"Bookshelved Between America's Conservation Presidents" Massachusetts Historical Society Boston. MA April 10. 2017 4/18/2018 Massachusetts Historical Society: MHS Calendar of Events Library Catalog Portal1791 Gilbert du Motier MHS Calendar of Events Choose a different view PUBLIC PROGRAM, AUTHOR TALK PAST EVENT: Creating Acadia National Park: The Biography of George Bucknam Dorr 10 April 2017. Monday, 6:00PM - 7:00PM - There will be a pre-talk reception at 5:30pm. Ronald Epp TOP CREATING ACADIA NATIONAL PARK RONALD H. EPP The Biography of George Bucknam Derr Although he is known as the "Father of Acadia," George Bucknam Dorr's seminal contributions to the American environmental movement have gone largely unacknowledged. This biography is the story of Dorr's pioneering role. Raised in Boston, Dorr adopted Maine's Mount Desert Island as his home and the setting to apply the practical lessons of "Boston Brahmin" philanthropy. Through his finest work-the creation and management of Acadia National Park-and through his collaborations with park co-founders Charles W. Eliot, John D. Rockefeller Jr., and others-Dorr transformed an elitist social inheritance into an all-consuming commitment to conservation. https://www.masshist.org/calendar/event?event=2082 2/4 APRIL 4 TUESDAY 5:15 EARLY AMERICAN HISTORY SEMINAR sachusetts Promotional Literature & Identity in Colonial Massachusetts rical Society Agnès Delahaye, Université Lumière Lyon II Founded 1791 Comment: Conrad E. Wright, Massachusetts Historical Society This essay will examine the institutional and cultural factors behind promotional literature, the body of colonial sources written for metropolitan audiences. All share the common intent of promoting, or defending, the political or economic choices made by the colonists as their communities were taking shape. The essay will detail the tropes and expressions of the commonality of purpose that Delahaye sees in much New England historiography. It will also explore the relationship between colonial historiography and exceptionalism in the New England tradition. To reserve: Please call 617-646-0568 or e-mail seminars@masshist.org. APRIL 5 WEDNESDAY 12:00 BROWN-BAG A Fear of Foreigners & of Freedom: Ideological Exclusion & Deportation in America Julia Rose Kraut, Historical Society of the New York Courts This talk will examine the history of the exclusion and deportation of foreigners from the United States based on their beliefs, associations, and/or expressions, from the Alien Act of 1798 to the War on Terror. It will illustrate that this history reflects a perennial fear of subversion in America and that during moments of national insecurity, the United States has consistently and continuously depicted foreigners as the source of subversion and used ideological exclusion and deportation as tools to suppress the free expression of radicalism and dissent. APRIL 10 MONDAY 5:30/6:00 RECEPTION/TALK George Bucknam Dorr & Creating Acadia Ronald Epp Although he is known as the "Father of Acadia," George Bucknam Dorr's seminal con- tributions to the American environmental movement have gone largely unacknowledged. This biography is the story of Dorr's pioneering role. Raised in Boston, Dorr adopted Maine's Mount Desert Island as his home and the setting to apply the practical lessons of "Boston Brahmin" philanthropy. Through his finest work-the creation and management of Acadia National Park-and through his collaborations with park co-founders Charles W. Eliot, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and others-Dorr transformed an elitist social inheritance into an all consuming commitment to conservation. ... MHC and 4/20/2017 Massachusetts Historical Society: the Beehive This Week @ MHS By Dan Hinchen Series: Today @MHS There is a flurry of activity to start the week here at the Society before we ease into a long weekend. Here is what we have in store: - Monday, 10 April, 6:00PM : We begin the week with an author talk featuring Ronald H. Epp, whose recent book is titled Creating Acadia National Park: The Biography of George Bucknam Dorr. In his work, Epp examines the pioneering role of Dorr's seminal contributions - largely unacknowledged - to the American environmental movement. This talk is open to the public and registration is required with a fee of $10 (no charge for MHS Members or Fellows). A pre-talk reception begins at 5:30PM followed by the speaking program at 6:00PM. - Tuesday, 11 April, 5:15PM : This weeks Environmental History Seminar is a panel discussion titled "Fishing the Commons." The talk will feature Erik Reardon of University of Maine at Orono and his paper "New England's Pre-Industrial River Commons: Culture and Economy," as well as Stacy Roberts of University of California, Davis, and her essay "The Private Commons: Oyster Planting in 19th- century Connecticut." Matthew McKenzie of University of Connecticut at Avery Point provides comment. Seminars are free and open to the public; RSVP required. Subscribe to receive advance copies of the seminar papers. - Wednesday, 12 April, 12:00PM : Come in for a Brown Bag talk on Wednesday titled "Radical Enlightenment in the Struggle over Slavery," featuring Matthew Stewart, author of Nature's God: The Heretical Origins of the American Republic. This talk draws material from a work in progress to lead a discussion about the role of Enlightenment ideas in shaping abolitionism, anti-slavery politics, and the Civil War. This talk is free and open to the public so grab your lunch and stop by! - Wednesday, 12 April, 6:00PM : "The Rise and Fall of the American Party" is a public program that is part of The Irish Atlantic Series which is centered on our current exhibition. In this talk, Stephen T. Riley Librarian of the MHS, Peter Drummey, looks at the meteoric rise of the American Party - the "Know Nothings" - as well as its rapid decline with the approach of the Civil War. This talk is free and open to the public though registration is required. Pre-talk reception kicks-off at 5:30PM and the program starts at 6:00PM. - Saturday, 15 April, 10:00AM : The History and Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society Tour is a 90-minute docent-led walk through our public rooms. The tour is free, open to the public, with no need for reservations. If you would like to bring a larger party (8 or more), please contact Curator of Art Anne Bentley at 617-646-0508 or abentley@masshist.org. While you're here you will also have the opportunity to view our current exhibition: The Irish Atlantic: A Story of Famine Migration and Opportunity. 