question is Albert Harry Lynam, whom Dorr partnered with in the fall of 1898 "in connection with an evening school for the working men and women at Bar Harbor which he and I got up there for the winter months." Lynam's selfless and energetic involvement prompted Dorr's letter and later would be the foundation for not only one of his closest friendships but a conservation partnership that would span more than three decades. Attorney Lynam would prove to be masterful in the DORR1894 Page 12 of 19 historical analysis of deeds as well as a variety of other administrative tasks. Throughout 1914-1916 his legal expertise made possible he acceptance of more than five thousand acres of land that became the Sieur de Monts National Monument. Rockefeller recognized his skills and employed him in similar projects. In due course, Lynam would become the Assistant to the Superintendent of Lafayette-and later Acadia-National Park. Sam G. Ward sends off to Mary five surviving letters this year, one included some sketches of Sam G. Ward. The Town of Eden accepts an offer from Dorr to construct a road around the western side of Strawberry Hill and the northern end of the Meadow (connecting Otter Creek county road with the town's road to Harden Farm) in order that "my mother and our friends and neighbors" on the eastern shore have a short and pleasant drive to western side of island avoiding the village. Dorr footed half the cost of this civic gesture, relying on a Mount Desert Nurseries crew to construct the road opened to the public the following year. (G. Dorr. "The Harden Farm Road in its Course around the Meadow, " undated typescript. ANPA. B. 3. f. 6) While construction took place at one end of town, at the other end the Kebo Valley Club burnt. (Bar Harbor Record. July 5, 1899) Marian Lawrence Peabody describes at length how the "gay festivities" of the Club were brought to an end by a fire that threatened nearby homes- including their own. While the hand hose cart went up the hill to the Club, Marian and other family members were on the third story of their residence handing pails of water to Reverend Lawrence to keep the burning cinders from the Club from igniting their home. Though it "looked at first as if the whole town might go," the wind died down and then SO did the flames. (To be Young was Very Heaven, 127) This was not to be the only Mount Desert Island summer catastrophy. Twenty are killed by the collapse of a ferryslip (injuring another fifty) in late August (posted 8/26) when excursionists rushing to board the Sappho put too much stress on the mainland pier where ship was docked destined for Bar Harbor. In the final surviving July 10th letter to Mary Dorr from William James, he informs her that the family leaves for Hamburg then onto Rye to visit brother Henry James. He expresses regret that his seclusion prevented him from knowing that she had been "seriously ill." He concludes by stating that expects to grasp "you and George by the hand in 1900. (Harvard University. Houghton. William James Papers. 900) A similar form of closure with Mary Dorr occurs six weeks later. Josiah Royce writes to Mrs. Dorr thanking her for a visit to Old Farm that was "particularly full of encouragement and inspiration." He too hopes that Mary may "grow stronger daily" from the "weariness" that has afflicted her. It is a bit of a stretch to claim that Mrs. Dorr midwifed The Spirit of Modern Philosophy (1892) but it may be said that that their conversations revolved around the interplay between the physical world unmasked by science and the ideal world based on our changing and private emotions. Royce would conceptually elucidate the salient features-of both the descriptive and appreciative worlds--of this double aspect theory. The Scottish organizers of the Gifford Lectures who had invited Royce to offer at the University of Aberdeen a series of lectures on the continuing theme of our knowledge of God expanded his thinking about the connection between the world of the absolute that SO interested Mary Dorr and the world of everyday experience that so interested William James. (See the two volume fruits of his thinking in The World and the Individual). DORR1894 Page 13 of 19 Massachusetts Trustees open Fourth and largest Reservation, Monument Mountain in Great Barrington. Charles Eliot Norton writes (9.21) to Sam G. Ward that "Your little volume of 'Letters' will be published, I suppose, on Saturday. I have written to have five copies sent to you. I hope that it will please you. I do not believe that you will find yourself in the papers." (Letters, V. 2) Retired now for more than a decade, the aged and infirm Samuel G. Ward resolved to compile and publish an account of the Ward family. While we know not its motivations, it is clear that the foundational document on which Ward's memoir will be built was not ion his own hands. His sister Mary was its custodian and when he contacts her he downplays its significance. In his letter of November 19th he states that "in arranging my papers and notes it occurs to me that I always meant to have a copy of Grandfather Ward's little memoir.' She provides the original which Ward copies and then returns, asking her for family photographs which are also provided (12/3, and their last likely communication on December 14th 1899) When published, no mention of this indebtedness to Mary or any other family members is credited in The Ward Family Papers. Samuel Ward decided to repeat what his grandfather William Ward had undertaken, the writing in 1825 of a lengthy autobiographical letter for the education of his grandchildren. Sam sets down his own letter, "writing from a sickbed at the age of 82 at the rate of only two pages a day Ward was accurate enough in what he told, but he chose to be silent about important matters [for] in his memoir there is no mention whatever of any critical writing, of any of his good works (including his vital help in launching the Metropolitan Museum of Art), and only the slightest mention of any of his success as American agent for Barings." (Baldwin, Puritan Aristocrat, p. 296) Is this restraint an expression of humility or the reserve born out of Puritan privacy is not certain. Yet with the additional inclusion of this one hundred and forty page autobiographical letter to his grandchildren we have nearly one hundred and fifty years of Ward family history. Not that the history is concluded, for Samuel hopes that "some one of the grandchildren I address will, in the course of the present century, follow our example." (Preface, Ward Family Papers). None of the Wards will answer this challenge. His nephew George will, however, ensure that original Ward family manuscripts are deposited in the Massachusetts Historical Society. Ward had twelve copies printed the next year by the Merymount Press for family members. Only three copies are known to be extant. One was a gift from its author deposited in the Harvard College Library by Charles Eliot Norton on December 16, 1900 with the caveat that it was to be "unopened till five years after the death of Mr. Ward." Sam delights in hearing of GBD's gardening enthusiasm. Beatrix Jones (Farrand) joins Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. and others in forming the American Society of Landscape Architects. Lengthy NYT article (12/31) celebrates her work as landscape gardener, her travels here and abroad (to more than 150 gardens), her mentorship with Charles S. Sargent, and her work on Maine gardens. Eleanor McPeck article ("Beatrix Jones Farrand, The Formative Years 1890-1920," 33) stresses characteristics commonly associated with her: a "high degree of self- discipline and her willingness to work hard, [she] was extremely ambitious and wanted to perfect her art. She was unflagging in her DORR1894 Page 14 of 19 commitment to achieve the highest standards in garden art." Since both she and Dorr had extraordinary large plant vocabularies, commitments to restrained use of plants, and horticultural educations based on European gardens, we can't help but wonder what she thought of Dorr's later involvement in influencing the gardens of The Mount. She might have wondered whether his horticultural experience with the privations of Maine's climate, location, and soil were adequate the more bountiful environment of the Berkshire estate. 1900 Harvard colleague Bliss Perry characterizes the philosophy department at the turn of the century as academically without peer. "By the tests of productivity and interesting personalities the leading department at Harvard, in 1900, was that of Philosophy. In this unrivaled 'philosophical menagerie," as Professor Palmer termed it, he himself was the senior exhibit, with William James, Royce, Munsterberg, and Santayana as his associates." (And Gladly Teach. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1929, p. 223) To be sure chairman Munsterberg provides an insiders view that all is not as it should be, writing (Harvard Graduates Magazine) about overcrowding department conditions in Dana Hall and that time nears when funds will be needed for a new facility dedicated to his discipline. As Chairman of the Visiting Committee, Mr. Dorr will soon be challenged to satisfy this need. Since his first appointment in 1893, Dorr has been chairman of a committee of three or four alumni with a complete change of membership being more commonplace than carry over appointments. Whether the chairman had a voice in selecting his fellow committee members is not documented in the archives and Dorr's memoirs are silent on this matter. William Sturgis Bigelow, Richard H. Dana, and Joseph B. Warner were reappointed while Dorr's cousin Thomas Wren Ward had but one term. John Jay Chapman and his wife Elizabeth spend three days with Mrs. Dorr (3.1 letter from 18 Commonwealth Ave. ) In his unpublished "Retrospections" Chapman writes of social Boston where one was always hearing of the "quips of Dr. Holmes, Dan Curtis, Tom Appleton, Mrs. Bell, or Mrs. Dorr. True wit is a blossom of sophistication." Notice the company kept by "Molly" Dorr, if Chapman is to be believed. Chapman then offers the most expansive characterization of Mrs. Dorr that has survived by a non-family member (see also the fuller Laura Richard biographical essay on Mary Gray Ward Dorr) : Mrs. Dorr was intense, a heart-to-hearter, and extremely indiscreet in revealing the heart-secrets of others whom fate had thrown her way. She lived in the heart-secrets of others. She had been one of the original transcendentalists, a friend of Emerson and Margaret Fuller. She gave large dinners and caused her guests to change places in the middle of the meal, called all women by their first names and all men by their last names. She had a low-pitched, authoritative voice, and was a tyrant; but dear me, what social talent! Mrs. Bell-quite an old lady in m y day-one of the Choates and a cut-diamond in wit-used to say that if the Virgin Mary should come to Boston, Molly Dorr would drop in at the Bell household and say (here she imitated Mrs. Dorr's growl, 'Helen; dine with me tomorrow. Mary'll be there! Mrs. Dorr would call from her seat down a long dinner table 'Edith Everett, you have talked long enough to Lowell. Let him come and tell me about his experiences in England. Royce, tell me your story about the snake-eaters.' The persons addressed would be ruffled; yet the heat generated by an interruption would pass-Lord knows how-into social exhilaration. Mrs. Dorr DORR1894 Page 15 of 19 was highly educated, had lived in Europe and known the literati, great prelates, scientists, British countesses who drove about in phaetons. She loved fine bindings, religious essays, old Roman prints, good china, India shawls, and rosewood. Her pose was that she had known everybody intimately. Of course, all salons arise out of the ambition of clever women and the vanity of clever men whom they subtly flatter." (DeWolfe Howe, John Jay Chapman and his Letters, 195-96; Laura E. Richard's corroborates Chapman's account of Mary Dorr: 'Julia Howe, you have sat long enough by Mrs. Bell. You go and talk to SO and so! So and so, come and talk with Mrs. Bell! Responding to Mary Dorr's intrusive directives, the guests would rise and change places. Yellow House Papers. The Laura E. Richards Collection. Gardiner Library Association and Maine Historical Society. Coll.2C85. RG9B. f. 11. Mary Ward Dorr. Pg. 5) Chapman's portrait of Mary Dorr bears a striking similarity to Ralph Waldo's characterization of Margaret Fuller at a time just before her Boston Conversations with twenty-year-old Mary: Occasionally, also, words flashed from her of such scathing satire, that prudence counseled the keeping at safe distance from a body SO surcharged with electricity. Then, again, there was an imperial-shall it be said imperious?-air, exacting deference to her judgments and loyalty to her behests, that prompted pride to retaliatory measures. She paid slight heed, moreover, to the trim palings of etiquette, but swept through the garden-beds and into the doorway of one's confidence SO cavalierly, that a reserved person felt inclined to lock himself up in his sanctum [[And] her earnestness to read the hidden history of others was the gauge of her own emotions. (R.W. Emerson, Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, V. 2, 6) Samuel Gray Ward is concerned about the "ultimate disposition" of Ward family manuscripts, letters, and images that he and his sister had shared with one another. He asks Mary what she thinks of passing them on "while we are here to the next generation of the Ward name." He sees his son Tom as the likely candidate to preserve these family papers yet the bulk of them are retained for a time by Mary's son. It is our good fortune that Sam will did not wait for Mary to decide about the final disposition of the Ward Family papers. (University of California. Santa Barbara. Ward-Perkins Family Papers. May 15, 1900 letter from Mary Gray Ward Dorr to S.G. Ward) He completed his own memoirs ( as a long letter to his grandchildren) included his grandfather's memoirs, and thirteen portraits of family members, including a recent photograph of Mary Gray Ward Dorr. Several months after his correspondence with Mary, he approached former Houghton Mifflin & Company printer Daniel Berkeley Updike who had established in 1893 Merrymount Press, known nationally for its undeviating adherence to the highest standards of quality in production. As the last months of the nineteenth century came to a close, Merrymount published The Ward Family Papers. With only twelve copies produced and only three extant in institutional collections, this history provides our best general account of the maternal side of Dorr's ancestry. The 1901 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society later acknowledges that at its most recent meeting Charles Eliot Norton read to members select passages from this work, an autobiographical narrative by William Ward, the maternal great grandfather of George Dorr. (Second Series. 14. pp. 394-395) DORR1894 Page 16 of 19 In late April Mary travels to Lenox "after an absence of some seasons" to look after the rented Highlawn residence where she feels she has been negligent. Sam writes to Mary that he is delighted "to hear of you in such vigor as you show in going to Lenox to put the house in order.' This Spring visit would be her last contact with the property although following Anna's death Sam would still visit Lenox friends as late as 1904. For reasons that are not known to us, George B. Dorr chose not to retain the property and shortly after his mother's death in October 1901 he returned to finalize the property transfer to Robert Warden Paterson, a Scottish-born turpentine broker and his wife Marie. Within the year, "amidst the Dorrs' towering elms, copper beeches and black walnuts [Highlawn was demolished and] an extravagant new brick and half-timbered Tudor mansion took form." (C. Gilder, op. cit., paraphrasing an article in Lenox Life, June 1, 1901) Potter and Robertson of New York designed the new baronial one hundred thirty acre Blantyre property that today offers guests elegant accommodations and world-class dining. Highlawn itself became the temporary accommodations for the craftsmen employed to construct Blantyre. "The Dorr era is told only in a few nineteenth century outbuildings-the shingled carriage house and a little board and batten hipped roof structure-and some surviving ancient specimen trees planted 150 years ago by 'the benevolent Mr. Dorr. (Gilder, op. cit., p. 4 and Houses of the Berkshires 1870-1930, Pp. 203-210) The Dorr connection with Lenox, however, was not permanently severed. For the next six years Dorr would carry on correspondence with a new Plunkett Street property owner, accept her offers to be a guest at her new home, and offer professional advice on the location and naming of gardens and paths on her Laurel Lake property. The relationship between Mount Desert horticulturist George B. Dorr and the owner of The Mount, novelist Edith Wharton, will now be addressed. (See "R.H. Epp, "Wild Gardens and Pathways at the Mount," forthcoming in The Mount Conference Papers, 2007) A frequent guest at Old Farm during the early 1890's, John Jay Chapman writes on March 1st from 18 Commonwealth Avenue to William James that he and his wife are spending three days with Mrs. Dorr. Referring to the home-or perhaps the city--as a social nexus he says: "We have seen the whole astronomy here-and a joy to find how little everyone has changed- all the people old and young I ever knew-and each one more SO than ever- Royce especially in good form." (M.A.De Wolfe Howe. John Jay Chapman and his Letters, 177). Bar Harbor Y.M.C.A. organized following a two year effort by Morris K. Jesup to establish such an organization. First meeting held at home of Wm. J. Schieffelin with generous donations from 16 families from $100 to $4,000 (not from Dorrs at this time) Later this year the building was completed and GBD is one of the seven Board of Directors. In subsequent years GBD would be a patron following enlargement of the facility in 1903. Dorr writes that in 1900 "I had endeavored to get a forestry association started on the Island with a similar aim [to the HCTPR], but had got no further than some promises of subscription and a forestry survey of the Island" by the then recently established forest service, "which approved the project. "This project was dropped on the formation of the Public Reservations Corporation.' [Nov. 11, 1924 letter. NHLA. Charles W. Eliot II Papers]. Writing from Luzern, Switzerland, William James updates Dorr on his Gifford Lecture preparations where he has just completed writing an DORR1894 Page 17 of 19 account of the American Mind Cure Movement. James thinks that the abstract discussion needs some concrete examples to "redeem" the abstraction as SO asks Dorr to set down in a few pages his own experience which will then be included anonymously in the forthcoming Varieties of Religious Experience. Whether Dorr contributed an account we cannot say but the relevant Varieties personal documentation is all attributed to females. On another matter, James notes that he has heard supportive updates about you and your mother from Dickinson Miller and Tom Ward." (Harvard University. Houghton. Correspondence of William James. III. 119. 7/22/1900) As Mary Dorr approached her eightieth birthday, landscape architect and artist Charles A. Platt (1861-1933) arrived at Old Farm that September. An exhibitor at the World's Columbian Exposition, the Cornish Colony painter was a recent recipient of the Webb prize for landscape painting awarded by the Society of American Artists. Platt was well-known throughout New England as a country house architect, focusing on projects that melded architecture, interior design, and landscape design. At this time he was inspiring "a renewed interest in gardening as a fine art...[one] who made the Italian garden an important model for a succeeding generation of landscape designers." (Rebecca Warren Davidson, "Charles A. Platt and the Fine Art of Landscape Design," in Keith Morgan's Shaping an American Landscape: The Art and Architecture of Charles A. Platt. Hanover: University Press of New England, 1985. Ch. 4) Since Mary's health was failing, it is highly probable that the invitation to Platt came from George who shared with Platt a partiality to coastal and marine subjects. Platt's earlier etched work in the words of his biographer, Keith N. Morgan, "explored the effects of atmosphere and light on water," themes that resonate through Dorr's memoirs. (Shaping the American Landscape. Pg. 4, which builds on his earlier Charles A. Platt: The Artist as Architect. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1985. Chapter two of Robin Karson's A Genius for Place: American Landscapes of the Country Place Era [Amherst: LALH/University of Massachusetts Press, 2007] situates Platt within the Country Place movement) These shared experiences anticipated conversations that he and George would have a few years later regarding garden designs at Edith Wharton's Berkshire home, The Mount. (For a vivid portrait of the Bar Harbor culture of the day see Dr. S. Weir Mitchell's "Dr. North and his Friends" which appeared September 1900 in The Century Illustrated Magazine) What did Platt think of the Old Farm estate as it entered its third decade? No evidence answers this question, though he surely must have inquired into the strategies that its owners employed to relate the estate structures with its shaped surroundings. For like his later collaborator Warren Manning, the comprehensive effect of physical structure within its natural context was paramount. Similarly, evidence is lacking regarding the philosophical principles that guided Old Farm architect Henry Richards, especially on foundational issues like the relationship between design and landscape. Charles Singer Sargent brought to bear on his pupil Beatrix Farrand: to "make the plan fit the ground and not to twist the ground to fit the plan." (B. Farrand. Reef Point Bulletin 1, #17. Pg. 17) Dorr's memoirs leave no doubt that the Dorr's were aligned with Sargent's imperative, for Charles Hazen Dorr was first drawn to the aesthetics of the place and later offered Richard the opportunity to place their new residence-devoid of any echoes of their former homes--with this natural setting. DORR1894 Page 18 of 19 Robert Sterling Yard reports ("An Analysis of LNP, 1924) that Dorr took steps this year to establish a forestry association as a means to conservation, to acquire and hold lands of public interest on the Island. Seal Harbor VIS incorporated 23 July following an initial meeting June 30th at the office of G.L. Stebbins. Edward K. Dunham documents in 1980 the "Early Years of the SHVIS" based on the annual reports gathered by his father. The first act of the Society was purchasing a 600 gallon Studebaker sprinkler to keep down road dust; much attention given to the appearance of the automobile, anticipating the growing concern with the impact on of this new technology on Island culture and natural resources. William James' sends a postcard from Nauheim thanking Mary Dorr for forwarding correspondence to him, the last surviving correspondence with her one of two dozen written to Mrs. Dorr over twelve years prior her death in October 1901. (Harvard University. Houghton. Correspondence of William James. S. III. 118. 9.26. 1900) A few weeks later death touches another Ward family member. Nephew Thomas Wren Ward writes the Superintendent of Mount Auburn Cemetery that on October 28th his mother, Anna Hazard Barker Ward "passed away," with burial scheduled for October 31st. (Mount Auburn Cemetery Historical Collections, #235) Mary's brother Sam writes to Mary a week later that that "No one but you [is] left who can look back over the sixty years of our married life, which you knew from the beginning." (TWWPapers B3 f28). In November, President Eliot started on a vacation of three or four months following his annual report for 1899-1900 delivered to the Overseers on 9/27. Mr. Dorr's first-of three--documented visits to the Biltmore Estate. December 21, 1900. We cannot determine whether he ushered in the New Year there or return to Boston to celebrate the arrival of a new century Samuel Eliot Morison (13 years of age at the end of the 19th century) writes of New Year's Eve, 1900-01, "the ceremonious ushering in of the new century from the balcony of the State House. We owed that privileged position to friendship with a gallant figure of the closing century, Governor Roger Wolcott A canon on the Common announced midnight, and every church bell in the city pealed forth. It was a high moment of hope and glory-peace and prosperity everywhere, save in South Africa and the Philippines Victoria still on the English throne, vistas of progress looming ahead. ( One Boy's Boston: 1887-1901. 79-80) There is a dark cloud on the horizon inasmuch as the first quantity-production automobile factory was built in Detroit this year by Olds Co. Morison Concludes his childhood tale by reminding us that "the internal combustion engine turned our economy upside-down and placed our society on a completely new basis. Life would never be the same again. (p. 81) DORR1894 Page 19 of 19 232/pp GEORGE BUCKNAM DORR Ronald H. Epp, Ph.D. BEGIN: 1901 (November 22, 2008) 1901 As the new century begins, Dorr has little inkling of the challenges he will face in the months ahead. Before the appearance in Boston of the first crocuses, Dorr accepts an institutional responsibility that will be directly relevant to the challenges he will later face on Mount Desert Island --the philanthropic cultivation of donors. Most importantly, years of fund-raising experience in Cambridge will be essential to his success in securing conservation properties that will become Acadia National Park. Over the next several years as Chairman of the Harvard University Overseers' Philosophy Visiting Committee, Dorr will be charged with fund-raising for the erection of Emerson Hall, a new home for philosophy and their sister disciplines. So too, outside financing would be required for a project that would enlarge the campus footprint. Dorr leads an alumni committee to acquire the funds necessary to secure properties--that when gifted to Harvard--would enable the construction of an impressive boulevard connection to the Charles River from the Harvard Yard. Later elements of this failed effort would be reformed into the more ambitious campus expansion efforts of the Harvard Riverside Associates, with whom Dorr would have a role. But early in 1901, Dorr's energies as an alumnus revolve around matters the worldly needs of Harvard's philosophers. Hugo Munsterberg has been administering the Philosophical Department-- and directing the work of the Psychological Laboratory-since Royce gave up the Chairmanship he held from 1894-1898. Department faculty offices and classroom space was scattered throughout the Yard, prompting within the university a growing awareness of the need for philosophy and its kindred discipline to be united in a facility of their own. This need was abundantly clear to Dorr as chairman of the Visiting Committee for the past five years. The Harvard administration, however, made it known that a new home for philosophy-with anticipated costs in excess of a quarter million dollars--would only be realized if most of the expense was borne by donors. Munsterberg emphasized that this new building "was to be not merely a convenient shelter for various professors of philosophy and their classes, it should be more-nothing less than an outward symbol of the inner unity of all philosophical studies [while] George Herbert Palmer suggested that this house commemorate some tradition peculiar to Harvard and New England. Who other than the Sage of Concord, whose hundredth birthday was near, could aptly characterize the New England tradition and give an appropriate name to the home of philosophy at Harvard!" (Margaret Munsterberg. Hugo Munsterberg, chap. 7) On March 20th The Philosophy Visiting Committee is sent a lengthy charge by Munsterberg to remedy what he now deemed an "intolerable" situation through erection of "a worthy monumental building at a quiet central part of the Harvard yard...[to] give once more to the overwhelming multitude of intellectual efforts of our university a real unity and inner connection." (pgs. 72-73) The soaring language of this directive DORR1901 Page 1 of 22 may indeed have been the collaborative effort of colleagues more facile with the English language than he, but the ambitious goal was supported, nonetheless, by President Eliot and the Corporation. (Harvard University. Archives. Subscription Records: Subscription for Emerson Hall, 1901- 1905. H. Munsterberg to G.B. Dorr. April 28, 1901) Munsterberg and his departmental colleagues addressed alumni and other sympathetic groups to gather enthusiasm for the project. Meanwhile, Chairman Dorr provided direction for the Committee on how best to gather 'subscriptions' sufficient to cover the anticipated expense; no minutes were kept of their deliberations. President Eliot was kept well informed by Dorr of their actions. (Dorr's letter of May 1, 1901 requests Eliot's endorsement of a subcommittee-working with the Philosophy Visiting Committee- to raise funds "for a special education library at Harvard," to house educational resources allied with the work of Professor Paul H. Hanus. May 1, 1901. HUA. Records of the President of Harvard University. Charles W. Eliot. B. 36) In mid-June Albany attorney (later legal scholar and Federal judge) Learned Hand is the first donor to the proposed philosophy building. In the months ahead donations in varying amount are received, many contain supportive comments but few express such enthusiasm as accompanied the thousand dollar donation from educator Pauline Agassiz Shaw (1841-1917). Obviously, not all solicitations were productive and the Harvard Archives contain a response from Oliver Wendell Holmes declaring that he will not "fork out for the philosophy department,' nor will he ask others to contribute to what he is not doing himself since that would look "a little queer. (Harvard University. Archives. Op. cit., O.W. Holmes to G.E Dorr. April 6, 1902) From February to June, the expenditure of large sums of money was also on the mind of Edith Wharton as she negotiated the $40,000 expense to purchase the 113 acre Lenox property above Laurel Lake. She hired architect Francis V.L. Hoppin to design a Christopher Wren-like house. "It was an environment that appealed to both the Whartons, to the love of the outdoors, of natural landscape, country exercise, gardens and dogs..." (M. Bell, Edith Wharton and Henry James, p. 78) Mrs. Wharton here clearly affirms that "life in the country is the only state which has always completely satisfied me." Wharton found in Lenox the "haunting scent of that former New England flowering of minds among the peaceful hills," the era a half century earlier of Hawthorne, Melville, Sam G. Ward, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Catherine Sedgwick, and Fanny Kemble. In Wharton's day, Charles Eliot Norton lent Wharton books from his nearby home which contained his voluminous collection, praising her publications to Samuel G. Ward and others, calling her "among the few foremost writers in English today" ( p.86). Beatrix Jones is involved from the outset with the layout of the grounds at The Mount. For Wharton "the countryside became a friend who was alternatively forbidding and threatening in bad weather and nourishing and loving in good. Wharton's way of strengthening her ties to the land was to garden, to tame the wilderness by sculpting the land and growing flowers and vegetables." Later she drew up plans for Lenox gardens at Bellefontaine, Elm Court, and Eastover, locations like the Mount where her style in garden design "combined a wonderful sense of the French and Italian classical layouts with a profusion of planting, using her superb knowledge of flowers and shrubs" (E. Dwight, Edith Wharton, pp. 94-96). Charles W. Eliot first correspondence to Henry O. Houghton (of Houghton Mifflin Publishers) on May 3 regarding "collection of the writings of my son Charles" that is in preparation. DORR1901 Page 2 of 22 Theodore Roosevelt becomes President and conservation becomes a cornerstone of his domestic policy. Horace Albright remarks emphatically (Reminiscences, p. 99) that T.R. "glamorized conservation, emphasizing it at every turn. He got out into the woods He traveled extensively through the national parks and the national forests. No president before or since has been SO active personally in covering the territory involved in conservation, nor in understanding and even participating in the use of its resources." At a more specific level, the Biltmore Forester Carl Schenck says that "Forestry in the United States took a most decided turn upward in 1901... {for] the Roosevelt-Pinchot team, brought about by the sad accident of McKinley's assassination, was of the greatest and happiest consequence for American forestry." (Cradle of Forestry in America, p. 111) On July 1 the humble forestry division was raised to the rank of a bureau in the Department of Agriculture; on the other hand, in quick order the differences between Schenck and Pinchot would become more exaggerated and by 1903 Schenck's devotion would come to an abrupt end. June and July in BH unusually warm. A furious electrical storm during the first week in July (NYT 7/6) destroyed the home of Bishop Lawrence's brother. Beatrix Jones is at Reefpoint. On July 28th two of the last surviving letters to Mary Dorr are sent. Brother Sam laments that "It is SO long since I heard anything from you or about you ask George to let us hear from him about you.' (TWWPapers B3 f28; three dozen surviving letters from SGW to MGW are extant, yet only 3 from MGW to SGW) On this same date William James sends off a letter to her from Neuheim reporting that he has sent George a newspaper from Edinburgh to provide evidence that he had completed his Gifford Lectures which "went off very well as far as the audience was concerned." Unaware of the few months of life left to Mrs. Dorr he remarks that "Everyone is dying at home! I pray you, Mrs. Dorr, keep alive until we return!" He declares that this is his last trip abroad and that he won't leave America again. They set sail on August 31st and did doubtless arrive back in Cambridge prior to Mary Dorr's death October 21st (Harvard University. Houghton. Correspondence of William James. III. 118) On August 12 President Charles W. Eliot writes from his summer home on the Asticou shore of Northeast Harbor to Dorr in Bar Harbor. In the letter, Eliot invites Dorr to join other interested Mount Desert residents in a August 13th meeting in the Music Room of Caroline Dana Bristol on Rowland Road in Seal Harbor. According to his Brief Record of the Origin and Activities of the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations, Eliot's son Samuel Atkins Eliot states that it was his father's discovery of Charles Eliot's 1889 "Coast of Maine" article in Garden and Forest that provided the motivation for this meeting. (HCTPR. Bar Harbor, Maine, 1939) A decade earlier Landscape architect Eliot grew increasingly concerned that the wild charm of the coast of Maine would in time come under private ownership, depriving the public of access to its scenic pleasures. President Eliot's elder son had suggested that this misfortune might be averted by action of the State or through the incorporation of like- minded conservationists who would acquire and maintain public sanctuaries. The Massachusetts the Trustees of Public Reservations was incorporated May 21, 1891 and its initial success since then was the precedent that President Eliot had in mind for Mount Desert Island. A DORR1901 Page 3 of 22 few contend that lumbering operations were at the heart of this new conservation movement. To be sure, those that gathered had seen the impact of lumbering elsewhere; the ruination of the island scenery due to defoliation, however, is not the imperative if we are to trust the documents that have survived. (The lumbering claim is advanced by Louise D. Rich. The Coast of Maine. