The Kurt Diederich Memorial Plaque

On October 15, 2020 Acadia National Park completed installation of the Kurt Diederich memorial plaque on the Kurt Diederich's Climb, a path built in his honor from 1913 to 1915. 

Installation photos:

Although the park has had the plaque for years, there is no record as to when it actually received it. Back in the early days of the park’s existence and at its encouragement to help develop the path system, people funded the construction of paths as memorials to loved ones and friends. The Kurt Diederich's Climb was one of them. Bronze memorial plaques, installed soon after a path’s completion, were the usual method of acknowledgement. This suggests the Diederich memorial plaque has been in existence for more than 100 years. No evidence of previous installation, e.g. granite drill holes, along the path’s 0.5-mile length has been found. Moreover, the plaque shows no physical signs of prior installation.

Below is a circa 1920 photograph of Diederich’s daughter, Elsa, sitting on a ledge along the path a few feet away from where the plaque is now installed. Maybe that was the year the plaque was presented to the park and Elsa was there for that ceremony.

The red arrow in the photo above shows where Elsa was sitting in relation to the now installed plaque.

The following paragraphs about Kurt Diederich are from my book, The Memorials of Acadia National Park (https://books.apple.com/us/book/id1434077472):

Kurt Siegesmund Diederich (circa 1885-1913) was born in Hungary and immigrated to the United States in 1885 and later settled in Cecil County, Maryland. He attended the University of Maryland, Baltimore (1911-1913) where he studied for his law degree. He was the son of Kurt Diederich and Elinor Hunt, daughter of William Morris Hunt of Boston, and a nephew of Enid Hunt Slater of Washington, D.C. Kurt’s wife was Sybil Hale (1890-1911), the 15-year-old he eloped with and married in 1904 in Providence, Rhode Island. She was the daughter of Arthur Hale, superintendent of transportation of the B & O Railroad in Baltimore, Maryland, and great granddaughter of Edward Everett Hale, the noted author and clergyman. They had two children, a daughter Elsa, born in 1908 in Maryland, and a son, Arthur Hale, who died in early childhood. After Sybil had died in London, England in 1911 of typhoid fever, Kurt and Elsa resided with his aunt Enid in Washington, D.C., and at her summer cottage, Bowling Green, in Bar Harbor. Kurt died in 1913 in a Washington, D.C., hospital of heart failure from the administration of ether before a nose operation. Enid provided the funds for a memorial path to be built in his honor. The path was named “Kurt Diederich’s Climb.” Enid died in 1928 in Paris, France. Kurt, Sybil and Enid are buried in the Hunt-Slater lot in the Milton Cemetery, Milton, Massachusetts.

The engraved granite step is the sixth step up the Kurt Diederich’s Climb, which is located at the junction of the Jesup and Kane Paths at the north end of The Tarn.

Notes:

-         Diederich memorial plaque GPS coordinates: 44 21.527   68 12.508

-        The two installation photos of the plaque are courtesy of the NPS: Acadia National Park.

-        The two photos and GPS coordinates of the installed plaque are from my friend and fellow explorer, Jim Linnane.

-        The Elsa Diederich photo is courtesy of the NPS: Acadia National Park.

The Kurt Diederich photo is courtesy of Chuck and Janet Hansen.

Fallen Ranger Memorial Established in Acadia National Park

In September 2019 Acadia National Park established a memorial for a ranger killed in the line of duty. It is located on the Schoodic Peninsula at the Schoodic Woods ranger station. *1

                                                                              Jim Linnane photo

Ranger Karl A. Jacobson memorial

The plaque reads:

On November 11, 1938,

U.S. Park Ranger

Karl A. Jacobson

was fatally shot while patrolling

the Schoodic District

of Acadia National Park.

His service and sacrifice to the

National Park Service and to

the people of this country

will never be forgotten.

