USA > Maine > Hancock County > Mount Desert > Mount Desert : a history > Part 17
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charm of this secluded cove. The first summer boarders were Miss Roe of Cornwall on Hudson, sister to E. P. Roe, the novelist, and Miss Church- ill of Greenwich, Conn. Then others followed, and in 1875 the Clements built what is now the western wing of the Seaside Inn. In 1883 Ly- nam P. Campbell built the Glen Cove Hotel and four years later the large Annex. The first sum- mer cottages were built in 1883, when Commander (now Admiral) Crowninshield bought of G. P. Dodge the " Thumbcap " at the entrance of the harbor and built the " Anchorage," and Mr. L. P. Boggs and Mr. S. P. Barr of Harrisburg, Pa., built on Bracy's Point. Shortly afterwards Mr. R. R. Thomas of Philadelphia built on the west- ern shore of the harbor.
Among the earlier guests at the Glen Cove was Miss Mary Dows of New York (Mrs. E. K. Dunham). She told her family of the place, and her sister and brother-in-law, Mr. George B. Cooksey, came the next season. Mr. Cooksey bought of the heirs of James Clement, who died in the spring of 1887, the eastern point of the harbor, with the wharf property and Ox Hill, and at once began to make roads and build his house. It was with the money obtained from these sales that the Clement brothers built the present Sea- side Inn. In the autumn of 1891 Mr. Cooksey and Dr. Penrose of Philadelphia built the road along the eastern edge of the harbor and gave
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it to the town, and the next year the Sea Cliff Drive was completed. Soon the tiers of ledges on the eastern side of the harbor and the slopes of Ox Hill were dotted with beautiful summer cottages, and Seal Harbor, from the little fishing hamlet of 1874, had become a large, prosperous summer resort, with many handsome houses, fine roads, an abundant water supply from Jordan's Pond, and steamboat and railroad connections.1
The Cranberry Isles were not resorted to by the summer people until the finer sites on the main island had been occupied. The views of the Mount Desert hills from Sutton's Island, Islesford, and the western point of Great Cran- berry are, however, unsurpassed, and cottage sites began to be sold on the islands in 1884. At first the " westerners " bought and made over one or another of the existing houses ; later houses specially designed for summer occupancy were built, and gradually a dozen or more pleasant cottages lined the northeastern shore of Little Cranberry and the northwestern point of Sutton's Island. The Islesford Hotel was built in 1887 under the management of Loring A. Stanley, and became the centre of the summer life on Little Cranberry, which has the charm of refined sim- plicity of comparative isolation, and of un- equaled outlook.
1 Mr. Charles H. Clement has kindly furnished some of the facts included in this account of the development of Seal Harbor.
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The smaller summer colonies at Somesville, Hull's Cove, and Schooner Head have each a distinctive life, though the two latter depend on Bar Harbor for markets and for all steamboat and railroad connections. At Somesville a few small hotels do business, while Hull's Cove and Schooner Head are exclusively cottage settle- ments and really continuations of Bar Harbor to the north and south respectively.
The future of Mount Desert as a summer re- sort is largely dependent upon the judgment and taste of the permanent residents. The charm of the place can easily be impaired, and its charac- teristic life is subject to perils that may readily become threatening. The complete occupation of the shores by private owners, the introduction of electric railroads or of automobiles, the reck- less cutting off of the woods, the disfigurement of the roadsides by telegraph poles or ugly scars or by piles of rubbish, the multiplication of the city sights and sounds that the summer people come to Mount Desert to escape, are all to be avoided.
The introduction and rapidly increasing use of automobiles had a profound effect upon the de- velopment and characteristic life of the summer colonies. The improvement of the roads became the most important item of expense for all the island towns. All the roads had to be widened, the grades changed, and hard surfaces built.
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Then water supplies and sewer systems had to be constructed for all the larger communities. Electric light and power was supplied from the dam constructed on the Union River at Ells- worth. The Village Improvement Societies of the different summer colonies became increas- ingly active in the building and maintenance of trails reaching all the summits. Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., a summer resident at Seal Har- bor, acquired considerable tracts of land on the southern slopes of the range and built many roads of skillful construction which he opened to the use of horse-drawn vehicles and horse- back riding, but which are closed to automobiles.
