Stephen Mather - Founder and First Director of the National Park Service

This July I had the chance to celebrate my birthday with my family in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. It was my 10th visit to this wonderful and exciting park. In addition to enjoying the spectacular scenery and magnificent wildlife, I thought I'd take some time to seek out the Mather memorial.

Mather

This memorial commemorates Stephen Tyng Mather, the first director of the National Park Service, the federal bureau under which America's national parks are managed. Mather was born in San Francisco, California in 1867 and graduated from the University of California in 1887 with a bachelor degree in literature. His first job was with The Sun, a New York City daily newspaper later famous for its 1897 editorial "Is there a Santa Claus?" In 1893 he married Jane Thacker Floy of Elizabeth, New Jersey. That same year Mather left the newspaper business and entered the borax manufacturing business, in which he became a millionaire. He used his wealth to acquire scenic lands, which he donated to the U.S. Government. In 1914 Mather was asked by Department of Interior Secretary Franklin K. Lane for help in managing the country's parks. He accepted and in 1915 became Lane's assistant secretary. Mather successfully lobbied Congress to support legislation to create the National Park Service and in 1916 the NPS came into being under President Woodrow Wilson. Mather was appointed its first director in 1917, a position he held until 1929. Mather died the following year in a Brookline, Massachusetts hospital following a stroke. He and Jane are buried in the Mather Cemetery in Darien, Connecticut.

According to the NPS, "Mather recognized magnificent scenery as the primary criterion for establishment of national parks. He was very careful to evaluate choices for parks, wishing the parks to stand as a collection of unique monuments. He felt those areas which were duplicates might best be managed by others." The beauty and uniqueness of each of the national parks clearly attest to that ambition.

Mather Memorial Dedication - Yellowstone NP 1932
NPS Historic Photo Collection

Bronze bas relief memorials to Mather, like the one I sought in Yellowstone NP, were installed in many national parks soon after his death. The memorial in Yellowstone was installed in 1932 and is located at Madison Junction.

Mather Memorial - Yellowstone NP July 2012

Mather Memorial - Acadia National Park

Acadia National Park in Maine has a Mather memorial, also installed in 1932, on the summit of Cadillac Mountain.

Mather Memorial - Big Bend National Park

In 2010, upon returning from a trip to Australia, I located another Mather memorial in the Chisos Basin of Big Bend National Park, Texas.











Stephen Tyng Mather
NPS photo

All the memorials are identical. They state:
STEPHEN TYNG MATHER
JULY.4.1867 JAN.22.1930
HE LAID THE FOUNDATION
OF THE NATIONAL PARK
SERVICE DEFINING AND ESTABLISHING
THE POLICIES
UNDER WHICH ITS AREAS
SHALL BE DEVELOPED AND
CONSERVED UNIMPAIRED
FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS.
THERE WILL NEVER COME AN END TO THE GOOD THAT
HE HAS DONE.


It is my goal to find the Mather memorials in the national parks I visit and pause to remember the "Father" of the U.S. National Park Service and appreciate the good that he has done for us. Perhaps you will now also engage in this interesting quest.

GPS coordinates:
Mather memorial in Acadia NP:  N44° 21.148'  W068° 13.454'
Mather memorial in Yellowstone NP: N44° 38.538'  W110° 51.741'

Acadia Mountain - a Memorial Gift to Acadia National Park

Many people love to hike the moderately strenuous Acadia Mountain in Acadia National Park, but perhaps they don't know how it came into Park hands. On the east side of Acadia Mountain, in an almost inaccessible location just above the high-tide line of Somes Sound, is a bronze memorial plaque that explains it:

ACADIA MOUNTAIN
GIVEN TO THE PUBLIC
IN MEMORY OF
REV. CORNELIUS SMITH
AND HIS WIFE
MARY WHEELER
WHO WERE PIONEERS OF
THE SUMMER COLONY AT
NORTHEAST HARBOR 1886--1913

The plaque commemorates the donation of Acadia Mountain to then-named Lafayette National Park in 1919 by Lincoln and Mabel S. Cromwell in memory of Mabel’s parents, Cornelius and Mary. Reverend Dr. Cornelius Bishop Smith was born in Connecticut in 1834 and married New Yorker Mary Wheeler (1842-1914). The rector of St. James Episcopal Church in Manhattan from 1867 to 1895, he first came to Mount Desert Island about 1883. In 1891 he hired local architect Fred L. Savage to build a shingle-style summer cottage, which they called Rosserne, off Manchester Rd. on Somes Sound in Northeast Harbor. It is still impressive today. He also built the beautiful, stone St. James Church, north of Northeast Harbor on the corner of Rte. 198 and Giant Slide Rd. It is now a private home. Cornelius died in1913 at Rosserne. A year after his death, Mary died tragically in a Manhattan apartment house elevator accident.