Karl Jacobson, born in Blue Earth County, MN on February 25, 1916, had arrived in Acadia NP two years before the shooting to take on the ranger position. On June 30,1938 he married Joyce Vera Albertson, also of MN, in Bar Harbor’s Congregational Church.

On November 11, 1938, while on boundary patrol in Acadia NP on Schoodic Peninsula, Ranger Jacobson was shot by George Dyer of nearby Gouldsboro, ME. Dyer claimed he had mistaken the ranger for a deer. Two days later Jacobson died. His body was taken to Minnesota and buried in Eagle Lake Cemetery near Mankato.

                                                           NPS photo

Ranger Karl A. Jacobson

On October 2, 1939 George Dyer’s U.S. District Court June sentence of eight months in jail was revoked by Judge John A. Peters on the grounds of Dyer’s age and ill health. He was ordered to serve one day.

A few weeks after his killing Ranger Jacobson’s wife, who was with him when he was shot, publicly thanked everyone for their compassion and comfort. On January 10, 1940 at a ceremony commemorating Ranger Jacobson in the Congregational Church, Acadia NP Assistant Superintendent Benjamin Hadley unveiled a wooden cabinet from Mrs. Jacobson in his memory. It contained birds’ nests and other nature samples for Bar Harbor’s Boy Scout Troop 89. Ranger Jacobson had been the assistant scout master.

Notes:

a. Judge John A. Peters played a key role in the founding of Acadia NP.

b. Acadia NP was established on Mount Desert Island, across Frenchman Bay from the Schoodic Peninsula. It came into possession of the Schoodic property in 1927, when its owners, the Moore family, donated 2,000 acres. A bronze memorial to John G. Moore is in the oceanfront parking lot at the peninsula’s tip. *2

*Footnotes:

1 Jacobson memorial GPS coordinates: (N44 22.802 W068 03.986)

2 Moore memorial GPS coordinates: (N44 19.978 W068 03.660)

Acknowledgement:  I am very grateful to Jim Linnane for the photo of the memorial and its GPS coordinates.

HCTPR - Acadia National Park’s Newest Memorial

Acadia NP’s 100^th anniversary as a national park occurred in 2016. As one of many centennial celebrations, a memorial plaque was placed on Cadillac Mountain to honor the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations. The HCTPR was the organization that stitched together various properties that ultimately formed the park in 1916. The memorial is near the northwest corner of the Blue Hill Overlook parking lot.*1

HCTPR memorial

                                                                                                    Jim Linnane photo

At Blue Hill Overlook parking lot

Its bronze plaque reads:

In 1901, forward-thinking citizens on Mount Desert Island formed the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations to acquire lands for free public use. Empowered by the Maine Legislature in 1903 to own lands of “scenic beauty, historical significance, scientific study or “sanitary value,” the Trustees acquired nearly 5,000 acres. In 1916, they donated their holdings to the United States, forming the core of what became Acadia National Park. The Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations continue to hold and maintain the Woodlawn estate, the Black House, as a public museum in Ellsworth. This plaque, dedicated on September 6, 2016 during the Park’s Centennial, honors the Trustees’ foresight and vision that made Acadia National Park possible.

Here is a video of the dedication ceremony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFwrHvHbslY

It is interesting to note that it was not until 1908 that the Trustees acquired their initial holdings. The first was the crest of Barr Hill near Seal Harbor from George B. Cooksey. The second was the Bee Hive mountain property from Eliza Lee Homans. The third, from the trustees of the will of Linda Dows Cooksey, was the Sea Cliffs parcel near Seal Harbor that contained the Champlain Monument.*2

Prior to the HCTPR memorial, the last memorial installed in Acadia NP was in 2008 in honor of Ruth and Tris Colket. That plaque is just off the path on the east side of Jordan Pond. *3

*Footnotes:
1 HCTPR memorial coordinates: N44 21.01595 W068 13.81764
2 Bar Harbor Record, September 9, 1908, p.4.
3 Colket memorial coordinates: N44 19.73453 W068 15.07649 For more information see my blog article at http://acadiamemorials.blogspot.com/2016/09/a-pleasant-perambulation-over-mile-long.html
Note: I thank Jim Linnane, a friend and fellow hiker, for the HCTPR memorial photograph and GPS coordinates. It wasn’t a nice day atop Cadillac!

