"Barteshine Cottagers and the Father of A N.P." Lenox Library Association henox, MA 10/21/2018. 10/11/21, 8:26 PM Lenox Library (Massachusetts) - Wikipedia Coordinates: 42°21'27"N 73°17'6"W WIKIPEDIA Lenox Library (Massachusetts) The Lenox Library is the principal public library of Lenox, Massachusetts. It Lenox Library is managed by the non-profit Lenox U.S. National Register of Historic Library Association, founded in 1856, Places and is located at 18 Main Street, in a former county courthouse that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Contents Library History Building architecture and history Lenox Library Notable library collections Roche Reading Park Other information about the Lenox Library See also References External links Show map of Massachusetts Library History Show map of the United States Show all The library was incorporated in 1856[2][3] Location 18 Main St., and in 1874 moved into its current home, Lenox, the former Berkshire County courthouse Massachusetts which was constructed in 1815-1816. In 1973, the building was added to the Coordinates 42°21'27"N https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenox_Library_(Massachusetts) 1/5 10/11/21, 8:26 PM Lenox Library (Massachusetts) - Wikipedia National Register of Historic Places and 73°17'6"W is one of nine such locations in Lenox. In Area less than one the early 20th century, novelist Edith acre Wharton worked in the library and befriended Kate Spencer, who served as Built 1815 partial inspiration for her 1911 novel Architect Isaac Damon Ethan Frome. NRHP reference No. 73000291 (http The Lenox Library Association belongs to s://npgallery.nps. the C/W MARS library consortium, gov/AssetDetail/ which allows patrons to request books NRIS/73000291). and other materials from other libraries Added to NRHP April 3, 1973 located across the state. The Lenox Library Association is also a member of the Massachusetts Library System which is a State-supported collaborative that provides leadership and services to foster cooperation, communication, and sharing among member libraries of all types. In fiscal year 2008, the town of Lenox spent 1.56% ($241,452) of its budget on its public library-some $47 per person. [4] Building architecture and history The Lenox Library building occupies a prominent site in downtown Lenox, on the east side of Main Street between Walker and Housatonic Streets. It is a 2-1/2 story masonry structure, built out of brick with stone and wooden trim. Its front facade is dominated by monumental two-story pillars and pilasters, which articulate the three bays. The main entrance is in the center bay, topped by a segmented-arch transom window. The building cornice is studded with modillion blocks, as is the gable supported by the pillars above the entrance. The hip roof is encircled by a lower balustrade, and is crowned by an open belfry and cupola. A substantially larger addition, made in 1889, extends to the rear of the building; it is also topped by a hip roof with cupola. [5] The main block was built in 1815-16 to a design by Isaac Damon of Northampton, and served as the Berkshire County Courthouse until 1869, when that function was moved to Pittsfield. Although the library moved into the building in 1874, it did not fully occupy the premises immediately. Additional https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenox_Library_(Massachusetts) 2/5 9/14/2018 The Distinguished Lecture Series - Lenox Library Association Hours Library Catalog Reserve a Museum Pass Contact Us Panel 1 The Lenox Library 18 Main Street, Lenox Massachusetts 01240 About Programs Resources Local Resources Connect Support The Distinguished Lecture Series Home / Programs / The Distinguished Lecture Series 4/9/2018 About the Library and Town - Lenox Library Association Town Mission Board & Staff Panel FAQ Policies Interactive Map Contact Us Directions Hours BERKSHIRE COURT-HOUSE.-Tans historical place in the Lenox community The Lenox Library holds a very special place in the intellectual, cultural and historical life of its community. The stately Greek Revival library building, with its majestic lonic columns and elegant cupola, was designed by Captain Isaac Damon and built on Main Street in 1815- 1816. The building served as the county courthouse until 1868 when the county seat was moved to Pittsfield. In 1871, Mrs. Adeline Schermerhorn, a wealthy summer resident, purchased the building for use as a "public library and reading room free to all visitors and inhabitants of Lenox." Mrs. Schermerhorn's contribution marked the beginning of the long and fruitful relationship between the "cottagers" and the Library. The Lenox Library Association, incorporated in 1856, moved 4/9/2018 About the Library and Town - Lenox - Library Association into the building in 1874, and the space has been operating as a library since that date. Even during these early years the Library functioned as an important civic Panel center for the whole community. Beginning in the 1890s, the building also housed Lenox's only town doctor, the town's first telephone switchboard and fire alarm system. (Within its walls, it even contained both a jail and the offices of the Lenox National Bank.) In 1940, in the same year that the Berkshire Music Center began operations at Tanglewood, the Lenox Library Music Department assumed formal status at the request of Maestro Serge Koussevitzky of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. During World War II, concerts at the Library helped keep music alive while activities of the Berkshire Symphonic Festival and Music Center were suspended. Added to the National Historic Register in 1973, the building was most recently renovated to its original grandeur in 2002-2004. The original court room, with its exquisite 9/14/2018 The Distinguished Lecture Series - Lenox Library Association Programs The Panel Distinguished Lecture Series Writers Round Table Seed Library Pre-Concert Lectures with Jeremy Yudkin Youth Department "My idea was to continue the intellectual and artistic stimulation that is so powerful during the summer months into the winter, SO that we Berkshire residents can enjoy thinking, looking, and listening even in the winter months.. The Distinguished Lecture Series is designed to cover the entire range of cultural endeavors - art, music, politics, science, history, literature - from a wide range of perspectives and experiences." -Jeremy Yudkin 9/14/2018 The Distinguished Lecture Series - Lenox Library Association Professor Jeremy Yudkin of Lenox conceived the idea for the Distinguished Lecture Series in 2006. The lectures take place once a month, usually on the third Panel Sunday of the month and are held at 4 pm on Sunday afternoons in the elegant and restful surroundings of the Sedgwick Reading Room. Sunday afternoon was chosen because it is a quiet time in most people's weekends, the Library was not being utilized, and it allows