1 Bookshelved between America's Greatest Conservation Presidents: George Bucknam Dorr's Achievement Massachusetts Historical Society. April 10, 2017 Good evening. Thirteen years ago when I began my research here, I had no idea that I would be invited to speak. I thank you for this honor, especially Gavin Kleespies and MHS librarian Peter Drummey who facilitated this talk. Yet above all my thanks to MHS Board member William Clendaniel for his enthusiastic support of the Dorr biography, beginning in 2006 when we met at a Garden Conference at The Mount. Between the White House tenures of Theodore Roosevelt and FDR, a new form of land conservation for the sake of the public good would be created and rightly developed on an island off the mid-Maine coast. And Acadia National Park would achieve national significance as a precedent setting model of philanthropy. Until this park was established in 1916, all national parks and monuments were developed on land already held by the federal government. Unlike these national lands, conservationists on Mount Desert were challenged by the island-wide legal and cultural precedents. On a different scale, U.S. Congressmen in 1914 viewed the gift of a valuable landscape to the federal government as grounds for questioning the donors sanity. First I want to give a brief overview of the life of George Bucknam Dorr, then detail the ancestry issues that led me here--followed by an exploration of the unconventional twists and turns in my research and writing. I suspect that most Bostonians are unfamiliar with "Mr. Dorr." Fewer still associate that name with Acadia National Park. Given Dorr's strong Brahmin 1 Bookshelved between America's Greatest Conservation Presidents: George Bucknam Dorr's Achievement (1901-1944) Good evening. Thirteen years ago when I began my research here, I had no idea that I would be invited to speak. I thank you for this honor, especially Gavin Kleespies and MHS librarian Peter Drummey who facilitated this talk. Yet above all my thanks to MHS Board member William Clendaniel for his enthusiastic support of the Dorr biography, beginning in 2006 when we met at a Garden Conference at The Mount. Between the White House tenures of Theodore Roosevelt and FDR, a new form of land conservation for the sake of the public good would be created and rightly developed on an island off the mid-Maine coast. And Acadia National Park would achieve national significance as a precedent setting model of philanthropy. Until this park was established in 1916, all national parks and monuments were developed on land already held by the federal government. Unlike these national lands, conservationists on Mount Desert were challenged by the island-wide legal and cultural precedents. On a different scale, U.S. Congressmen in 1914 viewed the gift of a valuable landscape to the federal government as grounds for questioning the donors sanity. First I want to give a brief overview of the life of George Bucknam Dorr, then detail the ancestry issues that led me here--followed by an exploration of the unconventional twists and turns in my research and writing. I suspect that most Bostonians are unfamiliar with "Mr. Dorr." Fewer still associate that name with Acadia National Park. Given Dorr's strong Brahmin 2 networking, some recall that he resided for a half-century nearby at # 18 Commonwealth Avenue. His parents and relatives were pioneer families on The Commonwealth Mall, owning four properties just west of Arlington. The Dorrs resided in a five-story brownstone near the Public Garden which had been established in 1837 by his mother's relative, Horace Gray. She was a descendant of Salem merchant William Gray (1750-1825), whose progeny included horticulturist Horace Sr. and his son, the Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Horace Gray Jr. Another son was Harvard legal scholar John Chipman Gray, not to miss Harvard College benefactor Francis Calley Gray. Dorr, however, was born in late December 1853 at the family residence on Jamaica Pond. Six years later the family moved to #3 Park Street--on the other side of the Common--to help Dorr's maternal grandmother cope following the death of her celebrated husband, banker Thomas Wren Ward. Francis Calley Gray's biographer-- Marjorie B. Cohn- reminds us that as of the 1840's the eight Bulfinch townhomes on Park Street were "the geographical center of the Brahmin world" (Francis Calley Gray, 1986 HUP). Gray would reside in his later years at #5 Park Street. Although these biographical details might seem of small consequence, they were historically dis-associated from those who spoke about Dorr. One of two male siblings, George Dorr first experienced Mount Desert Island at fourteen years of age when the family traveled there for a summer vacation and purchased more than a hundred acres of Frenchman Bay shoreline. This island was quite unlike the countryside of Canton and Lenox 3 where he had spent his summers when not attending Dixwell's School and then Harvard College, entering one year after Dr. Charles William Eliot's inauguration. Graduation prompted four years of family travel on the Continent. With no clear career direction, Dorr deepened his involvement with Harvard, relishing the lengthy summers at their newly built Old Farm estate and opportunities for further exploration of its diverse landscapes. Over the next two decades the gay island life, free, and totally out of doors-boating, picnicking, climbing, buckboarding, swimming