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1956. p. 258. Forest preservation as an economic imperative is advocated in October by Francis Wiggin before the Maine State Board of Trade, The Preservation of Maine Forests and Lake and Park Reservations. Portland: Marks, 1901) While forest quality was a matter of concern in Hancock County, the it is President Eliot's vision that the key Trustee responsibility is to make lands currently set aside for private purposes accessible for public use. Dorr brought his neighbors George W. Vanderbilt, William J. Schieffelin, and John Stewart Kennedy-aboard Kennedy's yacht--to the meeting: the Right Reverent William Lawrence, Bishop of Massachusetts, came by carriage. Twelve men representing the VIA's as well as those with enthusiasm for conservation met and endorsed Eliot's vision to create a corporation dedicated to preserve the wild beauty of the island. A vote to organize was passed. President Eliot became the President, George Dorr its Vice-President and Executive Officer, and George L. Stebbins its Treasurer, beginning a 48 year tenure. A year earlier Charles W. Eliot joined the Massachusetts Trustees of Public Reservations, bringing to Maine aspects of its organizational structure. (In 1905 he became its President, a term he held until his death in 1926. Consequently, Eliot presided over the two premiere land trusts in New England for more than two decades.) The Bar Harbor legal firm of Deasy and Lynam became the HCTPR Corporation counsel. According to the surviving documentation, there was no ambiguity about the necessity for establishing the first Maine land trust. The Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations was endorsed by the village improvement societies of Bar Harbor, Northeast Harbor and Seal Harbor, and nearly forty years later Treasurer Stebbins would insist that the "most important development in the history of the island was the establishment of the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations.' " ("Random Notes. "1938) An organization committee is chosen and following chapter 55 of the Revised Statutes of Maine, an incorporation meeting is held September 14th for the purpose of "acquiring, owning and holding lands and other property in Hancock County for public use." A charter was obtained at the next convening of Maine's legislature, January 1, 1903. Once this land trust precedent was established, there was no immediate increase in the number of local Maine land trusts. Over the next eight decades the number only increased to one dozen, but in the last quarter century that number mushroomed to over a hundred. (Thomas Urquhart. "All Conservation is Local, " Port City Life, November 2007. 48 ff. Hancock County was not alone in its growing awareness of the need for land protection. In its neighboring state to the west, the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests is established. This conservation organization would be a central component in the decade long effort to establish through the Weeks Act a federal land reserve. In 1902 a dear friend of the Dorr family, Massachusetts cleric Edward Everett Hale convened a public gathering at Intervale to jumpstart a campaign for the creation of a White Mountain forest reserve. A stream of editorials and articles in the national press followed, focused on forest destruction. DORR1901 Page 4 of 22 The marriage of John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Abby Aldrich, October 9th. The sense of momentum Dorr experienced at this time was certainly disrupted by the not unexpected death of his mother. Cousin Louisa records in her diary that she saw George in early October after he and his mother returned to Boston on October 8th. On the 21s "Aunt Mary Dorr died quietly-in the afternoon-at her house, 18 Commonwealth Avenue." (Massachusetts Historical Society. Endicott Family Papers. B. 30. f. 7, 1901 Diary of Louisa Endicott) Louisa reached Boston by train the next day. She went to see cousin George who took LouLou -as she was affectionately known-to Mary's room to see her. That same day a permit for burial was issue by the Boston Office for the Board of Health indicating that Mary died of "old age." The order for interment states that the lot was owned by the "heirs of Charles H. Dorr." George B. Dorr completes the form in his hand and signs it as the new Proprietor. (Mount Auburn Cemetery Historical Collections, #4474) Sarah Wyman Whitman (Letters) had written on August 27th that a message to her from an unnamed source "concerning Mrs. Dorr gives me a sad little pang, for I see how little can be done, and yet that vital spirit is SO cabined by the persistent flesh. Ah well, I try to remember that she may be free from suffering in any such sense as this, and only waiting for the new freedom under a new sky.' Two months later on the day of Mrs. Dorr's death she would again refer to liberation: "...yesterday Mrs. Dorr was set free after SO long a captivity, and now one may believe walks freely in that sky at which she has sat looking for these months past." (See also BHT & BHVIA obits). Two months later on Christmas Day Mrs. Whitman reports of the "heavenly fortune" that came to her "when Mrs. Dorr [earlier] had a sudden revelation from Heaven that she wanted me to paint [Samuel G. Ward], a portrait she is now completing. The "Journals" of Julia Ward Howe offer the most extended commentary on the effect of Mary Dorr's death on a lifelong (beginning in the late 1830's) friend; indeed, Julia's comments make up more than a third of the words she devotes to Mrs. Dorr in these memoirs spanning forty years. (1) "I am today in much confusion of mind. My friend in early youth and of many years, Mary Dorr, died on Monday, 21st. I desire to attend her funeral tomorrow.. Mrs. Dorr's death is a relief from much weakness and bodily infirmity. We were once very intimate but have grown apart, although I have regretted her seeming neglect of me in these last years. She was much interested in spiritualism and mind cure, both of which I eschew. Other and younger people have gathered around her, of which I am glad, yet a little jealous for the old friendship." (2) On Thursday, the 24th, Julia again writes that she "went with dear Maud to Mary Dorr's funeral. In the cars met a Mr. Grosvenor, formerly of Providence, who had danced to my playing one Christmas in early childhood. At the Dorr house found a wreath of laurel and violets over the usual crepe. Arlo Bates helped me up stairs, where George Dorr took me affectionately by the hand and seated me next to Thomas Ward, his uncle. Rev. Frank Peabody was the minister. Maud was much impressed with his choice and reading of scripture, and with his remarks which were excellent; three hymns by the choir of King's Chapel fairly sung and very good in effect. The casket was covered with the choicest flowers, as was the rest on which it was placed. Mary's old coachman, Bennett, stood beside George, at, I suppose, the foot of the casket, which was closed. Many old friends were there; no indifferent acquaintances I should think.' (3) The next day Julia states that she has "thought much about Mrs. Dorr's life and death. This last event opened to me such a panorama of retrospect-Mary's visit here in 1839, her engagement to my DORR1901 Page 5 of 22 brother Henry, my visits to her in Boston, Henry's death, our intimacy of many years and her singular estrangement from me, during say the last five years. She always met me affectionately, but never sought me nor sent any greetings when I was ill or at other times. Remembering now the delight which I once had in her society, I am sad that our record closed with no postscript regarding the old affection. Of this she once said to my Maud: "Your mother and I were once like hand in glove, but I have grown." (JWH, "Journal," trans. E. Cochrane, YHP, RG 18) ) Charles Eliot Norton-cousin of Charles W. Eliot--writes to Samuel G. Ward (11.5) and refers to his disappointment at Sam's giving up his visit to Boston. "The death of your sister [Mrs. Charles H. Dorr] has removed what I presume to have been one of the strongest motives for your coming. Her [death] deprives me of a very kind friend, and almost the only one who had many familiar memories in common with me of persons and places dear to us both in childhood and youth. I was very much at Ticknor's and the Guilds' in those days, and your sister's intimacy with my cousins led to our meeting frequently. She was a grown girl, I a little boy, but she treated me SO pleasantly that I became much attached to her. What a worthy set of people lived on Park Street then, before Abbott Lawrence disturbed its tranquil dignity with his big new house!" (Letters, V. 2) Julia Ward Howe's "Journal" also documents four encounters with George B. Dorr between December 16th, 1901 and January 31st, 1908. Nearly two months after his mother's death (12.16) he calls on Julia for "a long talk about the long past, and especially about my brother Henry who was engaged to George's mother. It seemed like getting into a crypt to recall the scenes of that distant time. He asked leave to call again tomorrow [when] he called again and brought a great number of letters to his father from my father and many other people. We had a good sitting together. He described his grandfather coming in to break the news of dear Henry's death to his family. Mary and her mother were sitting in the parlor. Mr. Ward entered, his eyes streaming with tears. "Is he dead"" asked Mrs. Ward. Mr. Ward folded his daughter into his arms. As George told me this, which he had heard from his mother, the tears came and his voice faltered. As he rose to take leave, I said: 'Dear George, I love to go over the past with you, but you must not dwell on it too much. The future is before you; you must think of it. (JWH, "Journals," trans. E. Cochrane, YHP RG18), The Ward Family Papers verify this rendering. George B. Dorr petitioned the Massachusetts Judicial Courts to probate his mother's will (written April 20, 1897) on October 29 th which was executed two days later. (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives, Record 118768, Probate Record Book. Vol. 799, pages 8-13; see also abstract filed May 28, 1902. Hancock County Registry of Deeds. 377-167) In it she states that if her son survives her, she bequeaths to him "all my estate, real and personal and I appoint to him all property" in which she has some authority. (A complicated set of sixteen requirements apply if he predeceases his mother. In the event that her son predeceases her, three persons are named as beneficiaries: Grafton Dulany Cushing, Morris Gray, and Sarah W. Whitman; the first two are beneficiaries of all furnishings, books, works of art and all other matters of a personal or domestic character) If her son predeceased her, Mrs. Dorr's trustees would have administered charitable trusts as they see fit, recognizing Mary's wish that the income from this trust be used as a "helpful influence in the life of the city of Boston, aiding where the need shall seem greatest and the opportunity best." DORR1901 Page 6 of 22 The services of these beneficiaries were not required. Of Sarah Whitman we have spoken earlier. Following a distinguished political career as a progressive Massachusetts Representative (1906-07) and Lt. Governor (1915-16), Grafton D. Cushing (1864-1939) is interred near the Dorr plot at Mount Auburn Cemetery (Lot # 385) A maternal relative, attorney Morris Gray (1856-1931) in the years following Mary's death served as President of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the host of a Harvard luncheon that he arranged to honor President Roosevelt during his Cambridge visit June 25, 1902 visit. Shortly before his death, Gray donates $42,000 to the Widener Memorial Library to purchase works of poetry. One important legal condition in Mrs. Dorr's will had significant ramifications for inquiry into the inherited wealth of her son. Namely, Mary insisted that "no inventories or accounts" be undertaken at the time of her death, a matter well known to those who witnessed the document: John C. Gray, Henry Parkman, and Grace M. Kuhn. Rumors have persisted over the last century that Mary Gray Ward Dorr left an estate valued from one to ten million dollars, claims that were unsubstantiated. My efforts to determine through court and probate records the extent of George B. Dorr's inheritance have been unsuccessful. That there was a inheritance is not denied. As retirement is sometimes touted as a rite of passage, SO too the death of Mary Dorr marked a new beginning for her son. Ignoring the cumulative effect on her son of the mother's publicly recognized strength of character, the natural constraints of a solitary mother-son relationship were gone. The middle age son who had been supported SO generously by his parents for nearly forty-eight years would now chart his own path. Already on Dorr's plate was the relatively new nursery business and the not yet defined responsibilities of Vice President of the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations. In Boston, Harvard College expects that he will lead the fundraising for Emerson Hall and an alumni committee will place him at the center of alumni efforts to secure property extending the Harvard Yard to the banks of the Charles River. Yet William James provides us with a timely indication of Dorr's uncanny persistence that will serve him SO well in the years ahead. Immediately following his mother's death, James writes to Dorr and asks him to lunch, ostensibly to discuss matters relative to the death earlier that year of James' psychical research associate Frederic Myers. (Harvard University. Houghton. Correspondence of William James. III. November 11, [1901?]) In the decade ahead Dorr and James would often see eye-to-eye on psychical research issues. Yet others seethat their conversational methods differ, especially when discussion becomes argumentative. During this era James had sponsored a promising young scholar by the name of Dickinson S. Miller, a professor of philosophy at Columbia. In an essay on James written for the James centennial, Dickinson reports that that "Mr. George Dorr of Boston once said, 'The trouble I find in talking with William James is that he goes off at a tangent to the right or to the left.' Some time afterward James dropped the remark, 'The only thing I have against George Dorr is that he sticks to his point SO. ("William James, Man and Philosopher," William James. The Man and the Thinker. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1942. pp. 42-43) Dorr's focused attention to the issue at hand would prove absolutely vital to many of his philanthropic community efforts in the next two decades, DORR1901 Page 7 of 22 never more SO than in his determination to conserve the landscape of Mount Desert Island. Houghton Mifflin gathers together discrete essays by John Muir first published in Atlantic Monthly. To the public, the November publication of Our National Park establishes Muir's reputation as the foremost American conservationist. Josiah Royce is selected to be President of the American Psychological Association for 1902. 1902 A year had passed since Professor Munsterberg had charged Dorr and other Harvard College Visiting Committee members with raising the funds for construction of Emerson Hall. President Eliot announces the formation of a Division of Philosophy, the fund-raising process underway for a new building to bear Emerson's name, and the selection of a site "as far removed as possible from the highways which go towards Boston, and from the electric cars." (Annual Reports of the President and the Treasurer of Harvard College. Cambridge: Harvard University, January 25, 1902. pp. 36-37) College officials are well aware that the Emerson Centennial would be celebrated internationally and they intend to use the associated events as a forum to reaffirm their fund-raising progress, if not its completion. As Chairman of the Visiting Committee of the Philosophical Division, Dorr sends an indeterminate number of printed invitations for a meeting scheduled for February 14th to discuss plans for Emerson Hall. Addresses are promised by President Eliot, Henry L. Higginson, and professors James, Munsterberg, Palmer, and Royce. Unfortunately, no minutes survive from this meeting but we do know that invitations were likely received in Concord by William Torrey Harris and certainly by Franklin Benjamin Sanborn. (Letters to William Torrey Harris. Unit 1. f. 12. Concord Free Public Library Special Collections) This invitation would stir up a long standing controversy and Sanborn would be at center stage. Sanborn did not take the naming of a Harvard facility for his mentor in a singularly positive light. It awakened in him long standing resentments about Emerson's treatment by the Harvard authorities in an earlier era. On February 13th he sent off separate letters to Dorr and Harris. (That he was not familiar with Dorr is suggested by the fact that his letter is posted to the 3 Commonwealth Avenue residential location for the scheduled meeting and not to Dorr's home across the street at #18) He may also have been unaware of Dorr's relationship to Samuel Gray Ward when in the next paragraph he asks Harris if he ever sees Ward in Washington, quoting Ward's flattering recent remarks to Ellen Emerson about his early friendship with the poet Ellery Channing) But to the point at hand, Sanborn remarks that "the movement" at Harvard to establish Emerson Hall brings to mind the "paralysis of speculative philosophy which existed under [Professor] Bowen in 1853-54" when Sanborn was one of his pupils (Harvard Class of 1855) In his letter to Dorr he offers specific examples of how impoverished philosophical studies were at Harvard a half century earlier: "We were taught by our instructors that [Kant, Hegel, Fichte, and the fixed stars of German philosophy] were either useless or pernicious in our speculative studies," and SO too not only Emerson but the ancients [Plotinus, Aristotle and Plato] were given little attention. (Sanborn to Dorr, February 13, Letters to William Torrey Harris, Ibid. See also V.C. Sanborn, "Franklin Benjamin Sanborn (1831-1917)") DORR1901 Page 8 of 22 During this time, Sanborn became acquainted with Ralph Waldo Emerson and over the next three decades of Emerson's life, it was well known to Sanborn that Emerson felt unappreciated by his alma mater. To be sure one of the earliest decisions by President Eliot was the invitation to Emerson to lecture on the nature of the Intellect. Sanborn sees this "tardy" recognition as a near misfortune for Emerson was "far too advanced in age to present his views systematically." Sanborn sees the establishment of the Concord School of Philosophy as motivated in part to honor in Concord a man who had been treated shabbily in Cambridge. Sanborn closes his letter to Dorr with praise for the "wiser spirit [now] prevailing in his University. Much time has been lost but we may now hope that the wider range and opportunity of the Department in which you have an official place will in some measure atone for the defects of past years I know of nothing better calculated to continue this improvement than the accomplished purpose which I understand you and the gentlemen who are to speak tomorrow have in view." (Ibid) In not attending this meeting Mr. Sanborn may have done his mentor a great service. Dorr's cordial response on February 18th to this "interesting letter" sidestepped Sanborn's criticism. Instead, it stressed the "high appreciation of Emerson's deep and ennobling influence" expressed by Eliot, Palmer, and Higginson. Dorr closes with the assertion that a sign of the vitality of the department is its recognition that Emerson is "the best exponent of its spirit. I trust our building may become his monument. (F.B. Sanborn Collection. Boston University. Howard Gottlieb Archival Research Center) Two days earlier William James wrote to Dorr informing him that Edward Emerson and his wife were spending some days at the James residence. Dorr is one of a dozen who were invited to hear Emerson read a paper on Ralph Waldo Emerson's philosophy, again drawing Dorr deeper into the spirit of the Emersonian centennial and the needs of Harvard's philosophers. William James invites Dorr to lunch March 21st to talk about a subject the two of them had discussed earlier: the Alda Piper 'sittings.' Though he will leave April for England, James also has an appointment with Mrs. Myers about her psychical research. As the American Automobile Association was being established this Spring in Chicago, on Mount Desert Island those who saw the horseless carriage as a threat to their rustic tranquility were rallying their opposition to its intrusion. Within the year, they secured passage in the State legislature of ordinances to exclude autos from specific highways in each island town. Many local businessmen saw this legislation as a threat to their livelihood and persisted for more than a decade to have these restrictions repealed. George W. Vanderbilt was one of a handful of summer residents who promoted acceptance of the automobile and toward the end of the decade his friend, Mr. Dorr, began to speak publicly about the inevitability of this new mode of transportation. Nonetheless, Dorr was editorially raked over the coals in at least one regional paper for suggesting a compromise that enabled motorized access to the edge, requiring horse or foot traffic within the town of Bar Harbor. (Richard A. Savage. "The Bar Harbor Auto War,' Down East (Aug. 1975) : pp. 66 f.) Charles Eliot Norton writes (3.10) to Samuel G. Ward regarding a "work of another woman of genius [that] has been exciting my imagination during these last days, and when you read Mrs. Wharton's 'Valley of Decision, you will not, I believe wonder that it has done so. She calls it a 'novel,' but it is rather a study of Italian thought and life during the latter part of the eighteenth century, in the form of a DORR1901 Page 9 of 22 story a unique and astonishing performance, of which the style is not less remarkable than the substance [and] places Mrs. Wharton among the few foremost writers in English today." (Letters, V. 2) April 26: George B. Dorr writes to the Superintendent of Mount Auburn Cemetery asking that lot #4474 headstones be placed at his expense on a "permanent cemented foundation"; further, he details specifications and remarks that the headstone for his mother is being completed and will soon arrive. (Mount Auburn Cemetery Historical Collections, #4474) The Carnegie Institution of Washington Trustees responded positively to Alfred G. Mayer's proposal to establish a laboratory for tropical marine zoology at Dry Tortugas, Florida. Appointed Director of the Department of Marine Biology, Mayer's success in this venture would come to the attention of Mr. Dorr who would enlist Mayer-whose 1908 article on Marine Laboratories called for regional marine stations-- a presenter at the 1916 celebration of the establishment of Sieur de Monts National Mounment and through him establish contacts that would lead in 1921 to the relocation of the Harpswell Laboratory to Salisbury Cove. In June President Eliot's homage to his eldest son is published, the 770-page Charles Eliot: Landscape Architect. Having been prompted by Mr., Pinchot, the Olmsted Associates send Dorr a letter (6.2) informing him of an intended MDI site visit later in the month to resolve the "Bar Island matter." Frederick Law Olmsted affirms that his report will enable the owners "to subdivide the island"; his fee for this preliminary survey is $100. plus travel expenses. FLO also reports in this letter that Bar Harbor resident Edgar Lord has written to the Olmsted Associates requesting assistance with a plan for the "subdivision of the island." Quite obviously the Lord plan was not realized; unfortunately, there are no additional details. (Library of Congress, Records of the Olmsted Associates, Microfilm Reel 224, frames 11-80.) This may be Dorr's earliest professional interaction with the Olmsteds (see 1909 as well). William James's Gifford Lectures delivered at Edinburgh University in 1901-02 form the basis for The Varieties of Religious Experience (TVRE) James doesn't think of it as a serious contribution to philosophy; he tells Sarah Whitman that "the desire to formulate truth is a virulent disease." He writes to brother Henry (7.21) from Chocorua having spent a a night at Mrs. Whitman's, remarking that "Mrs. W is a vital focus of intelligence as well as of unprejudiced." She was SO impressed while in London with Henry that William thinks she will return often. (Corr. William James, V. 3) The following year Whitman completes a portrait of William. In the Preface to TVRE James acknowledges the assistance of several colleagues but offer thanks to but two friends "Thomas Wren Ward, of New York, and Wincenty Lutoslawski, late of Cracow, for important suggestions and advice." As a Harvard alumnus, Dorr took advantage of another educational opportunity that faculty there and at other institutions were beginning to promote. That is, the use of scenic natural wonders as classrooms for instruction and research. Faculty at Columbia University, the University of Chicago, and Harvard took their students and interested parties west to examine first the geology of sites that in due course would become national parks, if they had not already achieved that stature. (See June 24, 1931 letter from R.S. Yard to H.C. Bryant. Harper's Ferry Center Library Collection. RG19. 1936-1950. K1810) That opportunity presented itself to Dorr in July when he departed on research trip to the Southwest. In a letter to the Curator of the Gray Herbarium he asks for DORR1901 Page 10 of 22 resource advice that would aid him in "studying the flora and forest growth of Arizona and Utah" as well as Oregon, Washington, and Canadian Rockies. He aims "to meet [Harvard] Professor [William A.) Davis in southern Utah and join him in an expedition down the western side of the Grand Canon. (July 1, 1902. Harvard University. Gray Herbarium Archives; see also R.A. Daly. "Biographical Memoir of William Morris Davis (1850-1934," National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoirs 23 [1944] 263-295) Subsequent scientific studies of the Davis expedition make no reference to Dorr's involvement but this is not disconfirming evidence. Like many scientists of his day, publications routinely were credited to the principal investigator; investigative labors by students and other involved parties went unacknowledged. One expedition member, Eugene Lusk Roberts, confirms Dorr's presence in Davis's party. College age Roberts sends Dorr a letter reminiscing about "the sun-set we witnessed while riding together into Kanab after the Buckskin trip. (January 2, 1903 letter. ANPA. Box I. f.3; this letter is also the only evidence that Dorr completed his planned trip "by way of Oregon and Washington and spend a few weeks camping out there or among the Canadian Rockies." (Op. cit., July 1, 1902) Roberts credits to Dorr the motivation for his new scholastic efforts and elevated ideals. This recognition has a prescient quality, for his later athletic coaching career at Brigham Young University and the University of Southern California resulted in athletes of international stature and innovations in the teaching of physical education. Roberts shared his enthusiasm with his father that resulted in the elder Roberts visiting both Dorr and Davis in Boston. In his unpublished autobiography, Roberts gives us insight into the range of Dorr's appreciation of a natural environment quite unlike his accustomed Massachusetts and Maine. For Dorr "called my attention to the beauty of the desert landscape, the purple hazes, the brilliant sunsets, the savage grandeur of barren mountains sculpted into grotesque shapes. He led me to observe the fierce struggle going on between desert plants and desert animals fighting for life sustaining moisture. I shall always be grateful to the Boston bachelor for guiding me into a new world." (Quoted in Jonathan N. Romine. Eugene Lusk Roberts: an Architect of Physical Education in the American West: 1910-1950. Provo: Doctoral Dissertation, Brigham Young University, 1984. Pg. 63; see also the Eugene Lusk Roberts Papers, 1912-1972. Brigham Young University Archives) The educational objectives of the Davis expedition were fully realized in the years ahead as Dorr assembled the properties needed for the sanctuary on the coast of Maine. The evidence that this trip provided him with models of landscape preservation at the national scale, is the found in Dorr's "Two National Monuments," his published memoir of visiting Zion National Monument, the only extant published account by Dorr of this trip West with unnamed companions. Therein he reports his impressions of the region in a manner strikingly different from Davis' scientific vocabulary. Like Eugene Roberts, Dorr is awed by "the immense solitudes of that region a region of strange contrasts of sterility and life in the plant world. The land that water reaches blossoms like a garden; what water fails to reach is desert." Moreover, unlike a scientific account, Dorr writes in the language of a naturalist, recounting a threat to his survival. Due to a sudden illness he is separated from his companions and describes his solo meanderings over two days as "a stranger who had lost his way." Yet there is one DORR1901 Page 11 of 22 highly positive effect, "one memory that I have always cherished." The discovery of a spring of water where the "rich color-contrast of the fronds and rock, the fresh green hue and splendid vigor of the fronds themselves, and the delight of the water dripping quietly down made an impression on me in that arid region which is as fresh today as then.' (Sieur de Monts Publication #14) The deep attachment Dorr feels for the Sieur de Monts Spring on Mount Desert Island is not only the result of encounters with springs on his European travels but the life- giving power of the Zion spring water as well. Regular inspection of Seal Harbor milk and water is initiated. This new public health initiative is due in large part to actions of Edward K. Dunham and Christian A. Herter who both had well equipped laboratories and took an active interest in sanitary conditions. W.T. Sedgwick is also on Sanitary Committee, but Dr. Dunham is described as the force behind the Sanitary Committee (1901-22) Three letters are sent at this time to Dorr (8/3,9/15. and 10/13) from Edward E. Hale inquiring about Thomas Wren Ward's Revolutionary War "privateering papers." If there were responses their content is not extant. Edith Wharton moves into new Lenox home, The Mount, September 20th. Until 1909 the Whartons spent part of every year-from June to December- here. Originally called Laurel Lake Farm the property contained farmland, wetland, and forested areas populated with red maple, black and white birch, hickory, and oak trees, white pines the most common evergreen. According to Eleanor Dwight, her gardens over time would symbolize Wharton's divided cultural loyalties-her love for both European and American garden styles. "The profusion of flowers in her flower gardens and the wild and woodland gardens can be called English" and yet the retention of native trees, the highlighting of exposed rock outcroppings, and an extensive system of paths linked to adjacent estates is part of the American landscape (E. Dwight, Edith Wharton, p. 94) . In identifying friends who visited The Mount, she categorized George Dorr as a "business friend" -which is in my judgment far too restrictive. Harvard Professor William Morris Davis organizes The Harvard Travellers Club to promote intelligent travel and exploration. For the next thirty years the Club met six to ten times a year at varied Boston locations- accumulating nearly 600 members-- attracting several dozen members to more than a thousand attendees dependent on the program or exhibition offered (Harvard Travellers Club. History of the Harvard Travellers Club 1902-1933). Under Davis' presidency, an international cast of speakers made presentations on their adventures from the Andes to Abyssinia discussing themes as varied as the Byrd expedition to the South Pole to the economic value of plants. Due to his diverse travel experience, Mr. Dorr will be elected a Charter Fellow and in 1904 host the first program following the establishment of the Fellows (see below). Just prior to Thanksgiving, Dorr and Professor Davis journeyed together only as far as North Carolina where they were joined by F.L. Olmsted Jr. in Ashville "to climb Mt. Mitchell and to see something of the forest region round about it.' (Dorr to Eliot, November 18, 1902. HUA. Records of the President of Harvard University. C.W. Eliot. B. 36) Edith Wharton's first documented visited to Biltmore Estate occurred on the twenty- sixth, overlapping with Dorr's second of three documented visits to his friend George Vanderbilt's residence. (Dorr signed the Biltmore guest book, November 27th. Biltmore Company Special Collections, Ashville, NC) DORR1901 Page 12 of 22 Charles Eliot Norton writes (12.18) to Sam G. Ward that "You have a precious possession in your Greek, --but what a rare blessing to recover it for easy and delightful use after years of infrequent enjoyment of it! There is no later poem to compare with the Odyssey in healthiness of spirit." (Letters, V. 2) Uncle Sam's behavior foreshadows what Mr. Dorr will experience with ancient languages and reading preferences in his last decade of life. In 1936 (8/1) GBD writes to Bliss Perry asking that And Gladly Teach be autographed and return to him, for it brought back to Dorr his chairmanship of the Visiting Committee and "intimate" friendships with Royce and James. Two days prior to Christmas, the Social Circle of Concord votes to arrange a celebration of the centenary of Ralph Waldo Emerson, May 25, 1903. (Memoirs of Members of the Social Circle in Concord. Third Series. Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1907) Edith Wharton writes from NYC (12.28, year entered in pencil) to Mr. Dorr-the first of eight letters-- stating that she hoped that the Whartons "might claim that dinner you were kind enough to promise us if we came to Boston for a few days before sailing, but alas " She thanks him for his many hospitality offers. Josiah Royce serves as President of the American Philosophical Association for 1903. 1903 January 1: a charter is obtained at the biennial meeting of Maine's legislature, recognizing the public service nature of the organization and making it tax-free. Julia Ward Howe's "Journals" records a dinner (2.20) with George Dorr which was "very pleasant, even brilliant; charming lady guests in evening dress. Rev. E. E. Hale was requested to propose my health, which he did and it was drunk standing, I also standing. I made a brief and modest (I trust) reply. I was much moved by this really distinguished attention." (JWH, "Journals," trans. E. Cochrane, YHP, RG 18) Despite his success in such social encounters, Dorr was encountering difficulties in securing pledges for the construction of Emerson Hall. A review of subscription records and letters relative to Emerson Hall between 1901 and 1905, discloses Over the past two years the Philosophy Visiting Committee under his leadership raised less than half of the $150,000 campaign target. While the donors list survives, the fragmented evidence has never been assembled even though the solicitation strategies employed at Harvard provide precedents for Dorr's later philanthropic activity on Mount Desert. Dr. Richard Clarke Cabot, a committee member and faculty member at the Harvard Medical School, reported to President Eliot in early March that donations had stalled. Cabot asked Eliot what he would recommend as a next step. (March 9, 1903. Harvard University. President's Office. Records of the President of Harvard University, Charles W. Eliot, 1869-1930. B. 31) Unknown to both, the Reverend Francis G. Peabody (1847-1936), Harvard's Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Preacher to the University was at that time in New York City visiting a friend who might provide the needed cornerstone gift. For more than two decades, the brother-in-law of President Eliot had offered his popular course in Social Ethics, its name adopted at the suggestion of William James. As a Progressive, he DORR1901 Page 13 of 22 clearly observed that the wealth produced by an increasingly industrialized society was being abused by the rich man. "They have learned to get, but have not learned to use ...ownership involves obligation. Service is the only way to freedom. A rich man may be worth having if he use his peculiar faculties for benefiting society." (F.G. Peabody. Reminiscences of Present-Day Saints. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1927. Pg. 148-149) Peabody's friend was the philanthropist Alfred T. White (1846-1921), a Brooklyn engineer turned merchant who had known Peabody since 1880 when the Harvard theologian visited the Unitarian housing developer known for his charitable progressivism. White was then becoming known for his leadership in reforming housing for the impoverished through construction of the most advanced tenement villages, a phrase deep with negative connotations for our era. But in their era, White's tenements included fireproof construction, outside stairways, interior parks and playgrounds that were exceptional working class communities where infant mortality was halved. Peabody and White shared not only the articles of their Unitarian faith but a set of values prioritized social reform. Holding appointments in the Divinity School as well as the Philosophy Division, his colleagues with interests of their own in Emerson Hall included James, Royce, and Munsterberg. Peabody, however, took ethics in a new direction by combining it with empirical studies of social movements. He dramatically altered the discipline of ethics from a theoretical classroom exercise into a social science that connected ethical inquiry to the social life of the individual. (Grace C. Long. "\The Ethics of Francis Greenwood Peabody: A Century of Christian Ethics," Journal of Religious Ethics 18, 31 (1990) : p. 57) His course work required that students study, analyze, and compose papers on such topics as slums, settlement houses, temperance problems, and workforce exploitation. (See B.J. Bernstein. "Francis Greenwood Peabody: Conservative Social Reformer," New England Quarterly 36 (1963) : p. 323) . White wondered what he could do to make social service easier for others than it had been for him; two decades earlier, White had to journey to cross the ocean England to study with little guidance their innovative housing solutions with for the working class. When White asked Peabody how he might help young men in Harvard College address contemporary social problems, Peabody suggested that he might achieve a lasting effect by establishing an endowment at Harvard for the instruction in social ethics. (Peabody. Reminiscences. Pp. 146-148 and his obituary essay, "Alfred Tredway White," Harvard Graduates' Magazine 29 (1921) : 577-583) Unknown to Dorr's committee, Peabody then advocated for them the means and ends of the Emerson Hall campaign, ultimately serving his own interests as well. Within a few days White pledged $50,000, nearly one- third of what was needed and the largest single benefaction. He attached three conditions: that by Commencement Day, Harvard must raised the remaining funds, that space in Emerson Hall be given to "a department of social questions" in proportion to the donation, and that the gift be anonymous. (See also Lawrence T. Nichols. "The Establishment of Sociology at Harvard," Science at Harvard University: Historical perspectives. Eds. Clark A. Elliott and Margaret W. Rossiter. Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1992. Pgs. 201-205. Nichols claims that only $68,000 had been raised whereas Peabody inflates the donations to $100,000 prior to White's donation. According to an undated and unsigned "Emerson Hall" memorandum bearing all the stylistic marks of DORR1901 Page 14 of 22 Dorr, only $75,000 was in hand prior to the White gift. HUA. Records of the President of Harvard University. Charles W. Eliot. B. 36) President Eliot and the Harvard Corporation immediately agreed. When Eliot replied to donor White, he emphasized how much happiness this would bring to Reverend Peabody. Eliot grasped that White's gift changed the intellectual and physical character of the new facility. For now the greater part of the second floor would serve as lecture rooms for an expanded curriculum in social ethics, a special library, and a social museum containing designs, charts, and thousands of photographs relevant to social reform in America. (By 1906 Munsterberg feared that the noise of visitors to Peabody's museum "might disturb the meditations of the philosophers below," indicating that the Chairman thought that Peabody's inquiries were "on the periphery of the field." See David B. Potts, "Social Ethics at Harvard, 1881-1931," Social Sciences at Harvard, 1860- 1920, from Inculcation to the Open Mind.' Ed. Paul H. Buck. Cambridge: Harvard U.E 1965. Pg. 114) Peabody's "academic foundling repelled by economics, tolerated by philosophy, and not quite certain itself to what family it belonged," would now have a place within the most senior of academic disciplines. What had been a personal and temporary life's work had through White's gift been institutionalized and made permanent. Without Peabody's knowledge or suggestion, White furthered his work with additional benefactions amounting to a quarter of a million dollars for scholarships, furnishings, and an endowment. (Peabody, Reminiscences. Pgs. 137,148) Even with White's anonymity assured, the lessons of Peabody's fund raising achievement would not be lost on Mr. Dorr. Moreover, Peabody's success outside the Committee structure offered relief to its members. For the moment, matters looked most promising as Dorr and his colleagues anticipated the opportunities presented by the Emerson Centennial, just two months away. The Maine legislature grants on March 28th an exemption for the Trustees from state, county, or town taxation for HCTPR lands and improvements. On that same day William James posts letter to his wife from the Asheville Inn, informing her that he will write to George Vanderbilt to ask for "a permission to enter his grounds. The very next day he saw the wealthy estate owner at his little Episcopal church. Two days later he is back "from dinner at the Vanderbilt's- really superb palace but so solid and beautiful that one would like to live there. They are both very nice simple friendly people. Another invite, estate tour, and encouragement to James to move there! Stays at Victoria Inn through 8 April and before leaving for home proposes to Alice that they visit next January to look at property for their own purchase. James also writes to Sarah Wyman Whitman (4/7) regarding painting his portrait [Corr. X, 221- 33]. Writes same day to brother Henry that he arrived "excessively fatigued, but no reading and an open aid life already made me feel quite different Vanderbilt owns a strip of land 50 miles long by 15 broad...and is a model to rich men all through the country." [Corr. III, p. 228) He also pens a letter to his brother Henry from Victoria Inn that Emerson Hall "seems to be financially secured, and the work will probably begin.' (Corr. 3, p.228). This confidence is not evident in the five lengthy letters that Dorr sent Eliot between mid-April and mid-May. With the Emerson Centennial approaching and $126,01 in hand (including Dorr's donation of $1,000), requests were sent to prospective donors culled from address lists secured from Edward Emerson, Samuel Eliot, and Edward Everett Hale. The results were not encouraging. DORR1901 Page 15 of 22 Hopeful news came from Munsterberg who secured a gift of #12,000. from industrialist Andrew Carnegie (Boston Transcript. April 27, 1903), raising the fund to $140,000, just $10,000 short of the minimum required by the University to lay the cornerstone. Besides Dorr and Dr. Cabot, the Committee included Bostonians Richard H. Dana, Joseph Lee, Reginald C. Robbins, and Dorr's New York cousin, Thomas Wren Ward. (HUA. Records of the President of Harvard University. Charles W. Eliot. B. 36) Dorr is buoyed by this news of the success of the faculty chairman, recommending the expansion of faculty participation in the process. Dorr suggests "it might be well to send out a circular letter quite widely to the past students of philosophy at Harvard. [each] personally signed by one or more of the professors. (April 14, 1903. HUA. Records of the President of Harvard University. Charles W. Eliot. B. 36) While we might suspect that this strategy be obvious to faculty, there is no evidence that they put pen to hand; nor that they honored Dorr's recommendation that they provide a contact list of professionals in other disciplines where Harvard's philosophy faculty had established a network of connections. Nonetheless, Dorr's outreach strategies were later exported to Mount Desert and became in our own day standard fundraising methods. It is notable that these circulars referred to the "philosophic and philanthropic teaching" that Emerson Hall would cultivate. The intent of melding philosophy to philanthropy remains unclear but may anticipate Dorr's later deliberate conjoining of conservation with philanthropy at the national level. In early May, Dorr reports to Eliot that he is "much less confident that the $8,500 needed will be realized in the next three weeks. The next day Dorr's uncle, Samuel Gray Ward, pledges one thousand dollars, a likely consequence of conversations with his son, Thomas Wren Ward. Eliot is heartened and writes to Dorr that he will report to the Harvard Corporation that the Emerson Hall subscriptions are sure to be completed and that they need to fix the site, engage an architect, and get on with it. The site selected will be the former location of Professor Shaler's home in the Harvard Yard. (HUA. Subscription Records for Emerson Hall, 1901-1905) In trying to meet this deadline, Dorr had been traveling very frequently between Boston and Bar Harbor where other matters required his attention. Moreover, Henry Pickering Bowditch and his brother Charles had planned a Spring vacation with Dorr that he intended to honor. Departing on the 11th by train through Washington to Charlottesville, Dorr penned a letter to Eliot containing a Emerson Hall circular that was mailed to ten thousand recipients. Given committee difficulty in obtaining lists of prospective donors, it may be that Dr. Cabot's expansive list contained alumni in not only philosophy alums but those from other kindred disciplines. Dorr had made publicity arrangements prior to his departure for this "eight or nine days riding trip" through the Shenandoah Valley and Blue Ridge Mountains. (May 15, 1903. HUA. Records of the President of Harvard University. Charles W. Eliot. B.36) Lexington and the wonders of the Natural Bridge. A carriage transported them to Hot Springs where the allegedly curative baths relaxed their limbs before returning to Boston two days after the Emerson Centennial date. (ANPA. Box I. f. 3 contains a detailed trip expense statement. Efforts to secure additional information about this trip from Bowditch family members were unproductive) Yet the question of Dorr's absence from the Concord Emerson Centennial celebration remains. Of course, Dorr was not needed as pitchman for the DORR1901 Page 16 of 22 additional Emerson Hall funding since this was the clear responsibility of Harvard faculty speakers. With the consent of the organizers he could have represented the Harvard alumni, attested to the Emersonian legacy in their lives, and even personalized the issue by recounting Ward family ties to the Sage of Concord. Even as a silent witness to this historic event, his absence was conspicuous. Unfortunately, the historical record is silent on his motivations. If some are perplexed with Dorr's failure to participate in the Emerson centennial, so too John Muir at this time is a "no show" even though he was no more than an hour distant. Yet the lives of conservationists to later day linear interpreters appear as quirky and inconsistent as in any other endeavor. Fresh from several days leading President Theodore Roosevelt through the Sierra Nevada, Muir had to be much satisfied when the President extended "protection for the trees from Yosemite Valley to Mt. Shasta. Later, he created five new national parks, sixteen national monuments and fifty-three wildlife sanctuaries." (J.P. Huber, "John Muir and the Emerson Centennial" Concord Saunterer, N.S. 3 (1995) p. 40; Roosevelt also set aside 100 national forests and 51 bird sanctuaries during his administration. Two hundred and thirty million acres of land were set aside amounting, nearly one-fifth of the acreage of the United States) Muir arrived in Boston May 23rd in order to talk with his publisher and to meet with the two companions ( Charles S. Sargent and his son Robeson) who would join him on his round the world journey. We have no explanation for his avoidance of the events honoring Emerson, especially since his "pilgrimage to Concord" ten years earlier included visits to Emerson's home. (Huber's "John Muir", explores this issue quite thoroughly). Instead, Muir called on Bliss Perry, then editor-in-chief of Atlantic Monthly, at #4 Park Street where the cooperate offices shared a townhouse common wall with the former residence of Mr. Dorr's paternal grandparents, the Wards. Enthusiasm for the Emerson Centennial on May 25th was expressed throughout the country. (See F.B. Sanborn. Table Talk, 1981. Pg. 149-50) Churches of varied denominations celebrated his life, publications editorialized Emerson's works, essayists assessed his accomplishments, and the Handel and Haydn Society praised his life in Boston's Symphony Hall. (P.J. Huber, "John Muir,' 40-42) . But Concord was the center of celebration and here John Shepard Keyes presided at a banquet for 152 Social Circle members and their wives and here a celebrated group of speakers spoke of Emerson's achievements. (See George Cooke. "The Emerson Centennial," New England Magazine 28, #3 (1903) : 255-264). Harvard's philosophy department chairman Hugo Munsterberg emphasized the endowment success in securing the necessary funds for the new Emerson Hall. He explicitly credited the Committee that Dorr chaired for reaching the initial $150,000 goal but stressed to the audience that an additional $100,000 was needed to equip the building appropriate to its function. Munsterberg emphasized that this memorial gift lay not in its walls and roof "but in the kind of work that will develop within these walls.' Philosophy faculty retained differing beliefs about its significance. Royce thought that Emerson Hall would be a memorial for "the beginning of a new life for philosophical study in our country." After re-reading virtually all of Emerson, William James lauded the Emersonian heritage at the public celebration. Privately he confided to Henry James that although he "unluckily pledged myself to give a 20 minute address.. I only undertook it to please Alice" [April 7, 1903. Corr. III, p. 229; DORR1901 Page 17 of 22 see also William T. Stafford. "Emerson and the James Family," American Literature 24 (1953) : 455-456]. During the last two weeks in July the Free religious Association of America--that Emerson helped establish--offered 30 lectures in Boston and Concord as part of the Centennial. Covering a wide array of topics of interest to Emerson, speakers included the Rev. Samuel A. Eliot, Julia Ward Howe, William Lloyd Garrison, and Rev. Edward Everett Hale. These lectures were widely distributed in whole or part in the news media of the day. The Social Circle of Concord arranged for the aforementioned celebration and the publication of its proceedings by Houghton Mifflin & Company later that fall. The Concord Social Circle received requests from hundreds of societies, municipalities, libraries, businesses, and individuals. (Social Circle of Concord. Private Collection. Concord Free Public Library. Special Collections). The Social Circle employed Herbert Wendell Gleason (1855-1937) to record these events, a friend of Dorr who will have a significant but historically underappreciated role in the development of Acadia National Park. As event stenographer, Gleason was paid $23.00. But the favored medium of communication for Reverend Gleason, formerly from Minnesota, was not words but visual representation. Following his career redirection in 1899, Gleason had rapidly achieved regional recognition for his landscape photography, especially images of the Merrimack Valley. The method he had been applying for the last three years to Henry Thoreau involved the laborious effort to locate-and subsequently photograph-- the physical location for narrative passages in his writings; if the location could not be found, Gleason would scour the area for the most faithful representation. Houghton Mifflin & Co. was intrigued with Gleason's approach. The timing was fortuitous for Gleason since the publisher was preparing a reprinting of Thoreau's major works as well as the initial publication of his Journal. They decided to incorporate a selection of Herbert Wendell Gleason illustrations of the Thoreau landscape that the photographer had been compiling. Houghton Mifflin hoped that the multivolume Walden edition of The Writings of Thoreau would be more appealing in the marketplace with Gleason's evocative illustrations, though it would not appear until 1906. (Finis Dunaway. "Gleason's Transparent Eyeball," Natural Visions, 14) He would also branch out geographically and over the next decade make many lengthy trips to photograph western North America, documenting the scenic distinctiveness of its landscape, especially the splendors of the national parks. Following the Centennial, Emerson Hall planning moved forward. Eliot informs Dorr in that after reviewing five bids, $190,000 would be required, far more than the $165,000 raised through subscriptions. Should the structure be scaled down to the level of financing or shall additional funding be pursued? If the Committee pursues the latter, shall we wait more than a few years or pursue "$25,000 more from the Forbes family or from friends of Emerson?" Eliot closes with a request for feedback, since "you who raised the subscription are better entitled to hold an opinion on this subject than I am." (February 9, 1904. HUA. Subscription Records. Subscriptions to Emerson Hall. 1901-1905. Since Edward Waldo Forbes (1873-1969) was the grandson of Ralph Waldo Emerson, it was hoped that he and his brother W. Cameron Forbes (1870-1959) might be inclined to make an additional sizable donation) Dorr agrees that the plans should not be altered and that delay is unacceptable without putting the donor gifts at risk. Unfortunately, the paper trail ends following Dorr's intent to discuss the matter with the Forbes family. DORR1901 Page 18 of 22 ( First two gifts to the HCTPR, a hilltop overlooking Jordan Pond and a 24.5 square meter Cooksey Drive site for a Champlain memorial plaque. A Bar Harbor lawyer gets a bill through the Maine State Legislature permitting towns on MDI to prohibit sue of autos on their roads-all the town voted for that prohibition which stayed in effect until 1911 when permanent residents of Bar Harbor favored admitting autos, eventually secured in 1913. (Stebbins, "Random Notes...' ") Edith Wharton returns from Italy in the late Spring and spends summer and fall at The Mount, discovering the Lenox grounds parched and dry due to a nine week drought. Moreover, some of the blame rested on her head gardener and she tried to console herself by writing about Italian gardens rather than looking at her own. The Vanderbilts spend entire year in Europe trying to reduce their expenses at their many grand places in Bar Harbor, New York, Paris, Washington-and Biltmore. The Biltmore House was closed and Schenck's budget was halved. President Daniel C. Gilman of Carnegie Institute (formerly JHU) continues to visit NEH. The "Journals" of Julia Ward Howe record the death of John Marcou's mother whom Julia describes as "one of my oldest friends. She was a very true hearted woman and was much wounded when Mary Dorr, her early friend and mine, gave her up because she had taken back her husband, whom she tenderly loved and who left her for a time, for no ostensible reason, probably to amuse himself. (JWH, "Journals," trans. E. Cochrane, YHP, RG 18) George Stebbins and Edith Alden Candler (of NY) marry in the late fall and spent part of their honeymoon in Seal Harbor where the snow had drifted SO high that they snowshoed onto the roof of the old Jordan Pond House. (Funderburk) . December 25: Charles W. Eliot completes The Right Development of Mount Desert (1904), his seasonal gift to the people of MDI. Key events marking that the world was getting smaller: Marconi wireless radio transmits signals across Atlantic; cable laid across Pacific enabling Roosevelt to send first message sent around the world-in 12 minutes; Trans-Siberian railroad completed; George A. Wyman completes first transcontinental motorcycle trip; Wright brothers make world's first airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, NC. 1904 Publication of Charles W. Eliot's Right Development of Mount Desert begins to guide local development. It charged the Trustees with holding and improving land in Hancock County for free public use, land which had scenic, historic, or any other distinguishing characteristic. The entire island should be developed according to landscape principles. Its appeal as a resort is due to four factors: "the cool and equable climate, the beautiful conformation of the island itself, the availability for sailing and fishing the waters that surround it, and the roughness and wildness of its hills and shores." Eliot argues in this slim 14-page community advancement tool that the relatively new prosperity can only be increased--or at worse maintained--if one understands the "wants and wishes" dynamic that exists between summer and year round residents; lest the latter take comfort in their current DORR1901 Page 19 of 22 status, he reminds them that "it is hard to establish a successful summer resort, and easy to impair or degrade one already established." As pioneer cottagers Eliot and Dorr had the freedom to roam the shores and mountains at will. Yet within the last generation rapid development had resulted in property fragmentation and a new ethos that stressed restricting access. Eliot proposed that Island communities should act prudently and acquire for public use portions of their shore and inland scenic byways. It is here that we first hear of a variant of the "town- gown" philosophy as Eliot challenges towns to not only work in concert with the newly formed Hancock Trustees but to assist local hotels with the local panning process so that hotel owners might set aside tracts of land-motivated by taxation abatements for their guests and the general public. Eliot contends that "the whole island ought to be treated by every resident, and by the body of voters, as if it were a public park." Both in his day and our own, most island residents would not concur with Eliot's idealism. While the motivation for this document is clearly expressed, its impact on the development of the HCTPR practices and the subsequent development of the Island and Acadia National Park has never been charted and analyzed. An New York Times article (3.12) on publication of The Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College for 1902-03 notes that John D. Rockefeller gave the college $500,000 that year, representing 25% of gift income. Surely this gift put President Eliot in a favorable mood a week later when he was honored with a loving cup at a college celebration of his 70th birthday. The Harvard Travellers Club formed in 1902 selects 39 of its members as Fellows to manage the direction of the Club. Its mission was to provide global travelers with practical tools, to exhibit the fruits of scientific and cultural investigations to improve member awareness of the advancement of knowledge as well as the challenges that remain. Clearly not an armchair association, members affirmed that "like Ulysses of old, to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." These Fellows first meet in 1904 on March 18th, The criteria for Fellow status was to identify members "whose travels had taken them off the regular routes" (Harvard Travellers Club. Harvard Travellers Club 1902- 1933, 24-25). Mr. Dorr is selected as a Charter Fellow to help fulfill the Club mission of promoting intelligent travel and exploration. The very next week (March 25th) he hosted at 18 Commonwealth Avenue one of seven meetings held that year. Professor Ira N. Hollis spoke on "A Cruise of the Pacific." Centerstage in this organization was Professor William M. Davis, Travellers Club first President. That he and Dorr engaged in the exploration of the American Southwest a year earlier may well have influenced Dorr's membership and willingness to host more than forty members for the Hollis lecture on the Pacific cruise. His interest in this spirited organization continued until his resignation in 1932 as he approached his eightieth birthday. Yet on March 20 it is the seventieth birthday of Charles W. Eliot that is being celebrated by a Harvard University Jubilee in his honor. Edith Wharton returns from France and England to Lenox in late Spring. St. Louis World's Fair opens. Widower Samuel G. Ward still visits Lenox and this summer rents a property. (Cornelia Gilder, email 9.24.2005). DORR1901 Page 20 of 22 The American Civic Association is founded under the leadership of J. Horace McFarland, directed at the promotion, creation, and protection of landscape at the national, state, and municipal level. Jacob H. Schiff begins to vacation in BH where he spent time with President Eliot. In 1918 he wrote letter of support for National Park status. He accepted GBD's offer in 1920 that a new trail to the top of Dry Mountain be named after him. June 25: Tercentenary of the De Monts Settlement at St. Croix Island. The 300t anniversary celebrated at NEH and subscribers made possible erection of memorial stone (7/18/06) in Seal Harbor. Printed address by Samuel A. Eliot. Most odd that Dorr is not a subscriber. June 27th Funeral of Sarah Wyman Whitman. Fortunately, a record of the service remains and includes the remarks of Richard C. Cabot, a friend of Mr. Dorr as well, especially in their service in the now completed funding for construction of Emerson Hall. (Sarah Whitman. Boston: Merrymount Press, 1904) While Cabot emphasizes her "deeply-rooted principle of hospitality" of both mind and heart, William James discusses focuses on the particulars of the funeral itself, having visited her just five weeks earlier and served as a pall bearer at her funeral. "The funeral was beautiful both at Trinity Church and at the grave in Mt. Auburn. I was one of eight pall-bearers [and] the flowers & greenery had been arranged in absolutely Whitman-ian style by Mrs. Jack Gardener, Mrs. Henry Parkman, and Sally Fairchild." She was an "extraordinary and indefinable creature! I used often to feel coldly towards her on account of her way of taking people as a great society 'business' proceeding, but now that her agitated life of tip-toe reaching in SO many directions, of genuinest amiability, is over, pure tenderness asserts its own She was a most peculiar person. I wish you had known her whole life here more intimately, and understood its significance She leaves a dreadful vacuum in Boston." (Corr. V. 3) No longer would James and Wyman "converse intellectually on an equal level [on topics] which related directly to his work as a professor and philosopher, developing a relationship markedly similar to one that his colleague Josiah Royce and Mary Dorr had cultivated fifteen years earlier. (On Whitman and James, see Virginia C. Raguin. Sarah Wyman Whitman 1842-1904: The Cultural Climate of Boston. Worcester, MA: Cummings Studio Inc., 1992. pp. 27-30) Brother Henry responds (7.11) by saying that when she left Lamb House, "we parted with many mutual VOWS and as the best of friends. I can well imagine that in Boston she counted much-much more than she could have ever done here..." " Wharton's Italian Villas and their Gardens published, growing out of a series of articles for The Century. Among her main claims: that flowers subject to changing climatic conditions should be subsidiary elements in garden planning, that the garden elements should blend harmonious with the architecture and the natural landscape, and that the type of dwelling dictates the garden to be planned (Theresa Craig, Edith Wharton," 36 ff.) Wharton was the primary agent in planning the garden at The Mount (1903-1905), influenced as she was by Ogden Codman, Francis Hoppin, and Beatrix Jones. In mid-summer Dorr visits Edith Wharton at The Mount and assists her with her "landscape gardening" problems. This visit is likely after the August 5th annual exhibition at the Lenox Horticultural Society where "she took third prize in the six perennials class, first in the twenty- five annuals class, second prize for her sweet peas, and second for her Shirley poppies, as well as second for her double poppies, second for DORR1901 Page 21 of 22 her dianthus, first for her penstemons, third for her lilies, first for her hollyhocks and first for her carnations" (E. Dwight, Edith Wharton, 113). Dorr continues his journey West by train, his objective being the Sierra Mountains, an adventure he documents in his sixty-page "A Trip through the California Sierras." Royce paved the path SO to speak by writing to the University of California President, B.I. Wheeler, introducing Dorr as bearer of the letter and soliciting his assistance for the horticulturist from the East. Sequoia and General Grant Park at this time "were practically one, separated only by a few miles of trail ..