time for audiences to attend the lectures and go home (or out) for dinner. All lectures are free and open to the public thanks to the generosity of the speakers and donations from the public. No reservations are required. The Twelfth Season, 2018- 19 September 23: Joachim Frank, "Single-Particle Cryo-Electron Microscopy: A Revolution in Visualizing Biological Molecules" October 21: Ronald Epp, "Berkshire Cottagers and the Father of Acadia National Park" November 18: Michael Hammond, "Shakespeare at the Moment" January 20: Jennifer Browdy, "Writing Your Memoirs: The Elemental Journey" February 17: Diane Barth, "The Joy and Heartbreak of Women's Friendships" March 17: Fredric Rutberg, "Keeping Newspapers Local" Page 1 Berkshire Cottagers & the Father of Acadia National Park Ronald H. Epp. October 21, 2018. Lenox Library Association Distinguished Lecture Series I appreciate the invitation from Jeremy Yudkin to resolve a question left unstated in a 2006 international garden conference talk I gave at The Mount. Later published in Edith Wharton and the American Garden, I focused on the coastal Maine horticulturist influences of George B. Dorr on Edith Wharton's garden design at The Mount. This afternoon I will turn the issue on its head and ask whether Dorr's broader Lenox experiences -- spanning five decades -- influenced the creation of the first national park east of the Mississippi? Were there Berkshire county influences shaping not only park creation but other cultural institutions on Mount Desert Island? I have been attracted to Dorr's family, especially the maternal side, because they are examples of the cultured and intellectually progressive families that dominated American social history in the 19th-century. On his mother's side, the several thousand Ward family papers-at the MHS and UCSB-- provide behavioral clues about the personal and professional development of the Father of Acadia. During the late 18th and 19th-centuries, the Ward family "desired to involve themselves culturally, politically, literarily, and philanthropically for the benefit of all." Common to the five generations, was "family intimacy, harmony, and love." In pursuit of the paternal evidence, my inquiries led me to the New England Historic Genealogical Society. To my great delight I discovered that Dorr wrote hundreds of pages of biographical profiles of family relatives spanning two hundred years. There is no record that these documents were previously researched-and subsequently, none published. [1] When my wife and I began investigating the historic origins of Acadia nothing in the published record tracked the Father of Acadia to his 17th_ century English ancestors -nor to the importance of both sides of his Page 2 family to Berkshire county. The documentation in Maine was silent on this connection though word of mouth suggested a connection. The curator of the Bar Harbor Historical Society provided me with the name of a recent visitor, Berkshire historian Cornelia Gilder. Long before she published Hawthorn's Lenox, Nini invited me to this community, ferried me from historic site to fabled literary location, and ended my tour with a splendid lunch at Blantyre. More importantly, she continued her enthusiasm for my research and over the last fifteen years shared her findings with me. Before the publication of my biography, Nini's book had superbly covered the historical development of the paternal Dorr and maternal Ward families that launched here the era of elegant country houses. [2] Suffice it to say that Dorr's maternal uncle Samuel Gray Ward-a man of marked literary accomplishments-- in March 1844 scouted Stockbridge & Lenox with Charles Sedgwick, choosing a 150 acre vista of Lake Mahkeenac for his Highwood farm, the forerunner of the Lenox cottage industry. [3] This was not his first experience of Lenox for Sam later recalled, at eighty-two years of age, the summer of 1838 when he returned from several years traveling throughout Europe. In a carriage journey from Pittsfield shared with his mother and ailing sister Martha, " we had a look into the Lenox valley, which SO charmed me that I said to my mother then and here, 'if I ever go to live in the country, it will be here," little thinking how prophetic were my words and what a space Lenox would fill in my life and that of others" (Ward Family Papers, 148). [4] But what of the Wards at #3 Park Street across the street from the Common? [5] For Sam, relocation was a reaction against city life where "one cannot make a profession of reading or book-making [whereas] the country occupations strengthen the body and leave the mind clear." (12.2.43, SGW to TWW, B.3.f.11.MHS). Sam's letters to his father provide the fullest account the challenges of the Berkshire environment! [6] One of Page 3 the blessings of Highwood was Anna Barker Hazard Ward's delivery in 1844 of Sam's only son, Thomas Wren Ward Jr. Nine years later at Jamaica Plain, Tom welcomed his cousin, George B. Dorr, into the world, beginning a friendship that would endure for 87 years.| Ralph Waldo Emerson's son, Edward-the Harvard roommate of Sam's son--later published an essay on Sam which detailed his "passion for gardening. [one]who manfully ploughed and planted in beautiful Lenox." (Early Years of the Saturday Club). [8] Sam described his own passion "for nature (credited to his mother) and landscape and art," despite the economic necessity of accepting subsidies from his father. Despite family visits from his Boston family and "a large circle of agreeable [local] people," in 1857 this Lenox champion of a 'back-to- the-land' movement sold Highwood to William Storey Bullard where it remained in family hands until 1951. Sam's explanation was that he found a hole in his pocket that could not be mended except by returning to Boston to relieve his infirm father of his business responsibilities. [9] He wrote that "all of my family think of the Lenox days with enthusiasm, [a golden age] to which, for good or ill, we can never return." (Ward Family Papers, 178) As occasional guests at the family estates, there must have been talk about the property management challenges faced by their relatives; this likely made an impression on George and his elder brother. Two decades later on Sam's retirement from Baring's Brothers, the former owner of Highwood returned to Lenox and built Oakwood close to Beecher's Blossom Farm. [10] There his grandchildren "passed SO much of their childhood," while Sam researched and published The Ward Family Papers with the aid of Dorr's mother, Mary. In his mid-eighties, Sam sold Oakwood after the turn of the century because "it was no longer possible to have our family about us there." Oakwood was destroyed by fire in 1903. Nonetheless, his actions afforded his nephew George, a Page 4 model of land stewardship as both a sustained and exploratory process. (J. Espy, "The Many Faces of Stewardship," Maine Heritage, Summer 