and bird watching-was diminished. Large tracts of open land were privatized. Dorr later stated that the origin of the public reservation movement sprang from "[such] pleasant memories and the desire to preserve the beauty and freedom of the island for the people." On a more serious note, Dorr analogized that whereas the monasteries of the Middle Ages sheltered the learning of the classical period, natural parks preserve the wealth of species we have inherited." On September 12th 1901 the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations was incorporated in Bar Harbor, widely viewed as the most significant event in the history of Mount Desert Island. In a peculiar coincidence, that same day atop the highest peak in the Adirondacks, Theodore Roosevelt received a telegram informing him that President McKinley's life was ebbing away. Within a few hours an assassin's bullet would require TR's elevation to the presidency and position him to use the "Bully Pulpit" to advance his conservation agenda. Dr. Eliot envisioned an organization "to acquire, hold, maintain 4 and improve for free public use, lands which by reason of scenic beauty, historical interest, or sanitary advantage.. may be available." Modeled on the Massachusetts Trustees of Public Reservations, the Maine Trustees vested de facto executive authority in a 47-year-old bachelor named George Dorr. At this time Dorr was expanding his island horticultural business and developing the hundreds of miles of footpaths that were increasingly threatened by real estate development. His plans included travel to the Southwest as a member of a Harvard geological survey and an extended solo backpacking exploration of the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains-which included the ascent of Mount Whitney. Within the next decade he would secure the donation of roughly five thousand acres of mountainous tracts on Mount Desert and establish both Bar Harbor's first public library and nearby its celebrated arts center. He strategically thwarted attempts by land developers to revoke the Trustee charter, the first of many likely assaults on the land trust unless a more permanent solution could be devised. He set his sights on the federal government and began a three year process of acquiring knowledge of the relevant constituencies, lobbying congressmen and public officials. Modifying the complicated property documents so they would conform to federal standards was also necessary. All of this effort at a time when there was the insecurity of knowing that there was no agency within the Department of the Interior entirely devoted to national parks and monuments-and no national park east of the Mississippi River. Dorr was advised not to pursue park status; instead, he pursued national 5 monument status since the Antiquities Act of 1906 enabled the creation of federal reserves without congressional authorization-only the signature of the President was required. Dorr and Eliot secured financial support from new Seal Harbor resident John D. Rockefeller Jr. for expenses associated with preparing supportive documentation. Trustee timing was fortuitous since Interior Secretary Franklin Lane had just given authority to Stephen Tyng Mather and his assistant Horace M. Albright, to consolidate disparate parcels of federal land, a first step in creating the National Park Service. All of this undertaken as the United States prepared for war. (See NOTE 1) My biography intertwines the beginnings of Acadia National Park with the origins of the National Park Service. The legal authority for both was secured in 1916 within seven weeks of one another. Dorr's four key challenges were to expand park acreage, to convince Congress that this coastal Maine national monument should be elevated to national park status, and to author dozens of articles and position papers publicizing the unique natural features of the park as well as its 17th-century cultural roots. Finally, he stressed the importance of developing eastern national parks. The historic uniqueness of Acadia's entrance into director Mather's park system cannot be overstated. As the first national park east of the Mississippi, the park system now stretched from coast to coast. Acadia made the park service geographically national for the first time. Local lore frequently characterizes this "gentleman, scholar, and lover of nature' -the words inscribed on his granite memorial-as uniformly focused on park development during the three decades during which he administered the park. Yet during this period he provided practical leadership as Town 6 Selectman and principal philanthropist of island scientific and cultural institutions: The Abbe Museum of Native American Culture, the Jackson Laboratory, and the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory. Dorr explained this formative process that brought Acadia into being in his 1942 publication, Acadia National Park: Its Origin and Growth. This 76- page semi-biographical book documents the park building process, yet two important elements are omitted. His earlier publications always emphasized in great detail the French dominion in America, specifically the role of Pierre Dugua, the Sieur de Monts (or Lord of the Mountains) who represented Henry IV. Dorr's judgment and narrative was always couched with historical associations. Omitted as well was the character of his relationship with both Eliot and Rockefeller. How are we to account for his commitment to Eliot's vision, the success of his partnership with Rockefeller, and his persistence in developing Acadia from his 63rd year when the park came into being and the end of his life at ninety years of age? I chronicled the answer to this question by researching the three generations of his immediate ancestors, based on the assumption that such scrutiny would yield indicators regarding his motivations, decisions, and actions. The extensive Dorr family history gifted to the New England Historic and Genealogical Society tracks back