USA > Maine > Hancock County > Mount Desert > Mount Desert : a history > Part 15
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SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL
ship carpenters and boat-builders, eighteen black- smiths, nine cobblers, six coopers, and six stone masons. The chief industries were lumber, ice, fish, and granite. Mr. Lyman Somes had a little woolen mill at Somesville, and his name appears in the Directory as a wool carder and a dresser and finisher of cloth. William Underwood & Co., of Boston, had started the lobster factory on the wharf at Southwest Harbor. The Prebles on Great Cranberry and the Hadlocks on Little Cranberry were fish-dealers, owning a consider- able fleet of vessels and engaged in a large trade in dried fish, oil, and other sea products. A score or more men were specifically engaged in the herring curing business, in which almost every man with a shore frontage had a hand.
The building of small vessels still went on in several little shipyards. The ways of A. J. Whit- ing & Co. and the yard of George Somes, at the head of the sound, were almost always occupied. A little later the stone-cutting business became a leading industry. The granite quarries on either side of the sound were opened in the early seven- ties and employed large gangs of men in busy seasons.
Two steam sawmills, one at Pretty Marsh and one at Salsbury's Cove, were running, and ten water sawmills - the best powers being on the Somes Stream at Somesville, on Heath's stream and at Seal Cove, and on Duck Brook at Bar Harbor.
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MOUNT DESERT
There were ten post-offices in the four towns. These were at Somesville, Northeast Harbor, Eden, West Eden, Salsbury's Cove, Bar Harbor (then called East Eden), Southwest Harbor, Bass Har- bor, Seal Harbor, and Great Cranberry. Of jus- tices of the peace there were five in Mount Desert, two in Eden, eight in Tremont, four in Cranberry Isles ; of ministers there was one at Somesville serving the Union Church, then the only active church organization in the town of Mount Desert, and one at Southwest Harbor, serving the Meth- odist Church. The Baptist Church at Salsbury's Cove and the old Union Meeting-Houses at Eden and East Eden, the Congregational and Baptist Churches of Tremont, and the Union Church of Great Cranberry were without pastors.
The summer hotel business had by 1871 begun to make an appearance with a list of the primitive "hotels " at Bar Harbor and Southwest Harbor, but this business had had as yet little or no effect on industrial and social conditions.
Division of labor was not carried very far and most of the men carried on a number of different trades. They naturally learned to do many things indifferently well rather than one thing perfectly. Almost all the young men followed the sea for a time either in coasters or fishing vessels and all householders did a bit of farming. All were rough carpenters and painters and equally at home in a boat, a jigger, or a buckboard. Every able-bodied
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SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL
person, that is, was accustomed to work with the hands. The men tended livestock, cut hay, raised garden vegetables, worked on the roads, cut ice and wood, hauled stone and firewood and sand in jigger or scow, cured cod and herring, tended lobster-pots, went fishing, built and painted boats, split paving-stones, made harness. The women did all the household work, took care of the poul- try, made butter, made clothes, often spinning wool from their own sheep into yarn, taught school, took summer boarders, helped in the herring curing, picked berries, went to sewing- circle, gave suppers, and rendered all kinds of help in the household emergencies that arose in neighbors' families. Examples of the variety of occupation can readily be selected from Mr. Dodge's Business Directory. Mr. A. C. Fernald was a representative citizen living modestly on Sutton's Island. He was a town officer, an insur- ance agent, a " coffin manufacturer," a notary public, a fish inspector, a surveyor of lumber, a justice of the peace, and he doubtless raised his own vegetables, split and carried in his firewood, cut his hay, cured herring, and did a hundred other " chores." Mr. E. M. Hamor at Town Hill was postmaster, justice of the peace, town clerk, keeper of the country store, land surveyor, surveyor of lumber, deacon in the Baptist Church, school-teacher, and town historian. And so the list of just such self-reliant, competent,
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thrifty, indomitable New Englanders might be extended till it included representatives of almost every family.