2003) [11] Fortunately, Highwood was gifted to Harvard in 1960 and then in 1986 the Boston Symphony Orchestra incorporated it into Tanglewood. Nearby, Dorr's New York City paternal step-uncles purchased several weeks before Dorr's birth (in 1853), a Lenox residence named Highlawn built by Reverend Cook three years earlier. [12] Uncle Frances Dorr was a bachelor whom his nephew recalled "pruning trees [that] bordered the beautiful great lawn while I stood beside him." After mid-day dinner he would show me his wonderful cuckoo-clock, brought back from Paris and give me a tiny sip of the famous green Chartreuse" (Dorr Papers, children of S. Dorr, ver. 2). His brother George (yes, the namesake for the Father of Acadia) was a widower, both living there for the remainder of their lives during the summer months (frequently joined there by their half-brother Charles, his sister Susan, and Martha Ann Dorr. Friends of Charles Sedgwick, each appear to have treasured Highlawn and in the early years Highlawn and Highwood households intermingled. The Father of Acadia later wrote that this "joint home [was] on a beautiful hilltop looking north to Greylock up the Berkshire Valley, south across sunlit pasture lands and orchards to Laurel Lake, and eastward to the deep cut below the Housatonic River" (Dorr Papers, children of S. Dorr, 8). In roughly 1890 George Dorr inherited this enlarged estate-and perhaps his uncles landscaping and gardening skills-leasing it for more than a decade. Sam Ward wrote twice to his sister Mary in 1900 praising her "vigor" in going to Lenox "to put [Highlawn] in order in preparation for new tenants." (TWW Papers, MHS, B3.f.29). Mary died in late October 1901 and her surviving son sold the 14-bedroom structure to Robert Paterson who razed it; on the Highlawn grounds in 1904 he built today's Blantyre. [13] As Nine Page 5 points out, "proceeds from the sale" provided the funds for a series of land purchases which form the park on Mount Desert Island. Back in Boston, the death of Thomas Wren Ward prompted the start of relocation of the Dorr family first to Park Street and then in 1863 to the other side of the Common where a new five story townhouse on impressive Commonwealth Avenue awaited them. [14] [15] Through these repeated Berkshire sojourns, Dorr witnessed on both sides of his family the changes that more than a half-century of Berkshire living had wrought, what Richard Birdsall called a weakening of the insularity of the early 19th-century "self-contained" culture (Berkshire County, 1959). Fostered by isolation, Birdsall stressed that these hill towns scattered among a thousand square miles lacked "any broad margin of wealth and leisure." This would change over the next generation as families after the Civil War were succeeded by even more affluent families than the Wards and Dorrs with a heighted interest in displaying their wealth. Immediately after the War, the Dorr's first journeyed Downeast to coastal Maine. In 1868 Dorr's parents, Charles and Mary, purchased a hundred acre parcel of undeveloped farmland on Frenchman Bay just a mile from the Bar Harbor village green. College for both sons and an extended four year stay in Europe following George's graduation from Harvard, delayed construction of the Dorr Oldfarm mansion and outbuildings until 1880. [16] By the early 1890's, Dorr concluded that the heyday of the Lenox cottagers was nearing its end and that Bar Harbor-pioneered two decades later than Lenox-would follow course. [17] A novel idea was born among the earliest families. [18] Drawing upon an idea published in 1889 in Garden and Forest, the landscape architect son of Harvard's president and future partner to Frederick Law Olmsted, argued that this Page I 6 tide in Maine of mid-coastal private estate development threatened the very values that drew visitors and summer people to the island in the first place. Charles Eliot proposed that parcels of land be acquired by a corporate body, protected by legal constraints, and preserved in perpetuity. Contrary to the American imperative of privatization, the trustees of this organization intended its landscape holdings to be publically accessible. [19] A movement began in metropolitan Boston as well to create around the city center a contiguous system of public green space (called today the Emerald Necklace). Eliot's articles also advocated the establishment in 1891 of the Trustees of Reservations, the world's first land trust. [20] On Mount Desert Island, [21] Eliot's father in August 1901 brought together the village path committee chairmen in [22] the Seal Harbor Music Room. Using the Massachusetts Trustees model, [23] the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations was incorporated. In the only book authored by the park founder, [24] Dorr refers to the 1908 Trustee land acquisition of a deep island shoreline ravine and mountain slope. [25] "For this I went to my friends of old New York and Lenox days, Mr. and Mrs. John Innes Kane [a grandson of John Jacob Astor], who had then recently, following the death of her father, William Schermerhorn, became summer residents at Bar Harbor, as had Mrs. Kane's older sister, Mrs. William Bridgham, and her husband lovers of our woodland walks and mountain climbs. [Their gift] is the finest climb of such character on the Island." [Dorr, ANP, 12] [26] After securing this 467-acre gorge and south slope of Kebo mountain donation, the Kanes traveled to the Lenox home of Anne Kane's father, sited next door to this library (Automobile Topics, 16, #4, 9/10/1908, pg. 1643). Kane was a HCTPR member and chairman of the BHVIA Path Committee immediately prior to his death in 1913.[27] Here again, the Page I 7 establishment of the several island village improvement societies had its inspiration in the Stockbridge Laurel Hill Association. In memory of her husband, Annie Kane further financed the first of six island memorial trails established between 1913 and 1916 with funds from summer residents. [28] This inaugural park memorial path was "an important part of the projected system of paths from the Village through the Great Meadow and the Harden Farm district to the mountains" (See M.C. Brown, Pathmakers, 67-68, 222). [29] Annie and her sister later enlisted the help of Beatrix Farrand in the design of the rustic Kane and Bridgham Memorial Bridge on another parcel of land they donated. Dorr envisioned these memorials "as a part of a plan to enhance the public reservation and improve its eligibility for designation as a federal property" (Brown, 67). To illustrate the beauty of this acquisition, Dorr presented photos of the nearly mile long Kane Path to President Woodrow Wilson immediately before his establishment of the Sieur de Monts National Monument. Lenox relationships also came to the fore when Dorr's acquaintance with the Morris K. Jesup family became an opportunity for island cultural improvement. [30] Their Rotch & Tilden Belvoir Terrace residence is well known beyond Lenox. While Edith Wharton supported the Lenox Library Association, Dorr championed the idea of establishing in Bar Harbor its first public library. Not only did the Jesups own property in Bar Harbor, New York banker Jesup had been "prominent" in the Bar Harbor YMCA and VIA. [31] Dorr approached Mrs. Jesup and asked her to buy the Cottage Street land adjacent to the village green as a first step in securing funds for a public library. Maria Jesup not only agreed to cover the property expense but offered to build the library in her husband's memory; later she provided-at Dorr's insistence--an endowment to support it. [32] Trustee visionary Charles W. Eliot later wrote that "Dorr imagined, engineered and [brought the Page I 8 Jesup Memorial Library to fruition]" in 1911. [33] [34] Dorr was a strong advocate of learning and later used his own funds to establish a Jesup memorial path [35] which ran from downtown Bar Harbor to the Tarn at the base of Dorr Mountain. Another better known Berkshire-MDI connection revolved around the family of George Washington Vanderbilt, most widely celebrated as the creator of the Biltmore Estate. [36] Dorr and Edith Wharton accepted his November 1902 holiday invitation to his Asheville estate in the select company of 16 other formally attired guests feted with a ten course meal in America's largest private home. [37] Vanderbilt had a long standing Bar Harbor relationship with Dorr and-like John Kane-- was a member of the Hancock County land trust. [38] He too had an estate on Mount Desert Island, Point d'Acadie, a short walk from both Edith's [Jones] family property at Reef Point [39] and Dorr's Oldfarm estate. [40] Vanderbilt hired Olmsted to develop the Biltmore gardens according to principles that made Central Park such a success. [41] In spite of the impoverished land, [42] Olmsted created a masterpiece that would take years to fully mature. [43] [44] Vanderbilt and Dorr shared a command and appreciation of languages and a commitment to development of protecting publically accessible reservations once they had been secured from private ownership. How well Dorr knew Vanderbilt's sister, Florence Sloane, a Lenox resident at Elm Court, I cannot say.[45] But that the daughter of the couple who commissioned the building of Elm Court, Emily Vanderbilt Sloan, was a Bar Harbor guest of Dorr is verified by an August 1895 signed poem that Emily wrote in the Oldfarm guestbook. (On the Sloane family, see chapter six of Nini Gilder's Edith Wharton's Lenox). As Dorr wrote to Dr. Eliot, the trip to the estate also provided an opportunity to use Biltmore as a home base for Dorr's ascent-with FLO Jr. and Harvard geomorphology professor William Morris Davis- of nearby 6,684-foot Mt. Mitchell. His motive? "To see something of the Page 9 forest region" around the highest peak in eastern North America, well recognizing that lessons learned could be applied to Mount Desert which laid claim to the highest mountain on the Atlantic seacoast between Nova Scotia and Brazil. [46] Another Bar Harbor Dorr friend was U.S. Forest Service director Gifford Pinchot who had been employed by Vanderbilt at Biltmore prior to his elevation as a significant figure in Teddy Roosevelt's Tennis Cabinet. [47] In 1892 he not only laid the foundations for the forest service but was "enmeshed [at Biltmore] in a large-scale aesthetic experiment intended to reconcile nature and culture, the wild and the civilized" (Chad Miller, Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism 2001, p. 102). [48] Dorr's frequent interactions in Bar Harbor and at Pinchot's Grey Towers home, provided Dorr with abundant evidence that Biltmore was a grand scheme for a new form of land management. The United States was better "known for its rapid and unrestrained exploitation of natural resources" than their sustainable development, " a lesson Dorr adapted to the Acadian shoreline. [49] Similarly, architect Guy Lowell worked on projects in three communities where Dorr had strong attachments. Dorr chaired a Harvard committee that influenced the hiring of Lowell to design a new structure in the Harvard Yard.[50 Commemorating the 1903 centennial of the birth of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emerson Hall housed its prestigious philosophers-James, Palmer, Munsterberg, Santayana, and Royce.; the first academic building ever dedicated to the discipline of philosophy. Back in Lenox, the John Alexandre Kemble Street cottage, Spring Lawn, was designed by Lowell in 1904. And a year later, Dorr hired Lowell to construct in Bar Harbor a Parthenon-like performance structure called in the Building of the Arts. [51] George Vanderbilt and John Innes Kane joined Dorr in financing this cultural institution, the site in 1916 for addresses celebrating the establishment of the park. Page I 10 In this intermingling of Bar Harbor and Lenox families, it is also notable that Dorr also directed foreign visitors to his Lenox acquaintances. [52] In October of 1906, Yorkshire artist George Howard (the ninth Earl of Carlisle) visited Dorr in Boston with his Cambridge-educated twenty- five year old daughter, Dorothy-- their first visit to America. [53] Three decades earlier, the Howards opened their homes to the Dorrs for an extended stay when tragedy befell Dorr's only sibling. [54] After several days in Boston at Dorr's residence with luncheons arranged with Harvard president Eliot and other friends in the literary community, Dorr put together an itinerary for the two which included a stay with the Tappan & Dixey family members. On Tanglewood letterhead stationary, Dorothy Howard wrote of how delightful had been their stay with the Dixeys in this "very beautiful country." Dorothy's remarks emphasized that "the Dixey's have been kindness itself. [and] I don't wish to move on from here any more than I did from Boston, [for] the country has looked beautiful, especially after a night of snow"(10/30/06). [55] One week later the Earl; of Carlisle wrote to Dorr from New York City "that we have prospered, very much, owing to your introductions I told you, I think, how much we enjoyed Lenox and liked the Dixey family," before thanking Dorr for his Washington DC introductions to art historian Leigh Harrison Hunt as well as the Pinchot and Holmes families (11/8/06).[56] I mention this not only because his unpublished correspondence with this family over nearly forty years best reveals the inner life of the Dorr family than any other source-but because with all of America available as travel destinations, Dorr directed the recently elevated 9th Earl of Carlisle to Lenox, revealing again Dorr's affection for its beauty, historic associations, and abiding family relationships. Yet the largest clutch of correspondence related to Dorr's Lenox friends and acquaintances is held by Yale University. Of course, this is the Edith Wharton Collection at the Beinecke which includes only her replies to Dorr and not his correspondence to her-which is not extant. After Page I 11 Wharton's departure from Biltmore she wrote to Dorr-the first of ten surviving Lenox letters-expressing hope that she and Teddy might be able to accept Dorr's dinner invitation at his Boston home.