INVISIBLE LIBRARIES: Six Elusive Collections in Building the Dorr Archive* Ronald H. Epp, Ph.D. Jesup Memorial Library August 31, 2022 Thank you for attending this late August Jesup event. August on MDI is historically a busy time of both park and Jesup beginnings and endings. On August 25, 1916 the National Park Service was established, On August 13, 1901 the island village improvement societies met in Seal Harbor and established the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations; Park Founder George Dorr died August 5th 1944 and his park partner Charles W. Eliot passed away in Northeast Harbor on August 22, 1926; 21 years later on August 29th the Dorr Memorial was dedicated- -75 years ago. Of course, the Jesup celebrated this August "Founders Week" with a series of events reflecting the library dedication 111 years ago. Tonight I want to briefly expose six intense highlights of my two decades of research into the life and times of the Father of Acadia National Park. It should be understood that my title "invisible libraries" is not to be understood in a strictly literal manner. Instead, I argue that each of the collections was not transparent, that they were collections which presented a barrier, a feature that concealed-not with deliberation-the nature of the resource. Moreover, each provided me with a watershed moment that elevated my understanding in a way unrealized by all the other information at hand. A videotape of this address is archived on the Jesup website. 1 I. The Yorkshire England, Castle Howard Archive How far does one pursue a singular piece of evidence? When I read Dorr's slim book on the origin and development of Acadia. I created a companion index of all the names he referenced. It seemed prudent to follow this paradigm throughout his entire body of work. Early in 2003 when I read in Dorr's memoirs a solitary reference to "the Howard family" there was little context except that Dorr mentioned lodging with them. Which Howard family? Where? When? Does it matter? It was nearly two decades ago when I defaulted to searching a very young Google search engine. After repeated dead ends, I was offered the 8,800 acre Castle Howard estate website in Yorkshire UK and found that the chronology for one family member (painter George Howard [1843-1911] Ninth Earl of Carlisle) aligned with Dorr's timeline. There were oblique references to the family archive but no online search apparatus for their collections--then or even now. To pursue or not? I took a leap and sent an email to the Howard Curator. Dr. Christopher Ridgway responded to my email query about possible Dorr family correspondence. No, there was no finding aid or index, just the experience of his staff in tracking possibilities. Not without hope, I awaited news. I was most surprised the next day when I received an email stating that 32 letters had been located; and then the next day a follow up that that another 16 letters between the Dorr and Howard families had been located -- spanning their forty year 2 relationship since 1876. Since there was no reference to this correspondence in any published account of either family, this collection was invisible. Ridgway's associates offered to post copies to me of the handwritten letters. I proposed that we both would benefit from my transcription of the handwritten letters assembled in chronological order. Little did I realize how time consuming a process this would be. Most letters were between George Howard's wife (Rosalind), and Dorr's mother (Mary), recounting their travels and sometimes intimate details of family life. Their relationship began m 1876 as an encounter of two traveling families in Italy but shortly thereafter the Dorrs received news in London of the New York City death of Mary's other son, William. Her husband Charles Dorr left immediately for America to oversee funeral and estate issues. The Howards offered their new American friends lodging. The relationship must have been mutually satisfying for Mary and George lived for several months with the Howard family in more than one of their three family residences. My transcription provided content for a later Castle Howard exhibit on the Howard family interactions with America. One indication of the enduring relationship between these families is the 1906 decision of George Howard to bring his daughter Dorothy to visit George Dorr in Boston. There Dorr arranged an itinerary and introductions for the Howard family travels on the East Coast. The absence of online access should not be a barrier; the letters had already been preserved for a century with no apparent access request earlier than mine; these letters provided the richest historical detail that I had discovered for the post- 3 graduate years and extensive European travels of Mr. Dorr; most importantly, the generosity of the Dr. Ridgway put in my hands-and now the Jesup Memorial Library-the longest sustained Dorr family correspondence extant in America. II. The Charles Eliot Scrapbook In 2003, I also carried out research at the Trustees of Reservations 2,100 acre property at Castle Hill, a Tudor Revival mansion built by the Olmsted firm for the Crane family in the coastal Massachusetts town of Ipswich. I was there-in the 1913 "house that Crane toilets built" to research the Trustees