The Mount." Edith Wharton and the "Wild Gardens and Pa th Rways at American Garden. Lenox: 2009. WILD GARDENS AND PATHWAYS AT THE MOUNT: GEORGE B. DORR AND THE MOUNT DESERT ISLAND INFLUENCE RONALD H. Epp T he Beinecke Library at Yale University contains a handful of Edith Wharton letters to pioneer conservationist and horticulturist George Bucknam Dorr (1853-1944). 1 This correspondence is commonly passed over by scholars. 2 The ten Wharton letters written between 1902 and 1907 are unremarkable when isolated from the richly diverse social context of the Gilded Age. They are remarkable if attention is given to previously unrecognized interactions between the Dorr and Jones families that began twenty years earlier in Bar Harbor, Maine, where Wharton's brother and sister-in- law Frederic and Mary Jones summered. Furthermore, the connection of the Dorr family with Lenox, Massachusetts-site of Wharton's own summer house-tracks back another fifty years to the era of Catharine Sedgwick and Fanny Kemble. 3 The Wharton correspondence to Dorr ranges in length from a few sentences to several hundred words. All but two letters were written during an eighteen-month period between September 1904 and February 1906. Some specialists might describe them as technical, narrowly focused on Wharton's solicitations of Dorr's horticultural expertise. Yet this is not inconsequential, for The Mount's garden historian, Betsy Anderson, indicated on a recent site inspection that there is little evidence of Wharton's use of expert landscaping advice outside her family. Unfortunately, no correspondence from Dorr to Wharton has survived. There has been no inquiry into the connection between the location and naming of gardens and paths at The Mount and Dorr's professional and cultural life on Mount Desert Island. What character traits did he bring to the table in relating to Wharton that encouraged her to invite him repeatedly to her home? What motivated her to involve this little-known Boston Brahmin in her wild gardening? Wharton's letters to Dorr refer frequently to a path at The Mount named for him. Why would she choose to honor him in this way? It is intriguing that Dorr left us no documentation of his relationship with her, especially since his advice to Wharton is the only recorded case of his engaging in a horticultural consultancy removed from Mount Desert Island. Many of these questions will never be resolved since, following his death in 1944, the National Park Service disposed of most of the contents of the Bar Harbor estate that he had gifted to the government. However, in 2006 new primary evidence for the Dorr-Jones family relationship came to light. Both families developed their Bar Harbor properties in the 1880s, and their social interactions are 75 RONALD H. EPP recorded in a guest book kept by the Dorr family at their cottage called Oldfarm. For more than sixty years the Bar Harbor Historical Society Museum displayed this document, yet preservation restrictions prohibited scholarly access until 2004 when the entries were inventoried as part of my biographical research on Dorr as the founder and first superintendent of Acadia National Park (1916-44). The garden concepts of the park founder were framed by generations of family gardening in Salem, Massachusetts, prior to the family's relocation to Boston following the Revolutionary War. The importance of household gardens is repeatedly expressed in the surviving manuscripts of Dorr's maternal grandfather, Harvard College treasurer and renowned banker Thomas Wren Ward (1786-1858). His son Samuel Gray Ward (1817-1907), frequently identified as the first Lenox cottager, "had a passion for gardening and manfully ploughed and planted in the beautiful surroundings of Lenox." The Maine coastline dominated Dorr's later life, Boston and the European continent were the focus of his middle years, but the countryside in Lenox and outside Boston shaped his childhood. While the family townhouse adjacent to Boston Common afforded little opportunity for extensive gardening, young George spent summers in country homes in Jamaica Plain, Canton, Nahant, and Lenox where his interests in gardening and birding were encouraged and the nearby woods afforded him pathways for exploration. At that time many Boston Brahmins looked beyond Newport and Nahant for scenic stimulation and recreational opportunities. Mount Desert Island had been celebrated by Hudson River School artists prior to the Civil War, and increasingly word spread about the beauty of Frenchman Bay, Figure 1. Compass Harbor, Frenchman Bay, Mount Desert Island. Photograph courtesy of the National Park Service, Acadia National Park's William Otis Sawtelle Collections and Research Center. 76 WILD GARDENS AND PATHWAYS AT THE MOUNT Figure 2. George B. Dorr, Harvard College, 1874. Photograph courtesy of the National Park Service, Acadia National Park's William Otis Sawtelle Collections and Research Center. the uniquely colored mountains towering over the deepest fiord in North America, and the primeval old-growth forests. The Dorrs were captivated and in 1868 purchased more than a hundred acres of Bar Harbor woodland fronting the bay (figure 1). o At Harvard College Dorr received no specialized instruction in botany. Like his elder stepcousin Charles Sprague Sargent Dorr possessed exceptional botanical aptitude derived from an amalgam of family values, wide reading, and extensive field experience-a not uncommon lineage at the time.7 He also acknowledged the "unsurpassed" influence of landscape designer Andrew Jackson Downing, crediting to him the "foresight [for] our present American system of broad free municipal parks" incorporating picturesque precepts that Dorr eventually applied on Mount Desert Island. After Dorr's graduation from Harvard College in 1874 (figure 2), he and his parents traveled abroad for several years, where much of their activity centered on visits to a great variety of European gardens. More than a dozen essays written by Dorr in his later life detail these visits to both modest and grand European gardens; not content with a mere tourist's acquaintance, Dorr's scholarly curiosity led him to pursue their historical origins and development. In those early years Dorr was most impressed with the simple gardens surrounding English cottages. The reason he offers for this preference is unambiguous and yet surprising for someone of his class: their modest efforts brought beauty into the monotony of their lives. Dorr describes the specific location that the family chose in 1878 for their new Mount Desert home, "[a] broad, flat top of an old sea-cliff, facing north to the long reach of Upper Frenchman Bay" (figure 3).