[and] there was nothing but a local camp to which the people from the valley below came up for refreshment in the heat of the summer." (October 6, 1939. Dorr to Isabella Story. NARA. RG79. NPS. CCF 1933- 1949. Acadia-General. B. 797) Back on the East coast, Wharton sends the second of eight surviving letters to his Commonwealth Avenue home informing him that she found one of his books on the terrace after his departure. She thanked him for his help with landscape design problems, flattering him by stating that he left behind "so many fruitful ideas that I often feel that you are not gone, and must be somewhere about, ready to answer the new questions" (September 3, 1904. Wharton Papers, Yale, MSS42.B24 £.753). Moreover, Wharton informs him that "your path is finished, & the task of planting its borders now confronts me; & we are just about to attack the laying out of the path from the flower-garden to the little valley which is to be my future wild garden." She also refers to Dorr's trip West, hopeful that "you may be able to spare us a day or two on your return" when the autumn work will be nearly over and future plans can be discussed unless "my pigmy planting will quite vanish from your mind among the giant boles of the redwoods. In September Henry James crosses the Atlantic and spends the next two months visiting friends in New England, journeying to Lenox by train to visit the Whartons at their recently built "delicate French Chateau." (Fred Kaplan quoting his subject in Henry James: the Imagination of genius. New York: William Morrow and Co., 1992, pp. 481-84) Delighted with his hosts and the accommodations, James had a delightful ten days in the Berkshires. On the heels on his departure, Wharton pens her third (10.29) surviving letter (year uncertain) to Dorr (responding to his) stating she will de delighted by his visit to The Mount "anytime next month," despite "the bleakness of these hills" which she knows that Dorr doesn't mind. The Whartons will be at The Mount until mid-December and both are "so interested to hear about your explorations." Again on 11/29 she says that she has had a letter from Dorr and responded and now fears that her letter may have gone astray. A November visit seems unlikely since they are snowed under "and therefore of no interest from the landscape gardener's standpoint." Nonetheless, she hopes for visit in 1905 when you will come "and see how far I was able to carry out your advice, and tell me what to do next" (Wharton Papers, Yale MSS42. B24.f.753), . Dorr is first listed as a member of the Tavern Club. (A List of of Officers and Members of the Tavern Club). Discussion of Dorr's involvement is several clubs requires attention. DORR1901 Page 22 of 22 GEORGE BUCKNAM DORR Ronald H. Epp, Ph.D. BEGIN 1905 (September 2, 2008) 1905 February 1: President Roosevelt creates The United States Forest Service (formerly the Bureau of Forestry) in the Department of Agriculture (transferred from Interior) with Gifford Pinchot as chief forester. Congress transfers forest reserves from Interior to Agriculture and the reserves are redesignated national forests, symbolizing a shift of emphasis from preservation to scientific forestry and re-emphasizing Pinchot's dominance in public conservation policy. The turn-of-the- century Progressive policies affirmed that "All the resources of the forests are for use, under such restrictions only as will insure permanence..." This action likely prompted Dorr to consider a visit to the national forests of the northwest, and to plan accordingly a trip to Oregon and Washington. On March 4, 1907 the forest reserves were renamed "national forests" An unexpected opportunity arises several days later when Dorr receives a postcard from William James enticing him to journey with him on March 1st aboard "The Romantic" to Naples and then to Greece. Perhaps with an oblique reference to the absence of motherly constraints, James says that Now's your chance! I have a stateroom which you can share, if you like, an inside; only $90. to Naples. Pray come." (Harvard University. Houghton. William James. Correspondence. III. #119) A mixture of afflictions-gout, the grippe, and GI disorders-that persisted into late March forced James to abandon the trip. According to the Boston Social Register, Dorr continues his membership in the prestigious Somerset Club, Tavern Club, University Club, and the Union Boat Club, thirty years after graduation from Harvard. On May 1st landscape photographer Herbert W. Gleason lectures at the Tavern Club Annual Meeting. This may have been the first meeting of Dorr and Gleason but over the next two decades Gleason's impressive black and white photographs of Mount Desert Island would be used to promote appreciation for the natural splendors of America and influence congressional decision making about additions to the evolving park system. William Henry Jackson's photography had started this educative process a generation earlier and Ansel Adams would extend the Gleason influence in the generation that followed, elevating images from documentary status into an art form. But for the time being, Gleason is but a visitor to a enclave where Dorr was just elected to membership at the same time that President Eliot was given honorary status. (Dorr retained his membership at least through 1934 while Eliot's expired on the occasion of his dearth in 1926. M.A. DeWolfe Howe, A Partial Semi- Centennial History of the Tavern Club 1884-1934). Dorr knew in advance that Gleason's presentation would be worthy of attention and invited staff from the Gray Herbarium and others to view wild-flowers from the Canadian Rockies. Later Eliot wrote to Dorr stating that he was "sorry to miss the pleasure you offered me" since he has seen Mr. Gleason's photographic work and "know its merit." (HUA. Sub. For Emerson Hall). May 31: President Eliot's Address on "Beauty and Democracy" at the dedication ceremonies of the Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo NY. DORR1905 Page 1 of 19 Edith Wharton returns from European trip in late Spring to The Mount. At the end of June she refers to herself as becoming "besotted about gardening" and pleaded with Sally Norton to come see it for "It is really what I thought it never could be-a mass of bloom.' June: Dorr sends identification inquiries to Gray Herbarium for wildflowers he found in Wellesley and Lenox. Charles Eliot Norton writes (6.19) to Samuel G. Ward on matters philosophical, written by one who is "soon to quit the scene, I look back over the vast stage of life on which we have played our little parts, [and] the futility of the whole drama is what strikes me most." (Letters, V. 2) Henry James visits The Mount for five days. "James's discoveries at The Mount were chiefly the charm of Wharton hospitality, its adroit grouping of guests and occasions, the fine opportunities for talk or for silence" (Bell, Edith Wharton & Henry James, p. 91) Building of the Arts planned during summer. Dorr publishes "A New Building for Music at Bar Harbor" later that year detailing steps taken to realize the plans. As late as 1941 Dorr is arguing for its preservation through donation to the BHVIA to become part of ANP. Dorr begins work to save the Great Meadow. Acquires portions of land. A publication appears in 1905 that will to this day be regarded as the classic history of the Island. An Exeter, New Hampshire Congregational minister named George E. Street had spent a quarter century as a summer resident of Southwest Harbor. Enamored by the area, he collected resources for a proposed history of the Island which he left incomplete at the time of his death. His family called upon another man of the cloth, Rev. Samuel A. Eliot, to edit this work for publication although "Eliot thereupon radically altered the format of the book into a continuous historical narrative." (Arthur Cushman McGiffert Jr. Pilot of a Liberal Faith: Samuel Atkins Eliot 1860-1950. Boston: Beacon, 1976. Pg. 202; the 1st edition of Street's work was published by Houghton Mifflin). Within two decades copies of this highly acclaimed title would become SO scarce that Houghton Mifflin asked Eliot to re-edit it. Much later Eliot's wife, Francis Hopkinson Eliot, published her remembrances of Mount Desert family outdoor gatherings which well represent the first years of the 20th century. The daughter-in-law of President Eliot recalls a typical day for the "patriarchal picnics" during this time when her father-in-law "was the prime mover, the organizer, the enthusiast." (Francis H. Eliot, "Patriarchal Picnics," Atlantic Monthly [July 1953] 55-56) She recognizes that the public thinks of him as "awesome and unapproachable. His children and grandchildren did not find him SO He was a man of action rather than words, and with perhaps a deeper knowledge of the then new science of psychology than he was credited with." Her essay attests as well to his vigor and the attachment that all felt to the landscape. The Eliot Northeast Harbor picnic was not a gathering on a spacious lawn as Asticou. To be sure there were less taxing sailing picnics to the many neighboring islands. Following exacting preliminary preparations, there were also vigorous "excursion" where three generations of Eliots and their guest drove to the foot of a mountain where the "cavalcade" plodded up the steep slopes. "A climb in those early days was one of dogged determination, decorum, and sweat. Once on DORR1905 Page 2 of 19 the mountaintop, the elders would nap, the young people would pick blueberries, and everyone enjoyed the beauty all around Once, I remember, when picnicking on Flying Mountain, a small, hill with open pastures down to the sea, the elders staged a race. At seventy [1905], President Eliot sprinted down the hill followed by a bevy of stout, well-corseted ladies holding up their skirts, with veils flying as they dashed to the bottom." So too there were quiet drives through the countryside where the President would still gather information-earlier reported in his essay on "The Forgotten Millions"--fror island farmers and sailors on their crops, their daily catch, their children, their hopes and fears. In August he writes to President Eliot that he is focusing his attention on Old Farm, "straightening out my boundaries from time to time, by exchanges with my neighbors and by purchase." (HUA. Letter August 14, {1905] Records of the President of Harvard University Charles W. Eliot. Box 83) He mentions specifically land abutting his own that was part of a bequest to Harvard College. Attention to such matters likely influenced his resignation as Chairman of Bar Harbor Village Green Committee. It was Bar Harbor's good fortune that Edith Wharton's niece, landscape gardener Beatrix Jones, was appointed his successor. Dorr also proposed the use of land adjoining the Kebo Valley Club at this time for the erection of a cultural center. This center for the arts was discussed at this time by a local committee which accepted Dorr's proposal that the architectural planning should be entrusted to Guy Lowell, the architect of Emerson Hall. On September 5th Northeast Harbor hosted the installation of a memorial to Samuel de Champlain. Subscribers paid for the erection of a moss- covered stone tablet with suitable inscriptions on a point of land east of Seal Harbor. Charles Eliot Norton writes (9.13) to Samuel G. Ward inquiring how the summer at Swampscott has gone for he believes that "the sea is richer in suggestions to the imagination and the intellect, and in its appeal to sentiment than the everlasting hills. It does not minister to rest as the mountains do." (Letters, V. 2). Several upbeat letters at this same time to S. Weir Mitchell. President Eliot addresses new Harvard students (10.3) on "The Durable Satisfactions of Life," giving paramount importance to health as the one indispensable condition for the realization of all other satisfactions. This essay was published the December issue of Harvard Graduates' Magazine opposite a photograph of the new Emerson Hall, a juxtaposition of content that was not accidental. On 18 October Dorr visits for the third time the Biltmore Estate of his friend George Vanderbilt. Edith Wharton arrives just before Christmas (12/23) when sales of her October publication of The House of Mirth have reached 140,000. The Massachusetts Trustees establish their fifth Reservation, Petticoat Hill. For the next two decades, no new properties will be acquired. Conservation acquisition will shortly shift to Hancock County where more than ten thousand acres of land will be acquired before a new property in added by the Massachusetts Trustees in 1927. The death of psychical researcher and frequent Old Farm guest Richard Hodgson occurred on December 5th Five days later James writes to Dorr asking him to lunch at the James Cambridge home; the absence of any reference to Hodgson is perplexing. A year later Dorr will write to DORR1905 Page 3 of 19 historian Mark A. DeWolfe Howe thanking him for the recently published Hodgson memoir. (Harvard University. Houghton. Mark A. De Wolfe Howe. Additional Papers. I. 37. December 26, 1906) National Association of Audubon Societies (=NAS) unites state groups and establishes a strong national voice for conservation. Nathaniel Southgate Shaler publishes Man and the Earth foreshadowing Aldo Leopold in its emphasis on ethical responsibility to the natural world and concerns about ecology, biodiversity, and the need for worldwide efforts toward scenic and wildlife protection. As finishing work is concluded on Emerson Hall, Dorr receives two invitations. Munsterberg thanks him for his "generous energy" in making Emerson Hall a reality, inviting him to a full day of activities on the 27th (HUA. Subscription Records. Subscription for Emerson Hall. 1901- 1905) Royce invites Dorr to join him and others in the philosophical and psychological communities on the 29th, Dorr's birthday. Whether this dinner took place is uncertain in the face of the unexpected controversy that will develop within the next ten days between professors Munsterberg and James. Emerson Hall is formally dedicated December 27th and used for the first time on that day and the following two days for the joint American Philosophical Association and American psychological Association meetings. Few academics missed the impressive bronze figure of Ralph Waldo Emerson in the main corridor. The most prominent national and international figures in both disciplines had been drawn to this celebration, in part because of the incomparable stature of Harvard's philosophy faculty. (See "Emerson Hall Opened," Boston Evening Transcript December 27, 1905) Yet a dark internal dispute unfolded behind the scenes. A titanic clash of egos shook the very foundations of the new building, and few who walk the corridors of Emerson Hall today are aware of the event and its implications. As Chair of the Philosophy Division, Hugo Munsterberg presided over the event and made the introductions. His wife later characterized the architectural design as "simple, adequate, without superfluous ornamentation, and harmonious with Robinson Hall opposite." (Margaret Munsterberg, Hugo Munsterberg. New York: Appleton & Co., 1922, ch. 9) In the audience, the celebrated John Jay Chapman was displeased with the Chairman, faulting his introduction of program speakers. "Of course, he made a self-glorifying harangue between each one of them. He danced upon the lid of Harvard, while all the professors gripped their umbrellas and ground their teeth. [William] James, on leaving the hall, went home and wrote to Munsterberg such a letter as made the retirement of one or the other of them inevitable." (Mark A. DeWolfe Howe, John Jay Chapman and his Letters. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1937, p. 202). One might wonder whether Chapman's reactions were overstated? Munsterberg's actions at the opening of Emerson Hall had grave implications that surely became known to Dorr and other committee members. The archival records document that James was scheduled to leave for California on the 28th of December where--as Acting Professor of Philosophy-he was challenged to organize a philosophy department. Nonetheless, Munsterberg quickly learned of the disfavor expressed by James and immediately sent President Eliot his letter of resignation with a copy forwarded to James prior to his departure for the West coast. That same day James wrote to Eliot explaining his "irritation" with Munsterberg's "excessive prominence" throughout the celebrations. James faults himself for the laziness in not involving himself more DORR1905 Page 4 of 19 directly in these matters and urges Eliot not to accept Munsterberg's resignation. (Scott, F.J.D. op. cit. p. 388-390) With James conveniently absent for the next four months, the controversy quietly died and his colleagues and friends could breathe more easily. Others held onto their recollections of President Eliot's remarks on the 27trh as he identified the new building as the first Harvard structure to be appropriated to one of the humanities. In what must have surprised some in the audience, Eliot stated that the new building did not bear his name because he was a psychologist or a philosopher, for these are systematic disciplines and Emerson was more than that. He was "a poet and a prophet many of whose prophesies have already been fulfilled. He was a political, educational, and religious seer a genuine New Englander, but also an American in the broadest sense. Hence the University has found his work and character eminently fit for commemoration. (Harvard Graduates' Magazine 14 (1905-06) : p. 571). The son of the Sage of Concord, Edward W. Emerson, gave the keynote address, extending his appreciation to the Visiting Committee for the invitation to speak. To Dorr and other prominent guests Dr. Emerson offered a surprisingly frank portrait of the intellectual development of one who "could not follow systems," who was lauded for his Phi Beta Kappa speech and shortly thereafter "condemned by most of the faculty of the College" for his Divinity School remarks. Several decades later at the urging of President Eliot, Emerson's Harvard philosophy course was offered on the eve of the professionalizing of philosophy that continued to the occasion of the present event. Clearly Dr. Emerson is affirming to the philosophers present that the naming of Emerson Hall is appreciated by the Emerson family. Nonetheless, he explicitly points out that his father's life cannot be contained by celebrated local recognition inasmuch as he "obeyed a higher call, to be, in his country, a teacher-at-large for life, of the theory and practice of Philosophy for the People." ("Emerson and Scholars," Harvard Graduates' Magazine 14 [1905-06] 383f. Dorr thoughts of this lecture are not documented. We can extrapolate and say that as Emerson tried to keep philosophy tied to its democratic Hellenic roots, so too would Dorr work tirelessly to make the Nature of the sanctuary lands of the Hancock County Trustees accessible to the people; and as Emerson's intellectual meanderings did not neatly fit him into the disciplinary mold of the academic community, so too Dorr's scholarly interests were now about to be downplayed by his development of a new form of conservation activism that would gain him the reputation as a rogue National Park Service administrator. As Dorr was preoccupied with events in Cambridge, Edith Wharton was concluding her Christmas visit to the Biltmore Estate. On the 27th she writes from the Biltmore House to Mr. Dorr-the fourth of eight letters-- stating that she has "never received an invitation more comprehensively hospitable than yours" regarding a January 1906 visit for some "good talks on horticulture, free-will and predestination." Refers to her "thrilling talks" with Mr. Beadle but insisting that writing needs to be done--perhaps a visit later to Boston, "dear Mr. Dorr." 1906 Dorr's effort last fall to examine more closely the Old Farm property was prompted by his several concerns: his desire to improve accessibility to his property and that of his neighbors, to improve the DORR1905 Page 5 of 19 scenic views from his residence, and to protect his property from fire by thinning the thickening under story growth. As he walked one abutting Harvard College property he gathered his thoughts together in a lengthy letter to Dr. Eliot. Eliot is updated on Dorr's progress in building a new road to the former Ellis homesite directly east of Old Farm, property gifted to the College. Harvard had made use of Dorr's skills when it appropriated funds for Dorr to act as an alumnus site manager, subcontracting the construction of an access road to the Sols Cliff property overlooking Frenchman Bay. (February 5, 1906. HUA. Records of the President of Harvard University. Charles W. Eliot. B. 83) Feb. 15th John Jay Chapman writes from 18 Commonwealth to Owen Wister that "I've been here for a week staying with George Dorr and revisiting the glimpses of the moon-Porcellian, Somerset, and Tavern etc. Really I have enjoyed myself. What a world it is-of friendship and tie. There are twice as many people about here that I know and care for-ten times as many-as there are elsewhere all over..." [DeWolfe Howe, John Jay Chapman and his Letters, p. 224]. Edith Wharton writes from NYC to Mr. Dorr (2/17)- fifth of eight letters-- that she had hopes that postponement of their sailing until March 10th would have permitted "a little visit" to Commonwealth Avenue. She refers to "two arduous tasks," the dramatization of her novel and trying to reform the SPCA. Extends an open-ended invitation to The Mount anytime after their return in June June, paying us "a longer visit than last summer.' However, a Wharton letter from NYC (2.27)-the sixth of eight) states that they "expect you on Thursday, and Johnny Morton can't come until Saturday, SO you won't be evicted." She has asked three "nice people to dine Thursday. (Edith Wharton Papers, Yale MSS 42. B24.f 753) . Dorr may not have attended for we know from a letter from late April letter to him from Alice James-postmarked Stanford, California--that they had only heard the preceding week "of your illness. I am so sorry for it, and beg you to take great care of yourself after your recovery." (Harvard University. Houghton. Letters from Other James Family Members. 37) In the interest of redirecting Dorr's attention away from his illness, Alice James recounts at length "the most terrifying experience" they witnessed during the San Francisco earthquake the preceding week. She describes the physical condition of the University but reserves the remainder of the letter to quoting-in confidence--from a letter recently received from her son Harry regarding Dorr's behavior at Society for Psychical Research gatherings. "I very much like and admire G.D. I've seen him very much tired and he's behaved handsomely. I don't grudge a bit the time which this S.P.R. situation has taken me. I've long wanted to have some acquaintance with the business and I've learned more, and in a more interesting way, than I could in any other. Besides which, it's worth some sacrifice to be on hand and see anybody get hit as hard and ring true as G.D has, especially if you are on hand cementing a friendly relation." Before William James attaches his own sentences wishing Dorr a complete recovery, Alice concludes with the assertion that she and the recent widow Richard Hodgson have "boundless confidence" in Dorr (as new S.P.R. Vice-President) in looking out for William James' interests. DORR1905 Page 6 of 19 Edith Wharton sails for France, March 10th then in late April to England, returns to France and then to Lenox in June. Houghton Mifflin publishes the 20 volume edition of The Works of Henry David Thoreau containing more than 100 photographs of Herbert Wendell Gleason, elevating Gleason's standing as a landscape photographer. May 17: William James is guest (in Boston?) of George Dorr who read several letters from John Jay Chapman that Dorr had received. June 5: First of series of Old Farm psychical research sittings with Richard Hodgson-control. June 8: American Antiquities Act (also known as the Lacey Act) enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives-due largely to the support of Iowa Congressman John F. Lacey, chair of House Public Lands Committee -- enabling the President to declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistorio structures "to be national monuments." See H. Albright (Conservators of Hope and Cosmos Club award) on Lacey's importance. As the Summer begins, Dorr offers to purchase a small two acre portion of the Sols Cliff property owned by Harvard College. His concern is in securing a protective corridor against the unforeseen building plans of a new owner of the Harvard-Ellis site. This is of historical interest because Dorr's effort discloses a strategy for land acquisition where an institution is involved (which not unimportantly, is his alma mater), unlike his future land acquisition negotiations with individuals. Since Eden property development has shifted north of the village away from lower Main Street where the properties in question are located, infrequent sales have made land appraisal uncertain. Dorr suggests two names of individuals in whom both he and Eliot have confidence to determine the value of the property and the benefits and risks to the College. (June 25, 1906. Ibid) Summer resident and real estate attorney David B. Ogden is selected. In August he sends Eliot and Dorr a seven-page evaluation of the entire Harvard-Ellis property with narrow and steep frontage on the Bay and north and south boundaries each in excess of sixteen hundred feet. His findings are that the land "in itself [is] of no intrinsic value, considered alone. There is also much unsold land on the neighboring hillside which has direct access to public roads and commands vastly superior views." (August 6, 1906 to Dorr and Eliot. Ibid) On the other hand, Dorr's offer of a thousand dollars for the land also included easements through his land for waterpipes, sewer, and electrical utilities to the Harvard property. "The effect of this would be to make the remainder of the college property marketable, which at present it is not. And that such a sale would therefore be very advantageous to the college." " (See also Dorr's August 7, 1906 letter to Eliot wherein he recommends for a second opinion local land developer Charles How and attorney Leure Deasey. Ibid. In early September Dorr elaborates on property road development and expresses his growing concern about the neglected property beside his immediate neighbor. The lands of her neighbor, Mrs. Chase pose "a serious menace from fire to all the lands adjoining it even to my own and others. These are the only woods now uncared-for for a long distance and its condition makes it a source of serious possible injury and real danger in time of drought to its neighbors." Once Dorr returns to Boston he intends to talk with Charles Adams, Treasurer of the College, DORR1905 Page 7 of 19 HAIR NO POSTAGE NECESSARY IF MAILED IN THE UNITED STATES BUSINESS REPLY MAIL FIRST-CLASS MAIL PERMIT NO. 3 CHESTER, CT POSTAGE WILL BE PAID BY ADDRESSEE CHESTER VILLAGE WEST 317 WEST MAIN STREET CHESTER CT 06412-9962 To see whether "successful pressure" can be brought to bear by the college to force her to address this fire threat. But for the time being, Dorr has abandoned his planned fall trip to Oregon and Washington, in part because of these issues, Mount Desert Nurseries expansion, and "the responsibility, financial and architectural, for the new 'Building of the Arts' [which] has been on my shoulders and I have not felt that I could leave it. (September 6, 1906 to Eliot. Ibid) Edith Wharton writes to Mr. Dorr (8/21) from The Mount-the seventh of eight letters-- asking him to come visit 8/29 to 9/3, a visit to coincide with the Florence LaFarge visit-and Teddy wants to show Dorr the "improvements." She asks him to telegraph his answer but we don't know whether that was carried out. And the eighth letter? It is problematic since it is undated though it asks Mr. Dorr to come Monday instead of Thursday since Edward Robinsons, Grant LaFarges, and Roger Fry (our curator of paintings) will be here. Since it is written from the Curtis Hotel can we presume that it antedates their occupancy of The Mount, thereby being the first in a series of eight surviving letters? Or could it simply have been written at that location? The 55 Wharton letters to Beatrix Farrand in the Yale collections commence in June 1916. Gifford Pinchot prepares bills for Congress placing the national parks under the Forest Service SO that they can be open for resource development, proposals opposed by Rep. John F. Lacey, Chair of the House Public Lands Committee and preservationist advocate. The net effect is a preservationist campaign to establish a permanent separate bureau to administer national parks. James delivers the Lowell Lectures in November which serve as the foundation for Pragmatism: a New Name for Old Ways of Thinking. A certificate of organization for the Bar Harbor Village Library is completed. Its purpose is to maintain " a social and literary library at Bar Harbor Town of Eden Hancock County Maine." (Oct. 6, 1906) Fred C., Lynam is listed as President and G.B. Dorr's name appears as one of four Director's; it is filed with the State of Maine November 5th with Albert Lynam serving as notary. (Jesup Memorial Library Archives). October 22: GBD dines with William Everett. 1907 Edith Wharton returns to Paris January and rents apartment of George Vanderbilts at 58 rue de Varenne; later they would rent their own at 53 rue de Varenne which Edith occupied until 1920. President Roosevelt in his Seventh Annual Message makes the case for utilitarian conservationism arguing for the substitution of planned and orderly resource development in place of "a haphazard striving for immediate profit." Sides with Pinchot against the preservationist conservationists. Dorr works with Kennedy and Clement B. Newbold of Philadelphia and Northeast Harbor to protect the island from a trolley line proposed by a group of Boston speculators and Southwest Harbor fishermen. The line would extend from the Maine Central line at Ellsworth to Bar Harbor, with a branch through Somesville to Southwest. As a counter to these plans, Dorr submits his own proposal for an electric line, allowing him to control the route of the trolley and thus minimize scarring to the landscape. During the following spring and fall, the Trustees pay surveyors to make a thorough study of the best routes. After reading DORR1905 Page 8 of 19 Dorr's report, the Southwest Harbor fishing interests are satisfied that running electric train lines through the area would be too expensive. The project is abandoned. On May 16th Julia Ward Howe spoke in Concord to The Emerson Society, offering her earliest reminiscences of her acquaintance with Mr. Emerson. She spoke of events seventy years past when she had been introduced to Emerson by Samuel G. Ward. During the trip to New York she and Emerson conversed and Julia tried to convert him from Unitarianism to her youthful orthodoxy, to no avail. NYTimes (6.16) reports on the details of the new "Temple of Music and Arts," with a seating capacity of 380. One of Dorr's closest friends at this time and in the two decades to follow is physician Robert Abbe. Born in New York City, Abbe was educated in its public schools and graduated from both the College of the City of New York and the College of Physicians and Surgeons. A friend and biographer of Dr. Abbe refered to "his exactness of thought, his precision of action, his deftness of hand his sympathetic spirit, his courage and imagination which drove him into the great and vital calling of a surgeon." In the last two decades of the 19th century he pioneered techniques at St. Luke's Hospital and other metropolitan medical centers that yielded new procedures in cranial, spinal, and intestinal surgery that remain standard procedures to this day. Beginning in 1881 Abbe adopted Bar Harbor as his summer retreat and routinely summered there in rented quarters until the time of his marriage when he and his wife Catherine purchased Brook End abutting Frenchman Bay within earshot of the ferry service known today to tourists worldwide. Attracted to the non-invasive potential of newly discovered radium, in 1904 he visited the Paris laboratories of Pierre and Marie Curie. After returning to America, Dr. Abbe introduced this new therapy to his colleagues and for the remainder of his life experimented with its applications. The aplastic anemia that took his life in 1928 may have resulted from experimentation with a radioactive substance of uncertain properties. In 1905 Catherine Abbe contributed not only her insights into planning this new unprecedented Mount Desert Island cultural institution-her checkbook also provide needed financial support. As President of the Building of the Arts Founders Committee, Dorr sought "to increase not only the love for music but the desire for whatever is excellent in art." With the financial assistance of George W. Vanderbilt and others, Dorr purchased land adjacent to the Kebo Valley Club and funded the initial architectural design of this new facility. When it opened on July 13th "to one of the most fashionable audiences ever gathered here" few expected that for thirty years The Building of the Arts would offer Island residents performing artists of international renown, due in no small part to Catherine Abbe's continuing involvement until her death in 1920. (NYT July 14, 1907) In several years Dorr and Abbe would combine their skills to obtain legal authority to seize land whose use threatened the welfare of residents and a decade later they would again collaborate in creating an enduring institution focused on preserving the legacy of the first inhabitants of Mount Desert Island, its native Americans. Edith Wharton spends summer at The Mount, returning to Paris in December. On July 24th she writes to Dorr (likely final letter) responding to his invitation. Edith says she must stay at The Mount and work though Teddy especially sorry that they can't now have another "Bar DORR1905 Page 9 of 19 Harbor Revisited.' They also exchanged notes on flowers, specifically phloxes; there is no evidence that Dorr and Wharton's head gardener Thomas Reynolds corresponded with each other. Refers to their stay at the Vanderbilt Paris apartment last winter. Again encourages him to visit in August or September and see "the George Dorr path, the new pond, and other improvements." " Mr. Dorr serves as Chairman of the BHVIA Trees and Planting Committee. Medium Laura E. Piper and her daughter Atla are October Old Farm guests. In Washington on November 17th, arterio sclerosis claims the life of Dorr's most celebrated living relative, his maternal uncle Samuel Gray Ward (1817-1907). His son, Thomas Wren Ward of New York City, proprietor of Lot #235, signs the Mount Auburn Cemetery order for interment three days later. (Mount Auburn Cemetery Historical Collections, #235). In Edward Waldo Emerson's biographical essay on SGW he notes that in the new century "Mr. Ward grew feeble but his faculties seemed hardly impaired." He died having been a member for fifty years of The Saturday Club "which he helped into existence." (Emerson, Early Years of the Saturday Club, p. 116). U.S. motorcar production reaches 43,000 annually, up from 25,000 in 1905. Maine legislature permits towns to ban automobiles. 