Fire T HE last days of October, 1947, are deeply etched in the memories of all Mainers. After an unprecedented drought of more than three months' duration, a host of furious forest fires erupted across the state. Fanned by gale force winds, the fires quickly spread to the outskirts of towns up and down the state, forcing thousands to flee for their lives. By the time the last ember had burned itself out weeks later, the Great Fire of 1947 ranked as the worst natural catastrophe in the state's history. More than a dozen towns were either destroyed or extensively damaged, 2,500 people were left homeless, and property loss was estimated at $30 million. Sixteen deaths were attributed directly or indirectly to the conflagration. Hardest hit was York County, but it was Bar Harbor that grabbed the head- lines. The idea of this storied playground of the idle rich going up in smoke gripped the popular imagination. But the fire itself was much more than a newsstand sensation, as indicated by the aerial photograph (inset) showing one of the outbreaks gathering force in the Aunt Betty Pond area of Acadia National Park (Somes Sound visible at far right). In a matter of a few days, it burned more than 17,000 acres of New England's most scenic landscape. Property loss totalled some $12 million and included 170 permanent homes and 67 of the area's summer "cottages." Only a last-minute wind shift saved the downtown area and prevented a disastrous loss of life. It required decades for the town to recover physically and economically from the devastation. Bar Harbor today is a vastly different place than it was forty years ago. The wealthy rusticators have scattered, to be replaced by throngs of tourists. Public excursion boats and medium-sized sailing vessels crowd the anchorage between the Porcupines and the public landing where huge steam yachts used to moor. But the beauty of the magnificent setting has been restored and Acadia National Park reigns once again as one of the nation's most popular parks. As the article that begins on the 40 "My father held a dinner dance every summer. He would hire a large band for the house and a smaller one for his yacht, which was anchored off- shore. Launches went back and forth between the house and the boat." -A. Atwater Kent, Jr. E VEN after forty years, talking about the Bar Harbor fire gives me goose bumps," admits Jack Walls, lifelong resident of the famous resort town. "I was fifteen in 1947, and they let us out of high school to fight the fire. I was assigned to a tank truck, and we were trying to get back to Bar Harbor. Trees on both sides of the road were literally exploding into flame. A half mile from town, the smoke got so thick the driver ran the truck off the road. So we used water from the tank to wet down our shirts, pulled them over our heads, and ran for it. One man was about sixty, and he was panting so hard I had to keep pulling him along. We finally came out of the smoke and flames by the ballpark." While recalling that grim October in 1947, Walls waits on customers in his family's grocery store, not far from the ballpark. For years prior to Bar Harbor's Great Fire, the store was patronized by the affluent elite - Vanderbilts, Rockefel- lers, Pulitzers, and the like - who made Bar Harbor and near- by villages their summer playground. Walls remembers de- livering everything from caviar to shredded wheat to the palatial summer homes that the wealthy preferred to call their cottages. In truth, they were mansions, extravagant estates perched on the hills overlooking Bar Harbor, on the eastern coast of Mount Desert Island. They also lined the seashore north of town, SO imposingly that locals dubbed the shore road "Million- aires' Row." One elegant cottage contained no fewer than Although the substantial Bar Harbor summer cottage of A. eighty rooms (some with doorknobs of gold) and twenty-six Atwater Kent, Jr., who now summers at Northeast Harbor imported marble fireplaces. Not to be outdone, the Pulitzers (right), escaped the flames of the Great Fire, the spring owned a sprawling manse called Beachcroft and before that, house at Sieur de Mont spring (above) was leveled- - like Chatwold, which contained a "soundproof" granite tower de- nearly 250 other year-round and seasonal homes on the signed to muffle the noise of a nearby foghorn. island. "It was devastation," recalls Kent, who motored The social life of Bar Harbor glittered - a whirl of dances around the island assisting firefighters the day after and sailing parties. Summer resident A. Atwater Kent, Jr., Bar Harbor was evacuated. "All the fire engines in recalls the 1947 season revolving around black-tie dinners at the country could not have stopped that fire." the Bar Harbor Club. At the time, Kent owned Brook End, a rambling three-story, stone and shingle cottage built in 1880. Next door was Sonogee, owned by Kent's father, the self-made radio czar famous for saying he wished to enjoy "the simple life on a grand scale." A noteworthy feature of Sonogee was an eleven-car garage containing a turntable so the automobiles could be turned around inside and driven out frontwards. "Freddy Vanderbilt sold Sonogee to my father," Kent recalls, "and my father held a dinner dance there every summer. He Article by Norah Deakin Davis would hire a large band for the house and a smaller one for his yacht, which was anchored offshore. Launches went back and Photographs by Kip Brundage forth between the house and the boat." 40 DOWN EAST "I was assigned to a tank truck, and we were trying to get back to Bar Harbor. Trees on both sides of the road were literally exploding into flame. A half mile from town, the smoke got so thick the driver ran the truck off the road." -Jack Walls By 1947, Bar Harbor's cottage era was beginning to wane. Always simpler and more casual than that of Newport, the era's other famous watering hole of the rich, Bar Harbor's resort life emphasized enjoying the beauties of Mount Desert Island, or- as one commentator wrote - "walking, talking, and flirting." Local historian Gladys O'Neil attributes the resort's decline to the younger crowd desiring a more exciting night life. "Also," she adds, "after the war, it was difficult to get help." Many cottages were vacant or for sale in 1947. Of fifteen grand hotels that had dominated Bar Harbor in its heyday, only three remained - the DeGregoire, Belmont, and Malvern. The exclusive clothing and millinery shops that had once lined Main Street had dwindled to a handful of boutiques, like Elise of New York. Still, the livelihoods of most of Bar Harbor's 3,500 perma- nent residents remained tied to the summer colony. To be sure, a few found work at Jackson Laboratory, a genetics research facility on the southern edge of town, or with Acadia National Park, which covered a third of the fifteen-mile-long island. But most were still employed at the hotels, shops, or cottages. It was this world that the holocaust of 1947 brought to a fiery end. T HAT autumn, wells were going dry, pine needles crumbled at the slightest touch, and the soil itself was parched and powdery. By September, after an arid July and At the Bar Harbor ballpark, troops guarded possessions August, Maine was experiencing the worst drought on record. abandoned by the more than 2,500 townspeople who had Then October arrived, along with a glorious Indian summer. gathered there prior to marching six blocks to the The weathermen held out no hope of rain. town wharf to await evacuation from the island. On Friday, October 17th, Governor Horace Hildreth took Newspaper headlines compared the exodus to Dunkirk. the drastic step of closing the woods - with the deer season Most of the sixty-seven palatial summer estates that fell only days away. At 4 P.M. that same day, the Bar Harbor Fire to the flames in 1947 were never rebuilt, leaving the island Department received a report of a column of smoke six miles dotted with imposing granite and concrete foundations northwest of town, apparently coming from Dolliver's Dump (opposite), some of which remain forty years later. or the cranberry bog that surrounded it. The exact point of origin is a matter of dispute today. "My father, William Dol- liver, leased his land to the town for a dump," says Mildred Gilley, of Northeast Harbor. "But my family always thought the fire started in the bog." After forty years, the cause of the fire is still unknown. It could have been a cigarette dropped by berry pickers, or the heat of the sun focusing through a shard of glass. Either was possible in a tinder-dry bog. Fire Chief David Sleeper - 42, tall, slightly built, and bespectacled-had fought a number of forest fires in his eleven years as a fireman. He immediately dispatched a tank truck. The driver, after an unsuccessful attempt to douse the flames, called for reinforcements, and Chief Sleeper sounded the forest fire alarm. By midnight, the blaze had burned 100 acres but was 42 DOWN EAST under control. Over the weekend, the chief ordered water pumped around the clock on hot spots and along the perimeter of the burn. On Monday, the bog smoldered, the fire seemingly almost out, but on Tuesday morning, the twenty-first, a small blaze suddenly flared up outside the fire line. Fanned by a brisk breeze, the flames raced through nearby woods. Chief Sleeper was not taking any chances. He rushed to a phone and called the island's four other fire departments, as well as Dow Field, the army base in Bangor. Within minutes, a convoy of 200 soldiers set out for the island. The rest of Tuesday morning, the fire burned out of control for the first time. It was roaring southeast directly toward a large farm surrounded by pastures. Chief Sleeper massed his men at the farm, hoping to stop the blaze at this natural barrier. At noon, a fresh crew from Bar Harbor drove up - with them a young mason named Arden Peach. As they arrived, the fire was still