° Few properties on the island offered such superb views, and the considerable water 77 11. LI Figure 3. George B. Dorr on the Mount Desert Island mountain bearing his name. Photograph courtesy of the National Park Service, Acadia National Park's William Otis Sawtelle Collections and Research Center. 78 WILD GARDENS AND PATHWAYS AT THE MOUNT frontage was cloaked in dense woods. Dorr repeatedly insists that the gardens at Oldfarm, initially developed by his mother, would not have come into being were it not for the effect on the family of the beautiful old English gardens and the remnants of the old English homes they visited. It is Dorr's sincerest conviction that the Oldfarm gardens, more than anything else, led him step by step to the founding of Acadia National Park. Mary Gray Ward Dorr (1820-1901) and her son modified the landscape, acquired local plant stock, and transplanted their hardy Massachusetts flowering shrubs and herbaceous plants to Mount Desert Island (figure 4). They were intent on experimenting to determine whether their relocated garden would adapt to local conditions. In 1883 Edith Wharton's brother Frederic Jones and his wife, Mary, purchased their original two-acre Bar Harbor property, Reef Point. The Jones family relationship with the Dorrs likely dates to this time when Edith Newbold Jones (later Wharton) joined her brother, sister-in-law, and niece, Beatrix, in Bar Harbor, rented a cottage, "mealed" at the Hotel des Isles, and explored the coast and mountainous terrain. Teddy Wharton was also in Bar Harbor that summer; it is probable that he and Dorr interacted since they had been Harvard College classmates ten years earlier. Figure 4. Entrance to Oldfarm from the southwest drive, Bar Harbor, Maine. Photograph courtesy of the National Park Service, Acadia National Park's William Otis Sawtelle Collections and Research Center. 79 RONALD H. EPP The Dorr and Jones family exercised leadership as charter members in the Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association. 10 It is not until July 1891, however, that we have confirmation of a certain level of "intimacy" between the families. That July Mary Cadwalader Jones pens a poem beside her signature in the Oldfarm guest book; twenty-year-old daughter Beatrix is a guest-perhaps only for dinner-the following September. Their most notable shared friends are the James brothers, Henry and William. For weeks at a time William, the famed Harvard philosophy professor, and his wife, Alice, are Oldfarm guests. 11 The social interaction between Oldfarm and Reef Point likely had an impact on the professional development of young Beatrix Jones, who would become the eminent landscape architect Beatrix Farrand. Although Dorr's influence on Farrand lies beyond the scope of this paper, the depth of Farrand's appreciation of Dorr is reflected in the 1917 article she wrote for Scribner's Magazine on "The National Park on Mount Desert Island." Here she refers to his decades of "unswerving and far- sighted devotion to the ultimate usefulness of the island" and that every Mount Desert Island visitor "owes a large share of his enjoyment to the clear vision, the wise development, and the self-sacrificing enthusiasm of [George Dorr]. "12 GARDENS - PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL We know that a rose garden lay to the northeast of Dorr's Oldfarm home screened by a rock ridge to the east that ran down to Compass Harbor. Cedar hedges enclosed garden aths-bordered by phlox, peonies, false Solomon's seal, gladioli, and golden lilies-that led visitors to huge vegetable gardens intermingled with fruit trees, all maintained for at least half a century. The local paper described the property as "one of the most attractive of the showplaces of the village," praising its wood-encircled, old-fashioned flower gardens as sufficiently diversified to "fit the taste of any flower lover." 13 What remains undocumented are the planting designs; the role of indigenous species; whether plantings enhanced scenic views; which species were native to the property; or whether artificial devices (for example, lighting or sculpture) were design elements-all matters that may have influenced his advice to Wharton. Dorr was not content to restrict himself to family gardening. The famous Boston flower shows, the woody plant experimentation at the Arnold Arboretum, and Sargent's Garden and Forest motivated him to start a business that reflected not only his values but those of his parents and grandparents. He established the first island nursery in 1896, converting more than thirty acres of adjacent Oldfarm property into the Mount Desert Nurseries. Although both Dorr and Sargent lacked formal instruction in the botanical sciences, they combined the horticulturist's interest in cultivated species with the botanist's research focus on wild plants, a "relatively rare combination" for the era. 14 By 1901 the Bar Harbor Record referred to the "immense scale on which this business is conducted," with plant stock shipped to the West Coast as well as meeting the demands of the burgeoning hotel and cottage communities. 