A Saint in Bar Harbor

Among the visitors to Bar Harbor, ME during summers surrounding 1900 was Katharine Drexel. Based on her considerable inheritance, she would have accommodated well with the wealthy summer set there. She was unique, however, in that she didn’t take part in it. Her direction in life was diametrically opposite.

St. Katharine Drexel

(relic and prayer card)

Katharine was born in Philadelphia, PA, in 1858, one of three daughters of wealthy banker Francis Drexel. Her mother, Hannah, died within five weeks of her birth. Having travelled out west with her family as a young girl, she was touched by the deplorable conditions of Native and African Americans. Following this emotion and her desire to serve God, she entered the Convent of the Sisters of Mercy in 1887. She received her final vows in 1891 and established the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored and applied her love, motivation and inheritance to the fulfilment of the religious order’s mission. She died in 1955 at the age of 96. At the time of her death, her order’s accomplishments were monumental. They had started 50 missions for Native Americans in 16 states, opened 63 schools and founded Xavier University in New Orleans, the first Catholic university in the U.S. for African Americans.

Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament motherhouse

S.B.S. convent

Her association with Bar Harbor was tied to her sister Louise and brother-in-law Edward Morrell, who in 1897 had bought a 30-acre summer home named Thirlstane. They were generous contributors to the 1907 construction of Holy Redeemer Roman Catholic Church on Mount Desert Street. In 1913, at the request of Katharine, they donated land and a house on Ledgelawn Avenue for a convent close to Holy Redeemer. The convent became home to S.B.S. nuns and to Katherine when she visited.*1 They also donated money for Holy Redeemer’s first grammar school, a wooden building located on Ledgelawn Avenue, and its brick replacement, St. Edward’s School, built in 1914 behind the convent. There is a memorial plaque to Edward Morrell on a large granite boulder in front of the Jackson Laboratory off Route 3 on the south side of Bar Harbor.*2

St. Edward's School

Katherine Drexel’s body lies enshrined at the S.B.S. motherhouse in Bensalem, PA. For the good she brought to the poor and for the curative miracles attributed to her, she was beatified in 1988 and canonized a saint in the Catholic Church in 2000. Her feast day is celebrated on March 3.

St. Katharine Drexel crypt

*Footnotes:

1. The former convent is now the site of the Bar Harbor Historical Society and the school is an apartment building.

2. Morrell memorial GPS coordinates: N44° 21.823'  W068° 11.957'

John D. Rockefeller, Jr’s Memorial

At an August 27, 2016 ceremony, during year-long centennial celebrations, the National Park Service deputy director and the Acadia National Park superintendent presented a long-overdue replacement memorial plaque honoring John D. Rockefeller, Jr. to David Rockefeller, Sr. and family members.*1 The bronze plaque was funded by private donations.

The original plaque, located on a rock wall overlooking the ocean at Otter Cliff, had been vandalized some time by 1991.*2 The word American had been pounded out.

The plaque inscription reads:

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, JR. 1874 – 1960

These groves of spruce and fir, these granite ledges, this magnificent window on the sea, were given to the United States by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. He was among the first to sense the need to preserve America’s natural beauty and to set high standards of environmental quality. This quiet, dedicated conservationist gave generously of his time, wisdom and resources to help establish this park and others for the physical, cultural and spiritual benefit of the American people.

Library of Congress

JDR, Jr. (c.1915)

No other person is more responsible for the size and overwhelming popularity of Acadia National Park than John D. Rockefeller, Jr. The fifth smallest national park at 49,000 acres, with 31,000 acres at its main location on Maine’s Mount Desert Island, had an estimated 3.3 million visitors in 2016.

