Eliot, Frances H. (wife of S.A.Eliot) ES. Atlast i Monthly July, 1953. FRANCES HOPKINSON ELIOT was born and educated in Cambridge and there she has spent many of her happiest years. The daughter-in-law of President Eliot and the wife of a distinguished clergyman, who was for many years minister of the Arlington Street Unitarian Church, she has known with some familiarity the great and near great. the absent-minded, and the originals who gire to Cambridge a luster peculiarly its our. PATRIARCHAL PICNICS by FRANCES H. ELIOT S WE get into the eighties, how many times we come a sheet of paper on which was written just A say "I remember" - an all-engrossing OC- who should drive, who should sail, who should cupation. How vividly the past stands out in walk, and the chosen picnic spot. It did not occur every detail and what a halo surrounds it all. to any of us that we might have preferences. Any- Happy memories are the delight of the aged. One way, we never dreamed of expressing them. has to impart these remembrances to the second At the appointed hour, the cavalcade started, and third generation with caution and a sharp eye to climbing aboard carriages or boats, or trudging by see when the expression on the listener's face be- foot, laden with wraps, a large tin can holding fresh comes one of faint tolerance, and stop. But there are water, and baskets of such Spartan food as cold incidents and occasions that are now SO obsolete baked beans, cold fish, cold sandwiches - - for the they should be recorded, and among these are the thermos bottle had not yet been invented. No picnics my family enjoyed. alcohol, no cigarettes, no matches even, for all fires Off the coast of Maine lies a beautiful island dis- were taboo. The grandparents often had dis- covered by Samuel de Champlain in 1604 and by tinguished guests visiting them and they caine President Eliot of Harvard in 1870. Champlain along too, of course. (I doubt if they had any gave it the name "L'Isle des Monts Déserts"; we choice.) Also, sometimes, came the cook and maids, called it "God's Country." Here, in one of the a very democratic party, ranging from Lord Bryce, numerous harbors, called Northeast Harbor, Mr. a quite frequent visitor, to Julia, the cook; and in Eliot built the first summer house and made it his age, from seventy to four. summer home for more than fifty years. His hos- Many a mountain picnic was ours, driving to the pitality knew no bounds and there soon gathered a foot of one of these and then plodding up the steep band of college presidents and professors whose long hills, the boys of the party bearing the burden of vacations made it possible for them to spend the baskets, cans, and wraps. If Ambassador Bryce three months' holidays on this almost inaccessible happened to be one of the party, he was soon sur- island. Harvard, Yale, Cornell, California, and rounded by the young people, for a more charming Johns Hopkins were all represented and there grew raconteur never lived. His knowledge of botany, a saying: "You have to have money but no brains birds, geology, geography, had no limits and he in Bar Harbor, brains but no money in Northeast knew how to impart it. Sometimes it would be Harbor, while in Southwest Harbor you do not have Professor Palmer or Dr. Walcott or Professor Ware to have either." (known to the children as Billy-Bobby) or Professor As I remember the long summer days of my Dunbar, the only person I ever knew who called youth and middle age, when it was still the fashion President Eliot "Charlie." I remember also the to have all one's children enjoying the long vacation Reverend Lyman Abbott, tall, angular, and with a with their. parents, I recall the picnics we used to long, flowing beard, and Edward Everett Hale, the have when three generations drove, climbed, sailed, great preacher and author of "The Man Without a and sang together. President Eliot was the prime Country," with his leonine head and voice to match. mover, the organizer, the enthusiast. There were giants in those days. A lovely, sunshiny morning would see him tip- Some of Mrs. Eliot's women guests might be locing on our piazza before breakfast, saying, "Illow along too: Mrs. William James who conversed about an excursion?" Then out of his pocket would rather than talked, or Miss Hoppin, one of Rad- 55 43 56 THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY cliffc's most popular dormitory heads, who was once To bc sure, the cautious and taciturn Yankees introduced to a visiting Englishman as "the mis- were sometimes very chary as to their answers tress of Bertram Hall." He was surprised by such as expressed by one farmer who, seeing a portrait Gallic frankness of speech in staid old Cambridge! that was being painted of President Eliot, said, Our sailing pienics to the many beautiful islands "Just like him - only it cairn't ask questions" - were full of song led by Mrs. Eliot's and my hus- but they knew he had their interests at heart. band's beautiful voices. Everyone sang - ballads, What interests me in retrospect is the pleasure sea songs, and the topical songs of that time. By and satisfaction the younger generation got out of President Eliot's wish, "Three cheers for Harvard it. They would not have considered those excur- and down with Yale," was changed to and sions complete without their grandparents and one for Yale"! parents. Could as much be said for the young and There were rules and regulations that had to be old people of today? Or was it the Golden Age we observed, and WOC to the boy or girl who tried to lived in, with security and the ability to enjoy the pass an elder on a narrow mountain trail. I can see simple joys of life? Great beauty for the eyes, often the linc of marchers, led by an crect figure in a sun high conversation for the mind, merry songs, and helmet, the ladies following, holding up ankle- much laughter. length skirts, wearing shirtwaists with high boned The general public thinks of President Eliot as collars, large hats draped in veils, and even