In 1890, President Eliot printed in the "Century Magazine " an article called " The Forgotton Mil- lions," in which he described with great minute- ness the conditions of life, the mode of govern- ment, and the social habits of the town of Mount Desert. The following extracts from this striking description of a wholesome and contented com- munity are illustrative. "The population," he said, " which in 1880 numbered 1017 and about 1400 in 1889, is scattered along the shores of the sea and the inlets. The number of houses in the town in the summer of 1889 was about 280, of which one tenth were for summer use only. The average number of persons to a house is therefore between five and six. The surnames which are common in the town are chiefly English (Wall, Davis, Grover, Clement, Dodge, Lynam, Bracy, Savage, Kimball, Smallidge, Jordan, Gilpatrick, Roberts, Manchester, Atherton, Richardson, Somes, Wasgatt, Smith, Freeman, Bartlett, and Carter) ; but a few, such as Murphy, Callahan, and Fenelly, indicate an Irish descent, near or remote. The government is by town-meeting, - an unqualified democracy, -- and the officers an- nually elected are three selectmen, who also serve as assessors and overseers of the poor, a treasurer, a town clerk, a commissioner of roads, and a
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SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL
superintendent of schools. Most of these officials are paid by the day, and their total cost to the town is decidedly modest ($400 to $500 a year).
" The taxpayers in Mount Desert are much more numerous than the polls, because many women, children, and non-residents are taxed. Thus in 1889 the taxpayers numbered 578, of whom 176 were non-resident taxpayers. These were mostly people of the same county who for- merly lived in the town, or who had bought land there on speculation. The number of persons from without the State who had built houses in the town for summer occupation was only sixteen down to the summer of 1889.
"The largest tax paid in the town for that year was $152; and the rate being $33 on $1000, this largest tax implied a valuation of $4606.06 for the estate which was assessed highest. The incidence of the whole tax-levy, as shown in the following table, is interesting because it exhibits approximately the distribution of property among the townspeople. There are no rich persons in the town; very few who have not acquired some property ; and fewer still who are not in condi- tion to bear their share of the public burdens : -
263 persons, or estates, paid each a tax between $0 and $5
105
5
" 10
102
66
10
20
47
66
66
66
66
20
30
29
66
66
66 66
30 40
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MOUNT DESERT
9 persons, or estates, paid each a tax between $40 and $50
6
"
"
50
60
5
60
70
3 ¥
70
66
80
3
80
90
2
66
100
110
1 person, or estate, paid between $90 and $100; one paid $127; one $150; and one $152.
" The principles on which the taxes are levied are highly instructive, this poor and sparsely settled town having long practiced a method of taxation far more conservative than the methods which prevail in the rich and populous New Eng- land communities. In the first place, the valu- ation is low and the rate high, the valuation remaining very constant and the rate being deter- mined each year by the amount which the town votes to raise. A low valuation tends to keep the state and county taxes low, although the returns of town valuations are subject to correction by a State Valuation Commission. Secondly, the as- sessors pay no attention to speculative or fancy values. . Thirdly, no attempt is made to tax things invisible and undiscoverable, although the laws of Maine prescribe the taxation of bonds, money at interest, and other forms of personal property which are easily concealed. The items on the assessors' books consist exclusively of things which are under the public eye.
" The low valuation for purposes of taxation is, on the whole, more acceptable to each taxpayer
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SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL
than an accurate or supposed market-price valu- ation would be; and it is a more stable basis for the annual assessment of the necessary taxes. The annual valuations, whether of real estate or of personal property, are never appealed to as indi- cating market-price or actual value. The items on the assessors' books (which are open to in- spection by any citizen) are divisible into real estate, personal property, and polls - land and buildings constituting the real estate ; cattle, horses, mules, sheep, swine, pleasure carriages, musical instruments, household furniture above $200 in value, logs, timber, boards, vessels, and stock in trade or employed in arts, constituting the personal property. All these things are vis- ible to every neighbor. No inquisitorial methods are necessary, and no returns of property under oath are asked for. Stock in trade is roughly estimated at low figures, the contents of a well- filled country variety store, for example, being valued at $500 year after year. For purposes of taxation the land is divided into mowing or til- lage, pasture and unimproved land. From $10 to $30 per acre is the common valuation for til- lage land ; $4 per acre is the commonest valu- ation of pasture land ; and for unimproved land the range of valuation is from $4 to $20 per acre, according to its capacities.