[58] We know that Dorr and Wharton were endlessly fascinated by garden design; here we see children enjoying the gardens at the newly established Sieur de Monts National Monument. Both were well attuned to the rich Berkshire literary history in which Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Melville, James Russell Lowell, Hawthorne, Catharine Sedgwick and others had their creativity nurtured by the Berkshire hills ( Bernard A. Drew, Literary Luminaries of the Berkshires, 2915). Wharton wrote that The Mount "stimulating my creative zeal" providing "the joys of six or seven months a year among fields and woods of my own...and the childhood ecstasy of that deep communion with the earth." (B.G., 124f.) One can only wonder whether their conversations reached such sophisticated heights. The fullest account of literary views of the Berkshire physical landscape is found in Mallery's Lenox and the Berkshire Highlands (1902). After considerable research, the significance of the Berkshire environment to the personal and professional life of Dorr and Wharton remains opaque. What is clear, is that Mount Desert Island offers nothing comparable to the Berkshire literary pantheon. Following the first Biltmore visit, the Wharton-Dorr correspondence was renewed in the summer of 1904 when Dorr stopped at The Mount enroute to a the largely unexplored eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains, south of Yosemite. [59] We are fortunate to have Dorr's 10,000-word typescript account of this exceptional journey at a time when the Sierra Club had just begun its explorations of the 14,000 foot Mt. Whitney region where Dorr's horticultural explorations were concentrated. Later he would pass through national parks on the Continental Divide enroute to mountaineering the Canadian Rockies. These travels provided him Page I 12 with park building models for the challenges to be faced on the Maine coast. [60] After his departure, Wharton wrote to him at his Boston residence that he had left behind one of his books on her terrace. She thanked him for "so many fruitful ideas that I often feel you are not really gone, and must be somewhere about ready to answer the new questions." [61] She wrote enthusiastically that her gardener was about to lay out "my future wild garden," and that she had named a new garden path for Mr. Dorr, the only named path at The Mount. Her admiration for Dorr's adventurous spirit is conspicuously evident when she trivializes her endeavors by comparing her "pigmy planting" against Dorr's current "explorations" of "the giant boles of the redwoods." (See my article in Edith Wharton and the American Garden, 2009). Later that year she expressed delight at the prospect of another visit with him for she is "so interested to hear about [your] explorations." Both were guests at Biltmore again in late 1905 but their visits did not overlap. Lest it seem that their relationship is narrowly circumscribed by gardening, Wharton writes in January 1906 that she looks forward to "good talks on horticulture, free-will and predestination," topics that bound both of them to the James family. [62] There are additional unfulfilled invitations where Teddy Wharton expresses earnest interest is revisiting with Dorr the Bar Harbor of past and present. [63] William James and his family had been frequent guests for extended periods at Oldfarm. Dorr's visit to the Mount is the last to that site I have been able to document and if there was correspondence after 1907, it is no longer extant. Wharton's reaction to Dorr's advice at the Mount about flora appropriate for a wild garden was applied in coastal Maine park landscape Page 13 development, in the layering of wild garden species far more likely to prosper in a coastal habitat. [64] On the issue of horticultural alliances between Dorr and her niece-- after Beatrix received title in 1917 to Reef Point-this is unfortunately a topic poorly documented, unlike the extensive field notes kept by Farrand in her carriage road consultations with John D. Rockefeller Jr. Similarly we have no evidence that Farrand and Dorr interacted at The Mount. [65] Both were influenced by Dorr's cousin, Arnold Arboretum director Charles Sprague Sargent. What is not subject to conjecture is Farrand's esteem for Dorr's achievements, as documented at length in her 1917 National Geographic article on Mount Desert. Despite their common horticultural, family, and travel interests, Dorr's relationship to his environment is strikingly different from that of Mrs. Wharton. She fancies garden walks and entertaining automobile rides while Dorr is an outdoorsman, a hiker, a mountaineer who ventures throughout his life into the wilds in ways alien to-and with motives different from-- his host at the Mount. Admittedly, the Berkshires were not as grand or elevated as what Dorr encountered in Wales, Europe, Canada, California, and North Carolina.[66] These western Massachusetts hills, however, were topographically comparable to Mount Desert-though in extent Berkshire county is nearly ten times the size of MDI. The most striking difference is that its "noble masses [in Maine] look down on the vast ocean plain, the ceaseless breaking of the surf upon its rocky shores, the vegetation clothing it with a wealth of species to the water's edge [in] its sea-girt isolation" ("Acadia, the Seacoast Park," Home Geographic Monthly, July 1932). [67] In the final decade of his life, Dorr listed "Newport in the early days" and "Lenox and the Berkshires in the early days" as topics to be drafted. Unfortunately, neither essay was undertaken. Yet as he neared his eightieth birthday he composed a ten page essay on his childhood years Page I 14 in Canton, just west of Boston and near his Jamaica Plain birthplace. [68] It was my good fortunate that I pursued scattered references to his close relationship with Mr. & Mrs. William C. Endicott Jr. I requested the MHS archivists to bring me the Endicott Family Papers where I uncovered therein a 2,500 word unattributed essay on "Country Home at Canton." Not only did the Endicott's not own a home there, the stylistic and biographical evidence that I presented to the Society convinced them to credit the essay to the Father of Acadia. When we digest the content, new insights emerge. Shortly after the Highwood sale, Sam Ward acquired twenty acres in Canton on Pleasant Street next to a larger estate that his father had purchased in 1854. After his father's death in 1858, Sam purchased that lot and his brother in law-Charles H. Dorr-- acquired Sam's Canton property (now a community center called