nine generations to migration from Dorset, in southwest England. The MHS houses the maternal side, principally the fifteen boxes of Dorr's grandfather's papers. The Thomas Wren Ward Papers cover 140 years of correspondence, diaries, family and business documents centered on the Salem shipping and Boston merchant endeavors of a descendent of a Massachusetts Bay Colony Puritan family-one that 7 emigrated from greater London. During the last twenty-five years of his life, Thomas was the American agent for the London financial firm, Baring Brothers; he handled international financing for the most successful Boston merchants. Though he lacked a college education, Harvard College Overseers retained Thomas as College Treasurer from 1830-1842; former Boston mayor Samuel Atkins Eliot succeeded Ward. Dorr's origins were not only Puritan but patrician. His Salem grandparents moved socially with the Darbys, Peabodys, Saltonstalls, and Endicotts whereas in Boston they and their children associated with the Quincys, Adamses, Lees, Perkinses, Cabots, Forbeses, Appletons, Lowells, Danas, Bowditches, and Eliots. Harvard philosopher George Santayana (1863-1952) described the Genteel Tradition of those who would protect high culture from the negative effects of industrialization and urbanization. In Persons and Places (1944) he characterized them "on the one hand clannish, and on the other highly moralized and highly cultivated a [Victorian] clannishness [that] was not one of blood it was a clannishness of social affinity and habit; you must live in certain places, follow certain professions, and maintain a certain tone." Three years after this was published, Cleveland Amory in The Proper Bostonians reflected that Boston still suffered from 'Grandfather on the Brain.' To explain, the early 19th-century rise of the mercantile class produced in Dorr's era successive generations of Bostonians who justified 8 their highbrow position in society by emulating the private and public life of their merchant pro-genitor. George Dorr carried forward the fruits of that tradition. Contained in a privately printed volume of more than two hundred pages titled Ward Family Papers, the autobiography of Dorr's uncle, Samuel Gray Ward, was published in 1900 along with the memoirs of Dorr's great-grandfather. Perhaps the closest friend that Emerson ever had, Sam Ward concurred with his seafaring grandfather William that these recollections should spur his son to compose a similar volume for the edification of successive generations. When details from the Thomas Wren Ward papers are combined with the two Ward family histories, the inherited traits reflected in Dorr's behavior are most striking. Not only did Dorr study, annotate, and finally gift these family papers to historical institutions, he redirected their philanthropy away from museums, libraries, and hospitals to public land conservation. Shortly before vacating his Back Bay home, Dorr writes to Henry Lee Higginson of his intent to deposit with this Society his lightly annotated Ward family papers, a decision that may have resulted from the improved public access brought about at that time under the new MHS leadership of Worthington Ford. Like his close friend William C. Endicott Jr., the value of historic preservation was strongly felt by Dorr. Published work about Dorr is slight, consisting mainly of small books by photojournalist Sargent F. Collier (The Triumph of George B. Dorr, 1964) and two published talks in the early 1990s by historian Judith S. Goldstein. 9 Neither author referred to off-site archival resources, Dorr's ancestry, or his life prior to 1901. I recall my graduate school days of the late 1960's when those of us who matured in philosophy departments were taught to carefully ignore the personalities that give rise to philosophical arguments. To follow logic was axiomatic. It was my good fortune, however, that the late John Peter Anton was my dissertation director at the State University of New York, a classicist who insisted that personal enthusiasm for philosophy finds its origin in exposure to the writings of historical figures with strong personalities. An interviewer of the seventy year old park superintendent reported that Dorr did "not feel it necessary or expedient to associate his own personality with Acadia National Park." Instead, Dorr was highly adept at "courteously, but efficiently, [avoiding] direct questioning." Perhaps Dorr was conforming still to "the 19th-century convention: [that] no man's personal life, or even his character, would be betrayed in print in his lifetime" (Marjorie Cohn, Francis Calley Gray, 1986). Such reports challenged me anew to decipher his inner life. It was not enough to read the writings, one needed to explore--as fully as the evidence would allow-the character of the author. Disdain for this personality-centric approach is not peculiar to philosophy. As Harvard historian Jill Lepore recently argued, interest in character "is to some degree 10 [also] unusual among historians." I am unapologetic about my interest in examining character. Recently the English biographer Richard Holmes (in Long Pursuit, 2016) articulated best an approach close to what I pursued. The biographer should stand next to his subject as a critical supporter, gazing out from the windows where the subject stood, following the footsteps taken on sites he or she walked. I repeatedly walked the property on Jamaica Pond where Dorr spent his early childhood. So too for Park Street, the Commonwealth Mall, and the vacation properties in Canton and Lenox where I reflected on how such places might have affected his development. I did not cross the pond and follow Dorr's fragmented account of his travels abroad, though I made hundreds of visits to the Old Farm estate which nourished empathy for my subject, a necessary and yet risky endeavor. There I gazed out to the Schoodic Peninsula and to what he described as "the great ocean highway that brought the early settlers to this land." Indeed, Dorr had