15 Wharton surely heard about this expansion from her niece since Farrand's Mount Desert commissions utilized Dorr's plant stock. In subsequent years, greenhouse expansion and reconsideration of the purposes of a nursery anticipated what we today refer to as a garden center. The plans included a forty-eight-foot-long nursery gallery showcasing 80 WILD GARDENS AND PATHWAYS AT THE MOUNT Dorr's "unrivalled collection of photographs of the Wild National Parks of the West and a great many photographs of flowers.' "16 Unfortunately, the catastrophic island forest fire of 1947 laid ruin to scores of businesses-including Dorr's nurseries-and the cottage culture. WHARTON'S LETTERS TO DORR As we focus on the era of Wharton's letters to Dorr, the year 1901 proves particularly significant. Both lost their mother that year; the Whartons purchased farmland in Lenox to experience what she described as "the joys of six or seven months a year among fields and woods of my own";1 Wharton's early short story collection Crucial Instances was published; and Dorr became the central figure in an organized effort to conserve Mount Desert Island. Harvard University President Charles W. Eliot gathered together conservation-minded island residents to establish the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations, a group that included George W. Vanderbilt. 18 Dorr was both the Trustees' organizational executive and the field agent who was almost singularly responsible for the acquisition of more than five thousand acres of land that would be accepted by the federal government in 1916, a precedent-setting effort recounted in Dorr's The Story of Acadia National Park. 19 Dorr's involvement in the development of The Mount gardens may have had as much to do with his Bar Harbor and Boston social interactions as with his horticultural reputation. When the timeline of Dorr's and Wharton's lives are compared, we see that Wharton's first known visit to George W. Vanderbilt's Biltmore estate in Asheville, North Carolina (November 26, 1902) is the day before Dorr arrived. Vanderbilt was a fellow trustees incorporator whose Point d'Acadie estate was a short walk from Oldfarm; he was also a friend of Dorr's who shared a command and appreciation of languages and a serious interest in woodlands. Whether the Vanderbilts arranged these visits to overlap we cannot say. Less than a month after her departure from Asheville, Wharton writes to Dorr-the first of the ten surviving letters to him in the Beinecke Library-expressing the hope that they might be able to accept his dinner invitation in Boston. 21 In the summer of 1904 Dorr planned a backpacking trip to the largely unexplored Sierra Nevada Mountains south of Yosemite. En route he stopped at The Mount, as indicated by a letter Wharton wrote him on September 3 that begins the most fruitful period of their correspondence. She has found one of his books on the terrace after his departure (which was forwarded to Boston), and she thanks him for his help with landscape design problems. Wharton flatters him by stating that he left behind "so many fruitful ideas that I often feel you are not really gone, and must be somewhere about, ready to answer the new questions." Moreover, she informs him that "your path is finished, and the task of planting its borders now confronts me; & we are just about to attack the laying out of the path from the flower-garden to the little valley which is to be my future wild garden." Referring to Dorr's trip West, she is hopeful that "you may be able to spare us a day or two on your return" when the autumn work will be nearly over and future plans can be discussed unless "my pigmy planting will quite vanish from your mind among the giant boles of the redwoods!" In late 1904 Wharton writes Dorr (October 29) that she is delighted at the prospect of another visit with him since she and Teddy both are "so interested to hear about your explorations." 81 RONALD H. EPP A month later (November 29), she acknowledges his October letter but fears that her letter to him may have gone astray, and regrets that a November visit seems unlikely since they are snowed under "and therefore of no interest from the landscape gardener's standpoint." Nonetheless, she hopes for a visit in 1905 when "[you could] see how far I was able to carry out your advice, and tell me what to do next." Dorr's final visit to Biltmore (October 18, 1905) precedes the Whartons' Christmas visit, a festive occasion when jasmine, honeysuckle, and laurel set the tone for a seasonal fete for the 350 people who lived and worked on the estate. Two days after Christmas she writes Dorr from the Biltmore house stating that she has "never received an invitation more comprehensively hospitable than yours," regarding his proposal for a January 1906 visit to his Commonwealth Avenue home in Boston, where she looks forward to "good talks on horticulture, free-will and predestination." That the later two topics are mentioned should startle no one familiar with the Dorr and James family associations with psychical research and philosophical inquiry. While Dorr was on Wharton's mind, however, he was much occupied on the same day with the Harvard University dedication of Emerson Hall. Four years earlier Dorr had been charged by the overseers with raising sufficient funds to erect a facility to house Harvard's philosophy and psychology departments. Two months later (February 17, 1906), Wharton informs Dorr of the postponement of her departure for Europe until March 10, expressing hope that she and her husband may yet be permitted "a little visit" to Dorr's home-and extending an open-ended invitation to Dorr once they return from Europe in June to pay us "a longer visit than last summer," the only evidence we have of Dorr's visit in 1905. A week later she