Bar Harbor is now a town of considerable size with many urban characteristics. For miles north and south of the main village, the shores are lined by summer places whose owners' names are widely known in financial, diplomatic, schol- arly, and artistic circles. Most of the occupants of these houses are seasonally permanent and some of the places have now been in the same family for two or more generations. The Golf Course and the Swimming Club, where the best tennis courts are located, are the scenes of many tour- naments of national significance. The Yacht Club is always a busy center of interest. Cruis- ing yacht squadrons often make Bar Harbor their northern port, and squadrons of the United States and foreign navies are among the summer
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visitors. The Building of Arts, which is not only architecturally perfect but beautifully sit- uated against the background of woods and hills, is annually visited by great musicians and the amphitheatre before it is famous for its pageants. The Kennedy Athletic Field offers facility for all kinds of outdoor sports. Open-air concerts are given on the village green, and the shore path between the private places and the sea has long been a famous walk.
The summer communities at Northeast Har- bor and Seal Harbor are of the same kind and spirit, though the village centers are smaller and less urban. There are many fine summer estates, a fleet of yachts, and comfortable hotels. South- west Harbor is a considerable village and retains its importance as a resort. There, too, the shore is lined with summer cottages and hotels.
To the beauty of the scenery, the tonic of the air, and the gayety of the social life, the romance of the island's historic past described in this book may add human interest and romantic charm.
NOTE. - The earliest record we have of summer visitors on Mount Desert Island is contained in a journal kept by Mr. Charles Tracy of New York, father of Mrs. J. Pier- pont Morgan, Sr., whose manuscript is now in the Morgan Library in New York. In 1855 Mr. Tracy came by the Boston and Bangor steamboat to Rockland, and by a local steamboat thence to Southwest Harbor. His family came with him, as did also the Rev. Dr. Stone of Brookline with
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his family, Frederick Church the artist, and his sister, and Theodore Winthrop, the writer, killed afterwards in the Civil War; a party of twenty-six in all. They stayed at Somesville at the Tavern, and explored the Island for a month. It is interesting to note that at that time few of the mountains had distinctive names, but the harbors, coves, islands, and headlands were all named and generally well named. The roads were still rough tracks and the sea was still the highroad for the dwellers on the island, and in no small measure it provided their livelihood.
IX LAFAYETTE NATIONAL PARK
Full many a glorious morning have I seen Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, Kissing with golden face the meadows green, Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy. SHAKESPEARE.
White clouds a-sail in the shining blue, White shadows dropt to dredge the lands; A mountain-wind, and a marching storm, And a sound in the trees like waves on sands; A mist to soften the shaggy side Of the great green hill, till it lies as dim As the hills in a childhood memory; The back of an upland pasture steep, With delicate fern-beds notching wide The dark wood-line, where the birches keep Candlemas all the summer-tide; The crags and the ledges silver-chased Where yesterday's rainy runlets raced; Brown-flashing across the meadows bright The stream that gems their malachite. WILLIAM CHANNING GANNETT.
Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books; Or surely you'll grow double: Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks; Why all this toil and trouble ? Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher. She has a world of ready wealth, Our minds and hearts to bless - Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health, Truth breathed by cheerfulness. One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can. Enough of Science and of Art; Close up those barren leaves; Come forth, and bring with you a heart That watches and receives.
WORDSWORTH.
LAFAYETTE NATIONAL PARK
IN the summer of 1901 Dr. Charles W. Eliot called a meeting at his house at Northeast Har- bor of some of his neighbors and friends who were interested in the preservation of the scenic beauty of Mount Desert Island. Ten or twelve persons attended this meeting and formed a cor- poration which they modeled after the organiza- tion known as the "Trustees of Public Reserva- tions" in Massachusetts. The new corporation was named "The Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations." Dr. Eliot was chosen President, and Mr. George B. Dorr Vice-Presi- dent and executive officer. A charter was in due time secured from the State, and the Trustees, thus organized, offered their services and their facilities to any public-spirited citizens who might desire to perpetually preserve any of the land- scape features of the island.