Pequitside Farm). [69] Nearly six decades after the 83 acres was sold. Dorr visited the former Ward compound in May 1938 with his second cousin, Louisa Thoron Endicott (1864-1958). She had been married to William C. Endicott Jr. in 1889 here at Oakwood, her grandfather Sam's estate) (see Philadelphia Inquirer, 10/3/1889). Canton was more often a retreat for the family following trips to Lenox where "my Dorr relations use to [also] grow [Bosque, Bartlett, and Sickle pears] equally well" [as my grandmother Ward in Canton]. The Canton wildflowers he reports were "less numerous in variety and species than at Lenox," revealing again Dorr's tendency to associate one location with the other. Dorr speaks extensively about the origin of his fascination with bird behavior, reflecting that their avian activities "were a greater influence than any [formal]schooling in the development of the mind and character [of my brother and me]." Relevant to Lenox is his claim that "these spring[times] at Canton were a great education, Page 15 teaching us to love the country and the wilderness about us without the need of company." Dorr authored many published essays on the significance of developing national parks. When one studies these essays for indications of Berkshire influences on the national park in Maine, one is impressed by evidence to the contrary. That is, the identification of one natural characteristic not present here. It is the seascape distinction mentioned earlier: "[Mount Desert] is the only national park land offering to its visitor the refreshment, the ever-varying interest and beauty and the limitless expanses of the ocean." Its seaward-facing granite hills, "extraordinarily mountainous in character and wonderful in variety," afford visitors the highest view of the eastern seaboard north of Brazil, "a sight few places in the world can parallel." At the time of its founding, it was the only sanctuary "lying along the ocean highway that gave rise to the first settlement of the country." Beyond geographical, topographical, and aesthetic distinctiveness, the shore environment abounds in life rich with interest to the marine biologist as well as those who seek to optimize our sea-food resources. Dorr further made the case that island vegetation gave it a botanical distinctiveness not duplicated elsewhere-and who knew what further scientific exploration of the marine life might disclose-and here he surely underestimated the cumulative biological and medical benefits developed in the MDIBL [70] and the Jackson Laboratory [71], both scientific institutions derived from Dorr's philanthropy. Dorr repeatedly emphasized that despite its remoteness, "the sheer beauty" of MDI caused visitation and settlement to increase "by leaps and bounds." As was true of Lenox, on the Maine coast "life was gay and free and wholly out of doors-boating, climbing, picnicking, buck- boarding, and sitting on the rocks with book or friend the summer visitor possessed the Island." ("Our Seacoast National Park," Page 16 Appalachia, 1920). This context was "the impulse [from which] the movement for public reservations and the national park arose, springing from memory of its pleasantness and the desire to preserve in largest measure possible, the beauty and freedom of the Island for the people's need." Given this context, why did the Berkshires not generate a movement for federally protected public land? A worthy topic. To conclude. Certain human achievements are conspicuous because we can clearly trace their causes; most, however, have influences that are not clearly discernable. The Berkshire county contribution to Dorr's efforts on MDI are of the latter sort. No evidence has been found of a dominant influence without which the park building experiment would have failed. Instead, the evidence supports the importance of the Kane, Jesup, Vanderbilt, and Wharton families in providing Dorr with unanticipated opportunities. Similarly, the generation of relatives that preceded Dorr to the Berkshires could not foresee that their pioneering of the Lenox cottage industry would provide Dorr with stewardship models that would be applied to what Wharton might have characterized as a one hundred square mile coastal Maine "watering hole." Inspired by his Berkshire sojourns, Dorr's actions were risky in a way we can little imagine today. Conservation was still in its infancy. Teddy Roosevelt was just becoming known as a conservation pioneer. Securing congressional approval for the establishment of a national park was rarely successful-and had never been achieved for landscape east of the Mississippi. Even with the liberating authority of the 1906 Antiquities Act, the federal government had not established the management apparatus for its conservation policies. No one in the Department of the Interior had the national parks as their responsibility-there was no National Park Service. Legal standards for the sale, exchange, or disposal of public lands were not yet formed. When faced with Dorr's gift of 5,000 acres of land in 1915, congressmen were at wits end about the sanity of this prospective donor. Page I 17 We must credit the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the Trustees of Reservations with providing George Dorr and Charles W. Eliot with a model that could be coupled with the special coastal Maine conditions- and taken in new directions. At the turn of the century, Dorr's risky park building project was coupled to a community four hundred miles distant. Lenox whispered to him about the days when this community was coming of age and opportunities seemed endless. The hills of western Massachusetts should take a bow for helping to define Dorr's character as well as the institutions and protected landscapes of Mount Desert Island. [72] Thank you. I look forward to your comments and questions. : Letox Talk Oct. 21, 2018 SLIDE LIST 1. Bar Harbor map 2. S. G.Ward. 3. Highwood plan by Upjohn. 4. Park Street from State House to #3 5. Boston Common 6. Anna Barker Hozard Wood 7. Jamaica Pond and Dorr residence 8. R.W. Eversoi's son, Edward. 9. Thomas Wien Ward 10. Oakwood 11. Highwood-Taralewood Vigitor Center. 12. Highlawn 13. Beacon Hill viceo of Back Bay, 1857. 14. Commonwealth Avenue, 1872. 15. 18 commonwealth. Dorr residence. 16. Oldform 17. Resticator plenic 18. Charles Eliot 19. Emerald Necklace 20. Harvard president Charles William Eliot (1869-1909) 21. Path Commetter at Eagle Lake 22 Music Room, Real Harbor site of first HCTPR meet. 23- HCTPR, 2nd ed. 24 G.B. DORR 25. Kane famely at Saranac have Talk Slide List 2. A6. Kane estate on Shore Path, Bar Herbor 27 Kane pleque: "A man of kindness who foundhis happiness 28. Mrs.Kane + 6BD in giving others pleasure 1913. 29. Kane Path at Tarn 30 Belvoir Terrace, herrox honce of M. Jeseep. 32. 6-B Dorr and cuarles W.Eliot, Jordan Pand. 31. lloors K. Jeoup 33. Jeseep Democial Library 34. Interior of Jesup M.L 35. Jesup Path. 36. Illustration of George W.Vandubilt and Edith V. 37. Edith Jones, 19 years. 