writes to a mutual friend of theirs, Justice Robert Grant, that "your letter makes me still more regretful that we have had to give up our plan of going to Mr. Dorr for a few days this month,"2 yet on the next day she writes to Dorr that she expects him within the week in New York. On her return from France later that year, she writes Dorr on August 21 asking him to come to The Mount since Teddy is eager to show him the property "improvements." The next to last letter is problematic since it is undated though contextually fits this time frame; it simply asks Dorr to arrive on another date when "the Edward Robinsons, the Grant LaFarges, and Roger Fry (our new curator of paintings at the Museum)"2 will be present. Concluding these known exchanges, Wharton writes to him on July 24 in response to another invitation from him; she regrets that she must stay at The Mount and work, although Teddy is especially sorry that they can't now have another "Bar Harbor Revisited." There is more talk of flowers and again encouragement that Dorr visit in August or September and see "the George Dorr path, the new pond, and other improvements." This one-way correspondence provides unique biographical details about both individuals and demonstrates Wharton's persistence in developing a relationship with Dorr not restricted to horticultural matters; although Beatrix Jones Farrand is nowhere mentioned, her role in this relationship cannot be overlooked. Wharton's repeated invitations to Dorr should not be treated casually, recognizing that the Whartons were very selective in their invitations to The Mount. These letters also show Wharton's sincere appreciation of Dorr's gardening counsel, demonstrated by repeated references to "the Dorr path." Since this was the only physical feature of the estate named for a person, it is reasonable to conclude that she is acknowledging the value of his advice. Finally, the correspondence shows that the Whartons relished their shared Bar Harbor experiences and that they were sincerely disappointed at not being able to accept Dorr's repeated invitations to his Boston home. However, if written discussion of common acquaintances, literature, and one's emotional landscape are the measures of deeper levels of friendship, then we have little evidence that they were "intimate" friends-a highly selective term of endearment in that era. 82 WILD GARDENS AND PATHWAYS AT THE MOUNT WILD GARDENS These letters lack specifics to flesh out the details of Dorr's path and the development of wild gardens at The Mount and on Mount Desert Island. We do know that Dorr's indebtedness to the pioneering work of William Robinson is documented in The Dorr Papers by the scores of references to The Garden serial that Robinson launched shortly after the 1870 publication of The Wild Garden. What is a "wild garden"? A logician might dismiss this conjugation as an oxymoron. But sidestepping this rationalistic approach, it could be argued empirically that a wild garden is a grouping of what is native to a region prior to any efforts to "naturalize." Harvard Botanist M. F. Fernald in "The Acadian Plant Sanctuary" similarly advocates the conservation of environments "which by good fortune still remain in their natural condition.' "24 Judith B. Tankard's recent introduction to a reprint of The Wild Garden points out that William Robinson was not advocating wilderness but "landscapes enhanced by the use of carefree hardy, native plants. "25 Robinson also proposes placing "perfectly hardy exotic plants under conditions where they will thrive without further care" and situates these gardens "on the outer fringes of the lawn, in grove, park, copse, or by woodland walks and drives. One of Dorr's objectives was to foster interest in the preservation of the beauty of native plants threatened by the progress of development. Dorr recognized that woodland plants require woodland conditions and that experimentation in naturalizing such plants requires consideration of a host of environmental considerations (for example, climate, rock texture, shade, and SO on). Indeed, wild gardens were experiments, annual efforts to determine which new species would prosper and which would not. Robin Karson could just as easily have been speaking of Dorr when she emphasized that in the wild gardening of Warren H. Manning, "the failures were as interesting as the successes." "27" Even after Wharton departed from The Mount, wild plant botany was still viewed as a youthful enterprise. Commenting in print on Dorr's Acadian plant sanctuary proposal in 1914, landscape architect C. Grant LaFarge emphasized that "to acquire this knowledge under present conditions is well-nigh impossible. The country is too vast; its flora too scattered. Even the most superb examples of wild growth are but stimulating suggestions Your plan offers all of this. "28 The Wild Gardens of Acadia, established by Dorr in 1916, was described by Beatrix Jones Farrand as "an offshoot corporation" of the Hancock County Trustees. 29 Its purpose was to cooperate with the federal government in developing a seacoast national park that would not only conserve Acadian flora and fauna but go beyond the National Park Service mandate and provide "opportunities for observation to students of plant life, of gardening, forestry and landscape art" of native plants in legally protected sanctuaries accessible to future generations, undiminished in diversity of genera and species. 30 As an advocacy instrument, the Wild Gardens of Acadia published ten small but widely circulated monographs (part of the Sieur de Monts Publications series, 1916-18) promoting public understanding of Acadian flora and fauna, set within the cultural, historic, and scientific justifications for conserving more of the available island. The corporation also acquired land-much of it donated by Dorr-that was then turned to purposes consistent with its mission. The most enduring and visible expression of Dorr's application of the Wild Gardens of Acadia corporation is the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory, established in 1921; today this scientific enterprise is a world-famous center for the study of epithelial transport, the physiology of marine vertebrates, and the toxic effects of environmental pollutants. 