If you hike Acadia Mountain and wish to make a loop of it, you'll descend its steep south side to the Man-O-War Brook. At the trail junction, you can turn left to where the brook flows over a ledge and splashes into Somes Sound. The Man-O-War Brook name dates from the Revolutionary War, as a site where warships would replenish their water supply.* You can return to your start in the parking lot on Rte. 102 via the Man-O-War Brook fire road, a loop of 2.8 miles. Or you can follow the steep trail up St. Sauveur Mountain back to the parking lot, a loop of 3.7 miles. When deciding which route to take, look around for ruins because you're near the location of the Robinson homestead. Acadia Mountain and Man-O-War Brook fire road were earlier named Robinson Mountain and Robinson Road respectively. In this area too is Gold Diggers Glen, rumored in the 1800s to be the site of gold and pirates' treasure.

If you decide to take the trail up St. Sauveur Mountain, you'll have beautiful views of the entrance to Somes Sound and the islands and ocean beyond. The mountain was named to honor the first European settlement on Mount Desert Island in 1613. About three months after the French Jesuits and their ship-borne compatriots had landed on the site and named it San Sauveur, a British warship arrived, destroyed it and caused the loss of French lives. The unmarked location of San Sauveur is on the field of Fernald Point, a short distance south of St. Sauveur Mountain. A beautiful memorial depicting the landing and commemorating the Jesuit Settlement is outside St. Ignatius Church in Northeast Harbor. The settlement's 400th anniversary will occur next summer.

* At this point you are well south of the memorial plaque's location, but near where you could descend to the water's edge at low tide to begin the difficult scramble to see the plaque.

Note: With regard to descending the steep south side of Acadia Mountain, exercise caution especially if the granite is wet. There have been several injuries there this season.

Helpful GPS coordinates:
Acadia Mt. summit GPS location: N44° 19.386'  W068° 19.359'
Acadia Mt./Smith-Wheeler memorial GPS location: N44° 19.280'  W068° 18.728'
Man-O-War Brook/Robinson homestead/Gold Diggers Glen GPS area: N44° 19.091'  W068° 19.008'
St. Sauveur summit GPS location: N44° 18.611'  W068° 19.381'
San Sauveur Settlement on Fernald Point field GPS area: N44° 17.941'  W068° 18.651'
Jesuit Settlement memorial at St. Ignatius Church GPS location: N44° 17.643'  W068° 17.619'

A Memorial Walk: Bar Harbor to Sieur de Monts

For something different I thought I'd recreate an old walk from the Bar Harbor village green to Acadia National Park's Sieur de Monts area, the latter being a popular destination from town during the formative years of the Park in the early 1900s. It is a mostly flat, 5-mile loop. Along the way you'll pass memorials and trail markers, while enjoying interesting sights in Bar Harbor and the Park. There are restrooms at Sieur de Monts. As with all woods walks, bring drinking water and bug repellant. Hats, cameras and binoculars should also be taken. Note: Portions involve walking on the edge of streets.

The walk starts at the 1906 horse trough/fountain at the southeast corner of Bar Harbor's village green. Walk west along Mt Desert St (Black on map)past the Jesup Memorial Library, a gift to Bar Harbor in 1911 by New Yorker Maria DeWitt Jesup in memory of her late husband, Morris. You'll pass three churches: the Congregational Church, since rebuilt, was the first church in Bar Harbor; St. Saviour and Holy Redeemer are named to commemorate San Sauveur, the first European settlement on the island, whose 400th anniversary will occur next year.