He donated $3,568,000 to the Park and related projects.*3 He gave it over 11,000 acres, helped finance and construct its 27-mile Park Loop Road and built a 53-mile network of carriage roads. Forty-five miles of those roads are in the Park today and include 17 unique stone bridges and 2 gatehouses. Locally, he gave Seal Harbor the land for its village green, after buying the old Glencove Hotel and having it torn down in 1919. In 1948 he gave 30 acres to the Jackson Memorial Laboratory in Bar Harbor after the widely devastating 1947 fire had destroyed the facility.

JDR, Jr., the only son of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. (founder and president of Standard Oil Company) and Laura Spelman Rockefeller, was born in Cleveland, OH in 1874. He married Abby Greene Aldrich in 1901. They came to Mount Desert Island in 1908 and rented a Bar Harbor cottage called The Briars on the Shore Path off Wayman Lane. There Abby gave birth to their son, Nelson, later to be New York governor and U.S. vice president. JDR, Jr. had first come to the island in 1893 while a student at Brown University. In 1909 he and his family became summer residents of Seal Harbor and the next year purchased The Eyrie, a 150-acre estate.

He died of pneumonia in Tucson, AZ in 1960 and was buried in the Rockefeller Family Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, NY. In his will he left the U.S. Government an additional 1,500 acres on Mount Desert Island for “the extension or improvement of Acadia National Park.”

*Footnotes:
1 A special thanks goes to Earl Brechlin and the Mount Desert Islander newspaper for reporting this event.
2 Memorial GPS coordinates: N44° 18.482' W068° 11.345'
3 http://rockarch.org/bio/jdrjr.php

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'

The Gurnee Path -- Built, Endowed and Abandoned

Above Route 3 in Bar Harbor, ME atop what is called The Bluffs lies an abandoned Acadia National Park trail. Named the Gurnee Path, it was financed by the Gurnee family. Construction of the trail began in 1925 and was completed the following year. It started just north of Duck Brook and nowadays Sonogee Rehabilitation & Living Center, crossed over The Bluffs and ended opposite Canoe Point.

Gurnee Path over The Bluffs

According to the Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association's July 1926 report, "Mr. Peabody [Path Committee chairman] stated that the new Gurnee Path towards Hull’s Cove had during the winter been completed from a place opposite Mrs. Fabbri’s sidewalk, through the woods and over the cliffs as far as Canoe Point.”

The local newspaper that same year reported, "The Gurnee Path begun on August 31st last year was built as far as Canoe Point during the autumn. The views of the Bay and the Gouldsboro beyond are very beautiful and the path has proved very enjoyable to many people. The funds to continue this Path towards Hulls Cove for nearly a third of a mile have already been given and work will be started very soon."*1

View from Gurnee Path

In its August 1928 report the Bar Harbor VIA “Voted that the grateful thanks of the V.I.A. be and hereby is extended to Miss Bell Gurnee, Mrs. H.H. Thorndike, and Mrs. F.L.V. Hoppin for their generous gift of a one thousand dollar bond for the endowing of the Gurnee Path through the woods above the Bay Drive [Route 3] from opposite the Fabbri garage to near Hull’s Cove. It is understood that only the income shall be used each year to keep the path in repair, and that all unexpended income of any one year shall be carried over to the next year.”

A 1928 path guide depicted the trail, as follows: "The Gurnee Path (Bar Harbor) begins on the Bay Drive to Hulls Cove, a short distance northeast of Duck Brook, at sign, "The Gurnee Path". It extends above the road for about a mile. A broad graded path but not entirely level. Good views of Frenchman's Bay. Round trip about 40 minutes."*2

The Gurnee Path was destined for trouble, however, as a result of its end points being alongside Route 3. In a 1941 newspaper article conveying minutes of a Bar Harbor VIA meeting, the following appeared: "Miss Bell Gurnee brought to the attention of the Association the bad condition of the Gurnee path in that it was cluttered with branches and rocks, due to the construction of the new road, and was dangerous for anyone walking on it. A. FitzRoy Anderson spoke briefly of the fact that the National Park had jurisdiction over the paths and that it seemed that they should care for their upkeep."3