gloves. awesome and unapproachable. His children and No bobbed bare heads, no shorts, no socks. No grandchildren did not find him so. If a somewhat indeed! A climb in those carly days was one of bumptious youngster of seventeen wished to con- dogged determination, decorum, and sweat. Once vert him to socialism (it would be communism to- on the mountaintop, the elders would nap, the day) he would listen with grave attention and tol- young people would pick blueberries, and everyone crance, never with a disapproving attitude, for he enjoyed the beauty all around, plus a satisfactory had great respect for the human mind. If he saw a sense of accomplishment. child disappointed by some decision of his, he was Once, I remember, when pienicking on Flying quick to do anything in his power to atone for it, Mountain, a small hill with open pastures down to no matter how trivial it would seem to bc. IIc was the sca, the elders staged a race. At seventy, Presi- a man of action rather than words, and with per- dent Eliot sprinted down the hill followed by a haps a deeper knowledge of the then new science of bevy of stout, well-corseted ladies holding up their psychology than he was credited with. I remember skirts, with veils flying as they dashed to the bot- on a sailing picnic when heavy squalls hit the boat, tom, while the young, as audience, egged them on full of women and children who began to look pan- with cheers and shouts of laughter. This, however, icky, he handed over the tiller to his son and, with was a rare occasion, for being decorous was the the remark "This is a good time to take a nap," order of the day. disappeared down the hatch to the small cabin President Eliot was a fine horseman and drove below. Could anything be more reassuring! IIG a spirited span with skill and elegance. To drive was unique in his straight thinking, and upright in with him through the countryside meant many figure also. To see him sitting on a rock, erect as a stops by the way to gather information as to the ramrod, eating sandwiches and "conversing," was mode of life - the diet, the crops, the lobsters, the a common and refreshing sight. number of children, and the hopes and fears of the And so, with gratitude and happiness, "I rc- farmer and sailor. member." 44 A road leading to the summit of the highest peak offers an eagle's view of Mount Desert Island with Bar Harbor below and Frenchman Bay beyond. I Remember Mount Desert by Frances H. Eliot photographs by Lawrence Lowry O FF the coast of Maine lies a wonderful island from the sea; woods and trails and streams for fish- which was discovered by Samuel de Cham- plain in 1604, named by him l'Isle des Monts D'seris ing; a rugged coast, with coves and bays, beaches and named by some of us, who have spent seventy and headlands, fine harbors and safe sailing for the summers on it, "The Blessed Isle" or "God's fleet of racers manned by the young people. All is Country." surrounded by a sparkling ocean. It seems to combine everything. It has a range of There are automobile roads following the coast, dozen mountains, some of them rising abruptly and one road, a marvelous piece of engineering, goes to the summit of Cadillac Mountain, our high 1 See 'Bar Harbor Culture file 45 for entire article 6/27/2015 XFINITY Connect XFINITY Connect eppster2@comcast.net + Font Size - Archival Request From : Ronald Epp Sat, Jun 27, 2015 09:38 AM Subject : Archival Request To : hstevens@nehlibrary.org Dear Hannah, In reorganizing Eliot family papers, I came across an incomplete document that I photocopied with Bob Pyle's permission nearly a decade ago. "In Memory of Samuel Atkins Eliot: 1852-1950. A Leader of this Union Church. Frances Hopkinson Eliot 1871-1954. Vivid Portrayer of Times Past." No attribution except at top of title page, handwritten, "Presented by S.A. Eliot, Jr." Pamphlet Box 200, I've noted. \On document in upper left is Pam M252 F I have pages 1,3,4, and 5 but I would appreciate it if the entire document could be copied and put aside for me until my early August visit; or, scanned and sent to me as an attachment. The need arose because I'm preparing a second edition of Reverend Eliot's 1939 Historical Sketch of the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations to be published by the Woodlawn Museum as part of the Acadia Centennial Partners series. The Friends of Acadia will also publish my biography of George B. Dorr (Creating Acadia National Park) as a part of that series. It would give me great pleasure to offer a talk derived from that publication at the Northeast Harbor Library, should you be interested in such a program. After all, as I emphasize throughout my manuscript, the Eliot family provided the vision and sustained commitment to the development of the park, a historical fact too often slighted. Cordially, Ronald H. Epp, Ph.D. 532 Sassafras Dr. Lebanon, PA 17042 717-272-0801 Ronald H. Epp, Ph.D. 532 Sassafras Dr. Lebanon, PA 17042 717-272-0801 eppster2@comcast.net https://web.mail.comcast.net/zimbra/h/printmessage?id=302279&tz=America/New_York&xim=1 1/2 Presented by S. A. thol, pr. Pami M 252 In Memory of SAMUEL ATKINS ELIOT 1862 - 1950 A Leader of this Union Church FRANCES HOPKINSON ELIOT 1871 - 1954 Vivid Portrayer of times past For over seventy summers They rejoiced in God's Goodness on this Island. A white marble tablet with this inscription was dedicated in the Union Church of Northeast Harbor, Maine, at the morning service on Sunday, July 8, 1956. Dr. Henry Wilder Foote preached the sermon on "A Desert Place Apart, " and after the Prayer at the close of the sermon, Samuel A. Eliot, Jr., unveiled the tablet and Charles W. Eliot, 2d, read the inscription. Rev. John G. Manter of the Mt. Desert Larger Parish then announced the closing hymn. -3- passed this coast when, about 1000 A.D. they discovered the shores of what they called "Vineland The Good, 11 but if their discovery was limited to Labrador, then Champlain and his companions were the first Europeans to see these hills when, in 1604, he