gotten under my skin. Even my wife kidded me that I relished my companionship with Dorr in an era not my own. I came to realize that historian Megan Marshall was correct; that it is through biography that we come "as close as any genre to capturing the sense of what it felt like to be alive at an earlier time." (Megan Marshall, "Why Biography?" Common-Place, 8, #4 , 2008). My late wife, Elizabeth, first visited Acadia with her parents during the 1950's. Her strong attachment to the inexhaustible scenic splendor of the 11 place was recounted to me as we pursued our careers. In 1973 we bolted a ten foot camper to our VW wagon in Memphis for our first trip to Acadia. We hiked trails, cycled carriage roads, and talked to seasonal visitors in the Blackwoods Campground. After another career move to Connecticut in 1985, we began annual visits to Mount Desert and hiked more challenging mountains, reveled in the spectacular landscapes, and expanded our interactions with year round residents and park staff who were not "from away." Park staff worried that deferred maintenance, bureaucratic inertia, and a lack of adequate funding imperiled the current promise of the National Park Service. This reality check gave me pause to reflect on the formative spirit that guided Eliot and Door. What stories of optimism and perseverance could I extract from living and recorded memory? To this day I regard the October 2000 "Preserving Historic Trails Conference" in Bar Harbor as the catalyst to bring Dorr's life to light. I did not fit in with the hundred trail specialists from Acadia to Olympic National Park who presented case studies, engaged in field sessions, and examined the historic trail rehabilitation on MDI. Nonetheless, I was enthralled! Conference chairperson Margie Coffin Brown of the Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation took me under her wing, encouraging me to pursue the historic relationships between trail development, land acquisition, and the motivations for the personal philanthropy of park founders. 12 Brown arranged a meeting with NPS historian Richard Quin. He and fellow historian Neil Maher had recently assessed on site Acadia's motor and carriage roads, bridges and gatehouses. Their 1996 contribution to the Historic American Buildings Survey & Historic American Engineering Record collection at the Library of Congress contains the most credible historic information on Dorr, Eliot, and Rockefeller. Historian Quin took me on a tour of NPS access tools at the National Archives in College Park. There I uncovered the corrective to the cynical position that Dorr's achievements were not sufficiently consequential as to warrant biographical study. There I examined thousands of unique NPS official documents relative to the first three decades of the park. These placed Dorr's achievements within the context of new NPS policies and the larger political climate--providing abundant evidence of the conservation principles guiding Dorr's governance. Most fascinating were the hundreds of monthly Superintendent Reports submitted by Dorr to the NPS, each containing insights into Dorr's intentions and behavior- most disclosing the exceptional cultural sophistication of its author. Many recounted Dorr's dealings with Mr. Rockefeller, prompting me to undertake several years of periodic research in Tarrytown New York at the Rockefeller Archive 13 Center. Here were unique unpublished documents rarely referenced as well as significant lapses in the historical record; I suspected that his attorney files-which - appeared to be lost--might fill in these gaps. The Rockefeller Archive contained remarkable evidence of federal cooperation with the decisions of a private citizen, complicated by the intermediary role of Dorr who frequently fronted as a foil for Rockefeller's land acquisition. Indeed, Rockefeller's success in the design and supervision of 57 miles of carriage roads and interlaced motor road development-in partnership with the NPS-- spirited his initiatives elsewhere. Acadia was the keystone for America's largest restoration project- Colonial Williamsburg-and Rockefeller's support for national parks in the Shenandoahs, the Great Smoky Mountains, and the Grand Tetons. The Dorr-Rockefeller correspondence and his less restrained letters to and from Dr. Eliot provided the key manuscript resources for this biography. Despite their personality differences and very strong sense of self-reliant individuality, the evidence demonstrated that all three quickly came to accept one another as equals. Without this sustained foundation, the Acadia National Park that we know would not be. Face-to-face interviews provided suggestive new leads, new names, new topics to pursue. Building a paper trail of hundreds and then thousands of names, subjects, 14 and events within a chronological timeline was part of the process of moving from the well known to the less familiar; from the most current to the more remote; from historic paper documents to Internet resources; from the anecdotal to the well-documented; from Dorr's well-constructed professional correspondence to fragmented drafts of his memoirs; and from superb repositories to those archives in the hands of ill-trained curators. In chapter six of the Dorr biography I trace the story of the eldest son of Harvard president Eliot, landscape architect Charles Eliot. As a Harvard student in the early 1880's, he and a dozen college 'chums' spent their summers engaged in scientific studies of the land and seascapes of MDI. They called themselves The Champlain Society, a nod to Samuel de Champlain's 1604 MDI explorations. Their results contributed to one of three landmark essays published in 1890 in Garden & Forest, the serial of Arnold Arboretum founder Charles Sprague Sargent, Dorr's step cousin. In his article on "The Coast of Maine," Eliot explained how the picturesque coastal environment had been overwhelmed by the flood of humanity, exploited by land speculators, and privatized by those who could afford the most desirable real estate. David Hackett Fischer recently argued quite rightly that other factors contributed to the loss of landscape: the aesthetics of the island changed when native American woodlands and European-inspired orchards, hayfields, and rocky shore pastures were lost to development (Chebacco 14[2015]). 