archival papers of park founder Charles W. Eliot's grandson, C.W. Eliot II (1899-1993). The Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association in the mid-1920's had asked this landscape architect to "make a study of the conservation of the Island as a whole." The 29-page report did not entirely cohere with the objectives of the National Park Service and park superintendent Dorr. To understand the grounds for these inconsistencies I needed to investigate more thoroughly the conservation convictions of C.W. Eliot II at this time. The archives were located in the very humid attic of the Crane mansion where in adjacent boxes I sampled the archives of Francis R. Appleton (1854-1929), whom I recalled was a Harvard classmate of George B. Dorr. I learned that the 19th century Appletons documented every detail of their lives. Francis left to the Trustees notebooks filled with daily notations of expense of college life, including payments for the coal burnt in his study stove. The Appleton archive offered what may be the most detailed account of the economics of Harvard 4 College student life in the mid-1870's. Nonetheless, since financial details were completely lacking for classmate Dorr, these notebooks allowed me to make inferences to Dorr's situation. The biographer in me screamed "George! Why couldn't you have had this kind of commitment?" Since the Eliot manuscripts had not been processed in the years since it was donated, I was ill-prepared to uncover a folder containing a 150-page scrapbook, authorship not immediately evident. Paging through it methodically, it contained formal invitations to conservation-minded colleagues dated in the early 1890's - before C.W. Eliot's II birth-to meetings in the Boston area with the stated purpose of conserving land. There were agenda lists, reports, and memoranda bearing the handwritten signature of Charles Eliot (1859-1897)--the landscape architect founder of The Trustees of Reservations and uncle of C.W. Eliot II. Most importantly, the scrapbook contained hundreds of newspaper clippings pasted on note paper charting contemporary land conservation efforts throughout America. Could it be that I had uncovered origin documents for the Trustees, the worlds first land trust? Moreover, these clippings also related to the origin of the Boston Metropolitan Parks Commission. I knew of no such published account that referenced what I held in my hands. I hurried down the Crane Estate mansion stairs with a sampling in hand and located the Trustees staff member responsible for historical resources. Was she aware of this? If not, could the scrapbook be what I thought it to be? Though it took several days, a meeting was arranged with CWE II 's son, Lawrence G. Eliot, 5 the donor of this collection who resided several blocks distant on Argilla Road, Ipswich. During my interview, Lawrence identified the scrapbook as that of Trustees founder Charles Eliot. Provenance was established! He reported that the scrapbook had long been held by his father and that in the years following his father's death in 1993 other family members had shown little interest in it. Since Lawrence was dyslexic, he had not given it much attention prior to donation to the Trustees. Yes, he affirmed, the scrapbook provided unique first hand documentation of Trustees origins. Family members might argue that the Eliot scrapbook was not lost--merely awaiting processing by Trustees catalogers. Nonetheless it was invisible at that time. This account illustrates how researcher investigations can be of immense benefit to an institution by bringing to light what may have remained "invisible" until processed years--or decades-later. My 'discovery' hastened a new appreciation for the Trustees founder and his role as a member of the Olmsted firm; furthermore, the genesis of the Emerald Necklace of parks that encircle Boston was given new historical context because of the scope of the news clippings; and lastly, cataloging of this resource and digitization by 2015, hastened online availability-- expanding the reputation of the new Trustees Archive and Research Center in Sharon, MA. III. Mr. Dorr's "Park" Library One of the three descriptors used on the George B. Dorr Memorial at Sieur de Monts Spring by his estate executors to characterize the park founder was "Scholar." No one of his era doubted its suitability. And for any scholar of his day, 6 Dorr collected books in large numbers. In his memoirs, Dorr writes with passion about his juvenile years relishing savored titles in Grandfather Ward's Park Street library when not looking out on the Boston Granary burial ground. The contents of this library are as unknown as the contents of the Mary and Dorr residence across the Boston Common at 18 Commonwealth Avenue; in this Back Bay home the park founder lived for a half century. Without books? Unimaginable! Here in Bar Harbor, his Oldfarm residence contained books scattered throughout every room but concentrated in the 3rd floor Sea Room, recently described in Chebacco by park curator Marie Yarborough as lined with "wall to wall" bookshelves. A 1944 inventory undertaken there by new park superintendent Ben Hadley immediately after Dorr's death, loosely described several "lots" of books; they are given an estimated value but no information