Make a left turn onto Kebo St (Lime). Notice on the southwest corner a stone with a memorial to Philadelphian DeGrasse Fox, an early developer of Bar Harbor. Proceed along Kebo St and at the intersection cross Cromwell Harbor Rd. The large stone on the southeast corner has the words "Jesup Path," a memorial path in honor of the Jesups. Stay on the Jesup Path (Blue)--also called here the Great Meadow Loop trail. In a short distance the path ends. You will have to walk on Kebo St, crossing over Kebo Brook. The fairways of Kebo Valley Golf Course, the eighth oldest golf course in the U.S., are on both sides of this street.  Rejoin the path in front of Holy Redeemer Cemetery. As you walk along the path, you will see the remnants of an old quarry on your right. Just beyond this point, cross Kebo St and reenter the Great Meadow Loop trail. A short distance ahead bear right at the trail post for the Jesup Path, descend the stone steps and cross the Park Loop Rd. Enter the Jesup Path. Get your binoculars ready, as this is the Great Meadow, a good venue for warblers.

Stay on the Jesup Path through the Great Meadow until it meets the gravel Hemlock Rd (Orange). Follow the Hemlock Rd to the right -- do not enter the Jesup Path boardwalk. You'll pass a trail post on the right and an engraved stone with the words "Strath Eden Path," an 1890s path out of Bar Harbor, which was officially called Eden until 1918; strath is Scottish Gaelic for river valley. Continuing on the Hemlock Rd you'll pass a trail post on the right with the words "Homans Path" (see an earlier blog article). Turn right just after it and rejoin the Jesup Path (opposite the boardwalk). Cross the wooden bridge and in a few feet turn right at the Jesup Path trail post.

On the right you'll pass stone steps and a trail post for the "Emery Path," a memorial path to Cincinnatian John Emery, who built the massive granite Turrets cottage in 1895 on what is now the College of the Atlantic campus. To your left is the white Sieur de Monts spring house; Bostonian George Dorr, the "Father of Acadia National Park," purchased the land in 1909 to preserve the spring. Continue straight ahead and cross the rustic wooden bridge. On the right is the native-American Abbe Museum, founded in 1928 by New Yorker Dr. Robert Abbe who was likely the first U.S. physician to use radium for cancer treatment.

Cross the gravel road and continue to The Tarn, a pond in the process of converting itself into a marsh. Near the outflow are four memorials on the right. The first you come upon is the memorial plaque for the Jesups. The next is the engraved sixth step on the entrance to the Kurt Diederich Climb memorial path, a Marylander who suffered early tragedies. Just beyond it is a stone marking the start of the memorial Kane Path and a few feet beyond it is a memorial plaque to New Yorker John Kane for whom the path was named.

Return to The Tarn's outflow and cross the 10 stepping stones. Make an immediate left at the trail post onto the Wild Garden Path (Brown) and return to Sieur de Monts to the Nature Center building. You are now heading back to Bar Harbor. Behind the Nature Center is a memorial to George Dorr. Cross the wooden bridge in front of the Nature Center and at the entrance to the botanical Wild Gardens of Acadia. Make an immediate right at the trail post pointing to the Jesup Path and proceed straight until you come to the boardwalk. Take the boardwalk, which is the newly-rehabilitated Jesup Path, to its end and make an immediate right onto the Hemlock Rd. Continue along it, binoculars at the ready, to its end at the boulders and the Park Loop Rd.

Cross the road and turn right onto the Great Meadow Loop trail (Green). The golf course is on the left. Just beyond the path's bridge is Ledgelawn Ave. Cross it and reenter the Great Meadow Loop trail at the trail post. The trail returns to Ledgelawn Ave. Turn right and walk along the road until you reenter the Great Meadow Loop trail at the signpost and wooden bridge on the left. Continue on the trail. A cemetery will be on your left. Whistle, if you like. When you come to the boulders and Cromwell Harbor Rd, turn left and proceed to the entrance of Ledgelawn Cemetery. Just inside the cemetery to the left is the large, white horizontal gravestone of George McMurtry, who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroism with the famed WW I "Lost Battalion." Cross the road and enter Spring St (Red).  Follow it back to Mt Desert St. Turn right and continue to this walk's end at the village green. Phew. You've earned yourself a delicious, locally-made ice cream!

For those interested in using GPS, here are the coordinates of the memorials and path markers mentioned:
1-Village Green fountain/horse trough: N44° 23.261'  W068° 12.270'
2-Jesup Memorial Library: N44° 23.233'  W068° 12.386'
3-DeGrasse Fox memorial: N44° 23.175'  W068° 12.811'
4-Jesup Path stone: N44° 22.715'  W068° 12.835'
5-Strath Eden Path stone: N44° 21.997'  W068° 12.765'
6-Homans Path entrance: N44° 21.781'  W068° 12.548'
7-Emery Path entrance: N44° 21.695'  W068° 12.513'
8-Abbe Museum: N44° 21.662'  W068° 12.475'
9-Jesup, Diederich, Kane memorials: N44° 21.512'  W068° 12.425'
10-George Dorr memorial: N44° 21.721'  W068° 12.466'

Note: For a compact and informative guide of Bar Harbor you might wish to get Betty Massie's Self-Guided Walking Tour of Historic Bar Harbor.