" The total valuation has of course risen con- siderably since the town began to be a summer
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resort, but is still very moderate. Indeed, it would no more than make a decent little property for a respectable merchant in New York or Chi- cago. The increase is mainly due to new build- ings, $40,000 of this increase being assessed to permanent residents, and $50,000 to summer residents.
" A rate of $33 on every $1000 of the total valuation yields in most years, when added to the poll taxes ($3 a poll), the money needed to meet the annual appropriations. What are those appro- priations ? - or, in other words, for what do the voters spend the money which they have them- selves contributed ? The following table answers this question for the years 1880-90, the year 1880 being before the invasion of the town by summer visitors.
" Appropriations made at the March town- meeting :-
For 1880.
For 1890.
State and county taxes . $1,055.60
State and county taxes
$800.00
Common schools
733.60
Common schools
813.60
Roads and bridges
575.00
Roads and bridges
2,000.00
Town charges
600.00
Town charges
800.00
Poor .
1,200.00
Poor
· 1,000.00
Bridge at Northeast
Harbor
60.00
Repairing two hills on Southwest Harbor
road . 300.00
Free high school 150.00
To buy school books .
800.00
$4,314.20
Total . $6,723.60
Bridge at Little Harbor Brook .
150.00
"State and county taxes used to absorb nearly
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a quarter of the whole tax levy, but of late years have required less than one eighth.
" For common schools the town appropriates just what the Maine statute requires, namely, eighty cents for each inhabitant according to the last census ; but this small appropriation is sup- plemented by a grant from the State of nearly as much more, which is derived from the school fund, the bank tax, and a tax of one mill on every dollar of valuation throughout the State. In addition to the town tax for schools, a sepa- rate district tax is occasionally levied for school buildings. For the year ending April 1, 1889, the number of scholars was 406, and the State grant of $712.11 added to the town appropri- ation of $813.60 made the whole sum available for common schools $1525.71, or $3.76 for each scholar for the year. Since 1886 the town has also appropriated annually from $100 to $200 a year for a high school, the State giving as much as the town raises, but not exceeding $250.
" Roads and bridges have been the largest item on the list of appropriations since 1884. This expenditure has undoubtedly been judi- cious ; for driving is one of the principal pas- times of the summer visitors, and gives profitable employment at that season to the horses and vehicles of the permanent residents. Moreover, the roads and bridges, having necessarily been constructed originally in the cheapest possible
262
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manner as regards both laying out and surface, were costly in wear and tear of animals and vehi- cles, and costly also in annual repairs.
" The appropriation for the care of the town poor has been the next largest appropriation since 1884 ; but before that year it was usually the largest of the appropriations, as, for instance, in 1880, when it was more than one fourth of the whole tax-levy. The theory on which the voters act in making this appropriation is that the town is to take care of the incapable, crippled, and aged who are without means of support. No one in the town is to be hungry or cold. If some unusual misfortune overtakes a family ordinarily self-supporting, - like diphtheria among the chil- dren, or the prolonged sickness of the bread-win- ner, - that family is to be temporarily helped by the town. In short, everybody who has a domi- cile in the town is assured of a bare livelihood at all times, and of aid under special misfortunes. The idea that it is the duty of the town to take care of its poor is firmly planted in the mind of every inhabitant. The town officers will try to prevent an hereditary or constitutional pauper from acquiring a domicile in the town ; they will try to establish elsewhere shiftless families that are apt to need aid; but they will relieve every case of destitution which fairly belongs in the town. There is no poorhouse ; so that persons who cannot support themselves are boarded and
263
SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL
lodged in private houses at the expense of the town. .