1908 Julia Ward Howe's final journal entry about the Dorr family (1.31) reports "George Dorr for tete-a-tete dinner and evening. Devoted this evening to the reading of old family letters, mostly of S.G.W. to George's mother Mary Dorr. A rather ghostly evening. G is too much enwrapped in the story of past times, especially that of his mother's engagement to my brother Henry. He should make haste and marry, probably will not." (JWH, "Journals," trans. E. Cochrane, YHP, RG 18), "A record audience of nearly a thousand persons" attended a H.W. Gleason lecture (est. April 24th) before Appalachian Club Mountain members in Huntington Hall, Boston. In the Summer of 1907 Gleason and other AMC members had camped and hiked California's backbones with Sierra Club members. The scenery of Yosemite Valley, Mount Shasta, and the King's River Canyon-explored by Dorr four years earlier- were enjoyed and photographed. Those who viewed these "Glories of the Sierras" were privileged to see vistas far removed from the itinerary of the everyday traveler. It is not clear that the reviewers recognized fully the natural and social values that shaped the composition of his images, a principled commitment best represented by the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations- to conserve exceptional landscape for the benefit of the public. (Robbins-Mills Collection. CFPL. III. E.2) On Mount Desert Island the objectives of the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations have not been realized. To be sure, they were dependent on the generosity of others, yet following incorporation in 1901 no assigned responsibilities are detailed in the initial incorporator meetings. Dorr says there was a dormant period when the Trustees slept, although we know that during this time Dorr was acquiring conservation properties with the Trustees as beneficiary clearly in mind. Yet nearly seven years after its establishment, this land trust owned no land. On May 6, 1908 the widow of Boston surgeon Charles D. Homans deeded to the Trustees its first two tracts of land, a gift that has historically DORR1905 Page 10 of 19 not been fully appreciated. Dorr. However, recognized the impact of this gift on his own personal history, describing the donation as "the starting point for gathering the land that I made the foundation for Acadia National Park." Her friendship with President Eliot provided context for her precedent setting philanthropy. In conveying the deeds, she informed Eliot that she had not put any restrictions in the deed as she recognized in light- hearted fashion that the risk was that "my grandchildren may find a 'Merry-Go-Round' established there!" She hoped that this gift will be considered "a bright example" She asked Eliot to publicize the gift but to do SO "without bringing my name in. (May 7, 1908. HUA. Records of the President of Harvard. Charles W. Eliot. B. 83) For more than four decades the Homans family of Boston had been island summer residents. The surgeon's widow, Eliza L. Homans (1830-1914), was the daughter of a New Hampshire cleric, Reverend Samuel Kirkland Lothrop, later the head of Boston's Old Brattle Street Church. The Dorr and Lothrop families allied themselves in 1868 when Charles Hazen Dorr and Eliza Homan's brother purchased the Higgens Tract which fronted on Frenchman Bay, one of the earliest cultivated farmlands on the Island. (G.B. Dorr. "Some Thoughts Concerning Acadia National Park, Planning for the Future." December 10, 1940 typescript. ANPA. B.2.f.2) Several years later, Thornton K. Lothrop sold his portion of the property to Dorr's father. Consequently, Eliot and Dorr are not merely agents accepting this first gift to the Trustees. Each had historical associations with the Homans family and understood the importance to her of memorializing family members who predeceased her by offering other shoreline property she described as "beautiful, unique, and wild" acres. (Bar Harbor genealogist Alice M. Long is the authority on the island experience of the Homans family. "Homans' Gift Sparked Creation of Acadia," Mount Desert Islander. August 10, 2006) Homans donated a tract on the south side of Newport Mountain called The Bowl, a glacial cirque contiguous with the craggy five hundred and fifty foot headland called the Beehive. From its summit overlooking Sand Beach and Schooner Head the observer had expansive views of the Otter Cliffs trailing east and south. (This property is listed as lot 85 in A Historical Sketch and a Record of the Holdings of the Trustees. Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations. Bar Harbor, 1939. Additional land between the Bowl and Otter Cliffs [lot 84] was given at the same time; this second lot abutted the sixty-two acre Homans family estate bordering Frenchman's Bay) Over the last half century the artistry of Hudson River School painters Thomas Cole and Frederick Church had etched these landscape features rich with historical associations on the public mind. (See John Wilmerding. The Artist's Mount Desert. Princeton: Preinceton University Press, 1994. Chapters 3 & 5) Indeed, in the marginal notes to his 1844 "Sand Beach Mountain, Mt. Desert Island," Cole gazed from Great Head towards the Beehive and remarks that "the golden sea sand of the beach & the light green sea with its surf altogether with the woods of varied color-make a magnificent effect such as seldom seen combined in one scene." (Tom Germain and Jay Saunders. Trails of History. Bar Harbor: Parkman Publications, 1993. Pg. 25. n.1) Such impressions of the Beehive landmark situated within the context of the Homans gift transported Dorr's mind to the most prominent island landmark. He experienced a near epiphany, an immediate and unifying recognition that as Trustee Vice President the goals of conservation would be best served if he could secure the most topographically significant landscape on the DORR1905 Page 11 of 19 Island-the summit of what we know today as Cadillac Mountain. Acquisition of the summit would be a significant second step in realizing Trustee objectives-and his first step toward a life now framed about a singular goal. (On this event being the inception for making "this Park's creation my major interest and work," see Dorr's March 22, 1941 letter to House Appropriations Committee Chairman, Edward T. Taylor. ANPA. B. 4. f. 1) Consequently, at fifty-four years of age, the occupation which had eluded him was found. The urban fund raising experience at Harvard would be applied to a resort community in Maine, and with its success lead Dorr for the next four decades into the role of federal administrator of a unique national landscape. Within the next seven years, through the energetic cultivation of Trustee Vice President Dorr and others, forty parcels of land totaling more than seven thousands acres would be assembled. In 1916 as Dorr wended his way through the legal entanglements involved in the transfer of more than 5,000 acres to the federal government, he initiated construction of the Homans Path granite steps and stone archways that ascended from the Springhouse area up the striking face of Dorr Mountain. Eight days later (May 14th) the Trustees of the estate of Linda Dows Cooksey gave title to some five acres atop Barr Hill on Sea Cliff Drive near Seal Harbor on which Champlain Mt. stands. Later this year, funds given by John S. Kennedy enabled the Trustees to secure "The Mountain Top Lot" atop Green -now Cadillac-Mountain. A deed dated October 26 th honored the rights of the Green Mountain Railway Co on this 85 acre parcel. ( The Story of Acadia National Park dates Dorr's awareness of the Homan's gift in mid-September 1906, a likely chronology error for the recording of these deeds in mid-August would surely have led to rapid circulation of this information) Regardless of the exact chain of events, before the Summer ends Dorr is walking the summit of the highest island summit with his friend and legal assistant, Albert Henry Lynam, "tracing out the boundaries of the land I sought," eighty-five acres of Green (now Cadillac) Mountain. (The Story of Acadia National Park. Pgs. 15-17; lot # 11 in the Hancock County Trustee of Public Reservations history) Trustee legal counsel was provided by Deasy & Lynam of Bar Harbor. A.H. (Harry) Lynam for the next twenty-five years would function as Dorr's right-hand han--legal counsel, assistant to the park superintendent, Secretary of the Trustees (1910-1924), and a key facilitator of possible conservation donors. Lynam will be the agent who prompts Dorr's acquisition of Sieur de Monts Spring, who tirelessly traces the history of the deeds that secure national monument status, and acts as intermediary between the Superintendent and his Washington superiors, not to mention the services he provides as John D. Rockefeller's legal counsel in Maine. (Unfortunately, Lynam's life is poorly documented; his correspondence with John D. Rockefeller Jr. available at the Rockefeller Archive Center provides the fullest account) A full year later, Trustee Minutes document Trustee acquisitions secured in 1908 and 1909, and therein Eliot acknowledges that "the encouraging success of the Corporation in acquiring reservations of land for public use was due principally to the work of Mr. Dorr and the cooperation of Mr. Kennedy." (HCTPR Archives. Woodlawn Museum. No Trustee Minutes for the years 1903-1908 have not survived) Eliot suppressed his own role and pushed Dorr to center stage, an altruistic behavior that will recur. (There is no indication at this time that consideration was being given to transferal of land to the federal government. Dorr may have been aware that Chicago businessman William Kent was being praised by the DORR1905 Page 12 of 19 press at this time for his donation to the federal government of 47 acres of giant redwoods named Muir Woods National Monument) Before Eliot returns to Cambridge for the fall term, he receives at Asticou news of yet another land donation, from Seal Harbor real estate agent, George B. Cooksey. (September [3], 1908. HUA. Records of the President of Harvard University. Charles W. Eliot. B. 83) Arriving back at the Yard, a letter from Dorr informs Dorr about the activity of land speculators. They were attempting to acquire the Green Mountain summit- that they already leased--in order to convey visitors on "an automobile stage up and down the mountain," and possibly sub-divide the acreage for sale to interested parties. (September 28 & 29, 1906. Records of the President of Harvard University. Charles W. Eliot. B. 83) With Kennedy's financial backing and Harry Lyman's legal advice, Dorr purchases from the estate of Daniel W. Brewer-a descendent of early Hulls Cove settlers--the eighty-five acre "Mountain House Lot" where the Brewer family had earlier entertained guests at their inn at the end of the rough summit road. Dorr tells Eliot that this exceptional property "lies in its all-round view," which he characterizes three decades later as important since the new Trustee property included "every commanding view upon the whole broad summit, the highest and boldest on our oceanfront, from Maine to Florida, and the central feature of Acadia National Park." (SANP, p. 17) Dorr's action derailed the road project at a time when the growing popularity of the automobile generated island-wide speculation about its benefits and risks to island culture. Trustee acquisition of this property delayed public motorized access to the summit for the next twenty-four years. For the time being, Dorr's action preserved landscape threatened by subdivision and the newest engine of an industrialized society. The Overseers of Harvard College accept "with reluctance" the resignation of President Charles W. Eliot. (New York Times, 12.12.08) In a letter shortly before Christmas conveying seasons greetings, H.W. Gleason updates John Muir on the forthcoming appearance of Houghton Mifflin's new edition of Muir's Our National Parks which will for the first time contain more than two dozen Gleason images. He also stresses the interest of New Englanders in the California landscape as evidenced by audience reaction to lectures the preceding week in Concord and Salem. (Robbins-Mills Collection. CFPL. I. f. 16) 1909 In January at the convening of the biennial State Legislature, an attempt is made by permanent Bar Harbor residents to obtain a repeal of the law banning the use of motor vehicles on the island. Summer residents form a committee to successfully defeat the efforts, but not without criticism of the methods they use. 1 Waldron Bates died in February and left $5K to the BHVIS for trail maintenance. The Chasm Trail atop Cadillac Cliffs was one of the last trails built by Bates. With an endowment from S. Weir Mitchell--his successor from 1909-11-the path was renamed the Waldron Bates Memorial Path, the first memorial trail. Although Mitchell remained on the Path Committee until his death in 1914, Rudolph Brunnow succeeded him in 1911 and from 1913 to 1916 six additional memorial trails were added to the system funded by summer residents. Brunnow "attributed the work to George Dorr, who by this time envisioned the memorial trails as part of a plan to enhance the public reservation and improve its eligibility for 1 DORR1905 Page 13 of 19 designation as a national monument or park.' (M. Coffin Brown, Pathmakers, p. 64-69) Other than what can be inferred from Dorr's The Story of Acadia National Park and infrequent correspondence, little information about the social and personal relationships that brought about these first gifts have not survived. (One example of such interplay is correspondence between the Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association, President Eliot, and physician S. Weir Mitchell regarding the donation of the Fawn Pond. September 16 & 28, October 2, 1908. HUA. Records of the President of Harvard University. Charles W. Eliot Papers. B. 83) The Trustees had a responsibility to protect this land. But exactly what that meant was open for interpretation. What is absent from Trustee Minutes is the kind of information that we take for granted today. What is the role of each of the Trustee officers? Were people allowed to hike, hunt, fish, and recreate on donated property? What constituted stewardship of said lands? What actions would be taken against interlopers who might log the land or be found responsible for its destruction through fire? Was there an early effort to secure contiguous property? Would property in Hancock County but not on Mount Desert Island be accepted? Governor's Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources organized by Gifford Pinchot held May 13-15 at the White House propelling conservation issues to the forefront of public consciousness, stimulating private and state-level conservation initiatives. J. Horace McFarland, chief spokesman at conference for scenic preservation, was the leader outside government circles in promoting the establishment of the National Park Service. H. Albright calls him a "giant among conservationists." (Conservators of Hope, p. .26). Edith Wharton returns to the Mount late May through October. Correspondence from William Everett prior to his death When pregnant Abby Rockefeller learns that her gynecologist was spending the summer in Bar Harbor she decides to follow him there for her delivery. Family rents Sears Cottage a waterfront home on Wayman Street [Weymouth Lane?] where three days after JDR's return, Nelson Rockefeller was born on July 8th. The next year the family would return and rent a cottage in low-profile Seal Harbor. "Marine Laboratories and our Atlantic Coast" was published in the August issue of The American Naturalist, wherein Alfred G. Mayer makes the case for additional marine research stations to supplement those in South Harpswell, Woods Hole, Cold Spring Harbor, Beaufort, and the southerly end of the Florida Keys. That Harpswell is not adequate to the research requirements is implied by his atatement that north of Cape Cod lies "one of the most sharply differentiated of the faunistic divisions of our coast," yet no proper laboratory is available for general instruction and research. (Vol. XLII, August 1908: 533-536) Owen Johnson has article on "The Building of the Arts at Bar Harbor" published in Century Magazine, Sept. issue. President Eliot visits Biltmore in March. Carl Schenck wanted to speak with him about the Harvard School of Forestry at Petersham which had recently been established, yet is somewhat disappointed that Eliot did not live up to his expectations--despite the fact that "he was a good DORR1905 Page 14 of 19 listener and a great speaker all in one." (Cradle of the American Forest, p. 168-69) Following the October 1906 incorporation of the Bar Harbor Village Library, Dorr takes the first steps toward establishment of a Eden village library by involving Philip Livingston in yet another memorial tribute to his recently deceased wife; the widower had already purchased a fountain for the Eden Village Green. GBD wants a private library without use fees that can house his growing horticultural collection. Late Winter brought the issue of psychical research to the foreground. The Special Collections at Clark University contain more than a dozen pieces of correspondence between Dorr and Clark University researcher G. Stanley Hall (G. Stanley Hall Papers. B27. f.9). Hall's career at Harvard had involved a relationship with William James who now encouraged Dorr to strike up a relationship with Hall since it would "pay him to see the Temper in which you work at the phenomena." (Harvard University. Houghton. Correspondence of William James. III. #118. March 10, 1909) Dorr's scholarly interest in this phenomena tracks back more than fifty years to his mother's earliest interest in psychical research. James encourages Dorr to "give Hall carte blanche, [since] he won't do anything violent, and the medium's reaction will be curious, I have no doubt {for it is] pedantic to use psychological tests to make a investigation scientific," when the only real question is Mrs. Piper's supernormal knowledge." (Harvard University. Houghton. Correspondence of William James. III. #118, March 24, 1909) Dorr remains anxious, however, that Hall "should continue [these investigations] and make them as thorough and as full as possible." (G. Stanley Hall Papers. B 27. f. .9, May 19,1909). The immediate issue is the worthiness of spiritualistic trance claims made by Mrs. Piper. Between April 14th and May 29th Dorr facilitates Hall's efforts to meet with Mrs. Piper to use the scientific methods of that era to assess the merits of her utterances. Hall praises Dorr for the "very great assistance" that he has provided (4.16.09, 5.28.09) and when Hall exhausts funds to pay for the Piper sittings, Dorr covers the costs of the final three encounters between the future Clark University President and Piper. In a letter (7.8.09) to James shortly before his death, Hall states that "our sessions with Mrs. Piper were extremely interesting to me, and our report which will come out in the fall, will if I am not mistaken present a new phase of the Piper problem." (G. Stanley Hall Papers. B27. f.9) In a dramatic episode later that Spring, Dorr obtains--with only minutes to spare--the option to purchase what is now known as Sieur de Monts Spring, a magnificent spring with a constant flow of clean water. Dorr later calls the Spring "one of the foundation stones on which the future park was built." "Title was taken to 30 acres at the Sieur de Monts Spring for $5,000. and after cleaning out area he shaped the ground into shell-like concave basin. Over the Spring itself he raised an octagonal structure with a tiled roof of old Florentine design. Dorr placed a glass plate over the spring enabling visitors to see the water gushing out. A pipe carried the water away to where the public could drink of it" (ANP Archives, Cultural Resource Description Report) Beside it the granite marker stone the phrase "The Sweet Waters of Acadia" was etched. In The Story of Acadia National Park Dorr refers to one of his most "precious" memories involving a funding request from financier John S. Kennedy. Dorr had been negotiating with the owners of land on Picket DORR1905 Page 15 of 19 Mountain adjacent to the Bear Brook site where he had built the bicycle path for his mother's enjoyment. Wishing to make the Picket Mountain land where "she had found such happiness" a gift to the Trustees he asked Kennedy for financial assistance. His friend willing agreed but while boundary issues were being settled Kennedy suddenly died and the purchase appeared doomed since "no papers passed between us; for his word was enough But it happened, most moving to me, that the last words his wife heard him utter, as she bent over him to hear what he might say, were: 'Remember that I promised Mr. Dorr...to help him get that land. (Story of Acadia National Park. Pgs. 22-23) Legally his executors were not bound but the following spring Dorr received a check for the amount pledged. Kennedy earlier had allied himself with Dorr in an effort to secure now defunct Transit Company railway lands for a Bar Harbor athletic field. The Kennedy estate trustees persuaded the widow Kennedy to purchase it from the company and donate it to the Town. Finally, Dorr secured her agreement and formed a corporation to administer it and following her death in 1934 the athletic field became Town property. Bar Harbor, its Water Company Board, and the Hancock County Trustees lost a man ever mindful of the importance of landscape preservation. GBD is listed as Vice President of the Society for Psychical Research. One of many VP's he will be SO listed until 1939 at his Commonwealth Avenue address. Mr. Olmsted visits George B. Dorr (9.4) and drafts an internal report that two issues: Following examination of the Blair and Kennedy gardens, he "hastily" went through Dorr's nursery where there was much "interesting stuff" and a "new irrigation scheme" that caught his attention"; he continues that he advised Dorr "about a pergola he is going to build and about design of a library building [Jesup] of which he is a committee. No charge, I guess." Concluding paragraph emphasizes the "good work to be seen and studied" at "some of the Bar Harbor places and Dorr's nursery. (Library of Congress. Records of the Olmsted Associates. Microfilm Reel #224, frame 81) A week later (9.13) F.L.O. writes Dorr that George H. Weatherbee will come to Bar Island within the week "to make the topographical survey of your property." Dorr's handwritten letter to Olmsted (9.20) thanks him for his "interest in our library," and asks when his next visit to Bar Harbor will take place since "I have another matter of some interest I want to talk over with you here." (frame 84) Wm. James prepares at the end of 1908 and continuing into 1909 a lengthy report on Mrs. Piper's Hodgson-Control (part read at 1909 SPR meeting and whole published in Proceedings) Where he was unwilling to say that these seances were fraudulent though he said these 75 episodes were "vastly more leaky and susceptible of naturalistic explanation." On 9.7. he writes to AGJ that he has returned from MDI to find her letters; he says that sailing to Bar Harbor, the sunsets and sunrises were glorious (James Corr. V. 12, pg. 622) [Last visit?]. George Herbert Palmer remarks that James "never concealed from himself how large a part fraud and self-deception play in spiritualism. He and I as members of the Psychical Research Society, attended 'cabinet seances' every Saturday for an entire winter, and at the close reported that in our opinion all these materializing phenomena were fraudulent. The following year he invited Mrs. Piper to give a series of trance interviews at his house; and he believed-as did I-that there was significant psychological matter in her visions he was unwilling to treat the subject as a closed question" (S.E. Morison, The Development of Harvard University, 6) By late summer James is in "rather poor shape" asking Dorr whether DORR1905 Page 16 of 19 physician Madison Taylor is summering at Bar Harbor where James saw him at Oldfarm. Dorr intercedes, Taylor writes to James, and James plans an early September trip to Oldfarm for "professional advice.' (Harvard University. Houghton. William James Correspondence. III. #119). Matilda C. Markoe donated to the HCTPR two-thirds of an acre on the west side of Schooner Head Rd immediately north of Bear Brook. In the HCTPR Minutes (9/13) Rev. Lawrence asks C.W. Eliot to appoint a committee (Lawrence is chair) to consider the "whole subject of MDI Water supply protection." Gifford Pinchot (Head of U.S. Department of Forestry) lectures at the BH Casino in late July with a large number of society leaders in attendance. BHVIA had asked GBD to help facilitate this forestry presentation. Gifford is guest of Mrs. Morris Jesup at Stonecliffe. A reception followed lecture at home of Mrs. Henry F. Dimock. U.S. annual automobile production reaches 127,000. Autos admitted to MDI, only at Tremont and SWH. President Roosevelt convenes the North American Conservation Conference held in Washington and drawing representatives from Canada, Mexico, and Newfoundland. National Conservation Association founded by Gifford Pinchot, and outgrowth of Pinchot's 1908 Conservation League of America. NCA dissolves in the 1920's. 1910 Dorr routinely spent the winter months at his 18 Commonwealth Avenue residence. That residence was maintained year round by a staff which included a parlor maid, cook, and housekeeper. (1910 United States Census Records, Suffolk County) G.L. Stebbins discovers that title could be obtained for large tracts of land in centre of eastern half of island. Prompt action needed due to lumber market demand and introduction of portable sawmill. Seven Seal Harbor residents took equal shares and purchased 3,600 acres. Sold 600 acres within Eden town limits to GBD for $3K with understand that he would give it to the HCTPR and they donated 1,000 acres to Trustees directly. That winter prominent summer residents learned through their subscription to The Bar Harbor Record that the aforementioned Philip Livingston had quietly purchased land where a summer residence was sited on the east shore of Eagle Lake. Knowing that the wastewater would drain directly into the town water supply, the directors of the Bar Harbor Water Company met in New York in mid-January to discuss a threat to the purity of the town water supply. They wrote to Dorr in Boston and asked him to travel Down East to "look the situation over." On arriving Fred Lynam, President of the Water Company, stated that it was too late to stop construction-and the expense would be too great. Dorr then pulled from his pocket a letter from Dr. Robert Abbe, then chairman of the BHVIA sanitary committee. Abbe's instruction to Dorr was to have the strongly disapproving letter printed in the paper should the project move forward. This greatly alarmed Lynam and a compromise was reached whereby Livingston was contacted to see on what terms he would give up the project. When Livingston became aware of this concern, he abandoned his plans and the company compensated both him and the contractor. "This DORR1905 Page 17 of 19 incident served as a valuable object lesson on the importance of anticipating other undertakings of the kind as now were likely." ( The Story of Acadia National Park. Pgs. 23-25) A comprehensive plan to safeguard the future purity of the Lake was developed-The Mount Desert Island Water Protection report--by the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations. The upshot was that the two corporations acted "to prevent others from making similar development plans... [since] the water company would finance the purchase of land it wished to protect, but the actual title would be placed in the hands of the Trustees." (Peter Morrison. History of the Bar Harbor Water Company, 1873-2004, and Cultural Resource Assessment of Water Company Facilities, Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor, Maine. Bar Harbor: National Park Service, 2005. Pg. 78) The need for a Bar Harbor public library was brought by Dorr and others to the attention of Mrs. Morris K. Jesup, a recent widow of banker Morris Jesup who had been a prominent summer resident member of the BHVIA. His national involvement in the formation and promotion of cultural institutions ranged from founding the YMCA to the presidency of the American Museum of Natural History. His death in January of 1908 left an estate valued at nearly thirteen million dollars, his widow receiving slightly less than ten million dollars. (See NYT. May 28, 1899 article on Jesup (pg. MS2) for additional biographical details and the July 28, 1909 Bar Harbor Record for estate valuation information) Dorr approached Mrs. Jesup-who he likely knew from their earlier years in Lenox-and asked her to purchase land near the village green in memory of her husband. She agreed and offered $20,000 to erect a library upon the donated site. Costs escalated to $75,000 and according to Dorr the concerned donor then asked him to take charge of executing the contract; the building committee [formed in 1909-see Olmsted memo 9.4.1909 above] consisted of Dorr, Ernesto Fabbri and Henry Lane Eno. (BHT 7.6.1910). Lacking town commitment to the project and concerned about ongoing expenses, Dorr successfully secured from Mrs. Jesup a $50,000. endowment. The completed facility was dedicated August 30, 1911 at a ceremony presided by Rev. William Lawrence with addresses by C. Weir Mitchell and Leure Deasy who says that the library "owes much of its completeness and well thought out fitness to the care given its construction by Mr. George Dorr." At the national level, conservation receives new support when Secretary of Interior Richard Ballinger advocates a national park bureau. Over the next five years his successors, Walter I. Fisher and Franklin K. Lane continued this advocacy, with new support from President Taft. On the one hand the expanding railroads saw the park bureau as being in their interest as recreational destinations, while on the other hand the Forest Service saw a new bureau as a resource competitor whose domain would be carved out of lands under its authority. (John C. Miles. Guardians of the Parks. Washington, DC: Taylor & Francis, 1995, p. 12). The address that Charles W. Eliot delivered to Harvard students in October 1905 is published in a collection titled The Durable Satisfactions of Life. It includes his essay on "Great Riches," wherein he identified a flaw in the use of wealth to improve private estates. "In this country it is difficult to pass down to another generation large holdings of lands, at least with any assurance that the holdings will be kept.. [for] estates inherited through three generations are rare in the United State [s] " This empirical fact Eliot, Dorr, and other Trustees in both Massachusetts and Maine employed in their discussions with prospective donors. "In the neighborhood of large cities almost the only way to make sure that an estate...will remain in good condition is to get the estate converted into a public domain. [where] chances are that DORR1905 Page 18 of 19 all improvements will be maintained and that care will be taken to preserve all its landscape beauties." Mr. Dorr may have been foremost in his mind when he concluded that "it is only a generous and public- spirited man, however, who looks forward with satisfaction to this fate for fields and forests which have become dear to him. " The Durable Satisfactions of Life. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1910, Pp. 128- 131) With the publication of the fifty volume "Five Foot Shelf," President Eliot brought to the attention of the public what he and Harvard thought best in their own heritage, a time capsule of an era just about to end. At Northeast Harbor President Eliot's house was full of relatives and guests despite the fact that son Samuel had built a house nearby for his wife, four sons and three girls while another occupied by Mrs. Charles Eliot and her four daughters; for President Eliot not only wishes that his grandchildren should spend their summers learning how "to swim and sail and ride and explore the woods and the mountainsides" but he also attends to the daily ordering and housekeeping tasks, reinforcing a routine established thirty years earlier when he was responsible for providing the provisions on Calf Island. (H. James CWE, V. 2, p. 175). Two individuals prominent in Dorr's life pass away: Julia Ward Howe and William James (8.26) Maud Howe's posthumous The Eleventh Hour in the Life of Julia Ward Howe (published in 1911) well summarizes her mother's achievements with a strong emphasis on her intellectual routines. The death of colleague, neighbor, and friend William James was a severe blow to Royce, not to mention the resulting depression suffered by his brother Henry. JDR Jr. buys a summer home on MDI (The Eyrie) and makes what he calls "one of the most important decisions of my life" to redirect his life from managing his father's vast business interests to philanthropy. GBD directed by BHVIS to assist in process of having Gifford Pinchot address a BH meeting on forestry. DORR1905 Page 19 of 19 GEORGE BUCKNAM DORR Ronald H. Epp, Ph.D. BEGIN 1911 (November 23, 2008) 1911 Following the death of Julia Ward Howe, Judge Robert Grant is asked to deliver a poem in her honor at public exercises in her memory at Symphony Hall (January 8th) In a chapter of his autobiography (Fourscore) on Mrs. Gardner and her circle, Grant describes himself as a friend of her daughters Laura E. Richards and Maud Howe Elliot. (p. 279) Year-round Bar Harbor residents again petition to repeal the law forbidding the use of cars on the island. Remembering the unused blueprints for the electric trolley lines, Dorr suggests using the old abandoned trolley course for the automobile road, ending in Bar Harbor. Dorr comes under fire from summer residents, who say he has gone too far, and from townspeople, who say he hasn't gone far enough. (SANP) The development of land bordering Eagle Lake continued to concern the Bar Harbor Water Company and the Trustees. As the Trustees approached their tenth anniversary, Dorr was still the unpaid chief executive who carried forth their interests. (As the Massachusetts Trustees of Reservations functioned for more than thirty years without a paid staff member [until Charles W. Eliot II was hired], SO too the Hancock Trustees relied on volunteer stewardship for an even longer span of time) The safety of the water supply was not yet secured for any owner of lakeshore land could threaten to build on the site and extract the highest price from the water company. With the "solid support of the great body of summer residents and taxpayers of Mount Desert Island eastward from Somes Sound," Dorr entered a bill in the State legislature to grant the Trustees the power to condemn all Island land that threatened public welfare. Though his objective was not fully realized, "what I got [from the Maine legislature] was the power granted to our Trustees to condemn, on evidence of importance shown, the connected watersheds of Eagle Lake and Jordan Pond.' (G.B.. Dorr. The Story of Acadia National Park. p. 26) Five years after Dorr's death in 1944, one of the executors of Dorr's estate would characterize this accomplishment as "the brilliant idea of combining the protection of Bar Harbor's health [and]it mountains. (Richard W. Hale Jr. The Story of Bar Harbor. New York: Ives Washburn, 1949. Pg. 195) What he succeeded in obtaining was authority for the Trustees to condemn the connected watersheds of Eagle Lake and Jordan Pond. Thereafter, in the name of the Trustees, Dorr purchases with $65,000 of water company funds all lands within the drainage basin of the Lake. (A similar achievement was realized for Jordan Pond in Seal Harbor) Dorr had succeeded in linking in the public mind the interrelatedness of environmental forces--whether they be hydrologic or geologic. Once this power was secured, the Water Company Directors put at Dorr's disposal $65,000 to acquire all land within the drainage basin of Eagle Lake. These accomplishments peaked the interest of Seal Harbor residents concerned about development of the mountains enclosing Jordan Pond "and the green, rounded Bubbles which separate its basin from that of Eagle Lake." (Ibid. p. 27) Several years later in an important financial DORR1911 Page 1 of 30 communication from Dorr to President Eliot, Dorr will applaud the largely unrecognized water company financial commitment which "made quite as much as a contribution toward the Trustees' work in conserving the attractiveness of the Island as to ensure the purity of their water product." (February 24, 1915. Harvard University Archives. C.W. Eliot Papers. B. 95) That a public utility would contribute to "conserving the attractiveness of the Island" or any landscape was novel and deserving of recognition. But the mountains too had their claim on the attention of island residents. The response of Bar Harbor resident George B. Dorr to the Homan's gift conserved 100 acres on the summit of Green-now Cadillac- Mountain, thanks to the financial support of fellow summer resident John S. Kennedy. With a year Seal Harbor resident and fellow Trustee George L. Stebbins "discovered that a good title could be obtained to a tract of over 3600 acres once owned by a bankrupt land company," land that was in imminent danger of lumber company acquisition. Stebbins organized residents of Seal Harbor, and 1,600 acres was sold to Dorr for $3,000 with the understanding that he would give the land to the Trustees; the remaining 1000 acres of Pemetic Mountain and the Triads was given to the Trustees. Finally, in 1912 the executors of the estate of Charles T. How put on the market a 2,000 acre tract that included Jordan and Sargent Mountains. Again, real state agent George Cooksey partnered with Stebbins to take title to the property, "suggesting to President Eliot that, as residents of Seal Harbor had given Pemetic Mountain to the Trustees, the people at Northeast Harbor might like to contribute Sargent Mountain." Seven thousand dollars was secured from the residents, the water companies of both communities contributed a thousand dollars each, thereby extending the protection of the Jordan Pond water supply. (George L. Stebbins. "Random Notes on the Early History and Development as a Summer Resort of Mount Desert island and Particularly Seal Harbor." Typescript. This 1941 document was obtained from his granddaughter, Anne Funderburk, who provides revealing insights into Stebbins' development in her August 25, 2005 essay in The Mount Desert islander) Consequently, as John D. Rockefeller Jr. finalized the purchase of the ninety acre Eyrie from Professor Samuel F. Clarke of Williamstown, residents of three key island communities had quickly responded toi opportunity and environmental threat, contributed their own financial resources for the common good, and gifted to the Trustees three large parcels that formed the core properties that later became Acadia National Park. Congress passes Weeks Act which authorizes interstate compacts for water and forest conservation and Federal acquisition of land for purpose of protecting watersheds. This legislation placed large amounts of Eastern forest land under Federal jurisdiction for the first time First National Park Conference held at Yellowstone N.P., Sept. 11 & 12. Secy. Interior Walter L. Fisher presides. The American Civic Association Seventh Annual Convention is held in Washington (Dec. 13-15), with President Taft offering a keynote address supporting Congrer4ssional establishment of a National Parks Bureau to manage the 13 national parks and 28 national monuments, including building roadways needed to take advantage of their splendors. Secretary of Interior Walter Fisher and ACA President J. Horace McFarland offer their views on the value of national parks. The session concluded with a presentation of "Some Picturesque Features of Our National Parks" by Herbert Wendell Gleason; he commented on more than on DORR1911 Page 2 of 30 e hundred "exquisitely colored stereoscopic views" of the western landscape, flora and fauna. McFarland points out that "the parks have just happened; they are not the result of such an overlooking of the national domain... {For] nowhere in official Washington can in inquirer find an office of the national parks, or a desk devoted solely to their management.' Indeed, at this time the parks were government orphans, lacking oversight, and often victimized by financial interests that stood to profit from neglect. It would take several more years of effort before the nation's playgrounds, as McFarland called them, were given a legal standing akin to what Taft requested. (American Civic Association's Movement for a Bureau of National Parks.p. 15). 