The Curran Path - a Once Long and Lovely Walk

At the northwest corner of Eagle Lake, about three miles west of Bar Harbor's village green, there is a cove, almost touching Eagle Lake Road/Route 233. It is known locally as "Nick's Cove."

The topmost corner of the cove was once the start of a trail referred to as the Curran Path. It came into existence about 1885 and started on property owned by the Currans. It ran south along the west side of Eagle Lake, turned west to skirt Conners Nubble and entered a valley called the Southwest Pass between Sargent Mountain and The Bubbles. There it joined a woods road and continued south to the northwest end of Jordan Pond for an overall distance of 2.8 miles. From here a hiker could continue around Jordan Pond, perhaps to enjoy popovers and tea at the Jordan Pond House at its south end. For those wishing a more strenuous outing, alternative destinations were the summits of Sargent, Penobscot, Pemetic or The Bubbles. Others seeking a lengthy but easier hike could continue to Seal Harbor via the Seaside Path or Northeast Harbor via the Asticou Trail.

1887 Map of Mount Desert Island
showing Curran House and Lake House

The name Nick's Cove is a reference to Nicholas F. Curran (1840-1901). He and his wife Mary Harris (Ellison) (1839-1917), who married in 1871, were from Bangor, Maine, where Mary was born and where she worked for many years as a librarian for the Bangor Public Library. Nicholas had emigrated from Ireland in 1855. They purchased two acres of land abutting the cove in 1884. The Curran Path likely assumed its name from the Curran's property over which it passed.  On the property were a stable, shop and house, which the Currans operated as a small hotel, aptly named the Curran House.*1  A short walk to the east and near the Eagle Lake outlet was the Lake House.*2  The Currans ran both as places to stay, dine and hire equipment or guides to enjoy the lake. Fire destroyed the Lake House in 1891. By 1896 Nicholas was the proprietor of a second Curran House, a small hotel on Main Street near the wharf in downtown Bar Harbor. In 1902 Mary Curran, now a widow, sold the property to Frank Brewer, who sold it to the Bar Harbor Water Company in 1915. The very next day, the water company conveyed the property to the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations with the provision that nothing would ever be built or maintained upon it, out of its interest to protect the purity of Bar Harbor's water supply.

Lake House
Courtesy: Maine Historic Preservation Commission

It is interesting to note that Nicholas complained to the Bar Harbor Water Company in 1897 about the loss of his property shoreline due to the higher water level following the company's construction of the dam at the lake's north end. The lost property extended to a depth of 47 feet. The BHWC built the dam about 1895, which raised the lake's natural water level as much as three feet.

Acadia National Park stopped maintaining the Curran Path in the 1950s, and it is now mostly untraceable. There are interesting stone steps, however, alongside the lake's edge due east of Carriage Road Post 9 near the path's north entrance.*3  The Curran Path first appeared on 1896 maps compiled by Waldron Bates, Edward L. Rand and Herbert Jaques. The last map to display the whole path from Nick's Cove to Jordan Pond was the 1941 Path and Road Map of the Eastern Part of Mount Desert Island, revised and published by William Jay Turner.*4  The 1942 Topographic Map - Acadia National Park and Vicinity showed the start of the path about 0.6 mile south of its original beginning. Perhaps the rise in water level, which aggravated Curran, obliterated the north section of the path. It does not appear construction of the carriage road affected this section. The 1961 Appalachian Mountain Club Map of Mount Desert Island reprised the complete path, but described it as "condition unknown or abandoned."

It is easy to imagine the Curran Path as a long and lovely woods walk joining two beautiful lakes. Maybe, some day, the Park will reopen it for our enjoyment.

Postscript: Nicholas and Mary Curran are buried in Bangor's Mount Hope Cemetery.