circumnavigated the island and called it "L'Isle des Monts Deserts," - the island of the barren hills, because, presumably, their summits then as now were bare of trees. For nearly another 160 years it remained a desert place apart, a no-man's land of disputed territory between French Canada and New England, until France ceded Canada to Great Britain and this coast became safe for settlers. It was less than 200 years ago that Captain Somes first sailed his little schooner up the Sound and cut out in the wilderness a small farm for his family. And he was followed by many another small vessel from Salem or Gloucester, Newburyport or Portsmouth, bringing pigs and sheep and cattle as well as the human beings who sought new homes in the wilderness and the solitary place, where through their labors the desert should blossom as the rose. Much has been written about the great story of our western frontier as it was pushed across the country to the Pacific by the courage and fortitude of men and women in their covered wagons, but I like to remind you that here along our coast from Portland to Eastport is the one instance in our history of a migration eastward by sea- faring pioneers with no less courage and fortitude than was shown by those who drove their wagons west. On this island, and along the coast to the east and west, small communities whose folk lived by fishing and farming had been well established before the earliest summer visitors of modern times put in an appearance, about 100 years ago. Those visitors, when they came, were seeking a quiet place apart where they could rest awhile from the noise and tumult of the great cities and the pressing burdens of their busy lives. Their story is well illustrated in the record of a single family which has been for many years closely associated with this place and this church. I recall vividly Dr. Charles W. Eliot's account of his first expedition to these shores. It must have been in the summer of 1857 when he, a young man not long out of college, and his friend Moorfield Storey, and probably two or three others, travelled to Rockland where they chartered a small fishing schooner which they were able to handle themselves. 1857 They scudded across Penobscot Bay before a strong west wind, one man steering, another holding the then very inadequate chart, trying to locate reefs ahead and the channel between the islands. There were very few lighthouses and almost no navigation marks, but they came through safely, and had their first sight of these hills and harbors. -4- 4820's In the early 1870's Dr. Eliot, at that period the youthful president of Harvard, came again, this time to camp for a few weeks in several successive summers on Calf Island, in Frenchman's Bay opposite Bar Harbor, then in its early days as a summer resort. It was their early acquaintance 1880 with this region which in 1880 led Dr. Eliot's two sons, - the elder one, Charles aged 20, a sophomore in college, the younger one Sam, then 17, - to organize a group of college friends into what they called the "Champlain Society, " to camp out on Mt. Desert and study the hitherto unexamined natural history of the island. They sailed from Boston in their father's sloop, reaching Somes Sound, and set up their camp at Wasgatt's Cove, inside Manchester's Point, so happily and successfully that the Champlain Society continued there for several summers. (The immediate result for the Eliots was that Charles advised his father to purchase land and build a summer home on the shore between Northeast Harbor and Seal Harbor. He did so, and in the summer of 1881 first occupied the house on Asticou Foreside in which he died in 1926. It was one of the two or three earliest summer residences here. (Northeast Harbor was then a very small community. There was no village street lined with shops, only a road through the woods from the head of the harbor to Squire Kimball's boarding house. The mailman drove to Somesville twice a week to fetch and carry mail, or one could drive an all-day round trip over rough roads to Bar Harbor to mail a letter, or send a telegram, or consult a doctor. In those days Mt. Desert was accessible only by boat, and the voyage from Rockland through the channels among the islands was a beautiful way of reaching it. It was indeed "a quiet place apart" for those who came to find relief from "the madding crowds' ignoble strife. i) Before 1883 there seem to have been no regular Sunday services at Northeast Harbor, and the nearest church, at Southwest Harbor, was accessible only by boat in fair weather. But in the summer of that year services were begun in the village's little one-room schoolhouse. This led to the organization in 1886 of the Union Church Association, on an interdenominational basis, with membership open to summer visitors as well as to permanent residents. A money-raising campaign was started; Mr. Samuel N. Gilpatrick gave the site for the church in which we meet today; and a Building Committee which included Dr. Eliot and Messrs. Danforth and Ansel Manchester promoted its erection. The building was completed and dedicated in 1889 and President Eliot and his wife are rightly commemorated in a tablet here. It was thus that Dr. Eliot's younger son, Samuel Atkins Eliot, grew so familiar with this island that it became a -5- greatly beloved second home to him. In the summer of 1888, when he was still a student in the Harvard Divinity School, he preached his first sermons in some of the churches of this region. He was the first secretary of the Union Church Association and its earliest records are in his handwriting. He took part in the dedication service in 1889, and was the sole survivor of those who had part in it when, in 1939, he gave the 50th anniversary address. He followed his father and his uncle, Prof. Francis G. Peabody of beloved memory, in the happy task of inviting distinguished preachers to speak from this pulpit on summer Sundays, and he himself preached here in almost every summer of his long professional