1912 During January, the State legislature hears the case for and against allowing automobiles on Mount Desert Island. Bar Harbor's Judge Deasey leads the charge for the summer residents and proposes Dorr's compromise road plan, bringing forth the old electric-line surveys as a transportation alternative to automobile traffic. Many townspeople, seeking to repeal the prohibition against cars immediately, are represented by William Sherman, Town Clerk and stationer at Bar Harbor and Representative to the State Legislature. The legislature ultimately delays until 1913 the admittance of automobiles to the town of Bar Harbor and by 1915 these vehicles were allowed on the rest of Mount Desert Island. The Mount Desert Nurseries close their downtown storefront and offer expanded gardening and horticultural services from their upgraded facilities at the lower Main Street intersection with Schooner Head Road. A new entrance to the nursery gardens is flanked by heavy stone posts secured from Dorr's quarry. Architect Fred Savage received a commission from Dorr to design a forty-eight foot long gallery where Dorr's "unrivaled collection of photographs of the Wild National Parks of the West and a great many photographs of flowers" will be exhibited. (Bar Harbor Times. June 26, 1912) A new nursery manager with Arnold Arboretum experience is hired to oversee the 200-foot long greenhouse and its complex of nursery structures. While Dorr planted at this time groves of ashes, pine, birches, willows and arbor vita to improve the attractiveness of the athletic field over the next five years his nursery business would peak. Between 1912 and 1917, Mount Desert Nurseries was repeatedly awarded horticultural medals for an array of plant displays. Among the Dorr artifacts in the Sawtelle Research Center at Acadia National Park are Massachusetts Horticultural Society gold medals for unrivaled displays of irises, peonies, astilbe, wolfsbane, foxtail lilies, and herbaceous flowers. (ANPA. #53558-53562; medals were also received from the North Shore Horticultural Society and the Society of American Florists) Within the next decade the growing array of trees, shrubs, vines, hardy perennials, bedding plants, and roses would fill a fifty page catalogue sent to clients both here and abroad. Maine eminent domain authority exercised to secure lands around Eagle Lake, Jordan Pond, and Upper Hadlock Pond establishing BH, SH, and NEH watersheds. Second National Parks Conference held at Yosemite N. P. , Oct. 14 &15. W.L. Fisher presiding. One week later the Sierra conservationist, John DORR1911 Page 3 of 30 Muir, receives a letter from photographer Herbert W. Gleason apologizing for his failure to reach the Pacific Coast following three months of photographing landscape from British Columbia to Mesa Verde. Gleason offers first impressions of Estes Park, urging Muir to visit what will become Rocky Mountain National Park; he assures Muir that he will be among friends, because of Gleason's lectures on him. (Gleason to Muir, October 21, 1912, uncataloged Robbins-Mills Papers B2. f29, Concord Free Public Library) In the autumn Trustee reservations SO extensive had been secured as to endanger the HCTPR charter rights and freedom from taxation "unless development of the tract in the public interest-more than its mere holding-could be shown." (Dorr letter, Nov. 11, 1924. NHLA. Charles W : Eliot II Papers) On Judge Deasy's advice Dorr defended Trustee action this winter before the State Legislature. 1913 In January a phone call from Bar Harbor informs Dorr (in Boston) that local interests-mainly realtors concerned about land development--had found state legislative support for a bill to annul the charter of the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservation. Boarding the fastest train he managed to get to Augusta before the legislature adjourned, he enlisted the support of speaker of the house John A. Peters of Ellsworth and they swiftly persuaded influential arties to have the bill killed. Since the effort could be reasserted with the new session of the Maine legislature, Dorr does not rest content with this small victory. As he returns home to Boston from Augusta on the Maine Central sleeper he resolves that protection for these public properties must be vested in a higher authority. There was a historic precedent for this elevation of authority. In the process of establishing the Massachusetts Trustees of Public Reservations, Charles Eliot stressed at the first meeting of that organization that when the Trustees had proven that their land trust cause was worthy, it might be desirable to have the State take charge. (April 1890. First Annual Report of the Trustees of Public Reservations. Trustees of Reservations Archives. Long Hill, MA) Two decades later, Dorr weighs the merits of the Federal Government as protector of Mount Desert lands. There is no indication in the HCTPR Minutes that members had discussed-let alone planned for--the federalizing of corporation holdings. Spirited by the clear threat, the following morning Dorr visits landscape Eliot's father in Cambridge to discuss his idea of federalizing Trustee properties. After some initial hesitation, Eliot asks Dorr, "When will you be going to Washington?" (SANP) Whether he made the connection with the current crisis and the foresight of his son we cannot say. We cannot pass lightly over the novelty of Dorr's idea of federalizing these private properties. Indeed, some might argue that it was unrealistic to even advocate it. In 1872 when Congress established Yellowstone National Park it had only to change the designation of territory already owned by the federal government. President Theodore Roosevelt applied this conservation strategy West of the Mississippi River more extensively than any other President. Yet East of the Mississippi all land was still in private hands and the establishment of a national park would require a considerable federal expense. Dorr certainly knew of William Kent's 1908 gift of his private land to the federal government in creating Muir Woods National Monument. Moreover, the Weeks Act of 1911 demonstrated that the government could purchase land to protect the economic value of forests and river headwaters, but those in power in Washington D.C. were "never moved by recreation or scenery-preservation needs. Acadia, like three of the five subsequent Eastern national parks, was a gift from some of the people of the United DORR1911 Page 4 of 30 States to all of them." (R. Shankland. Steve Mather of the National Parks. P. 109). As Eliot likely realized, Dorr's arguments would be opposed by the weight of historical precedent and the "one-man-crusade" would appear to all but a few as futile. C.W. Eliot drafts letter (3/13) to Congressman Houston introducing Dorr who wishes to speak with Houston about converting "a large portion" of MDI "into a national park." In this communication, Eliot refers to Dorr's competencies and vision. Shown on the 1913 path map, this 0.3 mile long Sieur de Monts - Tarn Trail (# 18) was possibly built by Mr. Dorr from Sieur de Monts Spring along the east side of the stream to the Tarn. (HHTSMDI) The Stratheden Path (# 24) from the Kebo Mtn. Path to the Harden Farm Path at 0.9 miles in length is completed. Described in 1896 NHVIA Annual Report, shown on 1901 path map, it is possibly built by Mr. Dorr. From Hemlock Trail along lower east edge of Kebo Mtn. to the Park Loop Road near golf course. (HHTSMDI) In late winter, Dorr goes to Washington, his visit coinciding with the inauguration of the Wilson administration, and stays with Gifford Pinchot. He spends many days in the capital, getting a sense of the political undercurrents of the time. (SANP) Following his arrival at the Department of the Interior, Horace M. Albright first meets Dorr. "A distinguished-looking gentleman quietly but rather timidly entered the office. He introduced himself as George Dorr of Bar Harbor, Maine. He wished to see Secretary Lane He looked like the Washington heat had worn him out, so I suggested he sit down while I went for a cool drink He gratefully drank several glasses and then related his reasons for wishing to see Lane. It was a fascinating story. I was most impressed by the man and the ideals for which he stood. I made an appointment for him to see Lane when he returned. Apparently lane was also impressed, as were many influential people in the government to whom I introduced Dorr." (H.A. Albright & M.A. Schenck. Creating the National Park Service, p. 269). Sent unsuccessfully to the Coast and Geodetic Survey and the Smithsonian, on his return to Interior Albright "did what little I could do to help him." [Birth of the NPS, p.86]. Since there was no precedent for establishing a national park on privately donated land, Albright suggested it might be possible for Dorr to get President Wilson to accept the land as a national monument under the provisions of the Antiquities Act as had been done with Muir Woods. Secretary Lane pledges his support. No activity on the part of the White House. Dorr returns to Bar Harbor to gather papers, deeds, maps, and titles in preparation of offering the Reservations' lands to the government. Although he does not indicate it in his published writings or his papers that have survived, Dorr surely was aware that another influential force in Maine was pressing the Washington establishment to give national standing to Mount Katahdin. Congressman Frank E. Guernsey introduced a bill for a Katahdin forest reserve and national park. Although the bill would not get out of committee it would be reintroduced three years later F.E. Guernsey. "Mount Katahdin as a National Park," Proceedings of the Bangor Historical Society. 1916 Pp. 31 f. see also Neil Rodhe. The Interrupted Forest, 2001, Pgs. 304-305) University of Maine Professor Lucius Merrill lamented the impact of unrestrained lumbering DORR1911 Page 5 of 30 and suggested that if the federal government will not act then the State legislature should establish a state reservation. Political realities being what they are, the 1916 Guernsey bill would contribute to Dorr's sense of urgency about finalizing the establishment of the Sieur de Mont National Monument. JDR Jr. begins his first carriage road at the entrance to the Barr Hill property. Roadwork done by A.E. Clement & Chauncey D. Joy. Engineer Charles P. Simpson (1848-1928) begins road construction that will conclude in 1922 due to Simpson's illness. His son, Paul Dyer Simpson (1876-1963) had assisted his father with engineering the Rockefeller estate and in 1922 succeeded him as chief engineer on all aspects of carriage road construction through 1940 when work was completed. Harvard Professor Herbert Weir Smyth publishes his renown poem (8/23) on "Automobiles: The Mount Desert Meeting." HCTPR Minutes (9/13) document that Maine legislative effort to tax HCTPR had failed. Judge Deasy recommends public relations to educate residents and non-residents about the issues. Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution empowers Congress to levy graduated income taxes above $3,000./year. National Conservation Exposition held in Knoxville in Sept. & Oct. with support of Gifford Pinchot. Ambitious effort to educate the public about conservation issues. Rockefeller Foundation established by JDR Jr. Harpswell Laboratory (founded 1898) reorganized as a scientific corporation-with a board of 10 trustees--under State of Maine laws. Seal Harbor Realty Company established, capitalized at $150K by 15 subscribers, including JDR Jr. for $20K. (12/15) Essay by Charles W. Johnson, Curator of the Boston Museum of Natural History, [contained in Dorr Papers] on the moth collection gathered on MDI by Dr. Charles Sedgwick Minot, president of the Boston Natural History Society. 1914 Bar Harbor learned of the death of Silas Weir Mitchell M.D. in his Philadelphia home in early January. As a long established summer resident, Mitchell was known to be a pioneer in the diagnosis and treatment of neurological disorders. His friend, the Reverend William Lawrence describes him as one "who gloried more in his novels and poems than in his professional leadership, was an unmitigated admirer of Mount Desert, and in his walks until over eighty covered the mountains, opened paths like the Cadillac, and talked most interestingly as he walked.' (Memories of a Happy Life. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1926. Pg. 193) So too he was Dorr's frequent hiking companion and a colleague who served on village improvement committees. With his death, Dorr initiated local discussion of how to memorialize Mitchell. Two years later an opportunity would present itself. Dorr brings to Washington the conservation documents he has gathered and is advised by legal officials of the Public Lands Commission to (a) ask for the acquisition of two further tracts of land, in order to create a 1 DORR1911 Page 6 of 30 single boundary line, (2) do further due diligence on the deeds and titles to ensure compliance with government standards, and (3) add land acquisition proposals for the further consolidation of HCTPR holdings. Charles W. Eliot pens a letter (4/14) to Woodrow Wilson introducing Dorr and his plans for a national monument. When one reflects on Eliot's motivations it is relevant to recall his concerns about the dispiriting effect of metropolitan life, reflected in words he penned in October to the former secretary of the Harvard Corporation, Jerome David Greene (1874-1959). Following a four and one-half mile trek that he and Mrs. Eliot made up Little Harbor Brook Trail to Jordan Pond House (and returning over Asticou), he says to Greene that modern life in cities does not deserve to be called life at all since the human body can not be adequately cared for in cities. Life in these environments is often- not always-coarsened or starved in the struggle to survive. Prior to the establishment of the National Park Service and the Mather initiative to promote conservation and the scenic splendors of America, Dorr publicizes conservation efforts on the Atlantic seaboard in a popular serial publication. He sends a lengthy telegram to President Eliot in late May informing him that the editor of National Geographic Magazine asked Dorr to outline for publication a model plan "for Appalachian and Atlantic Coast system of wild life bird and plant preserves" which could be expanded to the national scale. (May 26, 1914. Harvard University Archives. Charles W. Eliot Papers. B. 95) In the same issue there will a treatment of Mount Desert bird and plant life by ornithologist E.H. Forbush and Harvard University Gray Herbarium curator M.L. Fernald, with Dr. Eliot's more developed thoughts on immersion in nature as a corrective for the ills of city life. The Wild Gardens Path (#354) is generally attributed to Mr. Dorr. This 0.6 mile long path first appears on 1901 path map but sections were widened in 1914. From Beaver Dam Pool, off of Bicycle Path, west and north to Sieur de Monts Spring. (HHTSMDI) Borax businessman Stephen Mather sends Secy. F. Lane a letter critical of national park administrative practices and Lane responds by urging Mather to come to Washington to see if he could do better. Mather agrees to a one year appointment as Asst. Secretary in charge of the parks. National Geographic features Mount Desert Island in its July 1914 issue, publishing two substantial essays. The editors patched together illustrated narratives from Dorr, ornithologist Edward H. Forbush, and botanist Merrit L. Fernald on "The Unique Island of Mount Desert," a cultural and natural history outline of an area now positioned for preservation. Wearing his ever present historian "hat", Dorr profiles at length the historical development of French Acadian culture. Utilizing what we believe to be his own photographs of the island, Dorr sets the stage his co-authors to characterize the bird and botanical diversity of the woodlands and waters of the island. Together they argue that the establishment of a preserve on the Maine coast could have far reaching effects, prompting residents in other areas of the country to desire and provide similar blessings "for themselves and their children in other parts of the country." (National Geographic. 26 (July 1914) : 89) Eliot's more general contribution on "The Need for Conserving the Beauty and Freedom of Nature in Modern Life" argues that the best way to improve the human environment is to live with nature through the acquisition of healthy tastes and interests, the practice of ideals of DORR1911 Page 7 of 30 pleasantness and beauty. Happiness would be the consequence of such cultivation. To accomplish this, the Professor Emeritus of Harvard University advocated "the creation, preservation, and enlargement for human enjoyment of mountains and valleys, hills and plains, forests and flowers, ponds and water courses, spring blossoms and autumn tints, and the wild life of birds and other animals in their natural haunts." The profession that is best prepared to assist communities in improving the human environment was articulated more than a decade earlier in his biographical homage to his son-that is, landscape architecture. Since Yellowstone National Park was established in 1872, the national government has recognized the importance of conservation. Eliot now calls upon "these beneficent powers" to act in a geographically just manner and set aside on Mount Desert Island and elsewhere in the East inviting sanctuaries within reach of those who live in dense population centers beset with the evils of city life. (National Geographic Magazine 26 [1914] : 67-73) This promotion of the national parks agenda several years before the establishment of the National Park Service is of no small consequence. In several months, the death of John Muir will not position Dorr and Eliot as his conservation successors. They will, however, be recognized hereafter as the champions of a new model for establishment of national landscape reserves. That is, federally protected donations of unique and striking landmarks for public use. Given that these donations were on the Maine coast, implicit was advocacy of a truly national park system which was not limited geographically to landscape west of the Mississippi River. The presentation the following year in Boston of a series of eight illustrated lantern slide lectures on the National Parks in America by landscape photographer Herbert Wendell Gleason further magnified governmental nattentiveness to preservation of the distinctive landscapes of the eastern United States. Haverford College physics professor William Sawtelle acquires Blue Duck for public use and by 1919 it will house his Isleford Historical Society collections. Hancock Trustee Minutes document that Dorr reported that the prospects for the transfer of HCTPR lands to U.S "for a national park " was favorable but first "certain further lands" had to be acquired which Dorr hoped to secure. (August 24, 1914) Edward S. Dana writes to JDR Jr. (10/12) from New Haven expressing appreciation for what Jr. has done "to make our part of Mt. Desert SO permanently attractive for those of us who are fortunate enough to have our summer homes there." Points to new Barr Hill road, its projected extension to Jordan Pond, and the landscaping of Beech Hill. John Muir dies at 76 years of age. 1915 Thus far the Trustees have credit their accomplishments to summer residents. As we have seen Dorr had been a year round resident for more than a decade and was able to both initiate and take advantage of opportunities because he was centered on the Island. Of the native population who contributed greatly to the development of Acadia National Park, with the possible exception of A.H. Lynam, Ellsworth attorney John A. Peters (1864-1953) is preeminent. A Bowdoin College graduate, he had served as Judge in the Ellsworth Municipal Court and would serve three DORR1911 Page 8 of 30 terms as Maine state representative and U.S Representative from Maine (1913-1922) prior to his federal appointment to the U.S. District Court where he would serve more than two decades prior to his retirement. Prior to 2008, Peters contribution to the conservation history of Maine was little appreciated due in large part to the apparent loss of his official and personal papers. In late 2008, his extensive working library was uncovered by Woodlawn Museum staff and this author in the long abandoned attic of the Ellsworth law firm, Hale and Hamlin. The content of the Peters Papers sheds new light on his involvement with the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations, John D. Rockefeller Jr., Beatrix Farrand, and the National Park Service. More to the point, as Dorr's confident and later Executor of Dorr's last will and testament, his hundreds of pages of documentation on the man he called "the prince of altruists" provide us with a new reading of conservation history. Dorr's letters to Peters in January 1915 are full of optimism at the prospects for establishing the national monument. Dorr and his allies have secured support from Interior Secretary Lane, there appear to be no major opponents in the committee review process, and Dr. Eliot "is ready to use his influence with the President. Yet monument advocates are required by the government to complete the title abstracts, to demonstrate that title surveys are free from claims, to show that public approaches to the monument are suitable to public use, and the government's "stringent requirements that its main tract shall be compact, well-knit together in a landscape way and capable of enclosure by a single line." Quick resolution of these matters-especially the acquisition of contiguous properties--i. imperative for "a single death or change in official personel [sic] at Washington might alter the situation unfavorably. (Dorr to Peters. January 22 and February 13, 1915. Hon. John A. Peters Papers. Dorr Estate Correspondence. References to this collection lack specificity since the newfound papers have not been inventoried and processed) The Trustee minutes reflect the initial overtures from Eliot and Dorr to Mr. Rockefeller who by late winter would offer up to $17,500 for the "Mount Desert Monument" for the acquisition of several tracts and cover title mapping and abstract costs-if and only if Dorr secures additional funds to purchase 300 acres on Otter Creek. On e wonders at Dorr's sincerity when he suggest to Peters that the most important objective important consequence of Rockefeller's support is not "control for roads and paths, though it will do this incidentally, but [instead the] doubling and trebling of the value of our whole undertaking by giving it a national character. The prestige, assured development and good control which ownership by the Federal Government alone can give." Dorr to Peters. January 23, 1915. Hon. John A. Peters Papers. Dorr Estate Papers. These Papers include further details regarding the benefits of federal protection. See also Dorr's February 3, 1915 letter to Mr. Rockefeller and Rockefeller's response five days later wherein he raises important questions about the public versus private status of monument roadways) But far from Mount Desert Island, the most important figure in the origin of the National Park Service was beginning to make his name known to the Washington politicos. Stephen Tyng Mather (1867-1930), known for creating the promotion and advertising slogan "20 Mule Team Borax," had become widely known for developing the American borax market. Disturbed by the condition of the national parks and the waste of timber companies who wished to harvest Sequoia's tall trees, he drafted a letter to Washington expressing his concerns. DORR1911 Page 9 of 30 Interior Secretary Franklin Lane responded with an offer that Mather accepted. The new Assistant Secretary of the Interior summoned his old friend Robert Sterling Yard--whom he had known from their New York Sun days--to Washington to manage park publicity, with his salary paid by Mather. Initially, Yard insisted that park publicity was intended to popularize and educate. The extent of this publicity thrust was impressive by any measure of the day. Between 1917 and 1919 more than 1,000 articles on national parks appeared in magazines and newspapers, The National Parks Portfolio (1916) being the most successful effort with a quarter million copies distributed to those in positions of responsibility. (See Paul S. Sutter's Driven Wild [2002] for a thorough picture of Yard's strategies) In mid-winter Dorr and Eliot enter into the most concentrated correspondence of their relationship. The final steps in establishment of the national monument are at hand. Both Dorr and Eliot rely almost exclusively on the legal expertise of two Bar Harbor attorneys for examining the accuracy of land titles. Hancock County Trustee of Public Reservations executive committee member Luere B. Deasy (1860-1940) and his partner A.H. Lynam assemble documentation exceeding six hundred pages "supplemented by larger sheets exhibiting inheritance lines after the manner of genealogical tables." Imperfect property histories are checked and rechecked, a time consuming process that will stretch into the next year. (April 15, 1915. Dorr to Eliot. Harvard University Archives. C.W. Eliot Papers. B. 95; A.H. Lynam later fulfilled many of the legal requirements for both Dorr and Rockefeller after Deasy's 1918 appointment as Associate Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court) What Dorr and Lyman were up against is well described by Bar Harbor historian Richard W. Hale Jr. "There was the usual complexity of country land titles, which has been a constant stumbling-block to those who try to put deeds in order to fit Department of Justice standards. Oral wills, undivided property passed on through various subdivisions, unrecorded deeds, warranties given by men long dead, all complicated matters [back to] the original grant of Douaquet to Cadillac, and all the complexities of the ownership of Acadia." That the talents of this small island community could rise to the challenges of the established Washington bureaucracy is too little appreciated. In late February Dr. Eliot writes what may well be his lengthiest letter Mr. Rockefeller regarding the financing of Trustee land acquisition and the intended transfer of its holdings to the federal government. Eliot's letter is of historical significance since it is the best summary of the actual cost of Trustee properties. Moreover, the letter of 25 February 1915 names key supporters who provided financing to secure said properties. Even in our own day, it is popularly believed that there were only incidental costs attached to the donated land that comprised Sieur de Mont National Monument. The Trustee Minutes are not helpful due to their brevity, the absence of discussion content, and their extreme reticence to report financial transactions. One can mistakenly infer from Trustee minutes that their properties were received as cost-free gifts. Eliot's letter to Rockefeller is important since it also makes clear the extent to which such purchases were financed by third-party donors who also funded legal expenses and land survey costs required to satisfy the due diligence standards of Washington officials. (Dorr's 1939 correspondence with NPS Editor-in-Chief Isabella F. Story on Dorr's Acadia National Park manuscript takes pains to credit Mr. Frank Bond, Chief Clerk of the General Land Office for legal due diligence scrutiny DORR1911 Page 10 of 30 in developing the language of the monument Proclamation (National Archives, RG79, NPS. Central Classified Files 1933-1949. Acadia-General. Box 797) The Trustees gifted their lands to the Federal government but many of those properties were not gifts to the Trustees from the property owners. Dorr's letter to Eliot documents the role of prominent summer residents in gifting land as well as families that sponsored land acquisition, names that would no longer resonate locally in our own day. Nonetheless, the philanthropy of a Kennedy, Kane, Satterlee, Abbe, Eno, Bowdoin, McCagg, Markoe, Homans, Dorr, and others cumulatively provided the Trustees with the land trust that proved attractive to the federal government. Two days earlier on 23 February, Eliot and Dorr met to determine what funds would be necessary to complete the transfer process by Summer 1916. Dorr itemized the expenditures to date, in excess of $50,000 on the eastern half of the island alone. (Dorr to Eliot, 24 February 1915. Harvard University Archives. C.W. Eliot Papers. Box 95, "Lafayette National Park folder) Following the meeting Dorr drafted a five page document detailing the fruits of their discussion and sent it to Eliot who incorporated details into his own lengthy appeal to Mr. Rockefeller. Eliot took pains to emphasize that that Dorr had already "put more money into this enterprise on behalf of the public than he should have done; and that his estate was seriously embarrassed in consequence [and] that he could not ask his friends that have hitherto contributed at his request for further gifts." Eliot does not state in this letter what he surely believes, that a full accounting of Dorr's role in property acquisition will likely never be forthcoming. One indication, however, is that of the 129 Trustee properties acquired between 1901-39, 53 properties (from small parcels to tracts of more than a thousand acres) were executed by First Vice President Dorr during a brief eight year period between 1908 and 1915 (The Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations. 1939. Pp. 15-31) Eliot asks Mr. Rockefeller to consider donating $15,000 to cover final expenses in preparing their request for national monument status. Eliot's language rises to new heights when he informs Rockefeller as new island resident that the creation of public reservations on this island is "really the work of men and women who love the Island, and want to see a large p[art of its hills, valleys, and ponds preserved for the enjoyment of the present and future generations. They do not, however, imagine that they are doping anything more than starting a large public benefaction. They expect the coming generations to do their share." Eliot to Rockefeller. 