*Footnotes:
1  Curran House GPS location: N44° 22.614'  W068° 15.246'
2  Lake House GPS location (approx.): N44° 22.590'  W068° 14.787' Near the Lake House people could board the stern-wheeler Wauwinet for a cruise down Eagle Lake to catch the cog railway to the summit of Green Mountain (renamed Cadillac Mountain). The Green Mountain Railway went out of business in 1890, a year before the Lake House burned.
3  Stone steps GPS location: N44° 22.572'  W068° 15.165'
4  Turner was the Northeast Harbor Village Improvement Society path committee chairman from 1921-46.

The Van Santvoord Trail - a Hiking Enigma

It is not often that you can be hiking on one trail but then reach a sign that says you are on another trail. This can be confusing, maybe even frightening, yet this is precisely what a hiker experiences in Acadia National Park when hiking on the Triad Trail. The name of the trail relates to the three peaks in a scenic section of the Park south of Pemetic Mountain that is known simply as The Triad.

Van Santvoord memorial

On a granite ledge near the East Triad peak there is a 22x5-inch bronze memorial plaque that identifies the trail, however, as "The Van Santvoord Trail."*1  The plaque was placed there and dedicated in 1916 following completion of the trail's construction.

The trail honors John V. Van Santvoord, who, as Path Committee chairman of the Seal Harbor Village Improvement Society, laid out the route in 1912. Construction of this loop trail started in 1915. The trailhead was in a valley off the old Wildwood Farm Road west of today's Wildwood Stables and ascended the West Triad peak. It continued across the Middle and East Triad peaks. Beyond the latter it descended to its origin in the valley for a total distance of 1.4 miles.*2  A section of the subsequently built carriage road running between the Wildwood Stables and the Jordan Pond House cut the trail in two spots near its southern end. Steps, overhung and obscured by dense pines, continue down from the carriage road.

John Van Santvoord, born in New Jersey about 1844, was one of four sons of admiralty lawyer Cornelius Van Santvoord. A banker, an owner of the Hudson River Day Line boat company and a resident of New York City, he summered in Seal Harbor on Mount Desert Island and was the second chairman of its Village Improvement Society path committee (1907 -1913).

Lake Mohonk Mountain House
Detroit Pub. Co - Library of Congress

Tragically in 1913 servants found him drowned in his bathtub, apparently of a heart attack, at the Lake Mohonk Mountain House, a resort hotel 90 miles north of NYC. He had gone to this scenic Hudson Valley spot to relax following the death of his sole remaining brother.

Van Santvoord Trail staircase

The Van Santvoord Trail does not exist in the Park's path and trail inventory. It is no longer shown by this name on trail maps. In fact, a .35-mile section of it south of the East Triad to its terminus in the valley has been missing from maps for 70 years. The last map on which the entire trail appears is the 1942 Topographic Map of Acadia National Park and Vicinity. The missing section nebulously reappears 29 years later on the 1971 Appalachian Mountain Club Map of Mount Desert Island - Acadia National Park where it is described as "trail-condition unknown or abandoned." This missing trail section was intricately constructed, with numerous steps and four winding staircases shaping its way south from near the East Triad summit. For reasons not known the Park chose not to maintain this section. Instead, it connected the remaining sections of the Van Santvoord Trail to two other trails, renamed them the Hunters Brook Trail and the Triad Trail, and dissolved the Van Santvoord name. Fortunately the memorial plaque was left in place.

The Van Santvoord Trail (red)

Will the Park reopen the Van Santvoord Trail? Those who have hiked it in its entirety would strongly recommend the Park seriously consider it. Not only would a historic trail with skillful stone craftsmanship and spectacular views be reinstated for the pleasure of Park visitors, but also the hiking enigma would be solved.

* Footnotes:
1  Memorial GPS coordinates:  N44° 19.198'  W068° 14.220'
2 All distances are computed from the 1942 map referred to above.

George Bucknam Dorr - the Father of Acadia National Park

George B. Dorr
Courtesy: ANP-NPS

George B. Dorr has been called the "Father of Acadia National Park." Appropriately so. His successful efforts to preserve this beautiful area involved frequent travel between Mount Desert Island, ME and Washington, DC and extensive coordination between the Federal Government and the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations to have its acquired property accepted as Federal land. Later he served as Acadia National Park's first superintendent, a job he held for nearly 30 years.