career. This is not the occasion to recount his outstanding services to religion and to the nation which marked his career elsewhere. He was a persuasive and eloquent preacher; one of the committee which prepared the hymn-book we are using here today; a very capable administrator of church business as the head of his denomination, yet always con- cerned to promote interdenominational cooperation as exempli- fied in the summer services of this Union Church, and in the Mt. Desert Larger Parish. He was a promoter of prison reform and was the friend and helper of the American Indians who, in many parts of our country, have suffered so much at our hands. Today I must limit myself to reminding you of how much he did for this church and this community, so dear to his own and to his wife's heart. She too had spent her summers here since 1883 when, in her girlhood, her parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Hopkinson, had first boarded at Squire Kimball's. Soon afterwards they built their summer cottage, and entered into the fellowship of this church. In her writings and in painting Mrs. Eliot has recorded some of the charm of this island. For her, as for her husband, it came to have almost a sacred quality as a quiet place apart where men and women wearied with the stress and strain of life elsewhere, could come and rest awhile, refreshed by the silence of these steadfast granite hills, and by the cool sea-winds which drive the surf upon our rocky shores. It was a place not only for fun and amusement, but also for quiet meditation on the deeper problems of the human spirit, that those who came to stay for a few weeks might return to their tasks elsewhere with fresh strength and courage, faith and hope. And their love for this place has been transmitted to the third generation of their children. That is why our service today culminates in the dedication of a tablet in this church in memory of Samuel Atkins Eliot and of his wife, Frances Hopkinson Eliot. Such a memorial The Romance Of Street Names In Cambridge | The Cambridge Historical Society Page 1 of 5 CAMBRIDGEHISTORICALSOCIETY EXC: HOME EVENTS ONLINE RESOURCES PUBLICATIONS LIBRARY AND ARCHIVE HOOPER-LEE-NIOHOLS H The Romance Of Street Names In Cambridge Se Submitted by Ken2 on Tue, 12/03/2013 - 2:26pm Searc Author: Frances H. Elliot Volume: 32 An Pages: 25-29 Years: 1946 Year preser Copyright: 1949 Publishers: Cambridge Historical Society THE ROMANCE OF STREET NAMES IN CAMBRIDGE BY FRANCES H. ELIOT Read April 23, 1946 I realize I live in a city teeming with romantic, historical street names. How sorry I feel for those Fin people who have to tramp on numbered streets, or alphabet, or even on tree and flower streets - so I invite you to walk with me on some of the streets of my native City of Cambridge. Shall we walk down Brattle Street first - noticing the beauty of the curves of that old highway as it follows the banks of the Charles River, the street laid out by the first dwellers in Cambridge as the easiest path toward Watertown? Brattle Street was named for General William Brattle - a Tory, who lived in one of the lovely old houses known as Tory Row, many of which still lend graciousness to the street. In our imagination we can see the scarlet-coated, rapiered figures walking up and down on Ne red-heeled shoes offering the hospitality of their snuff boxes to the friends they meet, or with their Check ladies, gowned in hoop skirts and wigs, driving in coaches to take tea with one another, before and L they were forced to flee the country in the Revolution. Then we might turn up Sparks Street, named for a former President of Harvard, and dwell on the Pre idiosyncrasies of the President's wife, whose form of punishment for her daughter was, with each misdemeanor, to take a tuck in her skirt, and, as in those days the mere sight of an ankle caused Public consternation, you can realize, that as the errors accumulated, and the skirts of the unfortunate make culprit rose higher and higher to the knees, what a confining life the young damsel must have led. From Sparks Street to the next street is a short distance and I remember how a stranger, riding in the horse car, inquired of the driver what the name of the street was at which she wished to alight, describing it as a street bearing a noble name, and how he immediately replied "You mean Buckingham, Ma'am." http://www.cambridgehistory.org/content/romance-street-names-cambridge-0 1/26/2014 The Romance Of Street Names In Cambridge | The Cambridge Historical Society Page 2 of 5 Down Concord Avenue we now turn to the Turnpike over which on that hot April day the Red Coats fled, and into Garden Street, named for the Botanical Garden, off of which runs a street named Linnaean 25 after the great Botanist Linnaeus. There used to be many students studying botany when I was young and I remember sitting on top of one of the high gate-posts in front of the Storers' walk (on Garden Street) with Helen Storer on the other and how skilfully we used to switch off the hats of those botany students. Yes, the students wore hats in those bygone days. What we did it for was evidently to test human reactions - and we certainly got them. So to Craigie Street, which was once part of a large tract of land, on which stood "Craigie House," oftener spoken of as the Longfellow House. Its history dates back to Revolutionary days - and as is well known, it was in Craigie House that Washington took up his headquarters in 1775. Later it was inhabited by the Craigies - a strange and wondrous couple. Many are the tales told about them; one of which I like particularly is that of Madam Craigie, sitting by her open window on a warm spring day, seemingly entirely unperturbed by, and oblivious of the fact that swarms of small canker worms (which infested the elm trees of Cambridge), were festooning themselves over her dress and turban, and when her polite young boarder, Mr. Longfellow, offered to remove them - how she turned upon him and said in a stern tone, "Young man, have