In 1904 President Eliot printed and distrib- uted a pamphlet bearing the title "The Right Development of Mount Desert," in which he stated that the purpose of the Trustees of Pub- lic Reservations was to hold and improve "for free public use lands in Hancock County, Maine, which by reason of scenic beauty, historical in-
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terest, sanitary advantages or for other reasons, may be available for the purpose." "This body of Trustees," he went on to say, "ought to be enabled to secure large areas of land on the island for this free public use, particularly the hilltops and narrow pieces of shore which lie be- tween the public highways and the sea. Better care of the woods is needed in order to preserve the beauty of the island. To cut off large areas of the woods for immediate profit and leave the hillsides to be washed by heavy rains without the protection of good-sized trees is to impair seriously the uses of the island for all summer residents." He pointed out that the summer re- sort to the island was chiefly due to four things: the cool and equable climate, the beautiful con- formation of the island itself, the availability for sailing and fishing of the waters which surround it, and the roughness and wildness of the hills and shores; and he concluded his statement by saying that "The whole island ought to be treated by every resident as if it were a public park; that is, the beauty and convenience of the place as a health and pleasure resort ought to be kept constantly in mind to guide the policy of the towns and the habits and customs of the population. If the roads and village streets need lighting, let them be lighted with park lights, which require neither poles nor wires. If a new road is to be built, let the lay-out of the road
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be studied by a landscape architect, as well as by an engineer. In the villages and along the roads an extreme tidiness ought to prevail. There should be no visible piles of rubbish, scars on the roadsides, dirty streets, ill odors, or shabby sidewalks. The surroundings of the houses should testify that the occupants love beauty as well as utility. The grounds about the schoolhouses should be not only neat, but decorated with trees, shrubs, and grass, instead of being barren wastes of gravel and weeds. The use of large areas for grass and crops will by no means in- terfere with the beauty of the island considered as a park. The landscape which contains a vari- ety of woods, pastures, cultivated field, gardens, barns, and houses, is on the whole more interest- ing than the monotonous sweep of an unbroken forest. No industry of the island would need to be abandoned if the island were treated through- out on the landscape principles which govern the management of parks. What needs to be forever excluded from the island is the squalor of a city, with all its inevitable bustle, dirt, and ugliness. Not even the appropriate pleasures and splendors of city life should be imitated at Mount Desert. It is to escape the sights and sounds of the city that intelligent people come in summer to such a place as this rough and beautiful island; and the short-season populations do not wish to be reminded in summer of the scenes
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and noises amid which the greater part of their lives is inevitably passed."
The first gift to the Trustees of Public Reservations came in the summer of 1908, when Mrs. Charles D. Homans, the owner of a summer home near Schooner Head, offered to President Eliot the beautiful hill back of Schooner Head known as the Bee Hive, with the ridge to the north, and the woods surrounding the pond called The Bowl. This gift inspired the Trustees to greater activity and during the following au- tumn and winter Mr. Dorr, with the aid of Mr. John S. Kennedy, a summer resident of Bar Harbor, secured for the Trustees the top of Green Mountain. This was an invaluable ac- quisition, because no one spot on the island was so liable to disfigurement and misuse. Two small hotels had already been successively built on the summit, and at one time a cog railroad had been constructed up the side of the mountain from Eagle Lake to carry tourists to the second of these hotels. This summit was also the only one to which a wagon road had been built. The ho- tels had never paid, and the second building had been allowed to fall into decay. Upon the ac- quisition of the summit by the Trustees, this building was burned, and the summit restored to its original bareness.
There followed by gifts from individuals and through purchase with money contributed by
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summer residents, the acquisition of Newport Mountain, Dry Mountain and other detached parcels of land. Next came in two large tracts, the deep basin of Jordan Pond with the hills enclosing it and the even greater basin of Eagle Lake. These acquisitions were hastened by the need of the protection of the water supply, Eagle Lake being the supply for Bar Harbor and Jor- dan Pond of Seal Harbor and the eastern shore of Northeast Harbor.