31 83 RONALD H. EPP As the Country Place Era unfolded, the "wild garden" concept continued to be open to diverse interpretations. In his memoirs, written during the last decade of his life, Dorr presents a view of wild gardens that I believe he proposed to Wharton nearly forty years earlier: namely, that they are "permanent gardens of naturalization where the hardy flowering plants, herbaceous and woody, might be planted in generous groups as though native to the region and become an outstanding exhibit of what might be planted and grown permanently in it in favorable locations that brings that beauty out by proper placing and artistic background SO as to be in harmony with the landscape and a feature of it."32 We are left to wonder whether there is any evidence that Wharton would have agreed with the similarly expressive language of Mariana Van Rensselaer, who characterizes the naturalistic gardener as one who produces "many effects which, under favoring conditions, Nature might have produced without man's aid. Then, the better the results, the less likely it is to be recognized as an artificial and artistic result; the more perfectly the artist attains his end, the more likely we are to forget that he has been at work. Even those who have walked only the most accessible parts of the current Mount property realize that marble ledge outcrops are enduring landscape features. These natural objects were not removed and were critical concerns in siting the drive, the house, and the formal gardens. The effect of these rocky ledges is a matter of perspective, clearly softened when viewed from the upper story windows. The Mount itself is deliberately nestled within unseen rocky ledges that define the foundation, and it appears that Wharton deferred to the natural constraints of the rocky landscape. Further evidence of the preference for natural landscape is the simple fact that of the 113 acres of the estate, only 10 percent was given over to the placement of physical structures and formal Figure 5. Oldfarm estate, Bar Harbor, Maine. Photograph courtesy of the National Park Service, Acadia National Park's William Otis Sawtelle Collections and Research Center. 84 WILD GARDENS AND PATHWAYS AT THE MOUNT gardens. But there are no further details about the selection, development, and use of the property. Possibly the Whartons' real estate agents advised their clients to acquire sufficient woodland to broaden and protect the outlook. It is unknown whether plans were developed for garden expansion into the available woodland. Wharton's resources may not have been the constraining factor; instead, she may have heeded Gertrude Jeykll's advice that "the size of a garden has very little to do with its merit."35 Jekyll, creator of the exceptional gardens at Munstead Wood, knew from experience that large gardens can enslave their caretakers. Aside from the labor commitment, however, Jeykll's argument is clearly aesthetic: if one has considerable acreage, "a great part had better be laid out in wood [for] woodland is always restful and enduringly beautiful. More specifically, she cautions against the then-fashionable efforts at placement of garden plants in wild places: "Wild gardening is a delightful, and in good hands, a most desirable pursuit, but no kind of gardening is SO difficult to do well, or is SO full of pitfalls and of paths of peril. "37 Dorr had the right "hands" for this task: wide travel and a scholarly disposition made him well versed in European horticulture traditions, his family legacy was couched within the geographical limitations of New England gardening, and as a nurseryman he was thoroughly familiar with what could and could not be accomplished in the environment of the Maine coast or the Berkshire landscape of his boyhood. Did woodland paths wend their way throughout The Mount property? More than twenty years ago, Harvard Graduate School of Design scholars affirmed that the flower garden "linked into adjacent areas with sinuous curving paths emanating from both ends of the east-west axis [and] the other sinuous path, to the east, disappeared around the small mount into the meadow en route to the lake." 38 Furthermore, David Bennett refers to "an extensive system of paths for walks and rides [that] extended into the woodland, and linked the Mount's grounds to adjacent estates. "39 THE DORR PATH We cannot be certain that Wharton involved Dorr in the design of his named path-or other paths-but it is not unreasonable to infer that this path was named for him because of his dominating influence on its character. His decades of experience as a Mount Desert Island trailbuilder might suggest paths of roughly uniform width and rough surface. But this would surely have been considered inappropriate-to impose paths designed for the unusually rugged Maine coast into the Berkshire Hills. The graduated materials used as borders for Wharton's formal gardens might also have been incorporated into pathways, becoming more rustic as one walked away from the house. Or she and Dorr might have weighed the merits of paths of uniform character in order to make them inviting to her more formally attired guests. Arguments could be advanced to show that Dorr favored the rugged, forested terrain west of the property entrance for path development because of his formidable trailbuilding experience with the severe Mount Desert Island mountains (figure 5). On the other hand, the Dorr memoirs contain frequent descriptions of path development on less severe topographies such as the Great Meadow development and its garden paths into downtown Bar Harbor. Indeed, one of his earliest successes was constructing and landscaping a nearly mile-long bicycle path through a marshy beaver pond in Bear 85 Brook Valley, developed in the mid- 1890s to allow his aging mother walks and gentle carriage rides. 