in the woods well back from the farm. Suddenly, sparks caught by the wind landed on the roof of the barn. The building burst into flames, shooting embers into the woods on the far side. The fire was now moving uphill, away from any source of water. "We couldn't hold it. There was too much fire and too few men," says Peach. Chief Sleeper moved his crews farther south to the next natural firebreak - Eagle Lake Road, an east-west artery that bisects the island. To meet the fire head on, Peach and the other firefighters climbed a wooded hill, carrying shovels, picks, and fire hoses. Water was pumped from a nearby lake, but to no avail. "The heat kept moving us back," he recalls. "The soles of my shoes burned, and I was too excited to notice. Then my hair and eyebrows got singed, and I had to go back to the firehouse. They gave me a new pair of boots, and a nurse in dungarees put salve in my eyes." The command station - the Bar Harbor firehouse - teemed with people. Unshaven firefighters blackened with soot would stagger in and collapse for a couple of hours. Volunteers dropped by to lend a hand turning out hundreds of sandwiches from food donated by towns on the mainland. Now and then, the fire chief would dash in from the fire front, shouting orders. Ruth Sleeper scoured the town for oranges SO she could squeeze juice to soothe her husband's hoarse throat. B Y nightfall on Tuesday, the fire was beginning to close in on Bar Harbor, though most residents were still unaware of the danger. The flames were moving east directly toward town, spreading south into the national park, and north toward Hulls Cove, a tiny village two miles up the coast from the SEPTEMBER 1987 43 "My job was to keep a constant flow of water on the roof of the wooden wing [of the hospital], while the patients were evacuated to the fire- proof section. If the building caught, I was supposed to escape over the rocks to a boat waiting offshore." -Arden Peach celebrated resort community. At daybreak, however, the wind miraculously shifted, stopping the advance just behind the last hill protecting Bar Harbor. The next day, Wednesday, the fire engulfed over 2,200 acres, driving toward the center of the island but coming no closer to Bar Harbor. "That second day, I was sent out on a tank truck with my brother, and my dad was at the wheel," recalls Peach. "As we went into some woods near Hulls Cove, men in a jeep came by and yelled for us to get out. We turned around, but the fire crossed the road in front of us. We were surrounded and had no idea how far the wall of fire extended. We wet down the truck, and each other. My brother and I lay on the cab holding fire hoses, and we sprayed a water wall that we could drive through." Under most immediate attack the following day, Thursday, October 23rd, was Hulls Cove. On the shore halfway between Hulls Cove and Bar Harbor was Brook End, Atwater Kent's cottage. Kent, 39, had stayed on the island that fall with his wife and children to enjoy the Indian summer. "The fire sort of tacked," he recalls, "first coming towards Hulls Cove and then backing off, then coming on again. Thursday morning, I climbed up on our roof and hosed it down. Finally, I decided we should leave, SO I rigged up a sprinkler. Then I drove our 1914 Whipped by winds gusting to eighty-five miles an hour, the Pierce-Arrow to Ted Browning's house in Bar Harbor. I left the inferno eventually cut off all roads leading out of Pierce-Arrow there in an open field. When I got back to Brook Bar Harbor, forcing townspeople and a few remaining End, we packed our other cars with drawers full of ornaments vacationers into vessels of every size and description. Even my mother's maids had put away. after the threat to downtown Bar Harbor had abated, the fire "We drove to the Brownings' then, and they served us continued to burn and smolder on the island for another lunch, although the fire had knocked out electricity all over the three weeks, consuming additional acreage beyond the island. Afterwards, we formed a bucket brigade-my wife and massive stone relics of the great cottages (right). children helped - to take pictures and memorabilia off the Brownings' walls. He had a fireproof place with a steel door in the basement. Finally, saw smoke coming, SO I apologized and said we had to take our children and leave." A few permanent residents were also trying to save some of their belongings. Mike Curtis, a high-school freshman, was part of a crew in Hulls Cove that carried furniture out of a house and trucked it over the bridge and causeway that connect the island to the mainland. He also recalls that Katherine Richards and her husband, Carl, who was the caretaker at the Pulitzer's cottage, drove their employer's automobiles off the island, leaving behind their own vehicle in hopes that their nephew would think to come and save it. Most residents, however, say they didn't realize the seriousness of the situation until Thurs- day