The Park abandoned the trail about 1960, when Route 3 was being widened, which eliminated the street-level access to it. In its August notes of that year the Bar Harbor VIA stated the following: “Mr. Cleaves [VIA president] reported that he had been approached by Acadia Park personnel regarding the Gurney [sic] Path and they pointed out that the new Bluff Road [Route 3] fairly well obliterated this path and the expense and process of rebuilding and relocating the path made it practically unfeasible. Mr. Cleaves has contacted the Gurney family who have consented to the diversion of the Gurney Path fund for similar purposes of maintenance and upkeep on the Shore Path.”

At the time of the path's construction, the head of the Gurnee family was Augustus Coe Gurnee. Born in Chicago, he was the son of Chicago mayor, Walter S. Gurnee, and a Harvard graduate (1878) and banker. In Bar Harbor he had constructed a 3-storey cottage called Beau Desert on 10 acres off Eden St. He had an estate in Nice, France, as well, which he shared with wounded soldiers during World War I.

Augustus Gurnee - 1921

He was among the original incorporators of the Bar Harbor VIA. He died in July 1926 at age 71 from heart failure while at the Hotel Stephanie in Baden-Baden, Germany and was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, NY. In his will he gave $25,000 to the Bar Harbor Hospital to endow a bed to be known as the A. C. Gurnee Bed, $10,000 to the town of Bar Harbor for an educational trust to provide income to defray the college costs of a student with the highest standards in scholarship, $10,000 to the Bar Harbor YMCA, and $5,000 to the Bar Harbor VIA to maintain the How memorial on a triangular lot he deeded to the VIA in 1916. There is a memorial in the lobby of the Bar Harbor hospital that is in memory of individuals who gave and endowed free beds to the hospital. Augustus C. Gurnee is among them. The Mmes. Gurnee, Thorndike and Hoppin, who established the Gurnee Path endowment, were his nieces.

Gurnee Path

The Gurnee Path still exists and is in good condition, despite its entrances being totally

obfuscated. The best way to access it is from the north opposite the Bar Harbor Yacht Club. The pull-off there can hold three or four cars.*4  Enter the woods at the yellow-shielded telephone pole support cable and walk south a short distance while under the overhead wires. The obvious trail will appear. It gently rises and descends the crest of the precipitous Bluffs. Hike south about 0.6 mile until the trail disappears when you are nearly at street level and opposite the south end of a property's stockade fence on the other side of Route 3.

Wooden fence

While on the trail you'll notice two culverts, one open with no top and another that is capstoned and traversable. Also note the dilapidated wooden fence that protected hikers from falling on to Route 3 below. The beautiful "views of the Bay and the Gouldsboro beyond" barely exist any longer.

Culvert with capstone

As with hiking all abandoned trails in the Park, do so carefully.

Note: In addition to the various names mentioned above for Route 3 at The Bluffs, there was another imaginative one, at least between 1887 and 1928 -- the Corniche Road (or Drive). Here is an 1888 description of the road: "The new road is in itself of commanding beauty and interest, with an exquisite view of the bay, which has earned for it the title of the Corniche road, this being the name of a road traversing the narrow strip of coastland bordering the Gulf of Genoa from Nice to Spezzia and commanding a view of the most striking beauty and grandeur."*5

*Footnotes:

1 Bar Harbor Times, September 15, 1926, p.4.

2 Walks on Mount Desert Island Maine, by Harold Peabody and Charles H. Grandgent, 1928, p.79.

3 Bar Harbor Times, July 3, 1941, p.4.

4 North entrance/pull-off GPS coordinates: N44° 24.530'  W068° 14.478'

5 Bar Harbor Record, March 22, 1888, p.4.