George Bucknam Dorr was born in 1853 in his parents’ home on the shore of Jamaica Pond in the Boston neighborhood of Jamaica Plain, MA. He came to MDI with his parents in the summer of 1868. Eight years later they built their Bar Harbor summer home, which they named Oldfarm, on 90 acres at Compass Harbor. The property's entrance is a mile south of the Bar Harbor village green.*1  Dorr was a horticulturalist and in 1896 he established the Mount Desert Nurseries on 20 acres of his Oldfarm property. Irrigation pipes and old culverts off the Schooner Head Path are still visible.*2  He also owned the Bear Brook Quarry, located at the north base of Champlain Mountain.*3  It is below the Park Loop Road parking lot opposite the entrance to the Champlain North Ridge Trail (former name: Bear Brook Trail).

Dorr was among the original founders of the HCTPR in 1901and its incorporators in 1903. Through Dorr’s determination and the efforts of members of the HCTPR, of which Harvard President Charles W. Eliot was President and Dorr its First Vice-President, some 6000 acres of donated land, including Cadillac Mountain, were acquired and presented to President Woodrow Wilson for federal protection. As a result, Wilson established Sieur De Monts National Monument in 1916. Dorr had suggested the name in honor of the Frenchman under whom Samuel de Champlain sailed; it was Champlain who named Mount Desert Island in 1604. In 1919 Congress gave it national park status and renamed it Lafayette National Park in honor of the French general and American Revolutionary War hero. In 1927 Dorr secured the donation of over 2,000 acres of promised land on Schoodic Peninsula across Frenchman Bay from the heirs of native Mainer and wealthy NY-entrepreneur John G. Moore. Moore's daughters, who had immigrated to Great Britain and become citizens, suggested their land donation to the Park could go through if the French name of the Park were changed. Thus in 1929, upon Dorr's suggestion, the Park's name changed from Lafayette to Acadia.

Dorr, who was six feet tall and blue-eyed, never married. He died at his beloved Oldfarm estate in 1944 at the age of 90. According to his wishes, he was cremated at Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, MA and his ashes were scattered beneath the trees at the northwestern foot of Champlain Mountain near the 12-acre Beaver Dam Pond. A popular but entirely fictitious tale maintains that Dorr's ashes were scattered over Oldfarm from an airplane and into the teacups of women relaxing below! A simple memorial stone was placed at the Dorr family lot in Mount Auburn Cemetery. It is often stated he died penniless, having expended all of his wealth on the Park. But that may not be so. His estate gave Bar Harbor's Jesup Memorial Library $12,865.63 and equal amounts of $6,432.81 to the HCTPR and the Abbe Museum of Bar Harbor. His memorial was dedicated on August 29, 1947 at Sieur de Monts Spring. It reads:

In Memory of
George Bucknam Dorr
1853  -  1944
Gentleman  Scholar
Lover of nature
Father of this
National Park
Steadfast in his zeal
to make the beauties
of this Island
available to all

1947 Dedication
Courtesy: Woodlawn Museum

Today

Dorr's memorial is located behind the Sieur de Monts Nature Center.*4  Less than two months after the memorial had been dedicated, MDI suffered a devastating fire that destroyed a third of the Park, including Sieur de Monts. The Dorr memorial plaque survived. The granite stone on which it was attached apparently did not, as the memorial is now secured to a different stone but in the approximate location. Also in his honor, Dry Mountain, which overshadows the Sieur de Monts area, was renamed Dorr Mountain.

What became of the Oldfarm estate? Dorr donated it to Acadia National Park in 1941with the wish that it would at least be used as a place for visiting VIPs to meet and stay. The park tore down his Oldfarm home 10 years later, but remnants of it exist.*5  Storm Beach Cottage, the 1879 guest house into which Dorr had moved after conveying Oldfarm, remains and serves as seasonal Park employee housing.*6

Oldfarm home
Courtesy: ANP-NPS

Storm Beach Cottage

The Oldfarm estate no longer comprises its original 90 acres. Today there are about 60 acres under Park control. Over the years the Oldfarm property has been neglected and it has transformed itself into a quasi town park enjoyed for strolls, dog walks, and occasional bike rides. On the official Park map it is shaded as Park property but not identified.

Home site cleanup-Dec. 2011

Local groups, sensing the evanescence of a significant tribute to the Park's founder, have lobbied the Park for years to do something about it. With renewed interest the Park this past December let a small team of experienced volunteers clean up the home site of debris and some surrounding vegetation and remove the growth of moss carpet from its brick floors. Much more can and needs to be done. It is hoped that with Park permission and guidance work will continue on the site and in time George B. Dorr's Oldfarm estate will receive the historical recognition it deserves.