" The number of schoolhouses in the town was ten in 1889, and, on the average, school is kept in every schoolhouse for two terms of about nine weeks each in a year. The summer schools are usually kept by women, who are paid from four and one half to five dollars a week besides their board and lodging ; the winter schools, by men, who are paid about forty dollars a month, be- sides their board and lodging. In addition, the so-called high school is kept three terms of ten weeks each, but in three different districts. Eighteen weeks in the year are all the schooling a Mount Desert boy can get until he is far enough advanced to go to the high school for ten weeks more. Moreover, the two terms in each year are far apart, so that the pupil forgets a good deal between terms. . . In spite of their limited op- portunities, however, all the children of the town learn to read, write, and cipher well enough for practical purposes, and better than some children in cities and large towns who have twice the amount of schooling, - and that under skillful teachers, - but pass the rest of their time under unfavorable conditions in crowded tenements and streets. The favorable result depends, first, on the keenness of the children's desire to learn; and, secondly, on the general home training. In an ordinary Mount Desert household, men, women,
264
MOUNT DESERT
and children all work with their hands for the common support and satisfaction. The children help the elders in the common family interest as soon as they can rock a cradle, drive a cow, sweep a floor, or bring from the post-office the precious weekly newspaper. Yet the children's labor, unlike factory work, is wholesome for body and mind. They thus acquire at home, in the best way, habits of application and industry which stand them in good stead during the short weeks of their scanty school terms."
The civic and religious life of the Mount Desert settlements developed together as was the custom of New England communities, but the scattered character of the settlements on the Is- land and the difficulties of communication when the roads were nothing more than rough trails through the woods, delayed church organiza- tion. Occasionally a traveling minister must have visited the Island from one of the older settled communities to the west, coming for a wedding or a funeral and holding perhaps a religious service at some settler's house. The marriage of James Richardson's daughter, Rachel, to Davis Wasgatt, on August 9, 1774, was an event of sufficient im- portance to bring the Rev. Daniel Little all the way from Kennebunk, but the next marriage of which we have record had to be conducted with- out minister or justice. Lucy Somes, who was one
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SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL
of the "four pretty girls " mentioned in Governor Bernard's Journal, married Nicholas Thomas on February 22, 1780, and the record signed by the bridal couple and by the Town Clerk, who was the bride's father, certifies that "inasmuch as there is no lawful authority within thirty miles of this place whereby we can be married as the law directs, we do with the consent of our parents and in the presence of these witnesses, solemnly promise and engage to each other," and there follows an ad- mirably phrased marriage service which the young couple apparently repeated together.
The first regular church on the Island was organized October 17, 1792, and this had to be brought about without the aid or presence of any minister. Six men and eight women, living at or near Southwest Harbor at that time, subscribed their names to a covenant and organized the Mount Desert Congregational Church. The town records have frequent reference to the endeavors of the settlers to secure and employ a minister, but these efforts were unavailing. For many years the preaching was done by a layman, Ebenezer Eaton. He refused to be ordained until the year 1823, feeling that he was not sufficiently well educated to be a regular minister. He continued to serve the church until 1832 and occasionally for several years afterwards. He died at Sedgwick in 1841.
The scattered character of the settlements re- quired that two Meeting Houses be built. One
266
MOUNT DESERT
was on the south side of Southwest Harbor and the other on the road about halfway between Seal Cove and Somesville. These were built about 1800. The material of the "sutheren" house went into the present white Meeting House at Southwest Harbor which replaced the original structure about 1828. The "northen " Meeting House was burned in 1816.
The first Meeting House in the town of Eden was built at Hull's Cove in 1797. It was a large, high-posted building with a porch on the south side. There were box pews with seats on three sides and it was for many years the best finished meeting house on the Island. It was finally torn down in 1865. This house was long identified with the preaching of Elder Enoch Hunting who, though himself a Baptist, was fourteen years the pastor of the Congregational Society. There were many debates in town meeting about the location of the Meeting House. The parish extended all the way from Schooner Head on the southeast to Indian Point on the northwest, a distance of more than eighteen miles. In 1822 dissatisfac- tion became so general that a special committee was appointed to decide whether a second Meet- ing House should be built, and in 1824 what was known as the Western Meeting House was built on the eastern side of Northeast Creek. Services were held in this house until 1875 when the present church at Salsbury's Cove was built.
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SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL
As the population grew other churches were organized. The Baptists began in 1816, the Methodists in 1828, and others followed. The records indicate that, as was natural in a frontier settlement, the ministers were comparatively il- literate. Their support was very meagre and they worked with their hands for a livelihood like all their comrades. They were apt to be ready in homely illustration and timely invective, rough in speech and scornful of the niceties of demeanor. Their theology was harsh but in its tough hold on the realities of human frailty and sin and its appeal to the common emotions, it was not ill-adapted to the needs of a frontier civilization.