afternoon, and by then it was too late to pack anything. Deputy Fire Chief Carroll Brown - businessman, ex- selectman, and president of the hospital board - was in charge 44 DOWN EAST of the battle to defend Hulls Cove. "I had my regular crew of trained firefighters, plus a whole company from Dow Field," he recalls. "By then, the fire was moving SO fast we didn't use any large equipment like bulldozers, for fear we'd lose them. So all we had were Indian pumps, which hold about five gallons each. They're all right for a grass fire, but on that fire, they did about as much good as spitting on it." Roaring down on Hulls Cove was an inferno. Driven by a freak gale-force wind, it had become a crown fire, spreading from treetop to treetop. Pine cones would explode, shooting balls of fire over the firefighters' heads. Many were forced to run for their lives. One man was alone in the woods fighting a grass fire when it crowned. He sprinted for the road, with trees bursting into flame in front of him as if doused with gasoline. The smoke was SO dense he had to follow the fire hose to find his way. Reaching the road, he bolted to a stone bridge and huddled underneath while a wall of flame passed overhead, showering his clothes with sparks. The gale, gusting to eighty-five miles per hour, spread the fire so fast that other firefighters had to take to the ocean. A plumber named Bernard Holmes was trapped on a beach for two hours, the maelstrom burning in front of him. Bud Graham, a watchmaker, fled along a rocky stretch of shoreline to save his life. Utterly capricious, the wind suddenly shifted, giving a reprieve to most of Hulls Cove. But now it was driving the inferno directly towards Bar Harbor along Millionaires' Row, cutting off any escape to the north. Young Mike Curtis fled in front of it, the heat SO intense it blistered the paint on his truck. Eyewitnesses report the wind sounded like a freight train. U NABLE to reach the mainland by the most direct route, Atwater Kent drove his family around the island, going south and then west to circle behind the fire. Stopping at a friend's cottage beyond the danger zone, he watched its prog- ress from an upstairs window. "I wanted to be sure it didn't turn and cut us off from the bridge." Finally, he decided the time had come to leave. He drove his family to the mainland and found rooms in an Ellsworth hotel. Back in Bar Harbor, the sky was yellow with smoke. The air was filled with dust and autumn leaves. For the firefighters' wives, the day had been one of waiting. Unable to stand the anxiety any longer, one woman ventured out with her infant. Pushing the baby carriage, she noticed an increase in the smoke and was about to turn back when, at 4:10 P.M., the firehouse horn suddenly blasted seven times - the signal for evacuation. Many people panicked, leaving behind the family silver and SEPTEMBER 1987 45 "The fire was moving so fast we didn't use any large equipment like bulldozers, for fear we'd lose them. So all we had were Indian pumps. They're all right for a grass fire, but on that fire, they did about as much good as spitting on it." -Carroll Brown cherished photographs they had packed earlier in the day. One lady grabbed the bottom of a pressure cooker, another a box of hair ribbons. A thirteen-year-old girl hastily donned all her new fall clothes, squeezing into two skirts and a pair of slacks, two blouses, and a couple of sweaters. While one prong of the firestorm bore down from the north along Millionaires' Row, another crested Great Hill, the bump of land that had served as the town's western defense two days earlier. On the south, the fire was barreling in from the national park. To the east lay the cold Atlantic. A scientist fearing for the safety of Jackson Laboratory hastened there with his wife. "As I turned into the driveway," says Dr. George Snell, winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize for medicine, "the trees around the lab were already burning. When the building caught, I lost a year's work on the experiment that got the Nobel Prize." Leaving Jackson Laboratory, the Snells joined a caravan of cars, bumper to bumper, heading south toward the village of Otter Creek. Some were loaded with mattresses and furniture. Many refugees assumed their car was the last in line, so near were the flames. Sparks and flaming embers repeatedly struck the vehicles. For three miles, the heat was fierce as the cars crawled along. The whole time, wrote one survivor, they feared they would be burned to death in that creeping caravan. Finally, the road to the south was judged impassable, and police at the edge of town began waving the carloads of refugees into the ballpark, Bar Harbor's largest open field. People on foot were running for the park, children were crying, The wealthy summer colony that dominated Bar Harbor for and sirens screaming. Soldiers in trucks drove the streets generations was largely dispersed by