is extant about their content. Their fate remains unknown. Surviving invoices uin the park archives show that Dorr routinely ordered books from the Old Globe Bookstore in Boston on topics as diverse as the disciplines at Harvard University. Those titles under active use would also have been housed nearby at Storm Beach Cottage. Yet behind this secondary residence was a 20 by 40 foot structure that Dorr called the Park Library. It was likely erected in the 1920's to house his growing collections. His estate executor letters refer to the wide array of titles housed there though only a small portion likely reflected his development of the national park. 7 Yet that library is no longer extant-its invisibility is permanent. Might it have been incorporated in part or whole into the resources of the park administration? Lacking park documentation and the absence of Dorr's signature or handwritten annotations on books held at the park archives today, I think not. Similarly with the public libraries on Mount Desert, no documentation has survived that they acquired portions of the Dorr libraries. The Oldfarm estate executors in their correspondence refer to the public auctioning of Oldfarm estate property but not specifically to books. Executor Mary Hale removed from Oldfarm all written documents she deemed of historic interest, in her absence from Dorr's estate, however, she reports that distant relatives, friends, and park staff at superintendent Ben Hadley's direction roamed through the estate with their own purposes in mind. Unfortunately, in the absence of the aforementioned resources reconstruction of the evolution of Dorr's scholarship and casual reading behavior is not possible. IV. The William Endicott Papers: the House in Canton Essay In the heart of Boston, the Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS) holds the papers of Dorr's aforementioned maternal grandfather, the Boston merchant banker -- and Treasurer of Harvard University-Thomas Wren Ward. In these family papers we learn that several months before Dorr's December 1853 birth, Ward heeded his physician's advice to remove himself from business 8 entanglements. How? In a community fifteen miles south west of the MHS, Ward found seasonal refuge in the country. There in Canton both Ward and his eldest son, Samuel Gray Ward, bought attractive adjacent undeveloped properties encompassing more than a hundred residential acres. For two decades this was also the primary summer sanctuary for the Dorrs who purchased Samuel's property in the 1860's when he relocated his business and family to New York City. While Dorr's mature writings conveyed strongly his love of this place, I was short on details about how it had influenced his character development. I knew that both Dorr and Ward family residences in Lenox exerted a positive effect on Dorr's Development. It was there in 1897, that his maternal second cousin, Marie Louisa Thoron (1864-1958) married William C. Endicott Jr. (1860-1936), a historic preservationist who later became president of the MHS. Following the death of Mary Dorr in 1901, the Endicotts were Dorr's closest family connection for the remainder of his life. On a rainy fall day in 2007, in the MHS reading room I carefully scrutinized the most promising of the 37 boxes of Endicott Family Papers; nothing appeared pertinent. Finally, I opened a file containing a 10-page essay titled "Country House in Canton." I knew that another Endicott family resided in Canton but not Louisa's. The finding aid made no mention of essay authorship, nor did the t ypescript. But here was a 1936 date, shortly after the death of William who had brought Dorr and Louisa to the property three years earlier. Could this be the estate off Pleasant Street where the Dorrs and other Ward family 9 members spent weekends, holidays, and summer months for more than two decades? These pages referenced the reservoir pond where he and brother William pursued butterflies in an environment that the author could not praise more highly. Page after page revealed stylistic elements clearly those of George Dorr. A profile of Grandmother Ward's home was coupled with lavish attention to the estate gardens, especially the produce derived from the extensive orchards that Dorr's grandfather Ward had planted. References to aunts and uncles only made the case stronger. By the time I finished the first reading, it was clear that the essay contained more contextual detail and emotional fabric than Dorr's other musings on family residences. I inferred that the essay was given to Louisa as homage to her husband who had brought back to George a vivid restoration of a most pleasant childhood constant: his Canton summers! I subsequently drafted a letter with credential information to the MHS catalogers explaining my reasons for recommending a change to the cataloging record that would identify George B. Dorr as author of "The Country House in Canton." They quickly responded that my evidence was persuasive; the cataloging record was changed. All things considered, the importance of this orphan essay is now elevated to the lengthiest sustained autobiographical essay about Dorr and his extended family during his juvenile years. A copy of this invisible Dorr essay is now in the hands of Jesup Memorial Library staff. 