15 Eliot called for the formation of 'associations for the purpose of preserving chosen parts of her coast scenery." He was the first to provide not only the vision for park creation in Maine but a year later he secured the approval by both houses of the Massachusetts legislature to establish the nation's first statewide conservation and preservation organization. Ten years later this land trust model was adapted to coastal Maine when his father carried forward the unrealized vision of his recently deceased son. But why were contemporary Mount Desert Island residents unaware of the importance of Massachusetts to the park idea? More peculiar was the fact that there were no publications about the contributions to park development of native Mainers, especially the attorneys-Deasy, Lynam, and Peters-who provided over many decades legal counsel to Dorr and Rockefeller. I remained perplexed by the absence of investigations into the motivations behind the Dorr and Eliot family engagement with Mount Desert Island? Academic historians apparently had not directed their grad students to the solution of this and park origin and development issues; why had no related dissertations been produced? Could I demonstrate connections between the historically-rich experiences of the founders off the island and their contributions on Mount Desert Island? A decade ago, a much celebrated Harvard theologian gave a talk in Northeast Harbor where the Eliot families resided since 1880. He verified my 16 initial findings. Reverend Peter Gomes spoke of the preservation legacy of former President Eliot, a formidable address in which he described "the untidy confluence" of Harvard and Mount Desert. He argued that a century ago the Acadian Triumvirate-which Gomes renamed "an incomparable trinity-had immense strength of personality." Gomes was convinced that education about the origin, development, and scope of the Dorr-Eliot-Rockefeller achievement was still needed. For "not many Mount Desert people know much about the Harvard Eliot, and I can guarantee that few Harvard people know much about the Mount Desert Eliot." What accounted for this general lack of familiarity? Reverend Gomes remained perplexed. Yet I suspected that over the last century no one in either place systematically attempted the building of bridges between the two cultures; the scant publication record certainly supported this suspicion. Research at the Harvard Archives led me to many unexpected discoveries. The most surprising began with close inspection of Dorr's transcripts. He was a student of George Herbert Palmer, one of three professors of Philosophy hired by Eliot in the early years of his forty year presidency. Josiah Royce and William James were also hired and later joined by the literary genius George Santayana. Their pedagogical innovations and articulation of disciplinary content made philosophy institutionally popular and rapidly reshaped the agenda of American philosophy for decades thereafter. 17 I could not believe my good fortune, to subsequently find Dorr actually rubbing shoulders with the pioneers of the Golden Age of American Philosophy. He introduced the newly arrived Californian Royce to Cambridge society; and incidentally, Royce parlayed the social networking of Dorr's mother into a series of popular lectures. His 1892 publication on The Spirit of Modern Philosophy was dedicated to her. In due course Dorr and William James developed a friendship that was both personal and professional. James, Royce, and later Eliot positioned Dorr in institutional leadership roles. And both philosophers spent weeks at a time on MDI engaged in spirited intellectual talk-and frequent mountain hikes-as guests at Dorr's Old Farm estate. None of this content was in the published record. As the 1916 centennial of the National Park Service and Acadia National Park drew near, the impending national and local celebrations spirited completion of Dorr's biography. The Friends of Acadia found merit in my manuscript and once edited and published, it became a centerpiece of the 2016 centennial. I'll close with a few words about the discovery of lost documents or collections. In each of these four examples, heuristics claimed second place to the emotion of adding unexpected new content to the book. I mention these examples because they are the kind of challenges that historians relish-and encounter infrequently, if ever. Item 1: Dorr refers in his memoirs to several months spent in 1876 with the 18 Howard family following the death of his brother William due to typhus. No additional information is provided. Is this aside worth investigation? Which Howard family? Residing where? After many false starts, I located an archivist in Yorkshire at Castle Howard. She could not verify correspondence between the Dorrs and Rosalind and George Howard, the ninth Earl of Carlisle, one of the great English families of the 19th-century. With due Diligence, however, four dozen handwritten letters spanning two decades- that had not been inventoried-were sent across the pond. I transcribed them and uncovered more information about the personal lives of the Dorr family at this time than in any other historical source. Item 2: The second act of discovery occurred in the sweltering attic of the Crane Estate Great House in nearby Ipswich, a property of The Trustees. While processing the papers of the grandson of president Eliot, I found a 140-page scrapbook put together by landscape architect Charles Eliot. It contained scores of news clippings documenting conservation initiatives prior to the formation of the Trustees. supplemented by Eliot's own handwritten notes and plans for its formation. My emotions soared as I