Atwater Kent - Inventor, Industrialist and Philanthropist

The previous blog post, “Memorial Maintenance,” mentioned the recently refurbished Atwater Kent memorial. It was installed in 1946 on the Schooner Head Path, south of downtown Bar Harbor, ME and just beyond High Seas, the former home of pathmaker and Princeton professor, Rudolph Brunnow.*1

Kent memorial - Champlain Mountain background

The inscription on the bronze plaque reads:

ATWATER KENT FIELD
ATWATER KENT FIELD
OF APPROXIMATELY 62 ACRES
WAS DONATED IN 1946 BY THE
ATWATER KENT FOUNDATION
TO THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA
AS A PART OF
ACADIA NATIONAL PARK

                                    Library of Congress

A. Atwater Kent

Arthur Atwater Kent (1873-1949), an entrepreneur, industrialist and philanthropist, was born in Burlington, VT.  He made his fortune by inventing the automatic ignition for automobiles and afterwards establishing the country’s biggest radio manufacturing business which, starting in 1923, produced the popular, eponymously named radio. He closed the Philadelphia-based business in 1936 and retired to Bel Air, CA.

In 1946 the Atwater Kent Foundation gave Acadia National Park 62 acres off Schooner Head Road. That same year, the Atwater Kent Properties Corporation sold 210 acres for $21,500 to the U.S. Government which was to be designated as the “Atwater Kent Field.” This property ran north-south from the High Seas estate to Schooner Head and east-west from the coast to Champlain Mountain.

While a summer resident of Bar Harbor, Kent owned the former Frederick Vanderbilt’s estate, Sonogee, and the Robert Abbe estate, Brookend, off Eden Street on the north and south sides of Duck Brook, respectively. Among his other holdings were Long Porcupine and The Hop, two islands off Bar Harbor in Frenchman Bay.

                                                     Find A Grave

Kent grave

Kent died in 1949 at his Bel Air home and was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in nearby Glendale. In his will, he left $1.3 million to charities and educational institutions.

*Footnote:

1 GPS coordinates of the Kent memorial: N44° 21.083' W068° 10.995'

Memorial Maintenance

“The National Park Service is the steward of many of America’s most important cultural resources. … The Service’s cultural resource management program involves … stewardship to ensure that cultural resources are preserved and protected, receive appropriate treatments (including maintenance) to achieve desired conditions, and are made available for public understanding and enjoyment.” So states Management Policies - The Guide to Managing the National Park System. *1

Acadia National Park management has been remiss in implementing this Federal mandate. For many years, perhaps ever since the park’s creation, its metal and granite memorials were not cared for. An outstanding example is the Beatrix Farrand-designed Kane-Bridgham granite memorial at Lake Wood, which is in shameful condition.

But ANP park management is apparently now paying attention. In 2011 a contract curator instructed the park’s trails foreman, his deputy and two Friends of Acadia volunteer crew leaders how to restore metal plaques. The test memorial was the Morris and Maria Jesup bronze plaque at the end of the Jesup Memorial Path near the north end of the Tarn. In 2013 the park restored the Lilian Francklyn bronze memorial plaque on the Gorge Path. So far in 2016 it has restored the following six bronze memorial plaques: *2

Atwater Kent memorial on the Schooner Head Path
Satterlee memorial at the top of the steps to Sand Beach
Alessandro Fabbri memorial outside the Fabbri picnic area near Otter Point
Sarah Cushing memorial at Jordan Pond south end
Joseph Allen memorial at Jordan Pond northeast end
Samuel Sargeant memorial on Sargeant Drive

After years of neglect the park’s memorials, at least the metal ones, appear to be on track for the care and respect they deserve. We extend our gratitude to the employees doing this delicate work. Hopefully this current policy will continue, thus addressing the long-overdue maintenance of most of the remaining 17 metal memorial plaques.

*Footnotes:

1 This directive can be viewed at https://www.nps.gov/policy/mp/policies.html. See especially Section 9.6 – Commemorative Works and Plaques.

2 GPS coordinates:

Allen memorial: N44° 20.141' W068° 15.228'
Cushing memorial: N44° 19.365' W068° 15.241'
Fabbri memorial: N44° 18.851' W068° 11.760'
Francklyn memorial: N44° 21.904' W068° 13.254'
Jesup memorial: N44° 21.512' W068° 12.425'
Kent memorial: N44° 21.083' W068° 10.995'
Sargeant memorial: N44° 19.425' W068° 18.299'
Satterlee memorial: N44° 19.765' W068° 11.028'

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.

Tragedy at Great Head

Near the east side of stunning Sand Beach rises Great Head, a massive granite prominence that abuts the Atlantic Ocean. At 144 feet in elevation it is the highest cliff on America's east coast, which makes it very attractive to hikers and rock climbers. Perhaps it was due to these rugged features that six young men, ages 19 and 20, from Wakefield, MA on a weekend camping trip to Acadia found themselves there one fateful Saturday in November, 1969.

Nineteen year old David McKinney and five friends were exploring a cave at Great Head, when a wave broke on the rocks and pulled him into the ocean. According to the Bar Harbor Times, a local newspaper, they were hiking around Great Head and had stopped to explore a cave near the water’s edge. After looking around the cave, they moved down to the rocks in front of the cave. McKinney was about 20 feet in front of the others. A large wave broke on the rocks soaking two of the young men while McKinney was pulled in by the current and disappeared. Heavy rain, excessive fog and 30-foot high sprays of surf rendered any rescue work impossible. His body was never recovered.

The cave

The McKinney memorial plaque is located about 100 feet off the Great Head Trail southwest of the Great Head summit and Satterlee teahouse ruins. It is affixed to the edge of a rock ledge above the spot where he was swept away.*1

Memorial site

The inscription reads:

IN MEMORY OF

DAVID PHILLIPS

MCKINNEY

MARCH 10, 1950 - NOVEMBER 8, 1969

WASHED OUT TO SEA FROM

THE MOUTH OF THIS CAVE

Great Head

*Footnote:

1 Memorial GPS coordinates: N44° 19.592'  W068° 10.612'