From collection Creating Acadia National Park: The George B. Dorr Research Archive of Ronald H. Epp

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Tracy, Charles-1810-1885
Tracy, Charles
1810-1885
nota See Tracy Leg book fele
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The log book from the voyage from New York to Mount Desert
Island, stay there, and return July, August, September 1855 by
Charles Tracy.
Charles Tracy
1855
English
Book 1 V. (unpaged) ; 29 cm.
[S.I.,
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Title: The log book from the voyage from New York to Mount Desert Island, stay
there, and return July, August, September 1855 by Charles Tracy.
Author(s): Tracy, Charles.
Publication: [S.I.,
Year: 1855
Description: 1 V. (unpaged) ; 29 cm.
Language: English
SUBJECT(S)
Geographic: Maine -- Maine -- Mount Desert Island -- Description and travel.
Note(s): First record of a summer family. Author accompanied by daughter who later became Mrs. J.P.
Morgan, Sr.
Document Type: Book
Entry: 19810706
Update: 20041201
Accession No: OCLC: 7559103
Database: WorldCat
DO
http://firstsearch.oclc.org/WebZ/FSFETCH?fetchtype=fullrecord:sessionid=sp07sw04-49576-e2a... 12/3/2004
C.B.Doir's Commentory on Tracy Log: 1855.
The first stages of Mr. Tracy's journal I did
not have; copied with the rest but left to be done
separately, and now, at the moment of writing, I can
not put my hand on them. But these pages come back
to me in memory clearly, save for certain details.
Mr. Tracy starts, amusingly, with 'the children
flattening their noses against the windowpanes' in his
house on 17th Street, New York, on a morning of pelting
rain, looking out for the stage which was to come and
get them all and take them to the station. They were
sure it would not come Then it came and they all
bundled in, bag and baggage, and the whole family went
off to Boston, to the Tremont House I think it was, to
spend the night and make connection with the friends they
were to join, and to make sure of their tickets and state-
rooms for the morrow on the Boston and Bangor steamboat
line which was to carry them to Rockland the following
afternoon where they would transfer to a lesser steamer
that would take them on to Southwest Harbor, Mount Desert
Island, and there leave them.
2.
Such a way of going was but a recent possibility
at that time, sprung from the trade steamboat service
had created between local ports along the shore and
Boston, in salt fish, lumber and the much-appreciated
lobster this latter in bulk, so great was the demand.
Passenger service in amount and value was but a bi-product
to this and was only just beginning to be taken advantage
of by sportsmen coming down in the spring to fish in the
lakes and streams, or by hunters in the fall.
Bar Harbor as a port for steamboats of any kind had
no existence then nor would have till 1868, thirteen years
later, when we came down ourselves, steamers putting in
to Bar Harbor only once a week that summer on their freight-
collecting way from Portland, as a terminus, to Eastport at
the Canadian Line. One took, for this, the train from
Boston to Portland, a two hours' trip, to catch the
steamer leaving in the early evening, reaching Bar Harbor
the end of the following Torenoon, making long stops
everywhere upon the route to leave or take on freight,
the main business of the line.
3.
with Mr. Tracy and his family the Rev'd Dr. Stone
of Brookline, Massachusetts, also with a good-sized
family, had arranged to come and there were others whom
the narrative in its progress will bring forth, who
ultimately brought the party up to twenty-six in all.
When the journal, which I have preserved, opens the
party, transferring at dawn at Rockland to the local
freight-collecting steamer which was to bring them on
to Southwest Harbor and drop them there, had just ar-
rived at Somesville, the little village at the head of
the Elacial fiord, the 'River' or Somes Sound as it is
called, where they had arranged to stay, some making
their way there from Southwest Harbor by wagon, others,
at their will, being rowed up the Sound.
Somes Sound has the distinction of being the only
true and complete glacial flord on the eastern coast of
the United States, extending beyond Somesville itself,
at the head of navigation, in a tide-swept estuary for
another mile, and, interrupting the Island's ocean-fronting
mountain chain at its entrance just north of Southwest
Harbor, leaves but a slight subsidence to divide Mount
Desert Island into two at its center.
4.