In the autumn of 1912 the Trustees had ac- quired such extensive tracts as to in some meas- ure imperil their charter right to freedom from taxation. They were informed that unless the development of their properties in the public interest could be assured, it might be necessary to levy taxes. Action in this direction was barely prevented during the session of the Maine Legislature in 1913, and the Trustees then decided to offer their major holdings to the National Government as a Federal Reserva- tion. Accordingly Mr. Dorr went to Washington in the spring of 1913 and consulted the Secre- tary of the Interior, Mr. Franklin K. Lane, who received the idea with enthusiasm.
Encouraged by Mr. Lane's cooperation, Mr. Dorr caused several articles to be written de- scriptive of the work and plans of the Trustees. These were contributed by President Eliot, Pro- fessor M. L. Fernald, Mr. Ernest H. Forbush,
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and Mr. Dorr himself. They were first published in the National Geographic Magazine and then gathered in an illustrated pamphlet under the title, "The Unique Island of Mt. Desert."
"On the beautiful island of Mount Desert," Dr. Eliot wrote, "not far from the northeastern extremity of the Atlantic coast of the United States, there is at this moment opportunity for establishing a national monument of unique in- terest and large serviceableness. The island is the loftiest piece of land on the Atlantic coast of the United States, and has sharply differ- entiated surface of hills and valleys, a climate midway between that of the neighboring lands and that of the surrounding sea, abundant water, and in favorable spots a highly productive soil, well suited for growing a wide variety of trees, flowering shrubs, and herbaceous plants belonging to the temperate and subarctic regions of the world.
"Private initiative and enterprise have long since demonstrated the peculiar fitness of the Mount Desert climate and soils for horticultural and arboricultural uses, and leading botanists and garden experts have testified to the remark- able thriftiness of plants grown upon the island, as well as to the unusual beauty and rich color- ing of their blooms.
"A body of trustees, called the 'Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations,' has
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already acquired the wooded slopes and rocky summits of many of the principal hills, and holds them for perpetual public enjoyment. Pos- session, too, has been secured by public-spirited private persons of considerable areas exception- ally fitted for the growth and exhibition of all varieties of trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants which the landscape architect might use in de- veloping all across the continent, in northern climates, parks and gardens for the enjoyment of city populations.
"Here, too, all the bird-food plants could be appropriately cultivated and bird sanctuaries provided. The cultivated tracts would have a noble background of rocky cliffs and lofty hills, and down the valleys and gorges visitors would look out from time to time over the near bays or the distant ocean. Here, in short, could be brought together under highly favorable condi- tions and in great variety the botanical and zoological materials of the landscape and garden designer.
"If the government of the United States should set aside as a national monument a large area on this picturesque and unique island, it would help to consecrate for all time to the improve- ment of the human environment one of the most beautiful and interesting regions in the whole country ; and in so doing it would take appro- priate part in resisting and overcoming the de-
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structive influences on modern civilization of urban life and the factory system.
"The powers of the national government have thus far been exerted to these conservation ends chiefly in the Far West, where population is sparse and the evils of city life and the factory system are little developed. Is it not just and highly expedient that these beneficent powers should now be exerted in the East, where manu- facturing industries occupy the major part of the population and the destructive effects of city life have long been manifest?"
In his own article Mr. Dorr pointed out how the undertaking had grown, till now the trus- tees hold "between five and six thousand acres on the island in one continuous reservation, which includes the highest mountain peaks and the greater part of the water-shed of the high- lying lakes between them whence the water sup- plies of the residential portions of the island are chiefly drawn. The area also includes much forest land, with deep valleys which offer ad- mirable shelter for wild life, open marshes and pools suitable for wading and aquatic birds, streams on which beaver formerly built their dams and which would make fit homes for them again, and the best opportunity along the whole Maine coast for preserving and exhibiting in a single tract its native flora.
"This ownership the association hopes ulti-
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mately to extend, as opportunity to do so at reasonable cost shall offer, till it includes the whole range of bold, ice-worn granite hills, from twelve to fifteen miles in length, which extends across the island, offering magnificent views of sea and land, together with the cool lakes, the wooded valleys, and the one noble fiord on our Atlantic coast, which lie between them.
