Bar Harbor, 1876. All photos courtesy of Bar Harbor Historical Society BAR HARBOR - FROM EDEN TO TOURISM By HERBERT J. SELIGMANN First of a Series - The Towns and Cities of Maine W HETHER .you approach them by sea or land, The early days lacked something of later glamor. the rocky summits above Bar Harbor draw Two young gentlemen, members of the Harvard Lam- sharp and racing contours against the sky. From the poon staff, published with suitable satiric drawings top of the tallest of these, 1500-foot Cadillac Moun- their versified summation of Mt. Desert in 1873. Some tain, on the crystal days that sometimes hold every- newly arrived guests were depicted confronting a pro- thing in suspension, you may look over forested Maine prietor sprawling on the porch of a shanty-like hos- as far as the distant northern Mt. Katahdin; across telry, who remarked: the Porcupine Islands and Frenchmans Bay over the sharply bitten headlands of the Maine coast to the "There bean't no room, I ain't got nary bed east; and past Cranberry, Gotts, Black, Duck, Swans, But what is took," he coolly said. and other islands toward the southwest and Penob- In vain they argued, stormed, entreated, raged. scot Bay. "Tain't no use, young men, you needn't shout: As Mt. Cadillac has dominated a sea empire, SO the The folks is in and I can't git 'em out." town at its base has engrossed the imagination of gen- erations of people. Bar Harbor used to be spoken of Screens to exclude mosquitoes were unknown. Bed- as the focus of wealth and fashion. That fading legend ding was of the lumpy variety suggesting corn-cobs still clings to life. But it was a moment only in the among the hay. Boarding house proprietors were in- town's continuing history - a moment of glitter, different to cracked walls and windows and to cob- glamour, and ostentation. webs. The food served to the "mealers" who ate in the The brilliant period of Bar Harbor and Mt. Desert houses where they slept or to the "hauled mealers," Island had been preceded by possible visits from transported from nearby farmhouses in buckboards Norsemen coasting down North America from Green- to their repasts, is described as follows: land; by the French (whose Champlain named Mt. Desert); by the English who fought over it and dis- What though the bill of fare was somewhat brief; placed the Abenaki Indians and were in turn displac- Had they not always, chowder, lamb, and beef? ed by the Americans. For generations it was a haven Although the last was not but an empty show, for Maine lumbermen, fishermen, and clam diggers; For through it neither knife nor teeth could go. later for wandering artists, notably Thomas Cole and his associates in the Hudson River School of painting, The "new and popular arrangement," beginning who pioneered the way for professors and their fam- July 1, 1879, for those wishing to travel to Bar Har- ilies, that "goodly company" that Mrs. Clara Barnes bor, was to leave Portland on Monday or Wednesday Martin found there in the 1860s, comprising "wise evening at 11:00 on the 800-ton fast steamer City of men of affairs, accomplished men of letters, artists, Richmond, making but one stop at Rockland and students, fair women, and bright girls." arriving at Bar Harbor about 9:30 the next morning. 24 34 Memorial Library Mt. Desert St. Bar Harbor, ME 04609 Bar Harbor before the turn of the century. From May 20, "the favorite steamer Lewiston, Capt. Godkin described as the summer tragedy of American Chas. Deering," made the trip on Tuesday and Friday life: the displacement of the summer boarder by evenings from Portland to Mt. Desert and Machias- wealthy cottagers. port. The Portland, Bangor and Machias Steamboat The cottage era, which flared brightly in the sun of Company, proprietor of these paddle-wheelers, modest- immense wealth, began in the 1880s. The social flock- ly proclaimed it had been "the means of opening up ing to Mt. Desert Island was given strong impetus by to pleasure seekers the beautiful resort of Mount De- the visits of the elder J. Pierpont Morgan in his suc- sert," till then accessible only by an occasional or at cession of steam yachts named Corsair, the last of them best once-a-week stage coach. more than four hundred feet long. Cleveland Amory From Portland the traveler had his choice of rail tells of the ceremonies attending Morgan's arrival in or steamer. The all-land tourist could take the Maine port, the dutiful visits paid him on board the Corsair Central to Bangor where he must spend the night. by local dignitaries including President Eliot of Har- Then, if he had carefully read Mrs. Martin's illustra- vard, after which Morgan would call on ladies on ted guide-book for Mt. Desert Island, he would either shore who had been duly notified to expect him. take a horse-drawn stage from the Bangor House (hav- The lavish building in that era when there was no ing inquired beforehand whether the stages were run- income tax, no limit to personal incomes and wealth, ning) or, if there were three or four in the party, would no inhibitions on display and ostentation, brought hire a carriage in Bangor and "drive