40 In view of available evidence, it is most likely that Dorr advised Wharton on the suitability of paths to access wild gardens and recommended that she consider linking paths with more formal walkways. He may have proposed tying these paths to adjacent properties; he played a role in carrying out a similar plan at that time for linking Mount Desert Island town paths. Through the expertise of Beatrix Jones Farrand and George B. Dorr, an island off the coast of Maine would leave its imprint on The Mount. Regrettably, we cannot speak with finality on Wharton's garden design intentions for the last five years of her residency. Dorr's experience with paths and wild gardens on Mount Desert Island may have been applied to the Lenox site, but the location of these landscape features remains unknown. Finally, no property map bears the "Dorr path" name that Wharton repeatedly claims as an established landscape feature. This omission leads me to conclude that at one time the Dorr path wended its way through the property-until the woods reclaimed it. NOTES 1 Edith Wharton's letters to George B. Dorr are contained in folder 753, box 24, in the Edith Wharton Collection, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (New Haven, CT). 2 The exception to this is Eleanor Dwight's Edith Wharton: An Extraordinary Life (New York: Abrams, 1994), 116. 3 Richard S. Jackson Jr. and Cornelia Brooke Gilder, Houses of the Berkshires, 1870-1930 (New York: Acanthus, 2006). 4 Thomas Wren Ward papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston. 5 Edward Waldo Emerson, The Early Years of the Saturday Club: 1855-1870 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1918), 110. The Ward family estate Highwood was located near Highlawn, which belonged to George B. Dorr's paternal aunts and uncles prior to Dorr's acquisition of the property. Highlawn is the largely forgotten predecessor to Blantyre, an opulent Tudor-style cottage that is now run as a country-house hotel. 6 The Bar Harbor Historical Society Museum holds the Dorr memoirs, The Dorr Papers. A Guide to 'The Dorr Papers' (2004) has been prepared by this author and is available with microfilm copies of Dorr's memoirs at the Jesup Memorial Library, Bar Harbor, ME, and the Sawtelle Research Center, Acadia National Park. 7 S. B. Sutton, Charles Sprague Sargent and the Arnold Arboretum (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), chap. 1. 8 Dorr Papers, B2.f.2. 9 Ibid., B1.f.14. 10 Minutes of the Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association, Bar Harbor Historical Society Museum (Bar Harbor, ME). 11 William James, The Correspondence of William James, vol. 2, ed. I. K. Skrupskelis and E. M. Berkeley (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1993), 46, 272. In addition to entertaining James family members in 1886 and 1893, the Oldfarm guest book documents visits in 1897 and 1907. 12 Beatrix Farrand, "The National Park on Mount Desert Island," Scribner's Magazine 61 (April 1917): 484-94. Farrand family respect for George Dorr is also evident in Max Farrand's September 1932 correspondence with John D. Rockefeller Jr., Rockefeller Archive Center, III.2.I. B110. f.1093, Sleepy Hollow, NY. WILD GARDENS AND PATHWAYS AT THE MOUNT 13 Bar Harbor Record, May 8, 1901; Bar Harbor Times, April 18, 1928. 14 Sutton, Charles Sprague Sargent, 18, 327. 15 Bar Harbor Record, May 8, 1901. 16 Ibid. 17 Edith Wharton quoted in Millicent Bell's Edith Wharton and Henry James (New York: Braziller, 1965), 78. 18 Minutes for the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations are archived at the Woodlawn Museum, Ellsworth, ME. 19 The Story of Acadia National Park, 3rd ed. (Bar Harbor, ME: Acadia Publishing, 1997). 20 House Guest Book 1895-1996, Biltmore Estate Archives, Asheville, NC. 21 Edith Wharton to George B. Dorr, December 28, 1902. Edith Wharton Collection, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (New Haven, CT). 22 Edith Wharton to Robert Grant. Edith Wharton Collection, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (New Haven, CT). 23 In 1906, English artist and critic Roger Fry (1866-1934) was appointed curator of paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. 24 Sieur de Monts Publications 5 (1916): 2-9. 25 Judith B. Tankard, introduction to The Wild Garden, by William Robinson, reprint (Portland, OR: Sagapress, 1994), xiii. 26 William Robinson, preface (1881) to The Wild Garden, reprint (Portland, OR: Sagapress, 1994), xvi. 27 Robin Karson, The Muses of Gwinn (Sagaponack, NY: Sagapress/Abrams, 1995), 131. 28 C. Grant LaFarge, in George B. Dorr, "Garden Approaches to the National Monument," Sieur de Monts Publications 17 (1919): 11. See also Ronald H. Epp, "George Dorr's Vision for 'Garden Approaches to Acadia National Park," Chebacco: The Magazine of the Mount Desert Historical Society 4 (2004): 55-63. 29 Farrand, "The National Park," 494. 30 Wild Gardens of Acadia: By-Laws. Rockefeller Archive Center, III.2. I. B.85.f. 840. Sleepy Hollow, NY. 31 Franklin H. Epstein, ed., A Laboratory by the Sea (Rhinebeck, NY: River Press, 1998) discusses extensively the role of Dorr and the Wild Gardens of Acadia in the establishment of the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory. 32 Dorr Papers, B3.f.1. 33 Mariana Van Rensselaer, Art Out-of-Doors (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1893), 4. See her Accents as Well as Broad Effects, ed. David Gebhard (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999). 