The First Church at Bar Harbor was built in 1853 and for many years it was used by all de- nominations. The Episcopalians built their own church in 1878; the Roman Catholics in 1881; the Methodists in 1882; and the Unitarians in 1888 when the original Union Church became a church in regular Congregational affiliation.
The coming of the summer visitors to the island and the rapid development of large sum- mer communities naturally led to the building of a number of attractive churches. The Young Men's Christian Association opened its building at Bar Harbor in 1900. A century of local church history discloses steady improvement in material equipment and in quality of pastoral service.
VIII THE SUMMER COLONIES
God ploughed one day with an earthquake, And drove His furrows deep ! The huddling plains upstarted, The hills were all aleap !
He hath made them the haunt of beauty, The home elect of His grace; He spreadeth His mornings on them; His sunsets light their face.
His thunders tread in music Of footfalls echoing long, And carry majestic greeting Around the silent throng.
His winds bring messages to them - Wild storm-news from the main ; They sing it down to the valleys In the love-song of the rain.
Green tribes from far come trooping, And over the uplands flock; He has woven the zones together As a robe for His risen rock.
The people of tired cities Come up to their shrines and pray; God freshens again within them, As He passes by all day. WILLIAM CHANNING GANNETT.
THE SUMMER COLONIES 1
THE first allusion in literature to the possibilities of Mount Desert as a summer resort is in Robert Carter's "Summer Cruise on the Coast of New England," which is the record of a trip made in a fishing smack in the summer of 1858 from Boston to Bar Harbor. Mr. Carter was then the Washington correspondent of the New York "Tribune," and his book is a collection of his let- ters contributed to that journal. His comrades on this trip, which was undertaken partly for fun and partly for scientific research in the department of marine zoology, were William Stimpson, the nat- uralist, called in the book " the Professor," Francis H. Underwood, the projector of the " Atlantic Monthly," called "the Assyrian," and Henry Ware, called " the Artist." The closing chapter of this entertaining little book, which has long been out of print, contains the earliest descrip- tion of the scenery from the point of view of a " rusticator " and discloses the earliest conditions of the summer business at Mount Desert.
Mr. Carter wrote : " The approach to Mount Desert by sea is magnificent. It is difficult to conceive of any finer combination of land and water. . .. None of us knew anything of the
1 See note at end of chapter.
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localities of Mount Desert, and we therefore put into the first harbor, which proved to be Bass Harbor. We landed about sunset and, not find- ing the village very attractive, started for South- west Harbor. ... We could not obtain at Bass Harbor any conveyance, so we walked through the forest for several miles after dark, and for the last hour of the way had a fine night view of the mountains." The party found entertain- ment at the house of Deacon Clark, and the next morning hired the deacon's wagon and drove to Somesville, and later, with some adventures that need not be here recorded, to Bar Harbor. It is interesting to note that on the Bar Harbor road " we drove through a forest where nothing living was visible but squirrels, rabbits, partridges, and an occasional eagle soaring overhead. We passed no house nor sign of human handiwork except a ruined mill." At Bar Harbor " we found excel- lent quarters in the house of Mr. Roberts, the postmaster and principal trader of the village." After spending two days at Bar Harbor the party rode back to Somesville and rejoined their sloop, sailed round to Bar Harbor, and there parted at the end of their cruise. Mr. Carter apparently was the first to call attention to the island as a "resort for artists and for seaside summer loungers," and his prophecies in regard to the future development of the place have been more than realized.
273
THE SUMMER COLONIES
The charm of Mount Desert as a summer re- sort is chiefly due to four things : the natural beauty of the island, the cool summer climate, the facilities for sailing and fishing alike on the smooth waters inside the sheltering islands or on the open sea, and the lure of the wild rocky hills, which are the highest on the Atlantic coast of the United States and deeply cut by pictur- esque valleys, ponds, and streams. The artists who were the earliest visitors did much to make the island famous. Church, Fisher, Cole, Gifford, Hart, Parsons, Warren, Bierstadt, and others of the older generation renowned in American art, painted the crags and the shining waters and gave fanciful names to some of the picturesque places, such as Eagle Lake, the Beehive, Echo Lake, and the Porcupine Islands.1 The artists of a later generation do not find the landscape as
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