When Governor Bernard, of Massachusetts, of which
the so-called District of Maine was then a part, visit-
ed the Island of Mount Desert, which the State had grant-
ed him, barring squatters' rights, in reward "for dis-
tinguished service", sailing down in a Government ship
from Fort Williem in Boston Harbor with a considerable
outfit in the way of surveyors and others to take note
of his now possession, he anchored off Southwest Harbor,
which, sheltered by outside lesser islands, he calls the
Great Harbor of Mount Desert, and was rowed up the 'River'
to visit Somes, ct the head of it, then -- 1763 -- just
arrived with his family on their first, his own second,
trip and completing the log house which was to be his
home -- very neat and orderly, the Governor notes.
Mr. Tracy's journal, lively and entertaining in
itself, is notable as giving us the first account we
have of the coming of summer visitors to Mount Desert
Island, which was later to swell to so great a flood,
drawn from all portions of the country. He presents an
admirable portrait of the Island and its people as he
found it.
5.
One of the party, Frederick Church, famous artist
and painter of great scenery, had visited the Island, in
exploration of the coast, the summer before -- that of
1854 -- and had given Tagle Lake its name from the many
eagles he saw scaring over it -- sea eagles of the fish-
ing species, whose fornidable scientific title is Haliaetus
leucocephalus or, turned into the vernacular, the White-
headed Sea Bagle, abundant naturally along these coastal
shores and frequent still.
It is interesting to note in this earliest account
of the Island from the surer-visitor point of view the
evidance of the great lire which swept over the western
side of the mountain we now call Cadillac from some point
south of Eagle Lake, for days together, fed by the slash
left from early lumbering and driven before a southwest
wind in as time of drought. This, according to accounts
which have come to us, took place in 1835, twenty years
before the Tracy visit, and burnt so long and fiercely
as to have loft a deep impression on the early settlers'
mind. It was set, the story runs, by a small boy sent
out to watch the cattle grazing on the shoots of the
hardwood trees which had been cut for lumber and made
good pasture, though the cattle must wander far to get
their fill. The boy confessed that be had set the fire;
6.
he wanted to see it, burn, he said! And so, abundantly,
he did, and all upon the Island then besides.
It is interesting, too, to note that the Coast
Survey at that time had a surveyor living on the moun-
tain top in 'a shelter looking out upon the seal and
taking observations. They called the mountain Newport
then, but how this came about there is nothing to tell.
Thirteen years later, in 1868, when we first came down
and ascended it, the name had changed to Green Mountain
inappropriate surely in the light of what Mr. Tracy tells
of its fire-scarred, western side reflecting, from across
the lake, the red hues of the sinking sun, while the east-
ern side is precipitous and naturally bare of vegetation.
At that time, in 1868, the name Newport had, in some
mysterious way, got shifted to the eastern mountain of
the range looking down precipitously on Schooner Head,
a mountain which was nameless for Rr. Tracy though staying
at the old Lynam farmhouse at the Head.
From the early settlers of the Island, not interested
in climbing, the mountains had received no names other than
those of the men who lumbered round their bases -- Jordan,
Sargent, and the rest. The lakes, too, had none save, for
like reason, those of the men who lived upon their borders
lumbering the forests there, convenient to haul the logs
7.
away in winter time across the ice; but they distin-
guished them in a way by their size or the position
they occupied as Great Pond for Eagle Lake, Southwest
Fond for the present Bubble Pond, and Long Pend for the
else nameless lake Mr. Tracy describes as lying behind
the mountains to the west of Somes Sound.
It is worth noting that among these early settlers
the name lake -- of Letin origin -- did not exist; all
sheets of water on the Island, of whatever size or
character, they called ponds, and this name for them
still exists today.
In reading Mr. Tracy's journal, the earliest record
we have of surmer-visitor travel to Mount Desert Island,
one needs to remember, to get the right perspective,
that only two centuries and 9. help before, on the 4th of
September, 1604, Champlain, brought out by De Ments, on
his trip for the founding of Acadia, as nevigator and
lieutenant, sailed up into the broad sheet of water later
called Frenchmans Bay to the Narrows, and, discovering
the nountainous land be had sailed past on the west to
be an island, named it on the spot l'Isle des Monts Deserts
the island of the bare and lonely hills, a name that has
persisted strangely through all change of race and times
to the present day. But, finding his way blocked at the
8.