10 V. In Pursuit of Dorr's Attorneys: Part 1. Deasy & Lynam I asked myself countless times over the first seven years of research, where is the documentation of George Dorr's legal transactions? Every inquiry into this legal history had been fruitless. The key agents were Luere B. Deasy (1860-1940) and his colleague A.H. "Harry" Lynam (1871-1934); much later the Rodick brothers of the same firm would advise Dorr. Deasy and Lynam combined their Bar Harbor practices in 1889, providing counsel to Dorr for nearly six decades. Now, seven decades later, what did I expect to find within the documentation of a profession committed to the first principle of client confidentiality? For it was established legal practice to destroy client files if no interested relatives could be found within a few years of the death of a client. Had this been bachelor Dorr's fate? After nearing completion in 2008 of a first draft of the Dorr biography, I expressed to my new friend and island native -- retired surgeon William Horner -- my frustration. His eyes sparkled and with characteristic humility and he noted that he had a strategy. Only then did I learn that Horner was Luere Deasy's great grandson! He was interested in pursuing his own ancestry and its relationship to island conservation history. Moreover, Horner knew Bar Harbor attorney Douglas B. Chapman, senior partner in a law firm located at 109 Main St. Chapman was heir to and conservator of the original Deasy & Lynam law firm and its client records; these were preserved in the firm's basement (Horner's knowledge of Deasy is well documented in his 2010 Chebacco essay where he quite rightly appreciates Deasy as ..the essential bridge between sophisticated summer cottagers and the islanders whose cooperation eventually conserved Acadia"). 11 Dr. Horner arranged a meeting with Chapman where both of us expressed our reasons for wishing to see his archive. In his smoke-filled office, the attorney questioned our purposes and credentials-- as expected; nonetheless, the process moved forward and we were shown the client card catalog indexing system before entering the basement containing hundreds of file cabinets containing documentation tracking back to the 1880s. Attorney Chapman pointed out the relevant Dorr file locations and quite surprisingly, Hancock County Trustees of Reservations files-- these would shed new historical insights well beyond the Woodlawn Museum collection in nearby Ellsworth. Moving deeper into the Chapman Archive, my eye caught sight of a dozen file boxes showing signs of water damage, boldly labeled "J.D.R. Jr." Duplicates of records archived elsewhere? Later inquiries showed that these were not known to administrators at Acadia National Park. Might they be duplicates of originals that I had examined in Sleepy Hollow's Rockefeller Archive Center? Archivists from the RAC later determined that they were not; Rockefeller's attorneys on Mount Desert Island had separate records. Chapman opened a door to a 6 by 10 foot room which contained -- again to my irrepressible delight -- hundreds of historic large scale maps, many with notations and illustrations by Dorr and JDR Jr. Subsequent study would reveal that the scope of this historic map collection would far exceed relevant Maine map holdings of the park and Rockefeller archives; map topographies in the collection spanned several centuries 12 We immediately discussed with attorney Chapman a host of issues. We arrived at a common understanding-documented in writing--regarding the scope of our inquiries, our methodologies regarding note taking and duplication, and our intent to create descriptive and searchable spread sheets -all while not disturbing the archival arrangement in place. We realized that volunteer help was needed to process the relevant holdings, especially since my involvement was limited by the fact that my residence was in New Hampshire and later Pennsylvania. It was our good fortune that Pauline Angione, a Prospect Harbor collections authority could provide skills we both lacked as well as the sustained research continuity to what seemed-- as the months and years progressed -- a daunting task. Becoming more familiar with the scope of the collection, we suggested to Chapman possible preservation outcomes for the collections, most involving donation to off-island institutions that were experienced with processing large donations efficiently. He was understandably adamant that the collection not leave the island where island residents could readily access, study, and appreciate its history. Over the next several years the relevant Chapman Archive content was integrated into the Creating Acadia National Park manuscript prior to its publication in April 2016. Unexpectantly, Doug Chapman's death later that year resulted in public disclosure of elements of his estate. Despite legal snags involving the scope of files to be 13 preserved, the unique collection of philanthropist Chapman is now held by the Jesup Memorial Library. The Chapman Archive was conserved because of the efforts of Doug's widow, Ruth Eveland and her staff at the Jesup Library, Pauline Angione, William Horner, and Doug's law firm partners. Housed beside the Dorr Research Archive, these two resources are now publicly accessible assets, bookends