down at their the Bar Harbor cottage to the point where, as Amory own hours." The land and horse-drawn journey was Thorndike records in Sargent Collier's photographic SO long that those who chose it were only those who record of Mt. Desert, it was customary to have at least wanted to avoid the sea entirely. ten servants: butlers, cooks, waitresses, gardeners, Bar Harbor, officially known as Eden until 1918, coachmen and grooms, all caring for immense estab- was in its early days of summer resortism "an unkempt lishments with winding graveled driveways, landscap- agglomeration of big wooden shanties," beginning to ed grounds, lawns, gardens, greenhouses, stablés of sprout bigger and bigger boarding places, from which horses and elegant carriages as well as piers and boat- there were occasional moments of mass flight at word houses. that the unsanitary drains had brought about minor The Bar Harbor Record of August 14, 1912, records typhoid epidemics, or that scarlet fever had made its that Mr. and Mrs. Edward Beale McLean, during appearance. Aside from walking, the chief recreations horse show week, entertained two hundred at dinner, were canoeing and rocking, that is, searching for geo- the entertainment including a black minstrel troupe logical specimens and minor gem stones as an oppor- brought "from the extreme South expressly for the tunity for spooning along the shore. occasion," the dining room transformed, and "a real This early phase was displaced by the burgeoning waterfall built." In emulation no doubt of the butlers' era of big hotels, as many as seventeen of them. The balls sponsored by British royalty, there was the Bar biggest, and according to one survivor who knew it be- Harbor Coachmen's Ball, later followed by the Chauf- fore its demise in 1900, the largest in the State of feurs' Ball. The Archbolds' disappearing table, which Maine, the Rodick House, could accommodate as sank beneath the floor only to rise with new dinner many as one thousand guests and occupied a consider- courses, and the Edward Brownings' 1907 four-in-hand able area just behind what is now Main Street at its coach trip from Philadelphia to Bar Harbor and back junction with Cottage Street. Its lobby was long fa- were among the much publicized features of the mous as the Fish Pond where damsels expertly exposed colony's life. themselves as quite knowing bait for whatever prom- Social limits on Mt. Desert were defined in the ising male might take the hook. annual Cottage Directory printed in the Bar Harbor The familiar hotel life of an age before the auto- Times, listing those whose wealth and social position mobile, when families spent long summer vacations entitled them to this recognition. Conspicuously ab- in one place, yachted, danced, flirted, found proper sent from the rosters were super-cottagers like the husbands for their daughters, and displayed ward- Rockefellers, Fords, Morgans, and Satterlees. In July, robes from morning till night, gave way to what L. 1956, after some acrimony over misspelled or omitted 25 Left -- The paddle wheeler "Old Mounty," tied up at names, the publisher of the Times, C. Edward Shea, steamship wharf, ran between Rockland and Bar Har- scrapped the dictionary, melted the type, and left it bor from 1879 to 1904. Center - President William to the cottagers themselves to compile their own Howard Taft arrives by buckboard at the Bar Harbor directory. Reading Room. Right - Part of main hall at Chat- Barons of the industrial and financial world gather- wold, home of Joseph Pulitzer. ed at the Reading Room, a club patterned after the similarly named institution at Newport, where they learned years later, were resold to Mr. Morgan for a watched the stock ticker, discussed the latest news, dollar apiece.) gambled, and with the aid of a well stocked cellar and As chairman of the town's Warship Committee, Dr. bar, calmly ignored Maine's prohibition laws. The Ells arranged cocktail parties, boxing exhibitions, bus Reading Room had its own iron pier at which Mr. tours, and dances for the visiting seamen. His efforts Morgan landed from his Corsair as did visiting ad- have been recognized by the United States and British mirals of the British and American navies. The iron governments. He holds a certificate of appreciation pier is no more, and the club is extinct but the build- from the United States Navy, dated 1952, and in Feb- ing remains, incorporated into what is now the Motor ruary, 1955, Queen Elizabeth awarded him the high Hotel Bar Harbor. distinction of membership in the Order of the British In pre-World War I days, navies, being as decora- Empire. tive socially as they were useful, took advantage of the The annual visits of the Great White Fleet were a entertainment opportunities offered by the concentra- highlight of Bar Harbor's social season as were the tion of wealth and fashion at Bar Harbor. Dr. John C. annual cruises of the Eastern Yacht Club of Marble- Ells, who still practices as a dentist in Bar Harbor, head and of the New York Yacht Club, both termin- was one of those who took pains to see that the visit- ating at Bar