wondered whether this misfiled gem was known to the curatorial staff and the larger scholarly community. I interviewed 19 Lawrence Eliot who lived nearby and learned that this document had been held by the family; it had not been discussed with anyone outside the family since the scrapbook was not thought to be of merit. To the contrary, contained therein is a narrative about Eliot's strategies and summaries of international initiatives that informed his thinking. Presently, it is one of the treasures-inventoried and digitized-- of the new Trustees Archive and Research Center in Sharon. Whereas these two discoveries took place as I was writing, the following two came about after the manuscript was completed. Item 3: After nearly a decade working on the biography I had little hope that the long pursued Dorr and Rockefeller attorney client files in Bar Harbor and mainland Ellsworth had survived. I mentioned my dismay to Bar Harbor retired surgeon William Horner who quickly arranged a meeting with attorney Doug Chapman, a successor to the Deasy & Lynam firm that began practicing law in 1884; at that time I did not know that Horner's great grandfather was Luere Deasy, the founder of the firm. Attorney Chapman had quietly preserved all files since 1884. Horner and I located thousands of Dorr and Rockefeller client files in an occasionally moisture-saturated basement several floors beneath his office. Twelve three 20 foot long legal boxes labelled "JDR Jr" were quickly identified whereas the Dorr files were more dispersed. Thousands of files relative to park formation and the cultural impact of Dorr and Rockefeller on island life were inventoried. Scores of unique maps inscribed by both men showed the progression of park planning. The Rockefeller family and the RAC were comfortable with the arrangement that attorney Chapman and others planned just before his death last summer: in accordance with his wishes, the collection will be accessible to the public in the Jesup Memorial Library. Item 4: The archive of U.S. Congressman and Maine Jurist John A. Peters was revealed at roughly the same time when his hidden attic office in nearby Ellsworth was exposed during a re-roofing of his successors office. For more than three decades prior to Dorr's death in 1944, Peters had been Dorr's conservation supporter, friend, and finally the executor of his estate. The curator of a local museum and I were not only permitted access to the Peters Archive-unknown to them-but we also were allowed to copy documents relative to scholarship. Completion of the book was delayed by more than a year as I extracted new findings and integrated them into a manuscript which now took a different direction in certain key areas. Unlike the typical biography, mine did not conclude with Dorr's death. This new evidence enabled me to track the final 21 disposition of Dorr's flawed estate plan, to uncover the details of establishing a granite Dorr memorial, and to document transfer of historic papers and art work to repositories in Boston and Cambridge. Finally, the Father of the Park greatly admired A.J. Downing, the nurseryman and horticulturist whose 1841 Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening transformed American landscape design. Downing celebrated the study of nature which he contextualized as the "Genius of the Place." Mount Desert Island for Dorr was the place that best revealed Nature and provided him with an opportunity to conceptually link access to Nature with the core elements of American democracy. Dorr was the genius of Acadia, writing in his memoirs: "The present generation will pass as my own has done, but the mountains and woods, the coasts and streams have now passed through the agency of the Park to the National Government the men in control will change, the Government itself will change, but its possession by the people will remain whatever new policies or developments may come." Thank you. Note 1: Added after the talk. Paraphrasing Don Lenahan: no person is more responsible for the size and popularity of ANP than JDR Jr. The fifth smallest national park of 49,000 acres, with 31,000 MDI acres, it grew because of JDR Jr.'s gift of 11,000 acres and $3.5 million dollars (adjusted for inflation?). He helped finance and construct its 27 mile park loop road a nd built a 53 mile network of carriage roads, 45 miles in the park today, including 17 unique bridges and 2 gatehouses. MassHS Paper(final)21 9/6/2016 XFINITY Connect XFINITY Connect eppster2@comcast.net + Font Size = A book talk at the Mass Historical Society? From : Gavin Kleespies Tue, Sep 06, 2016 11:26 AM Subject : A book talk at the Mass Historical Society? To : eppster2@comcast.net Dear Mr. Epp, Bill Clendaniel recommended your book CREATING ACADIA NATIONAL PARK: THE BIOGRAPHY OF GEORGE BUCKNAM DORR and I wanted to reach out and see if you were interested in giving a talk at the Massachusetts Historical Society this winter or early spring. Dorr's passion for the park is an inspirational story and his family connections in Boston would make this program something that would appeal to our members. If you are interesting in speaking at MHS, I would be glad to discuss dates and see if we can work out the logistics. Thank you for your consideration. Gavin Kleespies Gavin Kleespies, Director of Programs Massachusetts Historical Society 1154 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02215 Tel: 617-646-0515, Fax: 617-859-0074 www.masshist.org - America's First Historical Society - Founded 1791 Celebrating 225 years! Turning Points in American History is on display at the MHS Monday through Saturday from 10 AM to 4 PM, More information is available at www.masshist.org. https://web.mail.comcast.net/zimbra/h/printmessage?id=387407&tz=America/New_York&xim=1 1/1 3/24/2017 XFINITY Connect XFINITY Connect eppster2@comcast.net + Font Size = RE: Epp book talk at MHS From : Gavin Kleespies Fri, Mar 24, 2017 04:54 PM Subject : RE: Epp book talk at MHS To : Ronald Epp Dear Ronald, Good to hear from you. Thanks for the questions, answers are below. 