not our fellow worms as good a right to live as we?" Probably that is one reason why I can remember the canker worms in the eighteen eighties. Mr. Craigie is said to have fallen on evil days and had great debts, so that he never left his house for seven years for fear of arrest - except on Sundays, for according to the laws of that time all criminals were secure on the Sabbath Day from every arrest but Death. We can also boast of a short, insignificant street, which, however small, had so impressed the young son of our minister, Dr. Crothers, that when the family were living in Rome, Italy, he rushed into the house one morning exclaiming "Mother, they have a street named Applan Way here, too!" Of the many streets named for our Revolutionary heroes, I will mention a few of the outstanding ones - Washington, Green, Prescott, and Putnam - recalling the time when these patriot soldiers commanded the Revolutionary Army, here at the Siege of Boston. Also of that period Hancock, Ellery and Gerry Streets bear the names of signers of the Declaration of Independence, and while we are considering Revolutionary Days, let me mention another street named, not for a patriot, but for 26 a Revolutionary foe - Baron Riedesel, who surrendered to our Army at Saratoga in 1777 and walked with his Hessians all the way to Cambridge, where his men were billeted in the College buildings, and where the hooks for their hammocks still hung in Old Massachusetts Hall, in James Russell Lowell's day. The Baron and his wife were housed, as prisoners of war, in one of the old http://www.cambridgehistory.org/content/romance-street-names-cambridge-0 1/26/2014 The Romance Of Street Names In Cambridge | The Cambridge Historical Society Page 3 of 5 Tory houses on the Corner of Sparks and Brattle Streets, left deserted by the fleeing Tories. They lived there in comfort for a year before being "exchanged," and I am told that the name of the Baroness Riedesel, written with a diamond on one of the window panes, can still be seen. And how many streets are named for the Harvard Presidents and Professors. We can ponden on some of the eccentricities which seem inevitably to become part of great thinkers and scholars. Dunster, Chauncy, Holyoke, Willard, Langdon, Kirkland, Quincy, Sparks, Everett and Walker Streets were all named for Harvard Presidents. As we walk down Kirkland Street we can think of the President of that name as "a jolly little man, who when asked for his advice about a Church quarrel over the dogma of the Perseverance of the Saints" replied - "What troubles me is the Perseverance of the sinners!" Quincy Street was named for a President who found great difficulty in remembering names, and would say abruptly to a student, "What's your name?" Sometimes he would ask, "Brown, what's your name?" Once he could not recollect his own name, and when asking for his mail at the Post Office, parried the clerk who asked, "What name, Sir?" with, "Why, surely you know my name" and was rescued just in time by an acquaintance who inquired, "and how is your health this morning, Mr. Quincy?" "Oh," said Mr. Quincy to the clerk, "any letters for Mr. Quincy?" Dunster Street was named for Harvard's first President, who was "fired" for some heresy or other. He was married to the widow of the first printer, who published the New England Primer and John Eliot's Bible. Langdon Street bears the name of the President who gave the prayer to the assembled soldiers on their departure for Bunker Hill. Then, how about the streets named for Harvard Professors? They were certainly remarkable men and deserved to have our highways commemorate them. Longfellow tells us of a talk he had with his friend Richard Henry Dana, who exclaimed proudly "What a set of men we have here - take Agassiz, he counts for three." And of that same pro- 27 fessor, John Fiske, the historian, writes: "Such a human presence was Louis Agassiz, can we forget his beaming face as he used to come strolling across the College Yard with lighted cigar, in serene obliviousness of the University's statutes?" John Fiske goes on to say, "Scarcely as one passed him, one might exchange a pleasant word with Asa Gray, or turning up Brattle Street encounter with a thrill of pleasure Longfellow and Lowell walking side by side. It is a precious thing to walk on streets where such men have walked before." Speaking again of streets named for Harvard Professors, there is one named for the Reverend Henry Ware, a Professor of Divinity at Harvard, about whom grew many legends, the best known being the one in which the students in his classes declared he was a liar, for he often began his lectures with "I am not aware, etc." Another street is named for a most interesting character - a Professor of German named Follen - who came to this country in 1824 and through the good offices of his friend, General Lafayette, who was in America at this time, obtained a professorship at Harvard. He it was who first introduced athletics to the American college. To be sure, when he had gathered some willing students out onto a vacant college lot, calisthenics was all that was offered them - a far cry from the football of these years, http://www.cambridgehistory.org/content/romance-street-names-cambridge-0 1/26/2014 The Romance Of Street Names In Cambridge | The Cambridge Historical Society Page 4 of 5 but he was the originator. He met a tragic death on the Steamer Lexington when the ship took fire and he, among a large number of passengers, perished. Manners were of great moment in those days, and James Russell Lowell in his essay on Cambridge tells how Chief Justice Dana (for whom a street is named) once caused a butcher to be arrested for appearing in court without a coat, and of a friend whom Mr. Lowell calls "R.M." saying to him, "My children say 'yes, sir, no, sir' - my grandchildren 'yes and no' and I am every day expecting to hear 'Damn your eyes' for an answer from my great grandchildren." Two of our great physicians have streets named for them - Water-house and