the fire - in many rounding up the disabled and the disoriented and taking them to cases to other parts of Mount Desert Island- - but the locale the park. One elderly man with a cat in his arms was lifted into has hardly been forgotten by well-heeled rusticators. a truck, but climbed back down when the cat sprang away. He Magnificent new summer homes have arisen at such was never seen again. After the fire, amid the rubble of his breathtaking sites as Schooner Head (above), and in burned-out home, bones thought to be his were found in the town, next to the municipal wharf, the old Bar Harbor cellar hole. Reading Room (now called the Bar Harbor Inn) A tense hour passed at the ballpark. The air was becoming is thronged with visitors all summer long (opposite). uncomfortably smoky, SO the police chief decided to move the crowd to the town wharf. A procession of 2,500 women, children, and elderly men set out, streaming down Main Street. As they walked the six blocks to the pier, the chief radioed the Coast Guard to send all available vessels. Fishing boats, cabin cruisers, sardine carriers, Coast Guard cutters, and a navy destroyer began steaming toward Bar Harbor on a mission of rescue. Newspaper headlines across the nation noted the resem- blance to Dunkirk. The refugees stood shivering on the pier, as the wind grew chilly with the approach of the October evening. Suddenly the crowd noticed flames shooting high in the air four blocks away at the end of West Street. It was the DeGregoire Hotel. Chief Sleeper had selected the DeGregoire, at the corner of West and Eden, as the place to stage his final stand. "The chief oy then had the fire departments from fourteen mainland towns helping him," explains Carroll Brown. Counting soldiers, trained firefighters, and citizens, there were now 1,500 men battling the holocaust. "The chief of the Camden Fire Depart- ment, Allen Payson, was an older man, very experienced," Brown recalls, "and he was Sleeper's right-hand man. Payson took charge of the DeGregoire." Arden Peach, who had an uncanny knack for showing up at RESTAURANT the center of action, was assigned to Payson's crew. The Camden chief directed Peach and the other men to wet down blankets to use as heat reflectors to shield themselves SO they could move in close with their hoses. This inspired tactic was unable to save the DeGregoire, but all accounts credit the Camden chief's daring and his men's heroism with slowing the fire sufficiently to save West Street. Just as the assault began, Peach was taken off the DeGreg- oire and reassigned to the hospital, which was off Main Street near the shore. "My job was to keep a constant flow of water on the roof of the wooden wing, while the patients were evacuated to the fireproof section," recalls Peach. "Big cinders, three inches across, were falling all around. Water kept cascading back down on me from the roof. It was the only time during the whole fire that I was cold. If the building caught, I was supposed to escape over the rocks to a boat waiting offshore." Whether there was a boat is dubious. Neil Bunker, a hospital administrator, remembers three ambulances and a few station wagons standing by to take all fifty patients to the town wharf, where boats were expected momentarily. Dorothy Worcester, head nurse in the operating room, recalls wondering how ambulances would get through if Main Street caught fire. "I worried about the filling stations blowing up and blocking the street." She also remembers the precautions the hospital staff took: "We had morphine vials in our pockets, and we moved the oxygen tanks, which are explosive, to the brick wing." She adds, "Meanwhile, we delivered a baby." Nurse Worcester also remembers that her father set out with a boat from the other side of the island but had to turn back because the smoke was so bad. On the wharf, hundreds waited quietly for help to arrive. "We stood in back of some cars to cut the wind," Roy Blake, a movie projectionist, remembers. "The boats didn't seem to come. The whole thing was eerie. Except for the wind, there was no sound." (Continued on page 101) SEPTEMBER 1987 47 BAR HARBOR FIRE (Continued from page 47) David & Susan LOG HOMES MARGONELLI SINCE 1926 E VENTUALLY, an occasional FINE HANDMADE FURNITURE lobsterboat began making it For more than half a century, through, but not before a fifty-one-year- L.C. Andrew has been building old man had collapsed on the pier and Maine Cedar Log Homes which died of a heart attack. The wind was combine versatile styling with zero blowing across the harbor at forty knots, maintenance. Built for easy care with Northern White Cedar, and recalls a boatbuilder named Tyler Proc- Andersen insulated windows, tor, who was there with his mother-in- these log homes range from law. "The Bar Harbor pier is exposed," vacation retreats to year he notes. "It's a hard chance for a boat round homes. even to land in there." When the vessels Experience counts - and we've began arriving, at least two elderly men got plenty! Find out more today. Dealer inquiries welcome. trying to board fell into the water. Write for free folder or send $4 Proctor's mother-in-law refused point- for new 4-color brochure. blank even to try. Jo Ann Cantwell, 18, was one of 400 refugees eventually evacuated by water. "I was with my husband and father-in- Our walnut music cabinet was designed to law on a twenty-foot fishing boat," she hold a music collection. 