Oldfarm aerial view

* Footnoted GPS coordinates:
1  estate entrance:  N44° 22.427'  W068° 11.834'
2  path entrance:  N44° 22.345'  W068° 11.670'
3  quarry:  N44° 21.785'  W068° 11.566'
4  memorial:  N44° 21.721'  W068° 12.466'
5  home:  N44° 22.447'  W068° 11.577'
6  cottage:  N44° 22.317'  W068° 11.560'

The Magnificent and Mysterious Homans Path

Hiking in Acadia National Park is an extraordinary experience. The Park maintains about 135 miles of beautiful and interesting paths and trails, ranging from the easy to the strenuous and even perilous. Many are memorial paths. One of the latter is the Homans Path. Its entrance is located in the Sieur de Monts Spring area near the junction of the Jesup Path and the Hemlock Road.*1


Homans Path entrance

The path is named for Eliza Lee Homans. In 1908 she gave the first large gift of land to the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations. It consisted of 141 acres and included The Bowl and The Beehive on Champlain Mountain, two popular hiking destinations today. At the time, the HCTPR was attempting to acquire land on Mount Desert Island for protection from development and for preservation for public enjoyment. It is interesting to note that Eliza, in giving this property, reserved the right to keep a boathouse on The Bowl, a 10-acre pond, and specified the Beehive Mountain Aqueduct Company would continue to use the pond to provide water to nearby residents. No sign of the boathouse is evident today and the BMAC no longer exists.


The Bowl

The Beehive

Eliza was born in 1832 in Dover, NH, and in 1856 married Charles Dudley Homans. Charles, born in Brookfield, MA, in 1826, graduated from Harvard in 1846 and was a physician and a president of the Massachusetts Medical Society. They lived at the "Homans Cottage" on property abutting the south side of the Schooner Head Overlook, 3.8 miles south of Bar Harbor's village green. Charles died in Bar Harbor in 1886; Eliza died there 28 years later. Both are buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, MA.


Mt Auburn Cemetery

The Homans estate was purchased in 1924 through private efforts and is now Park property. All that remains of the estate, once consisting of a house, farmhouse and stable, is a covered well and some pipes emanating from it.

The highly crafted, stone-stepped Homans Path has a mysterious history from the 1940s, when it ceased to appear on maps for over 60 years. Built in 1915-1916 shortly after Eliza's death, the path last appeared on the 1941 Path and Road Map of the Eastern Part of Mount Desert Island, Maine and did not reappear until indicated on the 2005 Acadia National Park map. The Park "reopened" it in 2003 as part of the Acadia Trails Forever project, a joint effort of Acadia National Park and Friends of Acadia to rehabilitate and restore the Park's trails. In October 2006 the path sustained damage from an earthquake but was successfully repaired and reopened the following year.

Homans Path

It is a magnificent path to experience and not soon to be forgotten. It consists of granite steps, passages and overhangs on its 0.33 mi length.  Its vertical height is 328 ft and should be considered moderately strenuous. Once at the top hikers can continue on to the 1270-ft summit of Dorr Mountain via the Schiff Path or return to Sieur de Monts via the Emery Path or the Kurt Diederich Climb, three other stellar memorial paths.



Homans Path - aerial view

Postscript: ANP treats trails and paths differently, with the latter showing significant human engineering, such as the addition of steps, staircases, and iron ladders and handrails. It also respects the historical names originally applied to these paths by their benefactors and builders.

 

*Footnote:

1 Homans Path entrance GPS coordinates: N44° 21.780' W068° 12.549'

Waldron Bates -- Pathmaker

Waldron Bates - The Pathmaker

There is perhaps no better Acadia National Park memorial to begin with than with this one.

On the south side of Gorham Mountain at the intersection of the Gorham Mountain Trail and the Cadillac Cliffs Path is a bronze plaque attached to a granite wall.*1

It is a memorial to Waldron Bates, designed by New York sculptor and Bar Harbor summer resident, William Ordway Partridge. It was placed there in September 1910 and reads:

1856-1909

WALDRON BATES

IN MEMORIAM

MCMX

PATHMAKER

Photo: Harvard University Archives

Waldron Bates was born on November 24, 1856 in Boston, Massachusetts, to Samuel Worcester and Anna Matilda (How) Bates and named in honor of his maternal grandmother, Eliza P. (Waldron) How. His two siblings were Samuel Worcester Jr. and Charles How. He was also the nephew of Charles T. How, an early developer of Bar Harbor. Bates graduated from Harvard in 1879 and received his law degree from Boston University in 1882. He never married.