Wyman. Waterhouse Street is named for the first doctor who practised inoculation for smallpox in America. He is described thus - "His queue slender and tapering like the tail of a crab, held out horizontally by the high collar of his shepherd's grey overcoat, whose style was of the latest when he studied in Leyden in his hot youth." I think he must have been an aggressive and egotistic sort of man, as well as a clever one. When some malicious people doubted his claim to fame in regard 28 to inoculation for smallpox, he published this advertisement: "Lost, a gold snuff box with the inscription on it 'The Jenner of the Old World to the Jenner of the New, whoever shall return it to Dr. Waterhouse will be amply rewarded." The other great physician was Dr. Wyman and a large part of his greatness was due to his extraordinary quality of "common sense." An amusing story is told of an old lady patient coming to see him and telling him that each time she drew an extra long breath she suffered pain. Dr. Wyman, gazing at her over his spectacles, solemnly urged her, "Don't take it, Madam, don't take it." We have a Lowell Street and a Holmes Place named for our poets. Lowell loved his Cambridge, exclaiming "There is no place like it, no, not even for taxes," and when temporarily exiled to the Court of St. James as our Minister, and being asked by a fellow countryman, "Do you not wish to visit Egypt and see the Works of Rameses?" Mr. Lowell replied "I would much rather see Ramsay's in Harvard Square" (Ramsay being the Apothecary of Cambridge) - and he also wrote, "Rome, Venice, Cambridge, I take it for an ascending scale, Rome being the first stop, and Cambridge the glowing Apex!" Shepard Street was named for the second minister of the First Church, and Appleton Street for Nathaniel Appleton, Pastor of the Parish for sixty-seven years. Agassiz, Gray, and Bond Streets commemorate our scientists, and in passing let me tell the tale of Mrs. Agassiz going one morning to take her bath and finding three large snakes in the bathtub, and when she called excitedly to her husband, "Come quickly, there are three snakes in my tub," he called back "Where is the fourth?" Reservoir Street, on which I live, used to border the reservoir that fed the thirsty Cantabrigians through my childhood, and was a popular trysting place for lovers on June evenings. The walls stood several years after the water had been drained out of it, and one day an investigating small http://www.cambridgehistory.org/content/romance-street-names-cambridge-0 1/26/2014 The Romance Of Street Names In Cambridge | The Cambridge Historical Society Page 5 of 5 daughter of three years rolled down its steep side and only the Fire Department could rescue her. With pride afterwards she would display her small leg, calling attention to "My reservoir sore!" The streets named Oxford, Cambridge, Bowdoin, Vassar, and Wellesley bear witness to the academic quality of the City Fathers' tastes, as they were responsible for the naming. So, as we walk the streets of our loved town, the Famous and the Great come to our minds, and Romance and Charm live again. 29 http://www.cambridgehistory.org/content/romance-street-names-cambridge-0 1/26/2014 Presented my Pami M 252 In Memory of SAMUEL ATKINS ELIOT 1862 - 1950 A Leader of this Union Church FRANCES HOPKINSON ELIOT 1871 - 1954 Vivid Portrayer of times past For over seventy summers They rejoiced in God's Goodness on this Island. A white marble tablet with this inscription was dedicated in the Union Church of Northeast Harbor, Maine, at the morning service on Sunday, July 8, 1956. Dr. Henry Wilder Foote preached the sermon on "A Desert Place Apart, II and after the Prayer at the close of the sermon, Samuel A. Eliot, Jr., unveiled the tablet and Charles W. Eliot, 2d, read the inscription. Rev. John G. Manter of the Mt. Desert Larger Parish then announced the closing hymn. A DESERT PLACE APART A sermon preached by Rev. Henry Wilder Foote, D.D. in the Union Church, Northeast Harbor, Maine, on July 8, 1956 Mark 6:31-32 And [Jesus said unto them, 'Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while. For there were many going and coming And they went away in a boat to a desert place apart. The Palestine which Jesus knew was a densely over- populated province of the Roman empire. In addition to the descendants of the Hebrew tribes which had conquered the land 1200 years earlier there were Roman soldiers, merchants from the East bringing precious goods to the Phoenician sea- ports, Greek traders, slaves of diverse racial origins. It was a restless, often a turbulent population, and speakers like John the Baptist, and Jesus after him, could quickly gather a large crowd of hearers from whom it was difficult to get away. That was the situation reported in this episode of which we have just read. Jesus and the disciples whom he had sent out to broadcast his message were wearied by the coming and going of multitudes of people and needed to get away to a quiet place where they could rest. So he bade his disciples to get into the boat and cross the Sea of Galilee to its less fertile eastern shore, where few people lived. And when evening had come Jesus himself went alone up onto a mountain to pray. That story reports a very familiar human experience. Man is naturally, and of necessity, a gregarious animal. Every individual human being comes into the world a bundle of latent potentialities for development of body, mind and soul, but the measure in which those possibilities become realities largely depends upon the child's environment among his fellow- men; upon the family life in which he is reared; his oppor- tunities for education; the economic and social order in which he must live. No man ever comes to his full growth or ever lives to himself alone; always he has been to greater or less degree dependent on his tribe, his community, his nation, for survival and for achievement. But this instinctive need for -2- companionship brings together in our modern world, as in countless