66" high by 34" wide. The doors have puffed panels. We says, recalling their ordeal. "The captain have a representative collection of color MHE tried to take us to Winter Harbor, but the photos for $5, refundable upon return of the wind was too strong to get in. The boat photos. Our studio-showroom is on the River Road, 4 miles from Damariscotta center was really rocking, and one lady got or 6 miles from Rt. 27 in Boothbay. Open seasick. We were soaked with spray, and Mon.-Sat. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. L.C. Andrew, Dept. DE I had a blanket over my head to keep my 207-633-3326 MAINE CEDAR LOG HOMES ears from freezing. It was dark, and we RFD 1, BOX 258-A, RIVER ROAD MAIN ST., WINDHAM MAINE 04062 207-892-8561 1-800-341-0405 NORTH EDGECOMB, MAINE 04556 couldn't see where we were going. It was two hours before we made it around to Southwest Harbor. The whole time, my father-in-law was praying." CROCKER HOUSE Meanwhile, in Hulls Cove, Carroll COUNTRY INN Brown and an assistant waited for the worst to pass and then braved a wall of flame to drive to Bar Harbor. They headed for the corner of Eden and Mount Desert streets, where the Belmont Hotel stood next door to the dignified Malvern Hotel. "I walked up the street and the Malvern greenhouses were burning, SO I hoofed it as fast as I could to the firehouse to see what I could get for equipment," recalls Brown. "I was gone less than a half-hour. By the time I got back, both little out of the way and way out of the hotels had exploded. They went up that In 1939, ordinary" fast. There was nobody around to save Gandhi told Adelaide Ten individually appointed guest rooms, each anything, just me and one other person. that pottery with private bath, in a recently restored 103- year-old inn. That was the way the hotel era ended." must be taken seriously Gourmet restaurant with a full liquor license. Neighboring houses burned to the Adelaide Pearson returned to Maine to in- ground in minutes, as if they were card- still a new dignity in the pottery she established Quiet setting, 200 yards from Frenchman's in Blue Hill. Bay. board boxes. The fire was heading for Today, complete settings of tableware and downtown - and the pier. Just then, the accessories stand for the well-known tradition Acadia National Park region. Bucksport Fire Department arrived. of Rowantrees Pottery. Each piece is indivi- Open May 1st through Thanksgiving. dually crafted and glazed, then fired to a kiln Hooking their hoses to fire hydrants, the temperature of 1900 degrees. The clay itself and Bucksport men tapped Bar Harbor's the materials that form Rowantrees' vivid glaze colors come from this same locality. Crocker House ample water supply. Their efforts, to- Just come up the garden path and visit the Hancock Point, Maine gether with those of the Camden chief on pottery, or send $1.00 for an ALL-NEW color catalogue today. 04640 West Street, stopped the advance of the fire for the first time in three days. Most rowantrees 207-422-6806 of downtown Bar Harbor was saved. pottery Featured in "Country Inns and Back Roads" At 10:00 P.M., the state police an- Box C-D, Blue Hill, Maine 04614 207-374-5535 nounced to the remaining 2,100 people SEPTEMBER 1987 101 on the wharf that bulldozers had cleared the northern route out of town. It was still risky, but cars would be able to proceed single file. Moving as quickly as the A.G.A. CORREA'S smoke permitted, the procession of refu- gees bumped over fire hoses and started HANDWOVEN along Millionaires' Row. On both sides of the road telephone poles burned like TURK'S HEAD flaming torches, and firebrands littered JEWELRY the pavement. "It was like driving into a Creating solid gold furnace," one survivor recalls. "We were turk's head jewelry W. Sepe, Architect too numb to be afraid," says another. occurred to me the If you are interested in building a home, Tyler Proctor and his mother-in-law moment I saw my child's nylon string consider the benefits of the timber were in a convertible. Before their car bracelet of the same frame. started through the gauntlet, a fire truck design. Turk's Heads traditional mortise-&-tenon joinery, wet the roof down. Other trucks stationed have been found carved in wood, ivory oak pegged along the way sprayed it again. Proctor and stone, but to the planed & oiled timbers in pine & oak and others wondered, "What if we have a best of my knowledge, super-insulated stress skin panels flat tire or