Bates first visited Mount Desert Island about 1880 and joined the Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association (VIA) in 1892, later becoming the organization's Path Committee chairman (1900-09) and president (1904-05). In 1896 he established himself as a mapmaker with the publication of the "Map of Mount Desert Island" and the "Path Map of the Eastern Part of Mount Desert Island" with co-cartographers Edward Rand and Herbert Jaques. Bates was one of the original members of the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations, the Maine-chartered organization founded in 1901 for the purpose of "acquiring, owning and holding lands and other property in Hancock County for free public use."

Bates distinguished himself as a path maker. He planned and engineered trails to interesting rock formations and exhilarating sites along rock ledges, wrote instructions about how to construct safe and durable trails, instituted a signage protocol to direct hikers along trail routes and designed a simple cairn (stone pile) to mark the paths for hikers. Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell, Bates' successor as Bar Harbor VIA Roads and Paths Committee chairman, said of him, "To him, more than any other, is owing the great system of some one hundred and fifty miles of paths, which are so complete as to make difficult at present any additions of value." Prominent among them are the Cadillac Cliffs, Canon Brook, Giant Slide and Gorham Mountain trails.

With a passion for fitness and the outdoors, Bates was a member of the Boston Athletic Association, the organization that founded the Boston Marathon, the Massachusetts Fish and Game Protective Association, Boston's Tennis and Racquet Club and Bar Harbor's Kebo Valley Club. He enjoyed salmon fishing in Canada and in the summer of 1889 even visited Yellowstone National Park. Considering these activities and his strenuous hiking regimen on Mount Desert Island, Bates must have been in excellent physical condition. That may be why his sudden and horrific death, at the age of 52, was so shocking. On February 9, 1909, while en route from Boston to Aiken, South Carolina, on the Southern Railroad, he disembarked briefly at the railway station in Monroe, Virginia. Trying to reenter the train, as it pulled away from the station, he slipped and fell under the wheels and was killed.

News of the tragic death of Waldron Bates prompted the Bar Harbor community to establish additional memorials:
- The Bar Harbor VIA changed the name of the Chasm Path on the north side of Sargent Mountain to the Waldron Bates Memorial Path. In his September 1909 report to the Bar Harbor VIA, Path Committee chairman Dr. Mitchell stated, "It was the last one [path] to which our friend, Mr. Bates, gave attention, and which he meant to have put in order for walking." Upon its completion in 1910, the Waldron Bates Memorial Path became the first of Acadia National Park's famed memorial paths. The path is no longer maintained by the Park and is mostly untraceable.
- The Kebo Valley Club, of which Bates had been a director and a designer of its golf course, installed a bronze plaque on a granite boulder at the 18th green (N44 22.855 W68 13.348). It reads "In Memory Of Waldron Bates, 1856-1909, Maker Of These Links To Whose Zeal And Ability The Kebo Valley Club Is Deeply Indebted. Extinctus Amabitur Idem." The Club, later renamed the Kebo Valley Golf Club, also established the annual Waldron Bates Cup golf tournament in his memory.
- In 2001 the Park reintroduced the Bates cairn (below).

These modern memorials guide hikers safely along the summit trails on the eastern side of the Park. Most consist of just two large base stones, a lintel stone joining them above with a directional, pointer stone on top. Bates cairns are maintained in the spring and fall by a group of about 20 volunteers, called Waldron's Warriors, and in the summer by Friends of Acadia Ridge Runners. An observant hiker can still discover some of the original Bates cairns, which nowadays are mostly concealed by moss, lichen and surrounding vegetation.

Bates' body was cremated and interred at Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, MA.

Even in his death Bates sought to care for the island he loved for nearly 30 years. In his will he left $5,000 to the Bar Harbor VIA for it to use the income to repair the "mountain paths of the island of Mount Desert."

Postscript: A fuller account of Bates' death is in my article that appeared in the November 2011 Bar Harbor Historical Society's Newsletter (www.barharborhistorical.org).

* Footnote:
1 Bates memorial GPS coordinates: N44 19.139 W68 11.563