ages and places in the past, great multitudes who build huge, sprawling cities which spread out from over- crowded slum areas into what have hitherto been fertile farms or quiet woodlands. We, too, today know well the fatigue of living amidst restless crowds and the clamor of many voices, - and to that clamor is now added the sound of radio broadcasts! Our once quiet roads, built for a horse and buggy or for slow moving ox-teams, must now be rebuilt into broad highways for chariots that "run like fire, " driven by men who "drive like Jehu, " for they "drive furiously. " It is no wonder that, like the disciples of old, we need to draw apart by ourselves into a desert place to rest awhile, to regain peace of mind and strength of body. One of the finest achievements of our national and state governments has been the growing recognition of this need and the establishment and maintenance of our great system of national and state parks, without equal in any other country in the world. The original purpose was the preservation from commercial exploitation of places of unusual beauty or with extraordinary natural phenomena, - places like the Yellowstone and the Yosemite. But now, as a natural result of our increasing population, all our great parks have become the resort of hundreds of thousands of people seeking rest and refreshment in desert places apart, where they can commune with the wonder and beauty of the natural world. Now we have scores of such national parks, or lesser reservations, and many more scores of state parks, though not enough to meet the steadily mounting need. They have been for the most part wonderfully well managed, and they form a very precious heritage for coming generations, if we can keep them free from commercial exploitation as amusement centers, with only such measure of regulated development as is needed to make them accessible. Here in the east we have few national parks because the land was largely settled before anyone saw the need of preserving such places for recreation. We, who love this Blessed Isle, are doubly fortunate that so much of it is now part of this national heritage. I wonder how many of us realize that this island was a resort for summer visitors long before any white man came here. The kitchen-middens on Manchester's Point and on West Point in Bartlett's Island Narrows, as in many another place along the coast, are evidence that generation after generation of Indians, whose permanent settlements were on the mainland, paddled down the rivers when summer came, to camp for a few weeks above some sheltered beach where they found clams and lobsters and from which they could launch their canoes for fishing in deeper waters. Perhaps the Norsemen from Iceland -3- passed this coast when, about 1000 A.D. they discovered the shores of what they called "Vineland The Good, " but if their discovery was limited to Labrador, then Champlain and his companions were the first Europeans to see these hills when, in 1604, he circumnavigated the island and called it "L'Isle des Monts Deserts, 11 - the island of the barren hills, because, presumably, their summits then as now were bare of trees. For nearly another 160 years it remained a desert place apart, a no-man's land of disputed territory between French Canada and New England, until France ceded Canada to Great Britain and this coast became safe for settlers. It was less than 200 years ago that Captain Somes first sailed his little schooner up the Sound and cut out in the wilderness a small farm for his family. And he was followed by many another small vessel from Salem or Gloucester, Newburyport or Portsmouth, bringing pigs and sheep and cattle as well as the human beings who sought new homes in the wilderness and the solitary place, where through their labors the desert should blossom as the rose. Much has been written about the great story of our western frontier as it was pushed across the country to the Pacific by the courage and fortitude of men and women in their covered wagons, but I like to remind you that here along our coast from Portland to Eastport is the one instance in our history of a migration eastward by sea- faring pioneers with no less courage and fortitude than was shown by those who drove their wagons west. On this island, and along the coast to the east and west, small communities whose folk lived by fishing and farming had been well established before the earliest summer visitors of modern times put in an appearance, about 100 years ago. Those visitors, when they came, were seeking a quiet place apart where they could rest awhile from the noise and tumult of the great cities and the pressing burdens of their busy lives. Their story is well illustrated in the record of a single family which has been for many years closely associated with this place and this church. I recall vividly Dr. Charles W. Eliot's account of his first expedition to these shores. It must have been in the summer of 1857 when he, a young man not long out of college, and his friend Moorfield Storey, and probably two or three others, travelled to Rockland where they chartered a small fishing schooner which they were able to handle themselves They scudded across Penobscot Bay before a strong west wind, one man steering, another holding the then very inadequate chart, trying to locate reefs ahead and the channel between the islands. There were very few lighthouses and almost no navigation marks, but they came through safely, and had their first sight of these hills and harbors. -4- In the early 1870's Dr. Eliot, at that period the youthful president of Harvard, came again, this time to camp for a few weeks in several successive summers on Calf Island, in Frenchman's Bay opposite Bar Harbor, then in its early days as a summer resort. It was their early acquaintance with this region which in 1880 led Dr. Eliot's two sons, - the elder one, Charles aged 20, a sophomore in college, the younger one Sam, then 17, - to organize a group of college friends into what they called the "Champlain Society, 11 to camp out on Mt. Desert and study the hitherto unexamined natural history of the island. They sailed from Boston in their father's sloop, reaching Somes Sound, and set up their camp at Wasgatt's Cove, inside Manchester's Point, so happily and successfully that the Champlain Society continued there for several summers. The immediate result for the Eliots was that Charles advised his father to purchase land and build a summer home on the shore between Northeast Harbor and Seal Harbor. He did so, and in the summer of 1881 first occupied the house on Asticou Foreside in which he died in 1926. It was one of the two or three earliest summer residences here. Northeast Harbor was then a very small community. There was no village street lined with shops, only a road through the woods from the head of the harbor to Squire Kimball's boarding house. The mailman drove to Somesville twice a week to fetch and carry mail, or one could drive an all-day round trip over rough roads to Bar Harbor to mail a letter, or send a telegram, or consult a doctor. In those days Mt. Desert was accessible only by boat, and the voyage from Rockland through the channels among the islands was a beautiful way of reaching it. It was indeed "a quiet place apart" for those who came to find relief from "the madding crowds' ignoble strife. Before 1883 there seem to have been no regular Sunday services at Northeast Harbor, and the nearest church, at Southwest Harbor, was accessible only by boat in fair weather. But in the summer of that year services were begun in the village's little one-room schoolhouse. This led to the organization in 1886 of the Union Church Association, on an interdenominational basis, with membership open to summer visitors as well as to permanent residents. A money-raising campaign was started; Mr. Samuel N. Gilpatrick gave the site for the church in which we meet today; and a Building Committee which included Dr. Eliot and Messrs. Danforth and Ansel Manchester promoted its erection. The building was completed and dedicated in 1889 and President Eliot and his wife are rightly commemorated in a tablet here. It was thus that Dr. Eliot's younger son, Samuel Atkins Eliot, grew so familiar with this island that it became a -5- greatly beloved second home to him. In the summer of 1888, when he was still a student in the Harvard Divinity School, he preached his first sermons in some of the churches of this region. He was the first secretary of the Union Church Association and its earliest records are in his handwriting. He took part in the dedication service in 1889, and was the sole survivor of those who had part in it when, in 1939, he gave the 50th anniversary address. He followed his father and his uncle, Prof. Francis G. Peabody of beloved memory, in the happy task of inviting distinguished preachers to speak from this pulpit on summer Sundays, and he himself preached here in almost every summer of his long professional career. This is not the occasion to recount his outstanding services to religion and to the nation which marked his career elsewhere. He was a persuasive and eloquent preacher; one of the committee which prepared the hymn-book we are using here today; a very capable administrator of church business as the head of his denomination, yet always con- cerned to promote interdenominational cooperation as exempli- fied in the summer services of this Union Church, and in the Mt. Desert Larger Parish. He was a promoter of prison reform and was the friend and helper of the American Indians who, in many parts of our country, have suffered so much at our hands. Today I must limit myself to reminding you of how much he did for this church and this community, so dear to his own and to his wife's heart. She too had spent her summers here since 1883 when, in her girlhood, her parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Hopkinson, had first boarded at Squire Kimball's Soon afterwards they built their summer cottage, and entered into the fellowship of this church. In her writings and in painting Mrs. Eliot has recorded some of the charm of this island. For her, as for her husband, it came to have almost a sacred quality as a quiet place apart where men and women wearied with the stress and strain of life elsewhere, could come and rest awhile, refreshed by the silence of these steadfast granite hills, and by the cool sea-winds which drive the surf upon our rocky shores. It was a place not only for fun and amusement, but also for quiet meditation on the deeper problems of the human spirit, that those who came to stay for a few weeks might return to their tasks sewhere with fresh strength and courage, faith and hope. And their love for this place has been transmitted to the third generation of their children. That is why our service today culminates in the dedication of a tablet in this church in memory of Samuel Atkins Eliot and of his wife, Frances Hopkinson Eliot. Such a memorial -6- bids us "Call to remembrance the great and good Those who were leaders of the people by their judgment, Giving counsel by their understanding and foresight; Wise and eloquent in their teachings. The glory of their work cannot be blotted out For the memorial of virtue is immortal, Because it is known with God and with men. " Prayer: o Thou eternal Source of life and light and love, we give Thee thanks for the righteous men and women whom we hold in living remembrance, and for the blessed memory of our friends and helpers who have gone before us into Thy world of light. With Thee they are at rest and their souls are in Thy hand. And we, who still seek to serve Thee among our fellow-men, are encompassed by a cloud of witnesses whose example bids us to continue steadfast in well doing. Grant us Thy grace that we fail not in the tasks that have fallen into our hands to do, until we also enter into Thy peace. Amen. Hymns of the Spirit - #68 - O God, whose smile is in the sky. #49 - God of the earth, the sky, the sea. #222 - Not always on the mount may we.