Haney, David H. bit Bar) Trustein 14/3/24 tapt.! 5/2/15 focus on nood developmt. First If repleased for Promotion of CANP? Note: See also C. Eliot file for his "Bringing the americanized Puckler back to The legacy of the Picturesque at Mount Desert Island: germany (2007) controversies over the development of Acadia National Park DAVID H. HANEY Mount Desert Island, off the northern coast of Maine, is one of the most time, the local communities of farmers and fisherman had been in existence significant landscapes in the history of the pursuit of nature in America in the long enough for much of the original timber to have been felled and the wild late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Though similar to other nature life hunted out. While valued for the aesthetic 'wildness' of its land forms, the resorts in the Northeast of the same period, Mount Desert Island was particu- Island was never understood as a true wilderness, that is as a place where larly notable for the rapid rate at which it was transformed from a relatively human influence was minimized. Instead, when the first sojourners began to isolated, even primitive, place in the mid-nineteenth century to one of the arrive in the 18 50s and 1860s, they most frequently turned to the language of most élite summer resorts by the century's end. The Island was further distingu- the Picturesque to describe their perception of the precious wildness of the A08, ished when, in 1916, it became dedicated in part as the National Park now Island landscape. known as 'Acadia'; out of all comparable resorts east of the Mississippi River, The topography of the place was, in fact, well suited to the Picturesque 1915, it was the first to be so recognized. The popularity of the Island as a destination genre. The highest mountain peak on the Island reaches a mere 1500 feet, was due largely to factors common to the entire Maine coast; the cool, clean relatively tame even by Eastern standards. Softened by glacial scouring, the 1922. coastal air was made increasingly accessible by improvements in transportation, mountain peaks appear as soft, rose-hued granite masses rising above the low providing relief from the sweltering summer heat of the nearby urban areas. coastal tree-line, providing visually pleasing textures without being overtly Yet the characteristic that attracted the most attention, and which was most intimidating. The first entry in the monumental two-volume Picturesque in keeping with the National Park concept, was quite simply the Island's America, published in 1872, was actually a pictorial essay on Mount Desert unique topography: along the entire Atlantic seaboard of the United States, Island accompanied by a text using it as the example to explain the proper the only mountains to reach the sea are to be found there. means of obtaining the Picturesque experience. Like the Picturesque itself, The history of the Island as a destination for city dwellers began with the however, the landscape was subject to the nuanced definitions of the term, arrival of landscape artists such as Thomas Cole and Frederick Church in the which at Mount Desert in mid-century resulted in contradicting visions of 1840s, who came specifically to paint 'sublime' scenes of crashing waves and how the Island should be developed as a resort. Some writers believed that rocky shoreline. Though attracted to the power and roughness of the Island's the rough, wild landscape character they valued should be literally reflected landscape, these artists also depicted the quieter, more pastoral, lake valleys of in primitive resort conditions, free from the constraints of fashion and high its interior, and often included some evidence of the human presence. At that society found at so many other places, such as Newport, Rhode Island. Others 0144-5170/96 1996 TAYLOR FRANCIS 275 J. of Carden History 16 (1996) 275-97 JOURNAL OF GARDEN HISTORY HANEY thought that the character of the landscape called for the application of in 1915, and later, in 1917, from the National Park Service. The series of Picturesque gardening principles, and for the general refinement of the summer debates over landscape development that began once his plans were made communities to reflect a similar aesthetic. public in 1920 was perhaps the most intense that the Island has ever seen. My The latter view generally prevailed, with the result that elaborately designed essay examines the events of this controversy, focusing on the differing concep- estates, known diminutively as 'cottages,' began to predominate in the Island tions of the ideal experience of 'wild nature.' landscape by the end of the century. The result of all of this landscape improve- The arguments expressed in the 1920s and 1930s are remarkably similar to ment was the increasing privatization of former open lands, restricting public the dissenting opinions of nineteenth-century travel writers. These later access to the point of threatening the very reason for the existence of the debates may perhaps be traced back to the ambiguities of a conception of resort - the pursuit of nature. Realizing this, Charles W. Eliot, President of wildness derived from the Picturesque. In the early twentieth century at Mount Harvard University, led the effort to establish a public Trust in 1902, for the Desert, as elsewhere, the problem of landscape definition was intensified by purpose of holding lands free from development in perpetuity while main- the