34 Wendy Baker, David Bennett, and Diane Dierkes, Landscape Architectural Analysis and Master Plan for The Mount (Lenox, MA: Edith Wharton Restoration, Inc., 1982). 35 Gertrude Jeykll, Wood and Garden, reprint (Woodbridge, UK: Antique Collectors' Club, 1981) chap. 14. 36 Ibid., 249. 37 Ibid., 358. 38 Baker, Bennett, and Dierkes, Landscape Architectural Analysis, 58. 39 Eleanor Dwight, in Edith Wharton: An Extraordinary Life, 94, credits this claim to David Bennett. 40 Dorr Papers, B2.f. 6 and 7. See also Margaret Coffin Brown, Pathmakers: Cultural Landscape Report for the Historic Hiking Trail System of Mount Desert Island (Boston: Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation/National Park Service, 2006), 55-59, 67-74. 87 EDITH WHARTON AND THE AMERICAN GARDEN M THE MOUNT PRESS The Mount Press, 2009, Lenox, Massachusetts CONTENTS Foreword. ix Acknowledgments x Introduction xi A Genius for Place: American Landscapes of the Country Place Era Robin Karson 3 Edith Wharton: An Encounter with the Berkshires Honey Sharp 25 Sensations of the Unexpected: The Untamed Forms and Disciplined Lines of Edith Wharton's American Villa David H. Bennett 41 Opposites Attract: The Garden Art of Charles Platt, Maxfield Parrish, and Edith Wharton Rebecca Warren Davidson 61 Wild Gardens and Pathways at The Mount: George B. Dorr and the Mount Desert Island Influence Ronald H. Epp 75 Circles of Influence: Edith Wharton and the Gardens of the Anglo-American Expatriate Community Ethne Clarke 89 Edith Wharton's Plants: Her Influence on the Riviera and in Southern California Diane Kostial McGuire 97 The Romantic and the Practical: Edith Wharton and Beatrix Farrand as Gardeners and Garden Writers Eleanor Dwight 107 Edith Wharton's Literary Garden Betsy Anderson 125 Edith Wharton and the Cultivation of Voice, Authority, Passion, and Privilege Paula Panich 141 Edith Wharton, The Mount, and the Future Hugh Hardy 147 Contributors 161 THE MOUNT Estate & Gardens October 14, 2009 Mr. Ronald Epp 47 Pond View Drive Merrimack, NH 03054 Dear Mr. Epp, It is my great pleasure to send to you a copy of The Mount's publication, Edith Wharton and the American Garden. We hope you are as satisfied with the result as we are. Yours sincerely, Aant Kgu Sarah Kogan www.Editthoharton.org 2 Plunkett Street Box 974 Lenox, MA 01240-0974 Phone: 413-551-5111 . Fax: 413-637-0619 Email: info@edithwharton.org ROCKEFELLER ARCHIVE CENTER POCANTICO HILLS 15 DAYTON AVENUE SLEEPY HOLLOW NEW YORK 10591-1598 TELEPHONE (914) 631-4505 FAX (914) 631 -6017 July 14, 2008 Ronald H. Epp, Ph.D. 47 Pond View Drive Merrimack, NH 03054 Dear Ron: Thank you for your e-mail of July 3, 2008, regarding permission to cite from materials in the collections of the Rockefeller Archive Center for your paper that will be published by The Mount in, Edith Wharton and the American Garden. To the extent that it is legally entitled to do so, the Rockefeller Archive Center grants permission to Ronald Epp and The Mount to quote from material in the Rockefeller Family Archives. The Rockefeller Archive Center grants such permission provided that publication shall conform to all relevant provisions of United States copyright law and provided that such publication shall not constitute libel or an invasion of privacy. Such permission is granted for one time use only, so that future editions or editions in other languages will require additional permission. As you may know, the staff of the Archive Center strives to maintain a complete bibliography of published works that cite the collections housed at the Rockefeller Archive Center. Each year our Newsletter includes a list of recent publications, and we find that the bibliography of RAC citations, which now includes more that 1,200 entries is useful for both researchers and our staff. Please notify us once the articles and/or book has been published SO that we can include it in the appropriate edition of the Newsletter. Please let us know if we can be of further assistance. Sincerely yours, Michele Hiltzik Senior Archivist Verizon Yahoo! Mail - eppster2@verizon.net Page 1 of 1 Verizon Yahoo! Mail Verizon Central Yahoo! Search: Web Search YAHOO! Welcome, eppster2@verizon Mail Home All-New Mail Tutorials verizon MAIL Classic [Sign Out, Member Center Help Mail Contacts Calendar Notepad Options Check Mail Compose Search Mail Search the Web Folders [Add - Edit] Previous Next I Back to Messages Inbox (6) Delete Reply Forward Spam Move Draft Sent This message is not flagged. [ Flag Message Mark as Printable View Unread ] Bulk (1) [Empty] Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:25:54-0400 Trash [Empty] "Janice Wilson" Add to My Folders [Hide] From: Address Book Add Mobile Alert DorrBio2008 (26) Subject: permission Eliz messages To: eppster2@verizon.net (5) Horseshoe Pond Dear Dr. Epp, Member Information Ron Archives I have found the letter from the National Park Service granting permission for use of (31) the images for your contribution to Edith Wharton and the American Garden, so we do not need to be concerned about permission for the images. I believe the material you Search Shortcuts quoted would fall under "reasonable use" in which case we are all set there as well. My Photos My Attachments Thank you for your patience as I sort my way through this process. Sincerely, Janice Delete Reply - Forward Spam Move. Previous Next Back to Messages Save Message Text I Full Headers Check Mail Compose Search Mail Search the Web Copyright © 1994-2008 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Terms of Service - Guidelines NOTICE: We collect personal information on this site. To learn more about how we use your information, see our Privacy Policy http://us.f842.mail.yahoo.com/ym/ShowLetter?MsgId=4821_8565451_86348_1851_1131... 