38. Point d' headie Barttarber residence & Vansubilte. 34. Reef Point 40. F.L. Olnsted and C. Vary 41. Central Park illestration- 42. Ashville imporclighed Biltnore landscape. 43. F.L.O. at Biltwore 44. Biltmore gardens. 45. W.D.and Enily Sloan [Vandebilt]. 46. Gifford Pinishot 47. Pinchot quote 48. Grey Towers, Milford, PA. 49. Guy hawell, architect. 50. Everson Hall, Harvard University, 1905. sk Talk Slide List. 3. A Building of the Arts. 51. George and Roselind Howard, C. 1875. 1 2 52. E3 A George Howard, 9th Eal of Carlisle, daughter Dorothy. (900 53 Nowoorth Castle 55 A Housed Cadle, Youtzhere Brideshead Revisiled) 54. Dixey family-hosts of Lord Howard & daughter, 1906 56. 7 57. Edith Wharton 58. Streer be Mosts Spring gathering of children @ 1915. 59. Eastern SierraNevada lts. - lt. Whitney 60. Maine gov. P. Baxter and GBDorr climbing elt. Katahdin (2 61. The loreat and gaidees 62. William aid Henoy James 63. William Javes by Sarah Whitnea Wypear. 64 Beatrix Forrand 65. Chails Sprape Sayent, Accord Airoretun director. Cole. G.B.Daron Dar let. 67. G.B.Dorr at overlook of Jackson Laboratory 68. Carton map. 69. Louis a Thoron Endicott 70. MDIBL. 71. Jackson Labortary 72 Eyes CANP Want to learn more about Lenox history? Bryan, Clark W. The Book of Berkshire: Describing and Illustrating its Hills and Homes. North Egremont, MA : Past Perfect Books, 1993. Circulating copy at the Lenox Library: Nonfiction 917.441 Bryan Reference copy at the Lenox Library: Reference Office Nonfiction 917.441 Bryan Online edition at Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/bookofberkshired00brya Chague, Jan. History of Lenox Furnace and Lenox Dale. Lenox MA: privately printed, 2015. Available for sale at the Lenox Historical Society Reference copy at the Lenox Library: Reference Office Nonfiction 974.412 Chague Digital Commonwealth. Images from the Lenox Library archives and the Lenox Historical Society. Accessible through https://lenoxlib.org/local-resources/digital-commonwealth/ Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration of Massachusetts. The Berkshire Hills. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1939. Circulating copy at the Lenox Library: Nonfiction 917.441 Federal Reference copy at the Lenox Library: Reference Office Nonfiction 917.441 Federal Online edition at Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/berkshirehills00fede, Field, David D. A History of the County of Berkshire, Massachusetts, in Two Parts. Pittsfield, MA: S. .W. Bush, 1829. Reference copy at the Lenox Library: Reference Office Nonfiction 974.41 Field Online edition at Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/historyofcountyo00fiel Gilder, Cornelia Brooke, and Julia Conklin Peters. Hawthorne's Lenox: the Tanglewood Circle. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2008. Circulating copy at the Lenox Library: Nonfiction 974.412 Gilder Reference copy at the Lenox Library: Reference Office Nonfiction 974.412 Gilder Jackson, Richard S., and Cornelia Brooke Gilder. Houses of the Berkshires: 1870-1930. New York: Acanthus Press, 2011. Circulating copy at the Lenox Library: Nonfiction 974.41 Jackson Reference copy at the Lenox Library: Reference Desk 974.41 Jackson Kennedy, Lucy. Lenox at 250: An Updated History. Kindle ebook, 2016. Available for sale at Amazon.com Lenox Library Association. Images of America: Lenox. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2016. Available for sale at the Lenox Library and The Bookstore Reference copy at the Lenox Library: Reference Office Nonfiction 974.412 Lenox Mallary, R. DeWitt. Lenox and the Berkshire Highlands. New York: G.P. Putnam's sons, 1902. Circulating copy at the Lenox Library: Nonfiction 917.4412 Mallary Reference copy at the Lenox Library: Reference Desk 917.4412 Mallary Online edition at Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/lenoxberkshirehi00mall One Hundredth Anniversary of the Founding of Lenox Academy. Pittsfield, MA: Sun Printing Company, 1905. Circulating copy at the Lenox Library: Nonfiction 974.412 Lenox Reference copy at the Lenox Library: Reference Office Nonfiction 974.412 Lenox Online edition at Internet Archive:https://archive.org/details/onehundredthanni00leno Owens, Carole. The Berkshire Cottages: a Vanishing Era. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Cottage Press, 1984. Circulating copy at the Lenox Library: Nonfiction 974.41 Owens Reference copy at the Lenox Library: Reference Desk 974.41 Owens Owens, Carole. The Berkshires: Coach Inns to Cottages. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2004. Circulating copy at the Lenox Library: Nonfiction 974.41 Owens Reference copy at the Lenox Library: Reference Office Nonfiction 974.41 Owens Seaman, Judy. Lenox Through the Years 1767-2017. DVD, color, 1 hour 56 mins. Available for sale at The Bookstore Tucker, George H. A History of Lenox. Lenox, MA: Lenox Library Association, 1992. Circulating copy at the Lenox Library: Nonfiction 974.412 Tucker Reference copy at the Lenox Library: Reference Desk 974.412 Tucker Wood, David H. Lenox: Massachusetts Shire Town. Lenox MA: Published by the Town, 1969. Circulating copy at the Lenox Library: Nonfiction 974.412 Wood Reference copy at the Lenox Library: Reference Desk 974.412 Wood Yudkin, Jeremy. The Lenox School of Jazz: A Vital Chapter in the History of American Music and Race Relations. South Egremont, MA: Fashaw, 2006. Available for sale at the Lenox Library Circulating copy at the Lenox Library: MUSIC Nonfiction 781.65 Yudkin Reference copy at the Lenox Library: Reference Office Nonfiction 781.65 Yudkin 9/26/2018 Xfinity Connect Inbox RE: Lenox Library Lecture Series Amy Lafave 2:44 PM To Jeremy Yudkin, Ronald Epp Copy Christy Cordova Dear Dr. Epp: I understand that you emailed my information librarian for reassurance that you would have technical support for your Distinguished Lecture powerpoint, and were dismayed at my inattentiveness to your inital query to me. Here is my response to you below, which I am embarrassed to say was in my Drafts, and not sent, as I believed to be the case. My apologies. Dear Ron: I am looking forward to your talk! I waitressed at Blantyre to put myself through undergrad many years ago, so the Dorr property is a familiar one. Our laptop is a Window 7 vintage; it will take your flash drive. There is a remote for the projector, but I have not been always successful in getting it to talk to the laptop. So Jeremy's suggestion of coming a little early is a good idea. I have operated the laptop, taking cues from the presenter, as a last resort. The [corded] microphone is plugged into a podium, but it has its own stand, and can be taken off the holder if you wish to walk a bit. Glad to hear you don't want to "cross your fingers and hope for the best" when it comes to technology. Amy Lafave The Jim