"The completion of this purpose will create a wild park of remarkable beauty, unique charac- ter, and great variety of landscape features, whose permanent and best development in ac- cordance with the spirit of their undertaking the members of the association feel will be pro- vided for most wisely by placing it - except in special portions carefully selected and set aside for arboretum and other educational or scien- tific purpose - in the hands of the Federal gov- ernment as a gift to the nation.
"Saved to future generations as it has been to us, in the wild primeval beauty of the nature it exhibits of ancient rocks and still more ancient sea, with infinite detail of life and landscape interest between, the spirit and mind of man will surely find in it in the years and centuries to come an inspiration and a means of growth as essential to them ever and anon as are fresh air and sunshine to the body."
In 1914 Mr. Dorr carried to Washington the deeds conveying the properties held by the
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Trustees to the National Government. These were submitted to the Public Lands Commis- sion, which reported favorably on the general plan, but required perfected titles and a single boundary. This requirement proved somewhat perplexing, and it was not until the spring of 1916 that Mr. Dorr was able to present at Washington deeds conveying a tract bounded by a single line and free from all easements. The Trustees of Public Reservations continued to hold the small tracts which could not be di- rectly connected with the larger area, or over which private or corporate rights of one kind or another still existed. Under the National Monu- ments Act passed in 1906 it was possible to se- cure action without Congressional confirmation, because no funds or appropriations were in- volved, and the lands were conveyed to the Government as a free gift. A proclamation was drawn by Secretary Lane establishing the Sieur de Mont National Monument, and this was signed by President Wilson on July 8, 1916. Two years later a small appropriation was made by Congress for the protection and maintenance of the Reservation, accompanied by the state- ment that its status should be changed to that of a national park. Accordingly, in the fall of 1918 a Bill creating the Lafayette National Park was approved by the Public Lands Committees of Congress and passed by both houses. This
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Bill was signed by the President in February, 1919, during the brief period of his return from the meeting of the Peace Conference in Paris. The Act gave the new park the name of La- fayette in commemoration of the existing alli- ance and of the old ties of friendship that had so long existed between France and the United States.
One of the first improvements advocated by Mr. Dorr when he became officially the curator of the Park was a reconsideration of the names of the hills. This was suggested in the editorial footnote printed on page 273 of this history.
The United States Geographic Board took this suggestion into serious consideration, and as a result the government bestowed new names upon many of the summits and thereby com- memorated some of the historical characters whose associations with Mount Desert have been recorded in this book. The name of Champlain was given to the bold and outstanding summit at the eastern end of the range; the connected hill to the south retained the appropriate name of the Bee Hive; and the connected hill on the west was re-named Huguenot Head. The high- est summit on the island, heretofore known as Green Mountain, received the name of Cadillac. Pemetic Mountain retained its name, which, as we have seen, was the original Indian name of the island. The names of Penobscot, commem-
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orating the Indian tribe which once made its seasonal home at Mount Desert, and Parkman, in honor of the great historian of the French colonization in America, were given to the out- standing spurs of Sargent's Mountain. Brown Mountain received the name of Norumbega. Across the Sound historic names of St. Sauveur and Acadia supplanted the dull names of Dog and Robinson. The two peaks of the western mountain were named, one, Bernard, commem- orating Sir Francis Bernard's visit and proprie- torship, and the other, Mansell, which was the original name used by the English for the whole range. These new names now appear upon all the government maps and are steadily supplant- ing in popular use the old inappropriate and commonplace names.
The Park is being steadily developed for pub- lic use under the skillful direction of Mr. Dorr and with the sympathy and cooperation of the Secretary of the Interior and the Director of the National Parks. The work is carried for- ward in accordance with the instructions of the Secretary of the Interior Dr. Work. In a letter dated June 14, 1924, he said, "Size is not im- portant so long as the Park includes within its boundaries those scenic elements that meet es- tablished standards, but the area must be sus- ceptible of an effective development to make it accessible to the people and of convenient ad-
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