Harbor. ing admirals, their staffs and crews were appropriately Both the American and British fleets would anchor received and entertained. (He tells with amusement off the town and hold an elaborate nautical parade, how, at the age of six, he caught and sold for two cents the British contingent led by bagpipers in full regalia. each to a local fish dealer, harbor pollock which, he The higher officers of the visiting fleets always had a standing invitation to the famous E. T. Stotesbury sails. The Pulitzer yacht Liberty, a three-masted mansion (now torn down to provide a terminus for square-rigger, had a crew of seventy-eight men, mostly the Bar Harbor-Yarmouth ferry). The story is told of Norwegian, averaging wages of fifteen dollars a month. how on one occasion, with a gold-braided admiral at Private carriages and their owners, and livery stable her right hand, Mrs. Stotesbury, who entertained SO rigs met the ferry that brought visitors several times lavishly that she seldom knew the identity of her din- a day from Hancock Point, nearest to the railhead. ner guests, first inquired about titled Englishmen and Smaller steamers ranged among the islands and the women whom a British admiral might be expected to luxurious paddle-wheeler Frank Jones which began know. Her guest did not know them. Next she men- the run from Portland in 1892, stopping at harbors tioned prominent members of Parliament. Same result. en route, would bring its passengers and freight. "But," said Mrs. Stotesbury, "don't you represent the Joseph Pulitzer, of the New York World and the St. British Navy?" "Not," replied the American admiral, Louis Post-Dispatch, one of the wealthiest cottagers, "unless they've surrendered to us since I came ashore." with an outstanding stable of fine carriage and riding The first World War brought an episode which horses, brought his horses in by steamer and, attired again placed Bar Harbor on the front pages of news- in a big black sombrero, black-coated and attended papers the world over. The German Liner, Kronprin- by a groom, rode about in state. zessin Cecilie carrying from New York to Germany Bar Harbor society was one in which Harvard Pro- $12.6 million in gold bars and another million or SO fessor Barrett Wendell professed to find the best con- in silver, was caught in transit by the outbreak of war. versation in America. Amid all the frivolity and dis- Her captain, aware of the rich prize his ship would be play it had its rigid conventions. Dinner and tea in- if captured by the Allies, disguised her, covered her vitations had to be repaid by afternoon calls as well portholes, turned her about and raced to the shelter as by return functions. The ladies would retire after of Bar Harbor whose residents awoke on August 4, midday for a brief rest: then with the aid of skilled 1914, to see the great four-stacker off the town. ladies' maids, dressed in full style to call. Setting out The big steam yachts of the Pulitzers, Vanderbilts, in the gleaming family carriages, they would make the Morgans, and others anchored in a harbor white with rounds and drop their cards in the hostesses' In and Left Cromwell Har- bor. Looking towards Vanderbilt Point. Right - An afternoon concert at the Pot and Kettle Club, July, 1903. Ping pong tournament at Kebo Valley Club, 1902. Out baskets. If the Out basket was on display, it suf- guests have been General Van Fleet, Senators Leverett ficed to leave a card. If the In basket was in place, it Saltonstall and John Kennedy of Massachusetts, the was necessary to pay the call in person. president of Durham University in England, and visit- The Pot and Kettle Club was formed in 1898 as a ing admirals of the British fleet. gentleman's eating club, rigidly limited to sixty mem- The Pot and Kettle clubhouse is set on fifty acres bers, and modeled on Philadelphia's Rabbit Club. Its of shore land six miles north of Bar Harbor on French- members, carefully chosen from among those socially, mans Bay. The roster of members includes three rep- financially, or intellectually prominent, still meet for resentatives of the Rockefeller family, John D. Jr., lunch on nine Thursdays during the summer season. Nelson, and David; Ernest Kanzler, formerly of the Those who attend wear chef's cap and apron, though Ford empire; A. Atwater Kent Jr.; Sumner Welles, the meals are expertly prepared by a commercial former United States Undersecretary of State; and the caterer. Members must be summer residents of Mt. noted political writer, Walter Lippman. In the base- Desert Island. They have the privilege of the club ment of Bar Harbor's Jessup Memorial Library, de- house for private parties. One such recent affair was voted to Mt. Desert memorabilia, is a photograph of a wedding breakfast for 360 guests at the marriage of ladies in the wide hats and lawn-sweeping gowns of Dr. Clarence C. Little's daughter. Dr. Little, former the early 1890s, flocking to one of the club's lavish director of the famous Jackson Memorial Laboratory, entertainments. was for some years president of the club. Another of the famous Bar Harbor clubs is the Each member