Chervenak Library Director Lenox Library 18 Main St., Lenox MA 01240 413-637-2630 x121 All email messages and attached content sent from and to this email account are public records unless qualified as an exemption under the Massachusetts Public Records Law. From: Jeremy Yudkin [mailto:yudkinjaf@gmail.com] Sent: 2018 8:48 AM 8/28/2018 Xfinity Connect Inbox Re: Mr. Dorr & A.F. Oakey Cornelia Gilder 9:10 PM To Ronald & Elizabeth Epp 1 attachment View Open in browser Download Aha Alexander Forbes Oakey! I have quite a fat file on him because I have been interested in the Lenox connection. He was born in 1851 and died in San Francisco in 1916. He seems to have a very colorful life and I really wish I knew more. In his mid-twenties he bought the lot on the corner of Sunset and Yokun Ave in Sept 1875 and went into debt building a house (preumsably on speculation). The Deputy Sheriff threatened him in 1877 and 1878 with jail time in Pittsfield, but he seems to have managed to elude that. The house he began was later reworked by McKim for another client. One house in Lenox he designed for Ellen Shaw and General Francis Channing Barlow in 1876 survives today opposite Ventfort Hall. (1885 picture attached) In the 1880s he was practicing in New York City but there are indications of some scandalous affair. Emma Lazarus gossiped with Henry James in a letter in 1885 that "Aleck" Oakey claims to be in Venice but is actually living in Newark, NJ. Anyway, his family seems to have frequented Lenox. I have a letter from an S. Oakey (possibly mother or sister both were Sarahs) to John Sargent (next door neighbor of the Dorrs) congratulating him of his 80th Birthday at this time. Anyway Oakey moved to California in 1889 and by the time he died in 1916 was described as an upholder of "one of the finest traditions of his profession with a dignity and distinction in striking contrast to the rough and ready methods so generally prevalent heretofore in the West." It also says he designed the Villa Mattei near Rome and a mansion in Santiago, Chile. He seems to have gotten around! Nini On Tue, Aug 28, 2018 at 5:21 PM Ronald Epp < eppster2@comcast.net> wrote: Hi Nini, I have been scrutinizing online Lenox historic maps, specifically the 1876 Berkshire County map which shows an A.F. Oakey property on Sunset Street. His residence? 8/22/2018 Xfinity Connect Re_Mr_Dorr in Lenox Printout Cornelia Gilder 8/21/2018 9:06 AM Re: Mr. Dorr in Lenox To Ronald & Elizabeth Epp Hello Ron, Good to hear from you, and I will put my mind to transferring the images you'sd like to use. The Edith Wharton's Lenox ones are well organized on my Dropbox, but I am not sure about the Hawthorne's Lenox one. I'll spend a little time on this. Meanwhile here are a few ones I can send directly including several from the wonderful Jay family album from 1898-9 I was lent by William Patten. It includes a picture of the Schermerhorn house in Newport (quite modest and similar to Pinecroft). Also attached is a picture from the Lenox Library I nearly used in EWL of the 50th Anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. William Schermerhorn at Hillside in Lenox (a house they were renting from Grace Kuhn). I have tried to work out who everyone is because Nannie Wharton was at the party as are both the Kanes. I'd be glad to have lunch with you before your talk on Oct 21. To be continued on the photos Nini On Mon, Aug 20, 2018 at 11:56 AM Ronald Epp < eppster2@comcast.net> wrote: Hi Nini, In case you have wondered about the status of my talk to the Lenox Library Association, I have completed several drafts for my October 21st talk and now need to whittle away at the length. Your offer to share images for my presentation is most generous. The images from Hawthorne's Lenox that would be useful are from pages 24, 26, 28, 62, 78, and 79. Similarly, from Edith Wharton's Lenox the images from pages 13, 35, 55, 56, and 83. I wonder whether you have any images not used in your books relating to Charles Sedgwick, John Innes Kane and other Schermerhorn relatives (especially Annie Cottenet Schermerhorn Kane), Morris and Maria Jesup, Richard and Ellen Tappan Dixey, and Florence or Emily Vanderbilt Sloane, XFINITY Connect Sent Re: G.B. Dorr & Distinquished Lecture Series, Lenox Library Association Ronald Epp 12:50 PM To Cornelia Gilder Hi Nini, I just placed an order for your most recent book since I cannot proceed to prepare for my talk until I have read it. Over the past six weeks I have been deeply engaged in research for my talk, neglecting duties--without regret--of getting settled here in my new home. I have traveled back to the 1840's and Samuel and Anna Ward's bold move, to the Dorr purchase in 1853 of Highlawn, and eventually ending with the Dorr-Wharton letters prior to her sale of the Mount. I've re-read our correspondance over the last fifteen years. My talk a decade ago focused on what influence Dorr brought from Mount Desert island to Lenox, whereas now I've turned this on its head and asked whether Lenox influenced Dorr's career as a park developer. I am thinking of titling the talk: "Edith Wharton's Path to Acadia National Park" or "Lenox Influences on the Father of Acadia National Park". The first strikes me as too specific; the second allows me to pull in six decades of scant information on his Berkshire visits, including Ward and Dorr family residences that you cover so well in Hawthorne's Lenox. Still working on the title and the scope of the talk. Your thoughts would be much appreciated. Whether I do a slide presentation is up in the air since I have very few suitable images for the content. I will delay my May 22 visit to Lenox until I have worked through your book and made arrangements to look at documentation at the Lenox Library ( do you suggest that Amy Lefave is the best point of contact?) Library. Best, Ron Ronald H. Epp, Ph.D. 7 Peachtree Terrace Farmington, CT 06032 603-491-1760 eppster2@comcast.net On April 11, 2018 at 9:57 AM Cornelia Gilder wrote: Dear Ron, So glad to here about the prospect of you speaking about George B. Dorr at the Lenox Library! I have pencilled that in for Sunday October 21, and also May 22 would be great for lunch together. We could talk about images then. You don't need any permission to use any of the images I might have from Hawthorne's Lenox for a powerpoint program (only for publication) so no worry about that. Nice to think of you settled in Farmington! Keep in touch as your May plan becomes firmer. Nini On Mon, Apr 9, 2018 at 5:01 PM, Ronald Epp wrote: Hi Nini, I hope you and yours are faring well. I passed along a suggestion you made to me several years ago about the Lenox Library Lecture Series and received an invitation today from professor Yudkin (see below). I will accept the first date, my 76th birthday. I would be so very pleased if you could attend. https://connect.xfinity.com/appsuite/#!!&app=io.ox/mail&folder=default0//qj%7Bo5Xlp%7D 2/5