increased pressures of technological and social change, symbolized in the taining public access. He was inspired by the writings of his recently deceased person of the automobile tourist, who at the close of the twentieth century son, Charles, a landscape architect, who had conceived of a similar Trust in remains a problematic and powerful presence in the cultural landscape. Massachusetts, which was also the model adopted for the English National Trust. The younger Eliot had cautioned against the unrestricted construction of private estates on the Maine shore, seeing them as a threat to the 'flavor of Rockefeller's pursuit of perfection wildness.' At Mount Desert, it was President Eliot, with the assistance of his In Rockefeller's vision of the Park as a perfected landscape, there was no place friend (George B. Dorr, who went on successfully to persuade the Federal for the unplanned, disorderly, or crude. All elements were to be carefully Government to accept Trust lands as the nucleus of what was later to become coordinated to facilitate what he considered to be the ideal means of experien- Acadia National Park. cing nature: as a series of landscape scenes viewed from a moving carriage. Though President Eliot was himself an avid camper and believer in the The carriage roads he planned and funded were more carefully engineered importance of outdoor life, his understanding of park-making was akin to than most rural highways, and the self-consciously rustic bridges and other dedicating the landscape as cultural monument, extending the ideals of the stonework features that were built were deceptively expensive. Known to be City Beautiful movement to a regional scale. This conception of park implied an inherently methodical and persistent man, Rockefeller maintained control the 'improvement' of the landscape through the construction of roads and over every detail of design and construction, even down to the purchase of other infrastructure, which would of course require massive funds not readily gravel. His penchant for order extended well beyond purely aesthetic and available to the Trust or to the post-First World War Government. As President economic decisions, however. Until well into the mid-1930s, when the car- of Harvard, Eliot was well experienced at fundraising. Having made the riage road system was nearly complete, he continued to hold title to the only acquaintance of John D. Rockefeller, Jr, while negotiating donations to the properties over which the few access roads had been constructed. He believed Harvard Medical School in 1903, he invited Rockefeller to join the summer it was his right to decide who could enter the system and by what conveyance, community at Mount Desert. Rockefeller declined this initial offer, but later despite the fact that the roads were built on publicly owned land It seems accepted, and in 1910 began construction of his own estate, which was to that a perfected vision demanded that even the observers themselves had to include an elaborate system of carriage roads patterned on those laid out on fit in to the aesthetic scheme. his father's estate, recently completed under his own supervision. Not content Though public improvement projects such as trail-building had traditionally to limit his construction activities to his own property, and quite possibly been undertaken as group activities under the direction of the Village Improve- influenced by President Eliot's writings, Rockefeller requested permission to ment Societies, Rockefeller declined on several occasions to join organizations extend his carriage roads into public lands, receiving approval from the Trust that would have compromised his autonomy.3 3 This state of affairs did not go 276 MOUNT DESERT ISLAND annoticed among a summer colony composed of individuals who were used synibols of civilization, roads should be excluded from most park lands. This to wielding their own political power at home. From (920 to i 1933, anti-development attitude worked against the vasi majority of the public, who Rockefeller's plans were the subject of much public debate in a series of events could only afford to visit by automobile. A kind of compronese evolved: parks collectively referred to 38 The road controversies Quite simply, the Island were divided or 'zoned' into wilderness areas. where development would be community was divided into those opposed to Rocketeller's road construction numinazed, and scenic areas, where facilities, such is reads with lookouts, plans, and those in support. There was 80 clear pattern on determine who was would be provided for the comfort and enjoyment of the auto tourist. Yer for and who against: there were members of the different Village Improvement despite the mediating effect of the great scale of many of the Western parks. Societies on both sides, and neither was any hard-line division between Island communities easily discentible The whole series of debates can be summarized as a struggle for power among the sustement elites; it would be wrong to suggest. however, that either party WBS insincere 112 fighting for its respective concepts of the natural land- scape Both Rockefeller and his critics presented their vision of the ideal park experience quite clearly, be in favor of a refined perfected view of nature. and the opposition inclined towards : wilderness that required minimal human intervention. At the heart of the argument lay the problem of deter- mining the inherent character