an accident?" One traffic acci- never before created in gold. This very old consultation & design services dent did occur when a truckload of sol- design dates back to diers heading toward Bar Harbor col- Leonardo da Vinci, Call or write for lided with a refugee vehicle. A high- who illustrated them in his artwork. more information. school girl lost her life, the third and last Creating this apparently CONNOLLY & fatality to result from Bar Harbor's Great endless weave, from hand drawn wire, represents Fire. a most difficult form of goldsmithing. No two are CO. As the night wore on, the firestorm exactly alike. Prompt delivery and POST & BEAM unconditionally guaranteed. tore through Jackson Laboratory and 4 Strand Bracelet 14k $2200. ppd. 18k $2650. ppd. CONSTRUCTION & RESTORATION bore down on the island's southeastern Please call or write for our free catalogue of more turk's head jewelry, nautical jewelry, diamond constellations, and shore like a blowtorch, a ball of fire that the elephant hair bracelet and ring. 346-D NEW MEADOWS ROAD only the ocean could stop. So intense was A. G. A. CORREA WEST BATH, MAINE 04530 this inferno that it traveled over five P.O. Box 401DE 1-800-341-0788 207-442-8142 Wiscasset, Maine 04578 882-7873 in Maine miles in only three hours, consuming over 13,000 acres - compared to a total of 4,000 the previous two days. From the mainland, it looked like the entire island was on fire. Frantic families with relatives in Bar Harbor listened as Child's Antique Sleigh excited radio announcers reported that townspeople were jumping off the pier to save themselves from the flames. As one eyewitness observed, "It was a wild night." T HE refugees slept on cots in evacu- ation centers in Ellsworth and were not allowed to return home for several days, because the national park section of the island was still burning. Although the fire was brought under control within a week, it continued to glow down in the iron runners cracks between rock ledges for days after pine body oak E ash frames that. Not until November 14 was the bronze swans BRIG blaze declared officially out. CLARISSA ANN. The story of the Bar Harbor fire ran as BATH. 1824 front-page news worldwide. More than Maine Maritime Museum fifty forest fires had raged throughout the Reproduced by Bath state that fall, notably at Kennebunkport and several other southern Maine com- SageworkS Preserving Maine's maritime heritage munities, but the conflagration on Mount Woodworking Desert Island captured the headlines. In custom design children's furniture Open year round Paris, Le Figaro claimed it had been set Box 97 by enraged Maine peasants protesting Round Pond, ME 04564 Call 207-443-1316 against the grand estates. The New York (207) 529-5957 for information Times and Boston Post, eschewing fanci- ful political interpretations, played the Handcarved rocking horses also available 102 DOWN EAST story for its drama, with banner headlines that thousands were trapped on the pier. It was the cottages, though, that domi- The Computer Roll Top Desk nated the subheads. Mentioned promi- nently were the estates of publisher Jo- Features: seph Pulitzer, author Mary Roberts Compatible with most major computers Expertly handcrafted of solid oak and Rinehart, and conductor Walter Dam- oak veneers Rich oil based stain with durable hand rosch. To a war-hardened public satiated rubbed lacquer finish with daily disasters, fire in elegant Bar Built-in surge protector Harbor was hot news. Raised panels Automatic locking device to The day after the evacuation, Atwater lock the curtain and pedestal drawers Kent chartered a fishing boat and re- Fully finished dovetail turned to find that Brook End was still drawers Deluxe roller bearing glides standing, though a gazebo only seventy in all drawers feet away had burned. With the fire still File drawer adjustable to raging in the park, Kent drove the back legal and letter size roads in his Cadillac filled with sand- Carved drawer pulls wiches and a five-gallon jug of coffee, Oak dividers in seeking out hungry firefighters. all drawers Oak pencil trays "It was devastation," he recalls, a no Flip-up copy man's land. "All the fire engines in the holder Solid brass country could not have stopped that fire." lacquered The hillsides were blackened with the hardware Disk storage in skeletons of millions of trees. Back in cubby hole section M-F 9-5:30 Bar Harbor on Millionaires' Row, all that Thu. 