is expected at least once in the season Kebo Valley Club, founded in the late 1880s, with a to address the club or tell a story. The club draws present membership of about seventy-five. Like the upon leaders in public life to speak to them in intim- phoenix, it has survived two fires, rebuilding its club- ate and off-the-record fashion. Among the recent house in 1900 and again in 1948 after the disastrous 28 fire of 1947. Its eighteen-hole golf course, set in the bership of about fifty, and the Bar Harbor Club where undulating valley below Cadillac and Kebo moun- Saturday night dances are held. The Bar Harbor Club, tains, is one of the sportiest in the world. Like Scot- which is building two all-weather tennis courts, is pro- land's golf courses the ground offers no perfectly level posing, together with the Harbor Club and the Tennis lie for a driven ball. Kebo Valley has eight holes with Club of Seal Harbor, to join in invitations to clubs natural brooks as hazards and a number of the put- of the eastern seaboard and sponsor three tennis ting greens are on raised plateaus surrounded by sand tournaments, traps SO that golf of the highest expertness is required In the early days the visiting rich were regarded as to reach the par seventy for the course. The club has fair game by the year-round residents, SO much SO that gleefully recorded that President William Howard in August 1911, the summer people held a meeting at Taft took twenty-three shots to complete the famous the Casino, presided over by Bishop Lawrence of Bos- seventeenth hole whose terminal bunker looks like a ton, to protest the inordinately high tax rate of $34.50 prehistoric fortification. a $1000. In recent years the tax situation has improv- This club is unique in more ways than one. It has ed. A formal and systematic revaluation of property the only eighteen-hole course on Mt. Desert Island; in 1949 put assessments on a more equitable basis. it is one of the oldest clubs in the United States, and Property is now assessed at sixty per cent of its ap- it boasts what is perhaps the only eighteen-hole put- proximate value and the tax rate last year was $56 a ting course in the world. This last ribbons and winds $1000. In cases where owners have died and one of on three levels, its greens aerated to preserve the satin the big places has been closed for two years, twenty smoothness of the turf. In fact, the club has special per cent is abated from its valuation. In further efforts members who join solely to use the putting course and to ease the tax burden the town, in April, 1956, reduc- the wide, awninged veranda overlooking the green ed land assessments by ten per cent, thereby lowering valley. It is, moreover, the only golf club in the United its income by about $100,000. States which extends its privileges to local residents, One of the most expensive places in Bar Harbor, the merchants, and workmen. For an annual fee of twenty Dorrance estate, assessed for tax purposes at about dollars, these local residents may play during the long $170,000 in 1940, was reduced to $138,000 in 1956. As summer evenings from five o'clock on. This has in- a typical instance of the taxes paid on smaller places, gratiated the club to the community. a daughter of one of the socially prominent women The other chief clubs on the island which have sur- of the gilded era recently built, on a five acre shore vived time and change are the Yacht Club with a mem- (Continued on Page 45) Gardeners in greenhouse of Kenarden Lodge, 1904. BAR HARBOR (Continued from Page 29) lot, a fine but unpretentious house with three bed- Galley THE room suites, garage, and patio, but without servants' quarters. It was valued at $26,210 and taxed $1467. Bar Harbor and Mt. Desert Island, however much the old-timers may regret it, are now definitely in the tourist business. As estate values go down, the loss is the partly offset by new and elaborate motels and cabins. HANDY BOAT SERVICE, INC. Route 88 The advent of the Bar Harbor to Yarmouth ferry has YARMOUTH Falmouth, Maine brought much additional tourist business. With some TO SEBAGO LAKE & 60,000 passengers crossing on the Bluenose in the 1956 season, telephones were kept ringing with inquiries for rooms, and room renting became one of the main PORTLAND local industries. We SERVICE BOATS FROM ALL COASTAL POINTS OF THE UNITED STATES AND CUBA The coming of the automobile was one of the pre- monitory turning points in Bar Harbor's history. A war to exclude them from the island was waged and Thanks, Folks, won by town vote in 1909. Some year-round residents, farmers and fishermen, felt that the cars were a men- ace on the then narrow roads. The summer cottagers for being careful! too realized the threat mass transportation held to their prized and carefully guarded privacy. During the war, in 1915, the automobile won its fight for admis- sion to Mt. Desert Island. Beginning in the 1920s the Rockefellers built, among other roads, the elaborate and easy access to the summit of Cadillac Mountain which became in 1929 part of Acadia National Park, the first national park east of the