25 February 1915. RAC. III.2. B. 59. f. 441) Recognizing that Rockefeller at this early stage of his involvement with Mount Desert prefers to "hold such purchases himself, and to pay taxes on them, rather than give them to the Public Reservations," Eliot sends Dorr news of a qualified success. Rockefeller promises to give $17,500 to cover two land purchases and the associated title expenses if two conditions are fulfilled: that other persons provide Dorr with funds to purchase an important tract on the Gorge Road and that all these lands be conveyed to the Trustees "in case the Monument project falls through.' (February 25 and March 4, 1925 Eliot letters to Dorr. Harvard University Archives. C.W. Eliot Papers. B. 95) Unknown to Rockefeller, Dorr had anticipated his reciprocity requirement and several days earlier had contacted "one of my friends in New York and fellow summer-residents at Bar Harbor." He therefore advises Eliot that if Rockefeller should balk "it seems to me that the next step should be to ask him if he will not contribute this on the basis of a sn DORR1911 Page 11 of 30 equal or similar contribution, given or pledged, from summer residents upon our side [of the Island] " (March 1, 1915 Dorr to Eliot. Harvard University Archives. C.W. Eliot Papers. B. 95) Dorr returns to the District of Columbia in March to advocate the establishment of the national monument despite the fact that Secretary of Interior Lane was traveling out West. Yet his absence is auspicious for Dorr and Lane's assistant secretary Stephen Tyng Mather meet for the first time. Dorr offers Eliot his telling first impression: "This was a Mr. Mather of Chicago, whom I had not met before but took at once a great liking to and who in turn took a warm, immediate interest to our undertaking-which he said was similar in character to something he was himself seeking to accomplish for Redwood preservation on the northern California.. and Mr. Mather offered me his assistance to overcome [any red tape delay] SO far as possible." (April 7, 1915. Harvard University Archives. C.W. Eliot Papers. B. 95; twenty-four years later when revising his memoirs, the aged park superintendent claims in a private communication with his NPS editor that Mather "took no part then, or at any time, in respect to the creation of the Sieur de Monts National Monument, nor as a matter of fact did Mr. Albright." (October 6, 1939. Dorr to Isabelle Story. NARA. RG79. NPS. CCF. 1933-1949. Acadia-General. Box 797) By early April the arrangements with Mr. Rockefeller were finalized. "In 1915 and 1916, JDR Jr. made his first substantial contribution, in two pledges, which enabled the Trustees to complete the Reservation's tract for acceptance by the Government as a National Monument. The total payment to George Dorr was David Rockefeller & J.W. Ernest, "John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Acadia National Park, 1969. (RAC III.2.I.B.83. f.821) It was not until 1919 that Mr. Rockefeller gave his first property to the Trustees, Beech Hill and the western shore of Echo Lake. This donation was influenced by an unreported arrangement between Dorr and Rockefeller that began in early 1917. At that time Dorr began receiving funds from Mr. Rockefeller to hire under Dorr's supervision a private agent to secure Southwest Harbor lands. (September 25, 1919. Dorr to Eliot. Harvard University Archives. C.W. Eliot Papers. B. .95) The careful documentation and persuasion exercised through the partnership of Dorr and Eliot proved successful. In just a few years Rockefeller would fully become a partner in the endeavor to develop parklands, roads, and landscape. That winter Dorr is elected an Eden Selectman for the first time; he will be re-elected for two additional one year terms (1915-1917). In a letter to Eliot he remarks that he and Otter Cliffs war time radio station developer Alissandro Fabbri arranged for an appearance before the Selectmen of a certified public accountant from Portland in order to influence the installation of a new system of accounting in the town. After discussion of the real estate valuation benefits of this new inventory system, there was consensus about the adoption of the Dorr- Fabbri proposal. (April 7, 1915. Harvard University Archives. C.W. Eliot Papers. B. 95; Bar Harbor Times April 10, 1915) Dorr's near silence on his local political life during this period makes it difficult to establish his motivations for seeking and accepting public office. Several personal objectives made Selectman status useful: the importance of using this office to articulate the advantages of having a National Monument located in Eden; to rally local support for his efforts in Washington, DC; to shape and fund the Otter Creek and Ocean Drive road construction; and to use his land holdings to influence local culture (e. , 1916 Kebo golf course expansion) [See Town of Eden Minutes: Annual report of the Municipal Officers, 1915-1918. See also DORR1911 Page 12 of 30 undated handwritten letter from Dorr to Eliot, beginning 'Some objections," where Dorr remarks within the context of park development that he and Fabbri have been elected selectmen. Harvard University Arcives. C.W. Eliot Papers. B. 95; The Story of Bar Harbor [New York: Ives Washburn, 1949, pp. 212-213] describes the ineffectiveness of 'summer colony' representation in the selectmen office) Another explanation is that Dorr rightly anticipated the dramatic social changes that were likely once Island acreage was federalized. Historian Judith S. Goldstein has put the shift more directly: "It was the beginning of a close and fruitful relationship among Dorr, Eliot, and Rockefeller. As they moved through intricate negotiations into the larger public domain of the federal government, the triumvirate took over the leadership of the island. Slowly, they stretched their concepts of public access far beyond the privileged boundaries of the small Protestant summer colony. Rockefeller became the active but cautious patron of Dorr's preservation campaign. Eliot became the intermediary between the other two; while pressing Rockefeller for more and more generous contributions, Eliot had to justify Dorr's frenetic activities to the orderly and meticulous patron." (Crossing Lines, p. 185) Dorr was not only pushing paper as a Bar Harbor Selectman, in addition to continuing historic review of donated Trustee properties he also self-published a private edition of the 1605 attempt by the French to colonize what will later be called New England. Commissions du Roy et de Monsaigneur l'Admiral au sieur de Monte, pour l'habitation 'es terres de Lacadie Canada, & autres endroits en la Nouvelle France described the legal authority for the activities of the Sieur de Monts aided by Champlain to seize what later the vast territories of northeastern America. With this publication Dorr not only provided the foundation for the later naming of the Sieur de Monts National Monument, as a scholar he wants to make available this well conceived plan. Had the commission been fully realized "France, not England, would have controlled the destiny and development of our northern country, and possibly North America itself." (Introductory note by G.B. Dorr, Commissions du Roy, 1915) President Eliot is informed that Dorr has just sent off to Augusta the necessary paperwork for the "incorporation of the Arboretum and Wild Gardens." (April 7, 1915. Harvard University Archives. C.W. Eliot Papers. B. 95; eighteen months will lapse before he secures the necessary approvals of this most ambitious land trust project) The Wild Gardens of Acadia will be-incorrectly identified in the December 23, 1916 Bar Harbor Times--as an "organization having its foundation in the same movement which brought about the Sieur de Monts National Park." Its geographic range exceeded the scope of the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations inasmuch as it aims to acquire by gift, purchase, or lease real estate within Maine that drains into Penobscot bay, the Bay of Fundy, and the whole of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The primary objective of the WGA was "to hold, develop and improve for the purpose of making a permanent exhibit, of scientific, educational and artistic value, for the public benefit of trees, shrubs, herbs and other plants and of striking scenic features" in Maine and the Acadian portion of Canada. Its charter further set ambitious goals of forming bird and other wild life refuges and gardens, the experimental growth of plants not native to the region, publication of studies of native life and landscape, affording students the opportunity to observe and study plant life, gardening, forestry and landscape art. DORR1911 Page 13 of 30 The overarching conservation objective of the WGA was "preserving and developing to the full the natural interest and beauty of the lands acquired, which may be sold, exchanged, or otherwise disposed of in any part that may seem best to the members..." (RAC f.840) We may suspect that there would be tension between the elder and junior conservation organizations yet none is evident in surviving documents. Given the array of challenges facing Dorr in the next decade, it is not surprising that the ambitious WGA agenda went largely unrealized. Dr. Robert Abbe frequently accompanied Dorr on the trails and memorial paths of the Island. Abbe knew that he had been one of key figures involved in the constructed of footpaths and supervised trail development that went well beyond Bar Harbor. Repeatedly traversing cross-island carry trails established by the Wabenaki, later pathfinders recognized that many routes provided access to inland ponds and marshes utilized for hunting and gathering of consumables. Dorr's 0.9 mile memorial Kane Path (Tarn Trail) was part of a pre-1760 carry trail from Cromwell Harbor to Otter Creek given this Summer by Mrs. John I. Kane. Two paths at the north end of the Tarn are also attributed to Mr. Dorr, the Beachcroft Trail and the impressive Kurt Diederich Climb. (M. Coffin Brown. Pathmakers. Pp. 67-74) As Dorr worked toward the establishment of the Sieur de Monts National Monument, one of the distinctive features of the amassed acreage was the coordinated trail system established over decades by summer residents and the various village improvement societies, an arterial system lacking in most parks. Dorr remained especially attentive to the subtle topographical variations that would prove essential in orchestrating Trustees land acquisition. The complexity of his geographically centered mental landscape was critical to his success in property demarcation issues involved in the later development of Lafayette National Park. Once the monument was fully developed he thought it should make available between two and three hundred miles of trail in addition to fifty miles of bridle paths. These paths would not be repetitious because each island mountain was SO deeply divided from its neighbors as to form its own distinct landscape, a landscape that dictated unique road and path development challenges. (Dorr to F.W. Griffith. Septmber 9, 1917. NARA. RG 79. CCF. 1907-39. Box 1. Appropriations, f. 1) In the next decade as carriage and motor road development came to the fore, both Dorr and John D. Rockefeller Jr. would have to cope with growing public concerns about their openness about landscape preservation practices. It is not unreasonable to suppose that Abbe's interest in mapping the Island would aid this process. A letter in the National Archives provides one indication of the scope of the relationship between Abbe and Dorr. David H. Morris, a Bar Harbor summer resident and friend to both Abbe and Dorr, wrote to Secretary of the Interior Franklin Lane in August 1917 regarding the renaming of Island geographical features. Morris' letter cites four reasons--credited to Dr. Abbe-- for renaming Dry Mountain (also known as Flying Squadron Mountain) as Dorr Mountain. At a time when government policies prohibited naming geographical features after individuals who were still alive, Abbe's high regard for his colleague flew in the face of convention. At this time Abbe began creating the widely celebrated Champlain Map of Mount Desert Island. Several of these relief maps survive--i the Abbe Museum and the Bar Harbor Historical Society Museum. First designed in 1915, successive versions of this map were produced and widely distributed over the next decade. "Under the direction of Mr. Dorr," the map was photographed and DORR1911 Page 14 of 30 from plates attractive note card maps were distributed as Christmas greetings in 1925. Mount Desert Island automobile ban lifted encouraging JDR Jr. to develop a plan for a separate carriage road system. Between 1913 and 1940 some 57 miles of carriage roads would be constructed exclusive of 26 miles of motor roads. HCTPR permits JDR Jr. to build on their land. In a latter (10.28.1950) from Charles W. Eliot II to HCTPR President Ernest T. Paine he claims that Rockefeller's interest in the Trustees and the later park "was first aroused by an appeal from my grandfather-President Eliot-in connection with the fight over admitting automobiles to the Island. Mr Rockefeller was much concerned over the increased danger to his children-kidnapping-which the presence of automobiles would involve. That fight at the State Capitol was just part of the continuous scrap to preserve the tax-immunity status of the Trustee's holdings. It was thus, as I recall, that Mr. Rockefeller and Mr. Dorr became interested in each other and the future of the Island." (HCTPR Archives) More details follow as to how "Mr. Dorr acted almost as Mr. Rockefeller's agent" though there were many times when the property status was much in doubt. JDR Jr. certainly had reservations about road development in the proposed national monument. In a letter (2.26) to Eliot, he asks "Do you not feel that the establishment of this monument will bring an undesirable class of tourists to Bar Harbor in their automobiles, who, if automobiles are admitted to the south side of the Island, will be a real nuisance to the residents there?" (D. Haney, "The Legacy of the Picturesque..." p. 280) Such statements would resonate with Eliot who had expressed similar reservations in 1904 about degradation into a Coney Island environment in his Right Development of Mount Desert. No such utterances can be attributed to Dorr. As one who moved routinely between Bar Harbor and the principal metropolitan areas of the Eastern seaboard, the growing popularity of the automobile was clear. Prior to the establishment of the national monument, Dorr began strategizing carriage and motor road developments long before critics received attention from the press. "The creation in 1916 of separate systems for national parks and national forests had occurred accidentally, mainly because Pinchot's Forest Service, with its utilitarian philosophies, found itself responsible for forest, but not the parks." Pinchot favored merger. That this did not occur was the result of efforts by three key persons who were troubled by the management direction of the Forest Service: all three were Californians who knew the Sierra and the Sierra national parks played a critical role in this effort: University of California (Berkeley) classmates Stephen T. Mather and Horace M. Albright appointed by Secy. of Interior Franklin K. Lane to administer the national parks. [See Dilsaver & Tweed, Big Trees, ch. 4] A wealthy Borax manufacturer from Chicago, Mather "was an energetic, backslapping, high-minded extrovert with a fondness for mountain climbing, a Sierra Club member committed to Muir's preservationist principles, a view he shared with Californian Horace Albright. (D.C. Swain, "Passage of the National Park Service Act of 1916," p. 6) Third National Parks Conference held in Berkeley & San Francisco, March 11-13, Asst. Interior Secretary Stephen T. Mather presides, one piece of an extensive publicity campaign that would be championed by a former editor and current U.S. Geological Survey employee, Robert Sterling Yard (his new salary would be paid by Mather), an avid believer in wilderness preservation. Mather came away from the conference convinced that most of the politically appointed Superintendents lacked the ability and DORR1911 Page 15 of 30 zeal for effective work. (D.C. Swain, Ibid, pp. 7-8) "Nevertheless, there were enough able people on hand to permit a useful examination of park problems and objectives, and the majority of the conferees felt a new enthusiasm." (R. Shankland, Steve Mather of the National Parks, 62) On July 14th Mather leads a twelve-day pack mountain party trip from Giant Forest to Mr. Whitney and finally to Lone Pine. His goal was to reveal to these distinguished men that made up this plarty "the beauties and potential of Sequoia National Park," to awaken in them an appreciation for the splendors of other national parks, and to persuade them to apply their experience to move "forward the campaign for a National Park Service." The group of influential men included National geographic head Gilbert Grosvenor, future Speaker of the House Frederick Gillett, and railroad tycoons, newspaper men, and others who heighten awareness of the endangered natural areas. The promotional effort quickly began to bear fruit. "Neither [Mather] nor Albright ever considered their extended campaign to increase the number of park visitors [through road and tourist facility development] and accelerate park 'development' at odds with the urge, which they shared in full measure, to preserve the extraordinary beauty of the parks." " (See H. Albright's Reminiscences, pg. 34 ff. and D. Swain, "The Passage of the NPS Act") Charles W. Eliot responds (9.1) to a letter he received from his niece, Ellen Bullard that criticized Mr. Dorr for not finishing anything (now contained in the Dorr Papers, B1.f5). Eliot admits that some of Dorr's undertakings are incomplete because of their scope and the necessity of support from "many persons of liberal disposition. Nonetheless, many undertakings are complete: the Jesup Library, the YMCA building, the Building of the Arts, and his "distinct horticultural achievement," the Mt. Desert Nurseries, not to ignore construction of "first-rate" roads and foot paths. Moreover, he is at work on two manuscripts: one on famous springs in the ancient and modern world and the other on "the literary use of by poets and prose writers of allusion to the flora and fauna and to the habits of plants and animals." It would not surprise Eliot-here well-recognizing Dorr's work ethic--if these scholarly works required the remainder of his life and were left "to be published after his death." He concludes by affirming that "Dorr is an impulsive, enthusiastic, eager person, who works at high tension, neglects his meals, sits up too late at night, and rushes about from one pressing thing to another; but he is very diligent, as well as highly inventive and suggestive and what he needs from his friends is sympathy, support, and furthering in his undertakings, and good advice in regards the care of his health and moderation in work." [See Eliot's Sept. 1919 memo) Eliot omits mention of Dorr's recent completion of three small structures on the grounds of Sieur de Monts Spring, named by Dorr to honor Samuel Champlain, the Sieur de Monts, who sought to establish "New France" in North America. These lands were acquired by Dorr in 1909 and subsequently "owned" and developed by the Sieur de Monts Arboretum and Wild Gardens Corporation at the base of what later will be named Dorr Mountain and adjacent to the Tarn. Opposite the entrance to the Emery Path, the corporation erected for the benefit of the public a spring water bottling facility, the protective spring Florentine-style canopied cover house, and a reception room containing a photographic exhibit of the surrounding landscape and pertinent sanctuary information. (M. Coffin Brown. Pathfinders, pp. 67-72) , For many years this small building would serve as sanctuary information kiosk, "a simple little building sixteen feet square with a sanded floor and with a round oak table I have for the purpose.. [where future Sieur de Monts] publications are kept, spread DORR1911 Page 16 of 30 out, and the door is open. (Dorr to NPS Acting Director H. Albright, 10.29.17: NARA, RG 79, Central Classified Files. Acadia. Misc. Rpts.) This picturesque woodland site was developed to enable the public to freely drink these "Sweet Waters of Acadia" and access scenic pathways developed by the village improvement society. (Bar Harbor Times, Sept. 18, 1915) This site will be further developed in the years ahead and enjoy great popularity, being identified at the heart of the evolving park by nearly all who visit. Administratively, however, the roadway into this area would in the next decade become the most controversial segment of the Park Loop Road. By 1931 John D. Rockefeller Jr. replaced the corporation as the property owner, later gifting the site to the park. Three years after the death of the park founder, the Trustees relocate a large fragment from the top of Cadillac Mountain to the Spring to support a tablet revered to this day as the Dorr Memorial. (RAC. II. 2. I. C. 73. f. 756. September 5, 1947 HCTPR publicity announcement) Within the next month, the Bar Harbor Times would offer a progress report on yet another Dorr "undertaking," securing sufficient subscriptions to bind the purchase of the eighty acre Benjamin Emery lot in Salisbury Cove, a property adjacent to "an old lava point" which in 1907 afforded an opportunity for wharfage for a possible transit company from Ellsworth. (October 16, 1915) Knowing of Dr. Mitchell's interest in the Marine Biological Laboratory off Key West, in the months ahead Dorr would seek financial support for a suitable memorial for famous Philadelphia physician and Bar Harbor summer resident S. Weir Mitchell. Since marine biology was one of Mitchell's interests, Dorr argued that his name should be associated with a living memorial where scientific research was pursued. Dorr asked Dr. Robert Abbe--with whom he had worked closely on protection the Eagle Lake watershed-- draft an appeal for funds--in due course eight thousand dollars was raised. Later that Summer, Dorr persuaded Dr. Dahlgren to come to MDI and examine tract. Within another five years the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory (MDIBL) would be established there, yet another example of the maturation of Dorr's skills in creating institutional enterprises. George Stebbins drafts a three page letter to JDR Jr. in early September informing him that the full Trustee Executive Committee met earlier to consider Rockefeller's proposal regarding his development of roads over HCTPR lands. Trustee Secretary A.H. Lynam informs Rockefeller that he is authorized to construct roads on HCTPR lands, a decision with ramifications not yet contained within the vision of the either party. (RAC II.2.I.B83. f. 823) . At this time Rockefeller was not obliged to open these carriage roads to the public, a not unimportant fact which Dorr and other democratically-minded Trustees recognized. "Mr. Rockefeller's interest in Acadia National Park has been from first to last connected, directly or indirectly, with the system of roads for use with horses which he inaugurated when the Town of Mount Desert, in which his home lay, was opened to automobiles, in 1915." (See ANPA. B3. f6; See also 1969 eight-page essay, author unknown, "John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and Acadia National Park," ANPA B14.f.3) William Richards Lawrences' 1855 biography of his father, Amos Lawrence, written two years after the birth of Mr. Dorr, would have a dramatic and almost entirely ignored influence on John D. Rockefeller Jr. According to Marian Lawrence Peabody, who spent much of her child here in family home at the foot of Mr. Desert Street-so well described in To be Young Was Very Heaven), JDR Jr. informed her father, Reverend Lawrence, that it was the biography of textile magnate Amos Lawrence that SO interested DORR1911 Page 17 of 30 John D. Rockefeller. Amos is remembered today for the Massachusetts city named after him, but in the mid-19th Century he became known as one of the first philanthropists, giving away nearly 80 percent of his income. This biography "made [JDR] realize for the first time the joy ands benefits of sharing his wealth. Mr. Rockefeller, Jr., said, 'I was brought up on Amos Lawrence and his good life. (p. 2). Modern philanthropy in the Rockefeller tradition follow the Latin axiom, Bis dat qui cito dat, traditionally rendered as `He who gives freely gives twofold." Rockefeller's practice renders "cito" as timely. That is, not impulsively which may do as much harm as good but following cool deliberation to seize the opportune moment for the gift. (F. Tilden. Friend of our Heritage. Typescript. RAC III.2.I. B60.f.518) Landscape photographer Herbert Wendell Gleason furthers the growing interest in national parks and their development by offering in early November a series of eight illustrated lectures that subsequently was much in demand throughout the country. "The National Parks in America" depicted in word and colored lantern slide image the eight regions of western North America that Gleason photographed over the last fifteen years. Lest anyone think that this series was based on a mere causal and brief acquaintance with the national parks, Gleason writes that this series was based on "two trips to Alaska, six to California and the Pacific coast, three to the Grand Canon of Arizona, seven to the Canadian Rockies, two to Yellowstone Park, and three to the Rocky Mountains of the Colorado." Boston's Tremont Temple provided the venue for this "See America First" series and received similar accolades as his 1908 illustrated lectures to members of the Appalachian Mountain Club. (CFPL. Special Collections. Robbins-Mills Papers. Series III. f. 1 & 2) For many attending these lectures, Gleason's photography provided the first contact with these national wonders and his images sparked their curiosity and left them wanting to see the national parks for themselves. On the eve of the establishment of the National Park Service, it will take more than a decade before the communicative potential of landscape photography is fully appreciated by the new park bureaucracy. Beatrix Jones marries Max Farrand in NYC (Dec. 17th). 1916 "Early in 1916 Mather launches an all-out drive for legislation to establish a national parks bureau" and the task of drafting a suitable bill began with regular meetings in January and February in William Kent's Georgetown home and Yard' apartment; the cast also included Mather, Albright, John Riker, and three officers of the American Civic Association (J. Horace McFarland, Richard B. Watrous, and Henry A. Barker), Assistant Attorney General Huston Thompson, Herbert Quick of the Saturday Evening Post, Gilbert Grosvenor, editor of The National Geographic, Emerson Hough, a leading reforestation proponent, and Frederick Law Olmsted. It was Olmsted who drafted the NPS fundamental purpose statement: "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein. by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations. (D. C. Swain, "The Passage of the NPS Act," pp. 15-17). Further promotion took place at the February 14th Boston meeting of the American Society of Landscape Architects. The proposed National Park Service was the theme of the "Our National Parks" conference. Mather and R.B Marshall, the recently appointed Superintendent of National Parks, submitted letters encouraging ASLA endorsement of the new Department of the Interior Bureau. ("Our National Parks: A Conference." Landscape Architecture VI, #3 [April 1916] 101-123) DORR1911 Page 18 of 30 In his correspondence with Eliot, Dorr shows little awareness of the larger issues faced by Lane, Mather, and Albright at this time. He may well have felt frustrated that they were not as passionate about Monument sponsorship as he would have liked. But that does not mean that he could not observe their techniques of political persuasion, comparing and contrasting their maneuvers to realize their ends--in contrast with his political experience in Boston, Cambridge, Augusta, and Bar Harbor. He knew that Mather and Albright were preoccupied with NPS testimony (April 5 & 6) before the House Public Lands Committee involving the bills proposed by Raker (H. 434) and Kent (H.R. 8668) to establish the National Park Service, a preservationist vision he shared with them. To that end, Mather & Albright developed strategies to offset committee members who "built a career on the dynamiting of proposed bureaus." (R. Shankland, Steve Mather of the National Parks, ch. 9, and Winks, Ibid., pp. 594 ff. Finally passed by the House, the Kent bill went to the Senate where amendments involved extended negotiations. In terms of his own civic involvements, in March Dorr received the third largest number of votes (537 or 3,800) as one of eleven candidates for Eden Selectman. Dorr was re-elected and five others are elected for one year terms (Town Records of Eden. V. 11, March 6) In April, Selectman Dorr offers to deed the Town of Eden 14 acres of land SO that an additional 9-hole golf course can be established, and Town Clerk William H. Sherman records that a unanimously approved resolution was passed to express the sincere appreciation of the Town "for his exceedingly generous offer." Dorr makes clear that the Town has an aesthetic responsibility as well " to SO develop them as to make them not only the first class links to which they naturally lend themselves, but an object of beauty and interest in the town's surroundings." (BHT 4.15.16) A gift from George B. Dorr is acknowledged at the June meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society. "Colored lithographs, sheets 1 and 2, of 'The Defenders of our Union," published by Korff Brothers, New York; and a pen-and-ink sketch of the side-wheel steamer, the Worcester, showing the letters 'U.S.M.' on her flag." (MHS Proceedings, 1916, p. 411) Dr. Abbe had been exploiting the fruits of his island walks by constructing a detailed relief map of Mount Desert Island. He asked Dorr and Eliot to attach their signatures to name-plates that would be attached to the relief map, a tacit endorsement one would suppose. (Dorr to Eliot. May 14, 1916. Harvard University Archives. C.W. Eliot Papers. B. 95) Eliot elaborates in a writes to Mr. Rockefeller that Dr. Abbe has sent him the relief map, a labor of love and recreation." (June 3, 1916. RAC II. B59, f.441) The Homans Path (Path #349) is constructed by Mr. Dorr from Sieur de Monts Spring up the side of Dorr Mt. then along a ledge (for 0.4 mile) to the Emery Path. The Emery/Dorr Mtn. East Face Trail/Schiff Path was first described in 1871 by DeCosta but constructed (Path #15) as a memorial path in 1919 by Mr. Dorr. This 1. mile trail begins at the intersection of the Ladder Trail with the Emery Path, up East side to the summit of Dorr Mt. The principle advocates for establishment of the National Park Service are not in agreement about the future geographical distribution of the park system. Horace Albright reports "open" disagreement with Mather about additions to the park system and that Lassen, Hawaii, and others deserved active pursuit. "I also thought that we shouldn't overlook the DORR1911 Page 19 of 30 East. I told him I had become acquainted with a Mr. Dorr who was trying to create a national park along the coast of Maine.... [don' people in the East deserve some parks without having to travel thousands of miles to get to the great western one' Mather gave me a steely eyed look and sharply said, "Nonsense! The wonderlands are in the West." (Creating the National Park Service, p. 110) Such disagreements were kept in-house as Mather and Albright developed publicity for national publications (The New York Times, 7.23 and 7.30) Their efforts stressed the aesthetically unique character of park scenic splendors, natural landscape that most Americans never experienced. Mather urges the public to take to the highways ("National Touring Week," New York Times July 30, 1916) to sample the recreational opportunities available in what he hopes will be expanded parklands; others see them as economic assets containing resources that would contribute to America's business agenda. Mather arranged for a January 1917 national parks superintendents conference in Washington to draw attention to the splendors of the parks-reinforcing the message of Gleason's national parks lecture tour- by arranging for an National Museum exhibit of 45 paintings of park scenes by 27 artists, including luminaries Thomas Moran and Albert Bierstadt. The fruits of the 1915 Sierra trip would bear abundant fruit, inasmuch as "in the three years 1917-19 a total of 1,050 magazine articles [with diverse agendas and points of view] were published on national park subjects." (R. Shankland, Steve Mather of the National Parks, p. 95-99), with much of the credit to Robert Sterling Yard who had personalized the process with his own Glimpses of the National Parks and attractively illustrated National Parks Portfolio in an edition of 275,000 copies. During 1916 bills were introduced in Congress to add 16 new national parks." There was strong support for Lassen, Hawaii, Mount McKinley and for Sieur de Monts National Monument. In this year only two people were officially listed in the budget as working FT on national parks and monuments: Marshall and editorial assistant Bob Yard, with Mather and Albright listed as three quarters time. Total Washington administrative budget request for FY1917 was $24K and entire field force was less than a hundred. (Birth of the NPS]. Mather takes a second similar summer trip through the Sierras while Albright and others draft and redraft legislative language to create the National Park Service, codifying the national park concept in such a way as to separate it from national forests: the so-called Organic Act contained aimed for a balance between seemingly contradictory goals of resource preservation and visitor use. "Mather found himself over the years acting as a moderator between one fraction of the park's friends that wanted the reservations tricked out as luxury vacation resorts and another that wanted them left as close to the entirely primeval as possible. Keeping a healthy balance was a nightmare or worse. He had no formula to fall back on, no scales for weighing out use against preservation. The problem was permanent and, with travel increasing, aggravative." (R. Shankland. Ibid, p. 101) Moreover, the Secretary of the Interior will soon find requests for permits to make use of the economic resources of the national parks. A May 5th 1918 editorial in The New York Times takes to task those commercial opportunists who would spoil "a thing of beauty" for the sake of a few dollars. It describes the contradictory character of the NPS Mandate with reference to grazing permits. The editorial asks: "By what unjustifiable concession to commercialism or utilitarianism was this license to impairment, this opportunity to injure