Narrows and returning the next day, he came on an
Indian encampaent at what is now called Hulls Cove
and walting over a night to make friends with them
W83 guided by them on his further way around Mount
Desert Island and up through Penchacot Bay and its long
estuary to the ralls just above the city of Bangor,
founded on the mill power those falls furnished and
the good shipping opportunity from their base. The
river did not boar the name of Penobscot then but the
Noruubogue, as it was rendered by the French in their
early narratives.
[G.B.DORR]
LINDA Sawtelle Call. B49.F8
UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
ACADIA NATIONAL PARK
BAR HARBOR, MAINE
OFFICE OF THE SUPERINTENDENT
October 5, 1931.
Dear Mr. Sawtelle:
Mr. Satterlee wrote me about the
Charles Tracy 1855 diary, telling me of your wish to have
a copy of it for your museum, The original was loaned
me by Mrs. Morgan and her sister Mrs Hoppin, who was
staying with her that fall at Schooner Head and told
of the diary's existence. I had a copy made as oppor-
tunity came. This was before the Park's establishment.
I have been meaning to have a fair CO.Y made from the copy
taken then and could have one made at the same time for
you if you desire. I could like to look it over with you.
There are you now?
Yours sincerely,
GED-0
Mr. William Utis Sawtelle,
Islesford, Maire.
Epp, Ronald
C. 1938-39
From:
Epp, Ronald
Sent:
Thursday, April 21, 2005 1:25 PM
To:
'Nancy Howland'
Cc:
'Mazlish@acadia.net
Subject:
Tracy Log
Nancy,
George B. Dorr authored--prior to 1940--these eight pages of editorial comments on "The
Tracy Log. " It is appropriate to title this essay "George B. Dorr Commentary on The Tracy
Log" in order that authorship questions do not persist.
His essay provides the first known commentary on the significance of "Mr. Tracy's
journal" at a time when the diary's existence was only known to Morgan Library staff since
the original had been deposited there " in 1932 by J.P. Morgan, Jr., whose mother,
Frances, was the daughter of Charles Tracy" (The Tracy Log Book, 1855, edited by Anne
Mazlish, Acadia Publishing Co., Bar Harbor, ME, 1977, p. 16)
Mr. Dorr's commentary was delivered to Jesup Memorial Library in a National Park Service
envelope bearing his signature, accompanied by two versions of the Morgan original: one
unedited version lacking the introductory material thast describes the Tracy party travels
(July 30 to August 1, 1855 ) to Mount Desert Island and the other fuller version edited by
Mr. Dorr and his secretary, Phyllis Sylvia.
It is not known whether the public was aware of these documents, nor whether the Dorr
commentary and the two versions of "The Tracy Log" at the Jesup Memorial Library were
accessible prior to the publication of the Mazlish edition.
I hope you find this helpful and that this information will be attached to these
documents. Of course, it should also be reflected in your online catalog.
Ronald Harry Epp, Ph.D.
Director of the University Library
& Assoc. Professor of Philosophy
Southern New Hampshire University
Manchester, NH 03106
603-668-2211, ext. 2165
603-424-6149 (home)
Original Message
From: Nancy Howland [mailto:nhowland@jesup.lib.me.us]
Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2005 12:50 PM
To: Epp, Ronald
Subject: RE: Spirit of Acadia Meeting Site for 6.7.05
Ron - It's fine for the group to meet on June 7th from 1-3p.m. at the library. Would you
tell me again what we have in the envelope with the Tracy Log that pertains to George
Dorr? Thanks - Nancy
>
Original Message
> From: Epp, Ronald [mailto:r.epp@snhu.edu]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2005 9:42 AM
> To: nhowland@jesup.lib.me.us
> Subject: Spirit of Acadia Meeting Site for 6.7.05
>
>
1
6/24/2019
The log book : voyage from New York to Mount Desert Island, stay there, and return : autograph manuscript, 1855 July-Sept. (Book,
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