for the new addition to the 1911 library. This research profile provides evidence for the value of persistent inquiry about issues that remain historically unresolved, of not succumbing to the absence of evidence. We will likely never know the full story behind Doug's diligence in preserving 150 years of client records but it is enough to know that others will be able to access them for generations to come, revising island histories and charting a more informed future. VI. In Pursuit of Dorr's Attorneys. Part 2: The John A. Peters Archive Shortly after our introduction to the Chapman Archive I got a jaw-dropping phone call from Joshua Torrance, then Executive Director of the Woodlawn Museum in Ellsworth where archives of the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations were housed. In 2001 Josh provided me with archival access, a collection that he had researched extensively. The museum roof was being replaced by a local contractor who casually mentioned to Josh that he was presently engaged in a roofing project at the Hale and Hamlin law firm downtown, a building that Josh knew once housed the office 14 of Judge John A. Peters Jr. (1864-1953). I had researched this prominent Ellsworth attorney who as a Maine Representative in 1911 aided Dorr in thwarting legislative efforts to remove the Trustees charter. As a new U.S. Congressman, Peters in 1915 supported Dorr's efforts in 1915 to secure national monument status, and worked tirelessly behind the scenes in Dorr's defense in the 1924 Interior Secretary hearing -- prompted by U.S. Senator George Pepper -- to limit road development within the park. But there were many areas where information on Judge Peters was sorely lacking, especially details about his new role as Dorr's estate executor. There was no evidence that the Peters Papers had survived his death in 1953. Josh reported to me that as the old Hale and Hamlin roof was being removed, roofers looked between the rafters into the shell of what appeared to be a separate 12 by 12 foot office that was filled with books and files apparently undisturbed. When Josh brought this news to the attention of Hale and Hamlin attorneys, they seemed indifferent and unaware of its existence. Our reaction was to contact attorney Melissa Hale and request attic access, providing her with written request to examine office content for its relevance to park and island history. She agreed. As the new roof neared completion we entered the attic, cautiously stepped between exposed rafters and entered the unlocked office. Hundreds of dusty legal tomes from an earlier era lined the walls. It became clear from our initial sampling of files that this was the office of Judge Peters. No documents were dated after his death in 1953, but hundreds of documents relative to the origin and development of Acadia National Park were uncovered. 15 We added to our research team two local archivists-Martha Harmon and Roz Rea-who put together policies and procedures delineating how we would examine, photocopy, and return documents to their original locations. The scope of our research would also include Woodlawn Museum history and disposition of the Dorr estate. Hale and Hamlin agreed. In the months ahead, subsequent on site research by the team continued. The documents uncovered clearly showed that Peters was more extensively involved with the Mount Desert Island conservation movements than previously demonstrated in print. Of greatest value to the Dorr manuscript that I was revising were hundreds of pages of letters, notes, and directives to other executors regarding finalizing the Dorr estate, a complicated process that took Peters three years to complete. Included was the only extant documentation of the decision process of Peters and two other executors-Dorr friend and widow of his former attorney Mary Newbold Hale and Dorr's secretary Phyllis Sylvia-to honor the park founder through a physical memorial erected in the park. This commemorative process stretched over the next three years and was most carefully orchestrated and documented by Peters. Dedicated 75 years ago this month on August 25, 1947, the memorial was destroyed in the island-wide Fire of '47. Within a year it was replaced and this year received much needed conservation treatment by NPS staff, restoring much of its aesthetic stature and legibility. The comprehensiveness of the Peters Archive enabled me to add an Epilogue to 16 the Dorr biography that detailed this legacy process. While the access and support provided by Hale & Hamlin was essential to our efforts, we drafted scenarios for varied archive preservation options; to my knowledge none of these have been pursued. The current firm web page presents a chronology of the Hale and Hamlin history but lacks reference to Judge Peters or his archive; the collection as a whole remains invisible. It is significant that copies of key Peters Archive documents are now preserved and accessible -- in both paper and digital versions -- here at the Jesup. All in all, history profits from bringing to light these invisible collections. I hope that future generations of researchers will have the good fortune to encounter invisible holdings such as these and through their research add to the human record. Invisible Libraries. Rev. October 2023. 17