the 'fundamental DORR1911 Page 20 of 30 purpose' inserted in this charter of the national pleasure grounds?" The late Townsend Professor of History at Yale University, Robin Winks, recently demonstrated that this traditional "contradictory mandate" is not composed of inconsistent principles; rather, compelling evidence is analyzed to show that "the primary goal of the new Service is to 'leave' the parks and monuments unimpaired, placing clear priority on protection as opposed to restoration of landscapes and by implication arguing for the presumption of inaction in the face of any request for what may be viewed as `impairment. (On the primacy of preservation see "The National Park Service Act of 1916: 'A Contradictory Mandate"? Denver University Law Review 74, #3 (1997) : 575-623) , The process quietly moves forward throughout the Summer and on August 25th Woodrow Wilson signs the National Park Service Act. Mather is appointed NPS Director by Lane in 1917; he will serve until 1929 with Albright as his Assistant until 1919 and then Arno Cammerer (1919-29). In The Reminiscences of Horace M. Albright compiled from 1960 oral interviews, he describes Sec. Lane as " a very genial fellow, and a very democratic fellow, highly intelligent, quite literary .most everybody liked Lane A Progressive, conservationist." (pp 27-28) Unlike previous administrations Lane saw the need for a bureau to administer properly the National Parks and Albright describes the roles of Adolph Miller and S. Mather but also notes that "there were times when {Lane} vacillated in his adherence to good National Park principles." (p. 86). Following passage of the NPS Organic Act there was administrative reassignments with Albright appointed Assistant Director (after Interim Director Robert B. Marshall proved ineffectual and was let go in December) and Yard to manage the Educational Division. The NPS Act was significant for three reasons: First, it authorized a new conservation agency to protect and improve the administration of the national parks; second, "it marked the emergence of aesthetic conservationists-the so-called 'nature lovers' an effective, organized force within the national conservation movement, an effort led by Horace McFarland nearly ten years earlier; and last, it forecast the end of Gifford Pinchot's utilitarian domination of national conservation affairs. (D.C. Swain, "Passage of the National Park Service Act of 1916," p. 4) That Spring Dorr returned to Washington with fully-researched deeds in hand, dating back to the earliest title (from the Province of Quebec) In a letter to NPS Editor-in-Chief Isabella F. Story (10.6.39) Dorr says that "Mather took no part then, or at any time, in respect to the creation of the Sieur de Monts National Monument, nor as a matter of fact did Mr. Albright or Joe Cotter, who took a friendly interest in it only after I talked with them of my hopes and plans. (National Archives, RG79, NPS, Central Classified Files 1933-1949. Acadia-General. Box 797) Dorr's recollection here is at odds with his handwritten April 1916 letter to Eliot wherein he summarizes conversations with President Wilson that developed when letters of support were presented from Secretary Lane, Stephen Mather, and other government officials to the President by Dorr and other members of the Maine delegation. Dorr was pleased with Wilson's interest, surprised that the President kept them longer than anticipated, and reported to Eliot that "the main thing seems to me to get our deed to the govt (sic) at once, while things are moving." (April 1916. Harvard University Archives. C.W. Eliot Papers. B. 95) Dorr's progress is made public in early May when a Bar Harbor Times headline proclaims: "National Park to be Made of Mt. Desert Hills-5000 DORR1911 Page 21 of 30 Acres Offered to United States Government. (May 6, 1916) The article claims that there is "every prospect [that] it will be accepted." However, there is no immediate effect. Dorr runs into Governor Hamlin and Secretary of Treasury McAdoo (Wilson's son-in-law) at the Metropolitan Club who reports that Secretary of Agriculture David F. Houston submitted a written memorandum opposing the plan, primarily because of funding. Dorr assures the Agricultural Secretary that he will continue to care for the area himself, and would take over charge of the monument at the lowest paid salary paid at that time to anyone in government service-a dollar a month. Fearful of losing momentum, Dorr sends a telegram to Eliot asking the Trustee President to send a handwritten personal appeal letter to Houston asking for his support since he is "holding President back for signing the deed [even though] Houstons attitude strongly condemned by Interior and Parks Depts (sic) (July 1, 1916. Harvard University Archives. C.W. Eliot Papers. B. 95) Eliot's letter emphasizes that the national monument promoters "are disinterested, and are actuated by public spirit and a desire to conserve beauties and advantages which the Nation can best secure to posterity." (June 2, 1916. Jesup Memorial Library Archives. B. 1. f. 5) With reassurance from Eliot, Houston writes to Wilson stating that he has changed his mind and now thinks it highly desirable that the President accept the deed. On July 8th Wilson signs the proclamation creating the Sieur de Monts National Monument, seven weeks before the establishment of the National Park Service. Dorr receives an appropriation of $150 for the new fiscal year and spends this sum on "ranger service for wildlife and bird protection, recognizing that this very small sum will soon be gone. This was Dorr's first decision as a federal employee. For the first time in his sixty-two years of life, Dorr's individualism is constrained by his new status as a "custodian," salaried for the next ten years at twelve dollars per annum. (August 9, 1944 Press Release. RAC. III.2.I. B.85. f. 840. At the time of his death in 1944 his annual salary was three thousand dollars, a fact noted in a August 9, 1944 memo from Hillory A. Tolson. NARA. RG79. CCF. Acadia. Miscellaneous Reports) Accustomed to a leadership role, he is now expected to conform to the practices and policies of the Department of the Interior, itself facing changes as the National Park Service comes into being. How will the self-directed Boston Brahmin fare within these distant organizations? How will his new federal role affect his organizational and personal relationships? More to the point, will other Trustees-most notably Charles W. Eliot-relate to Dorr differently now that he is accountable to Washington bureaucrats? As we might expect, Dorr takes the initiative and immediately writes to Secretary Lane while still in Washington, summarizing his most immediate objectives: 1) to expand its boundaries to the ocean edge and including the mountains on either side of the Somes Sound fiord; 2) to secure adequate access over existing and needed new roads to the Monument and its mountains; and 3) to secure additional contiguous tracts that lend themselves to the purposes of a "biologic reservation" where students can be taught how to best conserve and exhibit the region's native flora and fauna. (July 12, 1916. NARA. RG79. Central Classified Files. Acadia. Misc. Rpts. ) One source calls SM National Monument "a way-station national monument to facilitate later attempts to create a national park." This is Hal Rothman's view (in America's National Monuments, p. 106) where this park "changed the national park criteria [it] offered the agency DORR1911 Page 22 of 30 what no western park could-a balanced geographic distribution of American national parks and monuments. It became the consummate way- station monument a strategically far -sighted move the first step toward making the national parks and monuments truly national. "Mt. Desert Island of Defense Value" headlines a August 13, 1916 article in the Washington D.C. Sunday Star regarding the War Department view that President Wilson's establishment of the Sieur de Monts National Monument shows him as being "provident in creating an important defense station "of strategic military importance." In late July and early August arrangements are made for speakers and presentations celebrating the establishment of the national monument. The formal celebration of the establishment of the Sieur de Monts National Monument took place on August 22nd, just three days prior to the legal establishment of the National Park Service. (Sieur de Monts Publications II). Presentations were offered by Charles W. Eliot, Hon. John E. Bunker, Maine Secretary of State, Hon. L. B. Deasy, Rt. Rev. William Lawrence, George B. Dorr, and Dr. Alfred G. Mayer. Dr. Mayer was a student and then Harvard colleague of the distinquish Harvard Professor Agassiz, an ichthyologist at Princeton University who was for more than a decade had been at the forefront of the Carnegie Institution of Washington D.C. (CIW) marine zoology initiative to establish a research laboratory in Dry Tortugas. For many years Dorr had sought an investigative mechanism to better understand the riches of Frenchman Bay. It occurred to him that Mayer's ten years of experience off Key West might help him memorialize Dr. Mitchell. Back in 1907, Dorr had purchased a parcel of land in Salisbury Cove that looked promising as wharf for a proposed transit line to the mainland, a project that went sour. Years later the adjacent Emery farm came up for sale and Dorr recalled Mitchell's relationship with the Carnegie Institution, having served on its Executive Committee where he took great interest in the Key West facility where Mayer had carried on his investigations. Enlisting the assistance of Dr. Abbe, the two developed a successful appeal to purchase the Emery Farm, stressing that Mitchell's name should be associated with a living memorial where active scientific research was being pursued. A "chance" encounter with Dr. Mayer occurred at this time and at Dorr's urging agreed to make a site visit to determine whether Salisbury Cove was a suitable site for biological research. The August 22nd celebration provided the venue for Mayer's enthusiastic endorsement of Dorr's idea. News of this endorsement "echoed back to Princeton" and Dorr subsequently received a letter from one of Mayer's former Dry Tortugas collaborators, Ulrich Dalgren of the Harpswell Station in Casco Bay. Within the year the Harpswell Trustees agreed to turn over to the Wild Gardens of Acadia sufficient funds to relocate to Salisbury Cove. The new facility would be incorporated under the title of the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory with headquarters at the S. Weir Mitchell station at Salisbury Cove. (See G.B. Dorr, "The Marine Biological Laboratory at Salisbury," A Laboratory by the Sea: The Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory 1898-1998. Rhinebeck, NY: River Press, 1998. PP. 11-14) Within five years the MDIBL would be established, yet another example of Dorr's skills in creating institutional enterprises. The Annual Report of the Superintendent of National Parks to the Secretary of the Interior refers to the five new parks and monuments: SMNM, Dinosaur, and Capulin national monuments as well as Lassen Volcanic and Hawaii National Parks. No illustrations accompany listing. DORR1911 Page 23 of 30 Dorr is aware that Maine Congressman F.E. Guernsey introduced a second time his 1913 legislation for the necessity of saving the forests and headwaters of Maine's streams. Professor Lucius Merrill (U. of Maine) also emphasized the threat to Katahdin's watershed by the axe of the lumberman and the fires which follow the axe. An editorial letter by Allen Chamberlain will attack the Maine national park concept and prompt Dorr's harsh words about Chamberlain the following summer. (Dorr to Eliot. July 31, 1917. Harvard University Archives. C.W. Eliot Papers. B. 95) Guernsey is not alone in believing that if Congress cannot be induced to act, then the Maine legislature should take action and establish in the specified area a state reservation. Three years later Percival Baxter would first propose his plan for a Mount Katahdin Centennial Park to celebrate Maine's 100 anniversary in 1920. Dorr establishes a series of brief publications that eventually will number more than twenty devoted to explaining the cultural, historic, and natural distinctiveness of Mount Desert Island. These were not official publications bearing the imprint of the National Park Service. Instead Dorr enlisted a wide array of scholars to write for the intended general audience or to permit the republication of their work. The Sieur de Monts Publications were published at Dorr's expense, attesting to their importance at a time when his own funds were severely compromised by his aggressive acquisition of new Trustee properties. (NHLA. Letter Nov. 11, 1924. Charles W. Eliot II Papers) The first two numbers will document the establishment and conservation significance of the new monument. In the months ahead the publication scheduled was brisk as is evidenced by an article in the June 16 th 1917 BHT reporting that four numbers have appeared and that number five "The Park as a Plant Sanctuary and Wild-Garden Tract" was forthcoming. Pamphlet number four had a GPO run of 10,000. Given the extensive distribution of thousands of copies of each number, four publications are no longer extant and most are scattered in a handful of repositories. JDR Jr. hires engineer Charles P. Simpson for carriage road work, succeeded in 1921 by his son Paul Simpson when the elder Simpson became ill. At this time carriage road could proceed more briskly since JDR Sr. begins to transfer of $500 million to his son, completing the process six years later. It was not unexpected that Dorr would take his responsibilities as monument custodian seriously-and proactively. Dorr drafts a letter demarcating what the island trails committees will continue to do in caring for the island pathways on lands deeded to the government. Without a budget the new custodian is obviously dependent on support from trail chairmen and their volunteers. Yet there is a new National Park Service committed to the development of standards applicable system wide. Consequently, Dorr boldly states that what "the Trails Committee ought not do upon these lands is to lay out new important trails over them, establishing new routes or making new connections, with due consultation" with himself and with the chairman of any other path committee whose trails intersect. Dorr also delineates preliminary policies for landscape uniformity, fire safety, and wildlife management that he will discuss with trail chairmen. (Dorr to Eliot. September 8, 1916. Harvard University Archives. C.W. Eliot Papers. B. 95) As the winter approaches, Dorr also turns his attention to the mountains that the trails bisect. The new administrator challenges convention by undertaking a scholarly examination of the historic precedent for long standing usage. Where historical roots are shallow, Dorr will develop alternative historical arguments to be adjudicated by the government. DORR1911 Page 24 of 30 This nomenclature question begins with the proposed gift of Robinson Mountain (later Acadia Mountain), requiring authorization by the United States Board on Geographic Names for the many forthcoming controversial name changes that will stretch into the 1930's and to which we will return. (Dorr to Lincoln Cromwell. 19 February 1917. Harvard University Archives. C.W. Eliot Papers. B. 95) But Dorr's elevated spirits were certainly diminished when he learned of the death of on September 14th of Josiah Royce at sixty one years of age, two years younger than Dorr. The two Harvard professors of philosophy with whom the Dorr family had such a close relationship for more than three decades were now gone, fifteen years after the death of Mrs. Dorr who had cultivated Royce as a Harvard newcomer and James as imaginative inquirer into all matters spiritual. Royce and Dorr were not as engaged with the pursuits of one another other over the last decade as they certainly had been in the decade preceding the 1905 dedication of Emerson Hall. While speaking of the character of each of his parents, Dorr makes the following psychological observations about James and Royce: Humor needs sympathy. but if the sympathy be too strong or the situation too serious, humor is lost in sympathy. And this forms a criterion by which one can judge men's degree of development. But humor passes into irony, loosing the kindly quality that is for me an essential feature. William James had wit, often with a sting; his wife had humor and could be intimately amusing as she lit up some story she was telling. [but Professor Royce] talked with infinite humor when he was in the mood and was then most amusing to listen to, as well as interesting, but he rebelled in indignation when it was directed against things he took seriously, for seriousness was the very essence of his nature." Dorr's feelings about these deaths are nowhere documented. Nonetheless, a man so steeped in "historical associations" was surely deeply affected by their passing. He would also have paused to reflect on his continuing relationship with eighty-two year old Charles W. Eliot, the other Harvard legendary figure with whom his life during the period 1901-1926 would be involved in the development of Maine's national park. In Concord in late autumn, a lesser figure was also nearing his end. At Hillside Chapel where thirty years earlier the Concord School of Philosophy had its beginnings, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn (1831-1917) was publicly honored by the community; three months later, following an accident that broke his hip, Sanborn would be gone, interred in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in a plot chosen for its view of the graves of Thoreau and Emerson. We have no way of knowing whether this "philosopher, philanthropist, sociologist, and man of letters" followed Dorr's career after their Emerson Hall involvement more than a decade earlier. Nonetheless, it is clear that Sanborn, Emerson, and Dorr would see the Maine's new seacoast national park as a representative place where "we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes, where nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, --my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God." (Nature, ch. 1; see also P. Baldwoin. "Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, Memoirs and Members of the Social Circle in Concord. Sixth Series. p. 19) DORR1911 Page 25 of 30 1917 January 2-6: The Fourth National Parks Conference is held in the Auditorium of the New National Museum, Washington D.C. with Sec. Interior Lane and Asst. Sec. Mather presiding. No one has been appointed NPS Director! The most important of the conferences thus far, especially since the NPS appropriation was due to be studied and a good turnout would play into the political strategy. The turn out was "triumphant," important Congressmen participated, and Mather arranged for a loan exhibition of 45 paintings of national park scenes by more than twenmty artists, including Thomas Moran and Albert Bierstadt. The Proceedings of the National Parks Conference, Washington, D.C. documents the "much misunderstood term 'monument''' suggesting that some monuments deserve elevation to park status. It is implied that this is the case for the new Sieur de Monts National Monument, concluding that "in accessibility, opportunity for experimental work, and as a field for botanical and zoological study Sieur de Monts in unexcelled by any of the other monuments." (pgs. 220-223) Following this strenuous conference Mather had a nervous breakdown at the Cosmos Club, the "two years of unrelieved high tension had broken Mather down as he had broken down in 1903. " (R. Shankland, Ibid, pp. 109- 110) Thus, within six months of its formation the NPS faced its first momentous crisis. Mather "...was away from Washington practically all the time until early in 1918. [and] I had to take over, and it fell on me to do the organizing work of the bureau..." (H. Albright, Reminiscences, 40) Appointed in April 1917 as acting Director, Albright beefed up his staff by adding Arthur E. Demaray and Isabella F. Story. Centralizing the administration, formulating uniform policies, and applying them consistently was a formidable task; for Yard, the imperative was to provide an educational ideology for this evolving system. In early Spring Dorr turned his attention to the study of possible conservation properties in Southwest Harbor. His activity is kept close to the chest. Not until the fall of 1919 will Dorr explain to Eliot that two years earlier he had received "in trust certain funds from Mr. Rockefeller to employ privately. [Mr. Schuyler R. Clark of Southwest Harbor] in acquiring lands for reservations and inclusion in the park. (Dorr to Eliot. September 28, 1919. Harvard University Archives. C.W. Eliot Papers. B. 95) Rockefeller's quiet financial arrangement with Dorr is much earlier than what is usually supposed. Dorr ranked the most import properties and Clark proceeded to acquire those that were available with great discretion in order to avoid price inflation should the source of funding become known. Scriber's Magazine publishes "The National Park on Mount Desert Island," by Beatrix Farrand. While she nowhere speaks to the motivations for this article, Farrand's description of the geology, flora, and fauna aided Dorr's efforts to elevate the national monument to national park status. The final pages contain a brief history of the Trustees, an outline of the development of the path system, and praise for the "far-sighted devotion" of Mr. Dorr in enlarging park boundaries and establishing the Wild Gardens of Acadia to realize objectives beyond the geographical restrictions of the Trustees mission. "Everyone who comes, either now or in the future, should remember that he owes a large share of his enjoyment to the clear vision, the wise development, and the self- sacrificing enthusiasm of the first custodian of the park." (p.494) During the Winter there had been unprecedented activity in preparing the Sieur de Monts Publications. By June number four in the series on "The Coastal Setting, Rocks, and Woods of the Sieur de Monts National DORR1911 Page 26 of 30 Monument" appears. It is sufficiently newsworthy to receive front page coverage in the Bar Harbor Times (June 16, 1917), The illustrated article is a compilation of extracts from several notable publications: Charles Eliot's Garden and Forest article on "The Coast of Maine," Nathaniel Shaler and William Morris Davis's publications on the geology of MDI, and Edward L. Rand's classic The Flora of Mount Desert. The Times reports that additional pamphlets are in preparation with a printing run of fifty thousand copies planned. By August 4th, eighteen of these will be available in the Custodian's office. That only a known handful of copies of this publication survive-and that 4 of 23 in the series are not recoverable--indicates the ephemeral nature of this series. Architect William Welles Bosworth's Cobblestone bridge completed as well as Gardiner-Mitchell carriage road. This is the first of 17 major bridges on the carriage road system completed by 1933. The wooden bridge at Mount Desert Narrows is replaced by order of the national government with a concrete bridge to improve park access. Petitions circulate among Mount Desert summer residents advocating the immediate hiring of Rangers for the the Sieur de Monts National Park. Notice, that it is by no slip of the tongue that the national park phraseology has been substituted for the official monument designation. Letters signed by Eliot, Eno, and others clearly are priming the pump for an elevation of the status of former Trustee holdings. The justification for a ranger force is national security, a war measure "to prevent signaling from the tops of the Mount Desert hills seaward." " (July 1917. Henry Eno to Secretary Lane. Harvard University Archives. C.W. Eliot Papers. B. 95) Dorr's letter to Horace Albright reminds him of the Ranger appointments that had arranged before he departed Washington. Henry Lane Eno, Ernesto G. Fabbri, Alesandro Fabbri, Robert Abbe, George R. King, and Edward L. Rand at $1.00/year. While Dorr surely wishes for a permanent ranger force within the National Park Service, at this time he stresses that until these appointments take effect there in his absence from the island there is no one in authority on federal land. (July 21, 1917. NARA. RG79. Central Classified Files. Acadia. Miscellaneous Rpts. ) The Report of the Director of the National Park Service to the Secretary of the Interior" contains a photograph of the "Vista of the sea from New port Mountain, Sieur de Monts National Monument. The narrative treats the organization of the new bureau, the functions of the NPS, its jurisdictional power, and how "National Parks and Monuments [are] now practically identical," the key difference being the mechanism whereby they are established. (pgs. 1-5) BHT front page report on "an entirely new and original idea in map making" is now displayed on the Sieur de Mont "bottling house," making available to the public a visitor guide to MDI. At the invitation of Mr. Dorr, Dr. Robert Abbe designed this composite relief map which "shows every motor road every lake and stream, every path painted in red, lighthouses, and steamboat routes." (August 25, 1917) A letter nowhere discussed in the secondary literature is received by Eliot this summer raises an issue that uniquely reveals Dorr's passionate commitment to his conservation vision-and his limited tolerance for ill-informed intrusiveness. Harvard educated landscape architect James Sturgis Pray (1871-1929) had been an Olmsted Brothers apprentise, rose through the ranks at Harvard and in 1915 became the Charles Eliot Professor of Landscape Architecture. With a deep interest DORR1911 Page 27 of 30 in the preservation of natural resources, the future mentor of Eliot's grandson (Charles W. Eliot II) is approached by Allen Chamberlain, the Chairman of the American Civic Association National Parks Committee. He asks Sturgis to approach Eliot on a matter that was bound to raise Dorr's ire: whether the Sieur de Monts National Monument was deserving of National Park status, whether it "measures up to the requirement of national importance." Rather than approaching Dorr directly, the ACA committee, Sturgis, and Chamberlain ask Eliot whether in his judgment the monument "measures up to the requirement of national importance as to make it a worthy candidate for National Park honors." (12 July 1917. NARA. Cp. RG 79. CCF. Acadia. Miscellaneous Rpts.) As might be expected, Eliot shares this letter with Dorr who blasts off a nineteen-page handwritten response to Eliot where he cautions Eliot that "there is more behind it than appears. "I distrust Chamberlain profoundly [and believe that ]he is using Pray to see if he cannot get something from you that would give him an opportunity, or excuse, for attacking our intention of making this-if possible-a National Park." Chamberlain "made a vile attack" in the Boston Evening Transcript the previous summer when Maine Representative Guernsey introduced legislation to establish a Katahdin National Park. Dorr is restrained in his judgments about James S. Pray, aware that Pray had spoken strongly the year before in favor of establishing the national parks bureau to his colleagues in the American Society of Landscape Architects, displaying far more knowledge about the national parks than Chamberlain. ("Our National Parks: A Conference," op. cit., pp. 119-123) Dorr insists that the ACA, however, is "controlled and run by J. Horace McFarland whose methods I have had some personal experience of and who is using the Association, as I believe, for personal, not public, ends." Dorr then suggests language that Eliot should consider for his response. The next day Dorr sends Eliot how the government distinguishes between the two in terms of their creation and intended purpose. Quite rightly he states that a different understanding on the part of the "personal" beliefs of A.C.A. committee members have no standing in the eyes of the government. The sub-text clearly faults Chamberlain and his committee allies for having SO little knowledge of relevant federal policies. (July 31 and August 1 1917. Harvard University Archives. C.W. Eliot Papers. B. 95) Eliot's response incorporates verbatim Dorr's draft, focusing on the congressional versus executive roles in establishing monuments and parks. Mr. Pray's emphasis on the small size of the proposed national park presents convincing evidence that extent is irrelevant as an essential feature. Doubtful that Mr. Pray has ever visited Mount Desert Island Eliot reaffirms his conviction in "the supreme landscape quality of the Island," Rescuing Dorr's reputation while implicitly dismissing Chamberlain's, Eliot's three concluding paragraphs emphasize that Dorr "knows more about the Island of Mount Desert, and its possibilities of service, than any man living; and he also is well acquainted with the difficulties in Washington of procuring proper care for National Parks and Monuments [and] he thinks that this national reservation will be better developed by the Government if it is called a Park than if it remains a Monument; and I unite with him in that opinion." He concludes by mentioning the establishment of " a distinct corporation for carrying on, independently of the National Monument or Park, bird refuges, wild DORR1911 Page 28 of 30 gardens, arboreta, and marine stations" [i.e., Wild Gardens of Acadia] (NARA, RG79, Central Classified Files. Acadia. Miscellaneous Rpts.) The aftermath? The issue was pursued no further by Mr. Pray. Dorr admits to Eliot that during this summer he was working "under considerable difficulties, having the park lands included in the national monument in charge and no appropriation from Congress to take care of them or for obtaining clerical assistance." (Dorr to Eliot. September 25, 1919. Harvard University Archives. C.W. Eliot Papers. B. 95) He certainly was challenged by Interior Secretary Franklin Lane's acceptance of Dorr's invitation visit Mount Desert Island for a first hand inspection of the new national monument. On August 23rd Oldfarm was the poiunt of departure for a ride up to the top of Green (later Cadillac) Mountain--with Dorr striding beside Lane's horse to ensure its safe footing. Dorr also arranged a lunch with Mr. Rockefeller in which a grandiose plan for an extended road system was laid out. Sensitive to development issues involving carriage roads adjacent to park lands, Lane gave Rockefeller his permission to begin. During the first year of monument status, trail development had progressed through private subscription. A 1.5 mile trail through the Otter Creek Gorge cost $4,500, mostly for drainage expenses. Existing trails were repaired and a 1.25 demanding path was constructed to the summit of Dry (Dorr) Mountain at a cost of $3,000. Lane tells Dorr he should request $50,000 in first year appropriations for the national monument. Due to the war, however, no funds were available. On the other side of the country, NPS Director Stephen T. Mather was engaged in his own public relations campaign. He led a party to Burrough's Peak, Mount Rainier National Park. Mather's party included park personnel, a vice-president of the Northern Pacific Railroad, a civil engineer and other influential men who Mather sought to educate about the splendors of the National Park system, as Dorr sought to educate Secretary Lane. The trip was documented by Herbert Wendell Gleason. Otter Cliffs Naval Radio Station Commissioning Ceremony (8.28). GBD is on far left of image. (ANPA B19.f.13) In September the annual meetings of the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations and The Wild Gardens of Acadia (WGA) are held at the Y.M.C.A. The BHT reports that Charles W. Eliot presided at both meetings since he was President of both corporations; he was subsequently re- elected to both. The WGA Treasurer George B. Dorr reported the memorial gift of $2,000 from Mrs. Frederick Delano Hitch to be used "in the formation of wild gardens and in extending the Delano wild garden tract." (9.29). Thomas Wren Ward, son of GBD's uncle (Samuel G. Ward), writes (9.30) to GBD thanking his cousin for the Sieur de Monts publication. He regrets having missed GBD but credits to MDI a health benefit from having hiked the trails. (MHS: T.W. Ward Papers. B8.f.5) In September 1916 Dorr conveyed 14 acres of land to Town in order that the Kebo Valley golf links could be enlarged. The Town found that some of the holes would be too short if the Town used only the land acquired from Mr. Dorr; that land was reconveyed back to Dorr. (BHT 10.5) Dorr then departed for Washington to lobby for an adequate appropriation for maintenece and administration of the national monument; he returned to Mount Desert only briefly at the beginning of winter. DORR1911 Page 29 of 30 A five-page memo (10.29) from GBD to the Acting Director of the NPS (H. Albright) offers a strategic vision for the park. Dorr can double its size with the acreage at hand, and double it again to "take in the whole mountain range and its adjoining valleys, together with good wharfages and sea approaches, and a considerable extent of shore." First. He advocates a "costly" and "intensive" acquisition of "certain noble [ocean-front] features"; here he stresses his vision of the appropriate "landscape effects" availed by the vegetation and geological structures. Second, the park ought to become "one of the great health resorts [and] recreative areas of the county" with its inviting and expanding path system. Furthermore, its potential as " a great biological station" for scientific research in diverse areas. Additionally, the Monument has a historic mission to "enrich the national life with memories and associations" that are slipping from our grasp; he sees the Sieur de Monts Publications as a key means of realizing this goal. Finally, Dorr again stresses the urgency of action, emphasizing the importance of keeping access, food, and lodging affordable: he concludes that he aims to ensure that "every natural condition is favorable to low prices, cheat transport and good food. " (NARA, RG79, Central Classified Files. Acadia. Misc. Rpts.) The first of many SMNM Annual Reports required by the Department of the Interior is submitted (10.31) : "Splendid progress has been made during the past year toward the completion of its intended area." He identifies the properties recently secured and the paths and roads that are new and those extended; fire control abatement activities are also mentioned in this five page report. (NARA. RG79. General Records. Central Files 1907- 39. Acadia. Miscellaneous Rpts. Reports, Annual) DORR1911 Page 30 of 30