1. I've invited a friend from Jamiaca Plain to be my guest at the event. Shall I register her? a. You can just send me her name and I'll add her to the reserved list 2. What time would you like me to arrive? a. About 5:00 should be fine 3. What do you suggest regarding parking options? Is the Pru my best bet? a. We can reserve a space for you in front of MHS, the curb is yellow, but the spaces are reserved for MHS 4. I'm considering the use of several dozen images arranged in a PP presentation. Do you have the necessary projection media? I will likely default on this since option but wanted to check about its feasibility. a. This is no problem, we are set up for PowerPoint, you would just need to bring the presentation on a thumb drive 5. I will need a microphone. A jacket clip-on will be fine. My voice is not as strong as it was in my youth. a. No problem, we have a new sound system in place 6. Even with time allocated to Q & A, when would you like this event to conclude? a. 7:00 or 7:15 is generally good 7. I'd like to display on a table a handout about ordering my biography. Can this be provided? a. Sure, although we have 15 copies of your book here that we were planning to make available for sale 8. Ice water on the podium would be appreciated. a. No problem Gavin From: Ronald Epp [mailto:eppster2@comcast.net] Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 4:31 PM To: Gavin Kleespies Subject: Re: Epp book talk at MHS Dear Kevin, I am looking forward to my April 10th talk that was arranged so many months ago. I've got a few questions. 1. I've invited a friend from Jamiaca Plain to be my guest at the event. Shall I register her? 2. What time would you like me to arrive? 3. What do you suggest regarding parking options? Is the Pru my best bet? 4. I'm considering the use of several dozen images arranged in a PP presentation. Do you have the necessary projection media? I will likely default on this since option but wanted to check about its feasibility. 5. I will need a microphone. A jacket clip-on will be fine. My voice is not as strong as it was in my youth. 6. Even with time allocated to Q & A, when would you like this event to conclude? 7. I'd like to display on a table a handout about ordering my biography. Can this be provided? 8. Ice water on the podium would be appreciated. Any other housekeeping issues that I should be aware of? If you need to reach me by phone after April 1st, please use my mobile. Looking forward to meeting you. All the Best, 3/24/2017 XFINITY Connect Ronald H. Epp 532 Sassafras dr. Lebanon, PA 17042 717-272-0801 603-491-1760 (Mobile) From: "Gavin Kleespies" To: "Ronald Epp" Cc: "William C. Clendaniel" Sent: Tuesday, October 4, 2016 4:52:32 PM Subject: RE: A book talk at the Mass Historical Society? Ronald, Thanks for being flexible. It looks like there is a conflict on the MHS calendar on the 19th, so let's plan on the 10th Thanks again. Gavin From: Ronald Epp [mailto:eppster2@comcast.net] Sent: Monday, October 03, 2016 8:31 PM To: Gavin Kleespies Cc: William C. Clendaniel Subject: Re: A book talk at the Mass Historical Society? Hi Gavin & Bill, Just back from a nine day book tour through CT and NY. Yes, moving the date is fine with me. My preference would be for the 19th as first choice, and the 10th for second choice. Let me know what is best for you and the time of the event. All the Best, Ronald Epp From: "Gavin Kleespies" To: "William Clendaniel" , eppster2@comcast.net Cc: "Ronald Epp" Sent: Friday, September 30, 2016 12:33:55 PM Subject: RE: A book talk at the Mass Historical Society? We have some flexibility. Ronald would you be available on the 5th, 10th, or 19th? Gavin Sent from my T-Mobile 4G LTE Device Original message From: William Clendaniel Date: 9/30/16 11:45 AM (GMT-05:00) To: Gavin Kleespies Cc: Ronald Epp Subject: Re: A book talk at the Mass Historical Society? Darn, that's the date of the Friends of the Public Garden quarterly board and annual meeting, which as treasurer I really 3/24/2017 XFINITY Connect On Fri, Sep 30, 2016 at 11:32 AM, Gavin Kleespies wrote: Bill, We picked a date a few weeks ago; luckily it is in April. You can mark April 12th on your calendar. Gavin From: William Clendaniel [mailto:bclend@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, September 29, 2016 2:41 PM To: Ronald Epp Cc: Gavin Kleespies Subject: Re: A book talk at the Mass Historical Society? Of course I hope to be in Boston when this talk gets scheduled. So here is when I will be away in case you can avoid these dates: Feb 28-Mar 23, May 3-30. April would be the safest time. Bill On Wed, Sep 7, 2016 at 12:36 PM, Ronald Epp wrote: Dear Gavin, I am flattered that Bill Clendaniel would recommend me for a talk at the MHS. Indeed, I am honored to receive this invitation and accept enthusiastically. An early Spring 2017 date would work best for me. Please email or call about possible dates and other logistical matters. Thank You, Ronald H. Epp, Ph.D. 532 Sassafras Dr. Lebanon, PA 17042 717-272-0801 From: "Gavin Kleespies" To: eppster2@comcast.net Sent: Tuesday, September 6, 2016 11:26:51 AM Subject: A book talk at the Mass Historical Society? Dear Mr. Epp, Bill Clendaniel recommended your book CREATING ACADIA NATIONAL PARK: THE BIOGRAPHY OF GEORGE BUCKNAM DORR and I wanted to reach out and see if you were interested in giving a talk at the Massachusetts Historical Society this winter or early spring. Dorr's passion for the park is an inspirational story and his family connections in Boston would make this program something that would appeal to our members. If you are interesting in speaking at MHS, I would be glad to discuss dates and see if we can work out the logistics. Thank you for your consideration. Gavin Kleespies Gavin Kleespies, Director of Programs Massachusetts Historical Society 1154 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02215 Tel: 617-646-0515, Fax: 617-859-0074 www.masshist.org - America's First Historical Society - Founded 1791