The Memorials of Acadia National Park

A Pleasant Perambulation

Over a mile long, about a half mile wide and nearly enclosed by mountains, Jordan Pond is 150' deep, abundant with lake trout and salmon and reputed to be the clearest lake in Maine. It makes for a beautiful, but moderately strenuous, 3.2-mile loop walk from the Jordan Pond House. Along the way are three memorials, all easily reached on the east side of the lake.

The first memorial is near the water's edge at the lake's south end, just 900 feet down the path from the Jordan Pond House. It is a stone bench. The inscription there reads:

IN GRATEFUL LOVING MEMORY OF

SARAH ELIZA SIGOURNEY CUSHING

WIFE OF EDWARD TUCKERMAN

1832-1915

SHE DEARLY LOVED THIS SPOT

Born in Boston, she married Edward Tuckerman (1817-1886), a professor of botany at Amherst College and an expert on lichens. Tuckerman’s Ravine in NH's White Mountains is named for him. Both were friends of poet Emily Dickinson. Sarah and Edward are buried in Wildwood Cemetery in Amherst, MA. Her slate tablet there states she was “A helpful and uplifting influence in the family, community, college and church” and that she was “Rich in good works.”

Sarah Cushing

The second memorial, tucked in the woods on a boulder off the right side of the path two-thirds of a mile further north, is to Ruth Marie and Tristram Coffin Colket, Jr. The inscription reads:

ACADIA TRAILS FOREVER

RESTORATION OF ACADIA’S

HISTORIC HIKING TRAILS

AND THEIR PERPETUAL

CARE

WERE MADE POSSIBLE

THROUGH

THE GIFTS OF MANY,

AND ESPECIALLY THROUGH

THE VISION

AND GENEROSITY OF TWO

ARDENT HIKERS:

RUTH AND TRIS COLKET

DECEMBER 1998

Philanthropists, they donated $5 million to Acadia Trails Forever, a joint project of Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor-based Friends of Acadia to restore and maintain the park’s historic trail system. Tristram is a grandson of Dr. John T. Dorrance, the chemist who in 1897 invented the process for condensing soup (later becoming the Campbell Soup Company). Ruth is a board member of the Maine Sea Coast Mission, a non-denominational Christian charity on West Street in Bar Harbor. In 1973 the Colkets donated their 1902-built, 35-room brick mansion, La Rochelle, to the mission for use as its headquarters.*1

The third memorial is to Joseph Allen and is located a half mile beyond the Colket memorial on a lakeside boulder at the northeast end of Jordan Pond near the South Bubble Trail. The inscription states:

LOVER OF ROCKS AND

HIGH PLACES

BUILDER OF TRAILS

CONSERVER OF NATURAL

BEAUTY

JOSEPH ALLEN

CHAIRMAN

SEAL HARBOR PATH COMMITTEE

1914-1945

He was born in New Bedford, MA in 1870. After graduating from Harvard, he married Annie Ware Winsor. They lived in New York City and then settled in White Plains, NY, where he ran for mayor. He was an associate professor of mathematics at NYC's City College for 43 years until his retirement in 1940. They summered at Grayrock, a Seal Harbor cottage.*2

Joseph Allen

All three memorials are easy to reach on the path's level eastside that is interrupted occasionally by drainage culverts. The path's west side requires negotiating some large rocks and balancing on an elevated and narrow boardwalk. Either way, the Jordan Pond Path is a pleasant walk.

*Footnotes:

1 A second Colket memorial, a Louis Comfort Tiffany stained-glass window, is inside St. Saviour’s Church in Bar Harbor. It is in memory of Ethel Dorrance Colket, John’s daughter and Tristram’s mother.

2 The chairman of a path committee was responsible to a village improvement society or association for the design, construction and maintenance of all the village's paths.