'til 8 remained of the once-grand cottages of Sat. 9-5 many of his friends were brick chimneys standing amid the rubble like weary HARDWARE SPECIALTIES sentries. Hazards, they were dynamited COR. UNION & COMMERCIAL STS., PORTLAND 775-3346 during the following weeks. Send for free Oak Desk booklet "A lot of my friends flew up to view the ruins," Kent recalls. Out of 222 cot- tages, sixty-seven had burned. Joseph Pulitzer chartered a plane when he was unable to reach his caretaker with the phone lines down. Pulitzer pulled up to Carl Richards' house and, without pre- shaw's liminaries, inquired, "Did we lose every- thing?" Richards replied that everything Checkout the world was saved, including Pulitzer's automo- biles. of different and Mrs. Edith Pulitzer Moore, his sister, was not as fortunate. When Mrs. Moore delightful foods. flew in, Atwater Kent took her to the island by boat. Her caretaker, Reginald Gray, and his wife, Rita, had tragic news. The only thing saved from her three- story cottage, Woodlands, was a white statuette of an angel. It had been stored in the attic and miraculously turned up in the rubble, not even blackened. Gone were Mrs. Moore's antique furniture, her silver, linens, and Oriental rugs. For- tunately, Gray had placed her paint- ings in storage at the bank's vault that fall, as he always did at the close of the season. Mrs. Moore immediately purchased another cottage, thereby assuring the Grays, who had also lost everything, that they would have a home and a job. Of the other summer residents who had been burned out, some purchased or leased cottages. A few rebuilt- but only one on the same site - and all on a more modest SEPTEMBER 1987 103 scale. Some never returned to Bar Harbor Maine Pine Log MAINE CAREERS at all. Homes ENGINEERING Those who did come back were DATA PROCESSING keenly aware that many Bar Harborites ACCOUNTING BANKING had suffered a double loss. Out of 667 We have been placing professionals year-round houses, 170 or one-fourth in Maine and N.H. since 1966 and presently list many fine openings. If of the town - had burned, and property you qualify for a position in Data Pro- damages totaled $12 million. With the cessing, Accounting, Engineering or hotels and nearly a third of the cottages Banking at $18,000 to $60,000, We supply contact us in confidence. Client com- gone, many who had lost their homes everything, kitchens and panies pay our fee. were also out of work. bathrooms, for total quality control. In an outpouring of noblesse oblige, Call or write for a free brochure. ROGERS AND SEYMOUR INCORPORATED the summer colony pledged gifts of Rte. 27, Belgrade Hammond PERSONNEL CONSULTANTS Maine 04917 222 Auburn St. Portland, Me. 04103/207-797-2191 money and, together with the town's 1-800-452-1904 Lumber Company business community, purchased shares in a new hotel in an effort to replace lost jobs. A wing was added to an existing clubhouse known as the Reading Room, When you and the resulting hotel (today called the move Down East, Bar Harbor Inn) opened its doors in rec- ord time. call John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who had maintained a forestry crew on the island EarleW.Noyes for years, sent his men to help clean up the woods and remove eyesores. Trees Schueler Antiques Sons that showed any signs of life were left Address: Agents for United Van Lines standing, and charred logs were left on Oxford & Franklin Sts., Portland, ME the ground to help stop erosion. In some 10 High Street ( Route 1) Toll Free: Within Maine 800-482-0700 areas, the soil itself-the humus-had Camden, Maine 04843 Outside Maine 800-341-7576 Portland Area 775-5876 burned. When the ashes from the fire 207-236-2770 blew away, the roots of the trees stood grotesquely exposed. Nevertheless, by the first summer after the fire, asters were blooming and blueberry bushes were Introducing the helping to hide the scars. Five years later, a luxuriant growth of birch, aspen, oak, " "Sebasco Secretary" and cherry was well established. What at first seemed like a deathblow A desk originally designed for for Bar Harbor was starting to look less guest rooms at Sebasco Lodge. hopeless. Year-round homes were Top opens for write-on surface. quickly rebuilt with lumber milled from CONCEPTS the undamaged heartwood of charred Only $375 trees. Jackson Laboratory also reopened, (as shown) eventually becoming one of the nation's major cancer research centers. 9 Circus Time Rd. Box 429, Rte. 16 Airport Mall The economic recovery took years, So. Portland, ME Jackson, NH Bangor, ME 04106 03846 04401 however. Leslie C. Brewer, community 207-775-4312 603-383-6460 207-942-1017 leader and fourth-generation resident of the island, was a member of the town council in the late 1950s. At that time, he found Bar Harbor's tax base growing at a much slower rate than was predicted. Brewer believes the town did not fully snap back until quite recently. THE Jack Walls agrees. More than 90 per- PLAINS GALLERY cent of his grocery business was wiped out by the fire. Asked when Bar Harbor SOUTHWEST ART 28 INDIAN EXCHANGE STREET PORTLAND ME returned to normal, his standard reply is, 04101 ARTIFACTS (207) 774-7500 "Last year." In 1947, Bar Harborites lost JEWELRY their homes, jobs, and possessions, but INTERIOR not, for Walls and many others, their sense of humor. Nor did they lose the beauty of the sea and the island. The one always remained - and the other has come back. 104 DOWN EAST