Mississippi, com- prising a realm of mountains and woodlands laced by good roads, rocky escarpments and beaches fronting the sea, lakes, and streams, and across Frenchmans Bay, the headlands of Schoodic Point. Its chief archi- tect was George B. Dorr, aided by President Eliot of Harvard and munificent gifts from the Rockefellers. (Incidentally, Dr. Eliot initiated a feud which still endures. Bar Harborites pronounce Mt. Desert with the accent on the second syllable as the French did who named it. Dr. Eliot insisted on accenting the first syllable, Desert and that pronunciation still prevails at Northeast Harbor. No compromise on either side!) With the outbreak of World War II a phase of Bar Harbor's history came to an end. Young men flocked into the armed forces. The Navy changed from a decorative and socially pleasing national adjunct to a foremost and powerful instrument of United States world policy. Heavier income and inheritance taxes INTERNATIONAL PAPER COMPANY began to impose new limits on the growth of Amer- ican fortunes. As the old tycoons died, their fortunes Woodlands Department Chisholm, Maine were divided and distributed. Added to which the scarcity of servants made the upkeep of vast and elaborate establishments all but impossible. So the glamor period slid toward a reluctant but nonetheless THE LIGHT REFRESHMENT definitive close. In 1947, catastrophe by fire gave the final blow to the large estate era. Beginning in October, after DOWN EAST CLAMBAKES PEPSI-COLA Complete to the last detail for private parties of 15 or over, the more the merrier. At your place, the shore or we'll even select the spot. We go anywhere. Phone York 345 PEPSI-COLA BOTTLING COMPANY Ask for "Bill" or Phoebe Foster Auburn-Portland, Maine YORK, MAINE 45 drought-ridden months, and fanned by a wind which at times approached hurricane force, the flames roared THRILLS! SPILLS! CHILLS! in a fiery tornado, engulfing trees like matchwood, crossed the eastern side of the island, scorching the side of Cadillac Mountain, driving wild animals in terrified flight, threatening the very existence of the OXFORD PLAINS SPEEDWAY town of Bar Harbor, destroying sixty-seven summer and 170 year-round houses and, before it burned it- Route 26, Five Miles South of Norway, Maine self out, belching a volcano of flame and smoke as much as a mile offshore from Great Head. In the course of this disaster, with help streaming in from STOCK CAR and BOMBER RACING the Army, Navy, Coast Guard, and neighboring fire departments, the people of the town who had not escaped by road assembled at the shore, prepared to Every Sunday at 2 P. M. evacuate by the only avenue left, the sea. Then the wind changed and saved Bar Harbor from complete destruction. A sad loss to science was the burning of the Jackson Memorial Laboratory whose more than 200 gener- IN THE TRADITION OF ations of mice and carefully controlled breeds of rab- bits, cats, and dogs have made important contribu- tions in the study of cancer, rabies, and other GOOD OLD YANKEE THRIFT eases, as well as of heredity and problems of behavio Fortunately the heredity lines of animals have been reconstituted by gifts from other laboratories to which A good sense of value - that's part strains had been sent. The laboratory is now better housed and in full operation. of the New England character. That's Few of the great houses destroyed in the fire have been rebuilt. Others have been given over to church, why First National Stores, a New educational, and charitable uses. Still others have been and are being torn down or are for sale. A linger- England institution, constantly strives ing remnant remains in possession of the dwindling to offer the best food values avail- and aged survivors of the glittering era. In the summer season the twenty mile road from able by keeping prices low and qual- Ellsworth is traveled by cars from all parts of continen- tal North America including Alaska, some accom- ity high. panied by trailers and traveling equipment. During the summer, scheduled and chartered plane service is maintained at the Trenton airport two miles above the Mt. Desert narrows. The burned areas of Mt. Desert Island are again green. Nature has covered over the scars of the fire. FIRST NATIONAL The old days of Bar Harbor are gone and the sur- vivors of that gilded epoch know they can only delay, not halt, this process. The new day is here. If it sweeps STORES away some of the past social charm and its amenities, SO does it also abolish narrowing limitations. The beauty and majesty of Mt. Desert Island survive and even in the flood of tourism will continue to evoke wonder and admiration. ARUNDEL PRINT SHOP Always A Cordial Welcome To Visitors Of Our Fine State 119 MAIN STREET, KENNEBUNK, MAINE "IT PAYS TO BE THRIFTY" For personal or business use there is no substitute for DAVIS & MILLER MADISON tastefully designed and We Give Green Stamps finely executed printing Nationally Advertised Clothes Photo-offset Letterpress At Inexpensive Prices Use Our Free Samsonite Travel Bureau "Bank and hotel printing - a specialty." DAVIS & MILLER Madison, Maine 46