7/17/2008 Verizon Yahoo! Mail - eppster2@verizon.net Page 1 of 3 Verizon Yahoo! Mail Verizon Central Yahoo! Search: Web Search YAHOO! Welcome, eppster2@verizon Mail Home All-New Mail Tutorials verizon MAIL Classic [Sign Out, Member Center Help Mail Contacts Calendar Notepad Options Check Mail Compose Search Mail Search the Web Folders [Add - Edit] Previous Next I Back to Messages Inbox (4) Delete Reply Forward Move Draft This message is not flagged. [ Flag Message - Mark as Printable View Sent Unread ] Bulk (1) [Empty] Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2008 10:33:45 -0700 (PDT) Trash [Empty] "ELIZABETH and RONALD EPP" Add to My Folders [Hide] From: Address Book Add Mobile Alert DorrBio2008 (26) Subject: Attn: Permissions Eliz messages To: assistant@watkinsloomis.com (5) Horseshoe Pond To Watkins/Loomis Literary Agency, Inc. Member Information I request permission to publish quotations from Edith Wharton Ron Archives manuscripts that I was fortunate enough to have available at the (31) Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. The specific information regarding publication by the Edith Wharton Search Shortcuts Restoration Inc. follows below in the email correspondence with Yale My Photos University. My Attachments I would appreciate your prompt consideration of this matter. Sincerely, Ronald H. Epp, Ph.D. "Kuhl, Nancy" wrote: Thanks for your note. The Beinecke Library does not own the copyright to the letters you mention and so cannot grant you any permission regarding publishing them. The copyright holder is: Watkins Loomis Agency, Inc., 133 East 35th Street, Suite One, New York, NY, 10016, 1 - 212 - 532 0080. Though we don't own the copyright, the library would be glad to have our holdings cited as you suggest. Nancy Nancy Kuhl Associate Curator, Yale Collection of American Literature http://us.f842.mail.yahoo.com/ym/ShowLetter?MsgId=2025_3474110_77484_721_2859_0.. 7/7/2008 Verizon Yahoo! Mail - eppster2@verizon.net Page 2 of 3 The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Yale University 121 Wall Street, P.O. Box 208240 New Haven, CT 06520-8240 Phone: 203.432.2966 African American Studies at Beinecke Library: http://beineckejwj.wordpress.com/ Poetry at Beinecke Library: http://beineckepoetry.wordpress.com/ Room 26 Cabinet of Curiosities: http://brblroom26.wordpress.com/ From: ELIZABETH and RONALD EPP [mailto:eppster2@verizon.net] Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 11:44 AM To: Kuhl, Nancy Subject: Permission to Quote from Edith Wharton Mss Dear Ms. Kuhl: In March 2005 we corresponded regarding access to the Edith Wharton Collection (Mss 42). My presentation at The Mount in May 2006 discussed her ten surviving letters to George B. Dorr. I have just learned that my paper citing this correspondence will be published in Lenox later this year as part of an anthology. Edith Wharton Restoration, Inc. will publish Edith Wharton and the American Garden and will include my article, "Wild Gardens and Pathways at The Mount: George B. Dorr and the Mount Desert Influence." Only two citations refer to your holdings and are of the following form: Edith Wharton to George B. Dorr. December 28, 1902. Edith Wharton Collection. Yale Collection of American Literature. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. New Haven, CT. I formally request permission to cite these latters. If publication verification is needed, please contact Ms. Janice Wilson, Edith Whartoin Restoration, Inc. The Mount. 2 Plunkett Street, Box 974, Lenox, MA 01240 (413-551-5111) I look forward to hearing from you. Ronald H. Epp Ronald H. Epp , Ph.D. 47 Pond View Drive Merrimack, NH 03054 (603) 424-6149 eppster2@verizon.net http://us.f842.mail.yahoo.com/ym/ShowLetter?MsgId=2025_3474110_77484_721_2859_0.. 7/7/2008 Verizon Yahoo! Mail - eppster2@verizon.net Page 3 of 3 Ronald H. Epp, Ph.D. 47 Pond View Drive Merrimack, NH 03054 (603) 424-6149 eppster2@verizon.net Delete Reply Forward Move. Previous I Next I Back to Messages Save Message Text I Full Headers Check Mail Compose Search Mail Search the Web Copyright © 1994-2008 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Terms of Service - Guidelines NOTICE: We collect personal information on this site. To learn more about how we use your information, see our Privacy Policy http://us.f842.mail.yahoo.com/ym/ShowLetter?MsgId=2025_3474110_77484_721_2859_0.7/7/2008 Watkins Loomis Page 1 of 1 SERVING WRITERS SINCE 1908 WATKINS/LOOMIS THE TEMPEST TALES WATERMONTY literary agency, inc. n T. Watkins/Loomis Agency was started by Ann Watkins Permission requests in 1908, and Gloria Loomis came to the company in 1975. should be sent to When Gloria became president and sole owner in 1980. she "Actn: Permissions" kept the Watkins name as a tribute to the founder. via mail, e-mail or fax Our agency specializes in literary fiction, biography, memoir, essay, travel and political journalism. We represent a Translation rights wide range of over 150 writers - from the estates of Edith represented by The Marsh Agency: Wharton, Dorothy L. Sayers and Kay Boyle, to modern www.marsh-agency.co.uk thinkers and authors such as Cornel West, Frederic Tuten, Bill McKibben and Anna Deavere Smith. UK rights We also represent leading lights of contemporary fiction THE represented by such as Maureen Howard, Walter Mosley, Matyse Condé and BILL McKIBBEN Abner Stein: Ngugi wa Thiong'o New York Times and New Yorker journalists READER abner@abnerstein.co.uk Alma Guillermoprieto, Raymond Bonner, Sara Rimer, Nina Bernstein and Howard French also make up our client list. We currently do not accept unsolicited We do represent a number of young fiction and nonfiction manuscripts. writers as well, including Ernesto Quiñonez, Ben Ehrenreich, Mat Johnson, Victor LaValle and Nelly Rosario. A complete list of clients can be viewed upon request. 133 East 35th, Ste. #1 NYC 10016 tel: 212.532.0080 fax: 212.889.0506 assistant@watkinsloomis.com http://www.watkinsloomis.com/ 7/7/2008