of the Island landscape; the situation recalled the earlier nineteenti-century division between those who saw the Island landscape RS wild and rough, and those who SRW it as the background to the refined resort. Rockefeller's road-building plans were not limited to the area adjacent to his estate. but were intended to transform all the Park east of Somes Sound (the firrd-like body of water that infurcates the Island). Once the extent of his plans were realized it became apparent to all that the former "roughness" of the Island would be substantially mediated by the refinement of the elaborate carriage roads Mount Desert was nor the only place where such issues were at stake read- building in public parks was a major topic of discussion during the early years of the twentieth century Though debate over seried carriage-road construc tion in `natural parks was discussed by the landscape architect Charles Eliot" as early as the r8gcs. the advent of the automobile introduced an even greater urgency to the problem of accessibility. The National Park Service was formed in 1916 partly as R response to the need to provide roads and facilities for the ever-increasing numbers of antomobile tourists. Not surposingly, plans for National Park development evoked strong negative reactions from purists FIGURE : B.P. de Cesta. :Among the Mountains, 1305 patient around the country who believed that 3 'wilderness quality should be pre- entrasiasts relax amida a typical Mount fannstead, with the silhourtic of (ii) undentified Adome served by minimizing any form of development, Critics of development gener- Dosen pork rising in the background (photo: countesy of the University of Texas, Harry Ransom ally believed that construction threatened ecological purity. and that as Humanities Research Center. Antin. TX) 277 JOURNAL OF GARDEN HISTORY : HANEY opposition remained, and some projects were actually abandoned." The specific issues have changed, yer the general debate over how and whether park lands should be developed continues to be an unresolved philosophical and political problem in the late twentieth century. The problem of development at Mount Desert Island in the 1930s and 1930s was perhaps even more intenses than elsewhere. The success of dividing wilder. ness from developed areas depended on a complete spatial separation, which would be much more difficult in this small park, especially given the extent of Rockefeller's plans. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the debates at Mount Desert lies in the fact that the arguments for and against wilderness and development were not really derived from 28 objective evaluation of existing conditions. The Island was already a settled, rural landscape when the first sojourners arrived in the 1840s (figure 1). While the relatively un- NOT developed. mostly mountainous, areas that formed the heart of the park ND the early twentieth century were at that time heavily wooded, these had us generally been logged and burned over in the past, and were riddled with old roads for the hauling of timber Most of the wild animals had been extirpated long ago; in the classic definition of the concept, the Island simply was not a true wilderness. Yet the arguments for 'accessibility were also problematic. By the time that Rockefeller began his road projects in the 1910s, the island was dominated by a highly developed system of resorts, interconnected by trails and roads. Few areas were not within easy walking distance of the summer cottages (figure 2). In fact, scenic carriage roads had been in use on the Island since the 1890s, one by the Sound, the other along the Eastern shore over- looking the Atlantic Ocean (figure 3). FIGGRE 2. A cottager poses on one of the many chaborate stone-paved mails that with common OIL the Island by the late sineteenth century. By this time liking was is popular and fashionable activity for both men and women (Northeast Harbor Maine Archives: published in Trails of History by TOM Sr GERMAINE and JAY SAUNDERS [Bar Harbor, ME. 1992]) (photo: courtesy of authors - the original is now presumed lost). Hard on the arrival of these conveniences came the era of laxurious living with EVEN the trails 30 smoothed down that is lady may walk from Asticose to Jerdan Pond in kid slippers and high heels' (Francis G Peabody, Bar Harbor Times, jo January 1931) if am sure the Secretary will understand that much is this territory 25 really inaccessible except in the mountain dimber, and this system of road mails will farnish opportunity for others besides the mountain climbers to see this beautiful country' (Congressman Nelson of Maine, 1934). 278 MOUNT DESERT ISLAND neither party took the issue of defining nature lightly, though in the final analysis the whole debate could be reduced to aesthetic issues. The emphasis here was not on the ecological purity of 'primeval conditions, but on the importance of natural landscape to human experience. The discussions were only partly about abstract notions of nature and cul- ture: much attention was given to the way the experience was set up spatially in the landscape. Arguments often centered on basic design issues: which was of the ideal width - road or trail; should vegetation be retained to create a sense of separation and enclosure, or should it be removed to reveal expansive views; would existing simple rustic roads or elaborate constructions be more appropriate expressions for the pursuit of nature (figures 4 and