Edith Bowdoin and Her Horse Troughs*

"No better work could be done, nor would it be possible to prevent a greater amount of animal suffering with the same expenditure of money than by the erection of drinking fountains. …that no horse in New York need go without water for the want of a public place at which to quench its thirst." --- Edith G. Bowdoin, New York, April 29, 1907.*1

South of Bar Harbor's Main Street, at the corner of Route 3 and Schooner Head Road, is what was once a horse trough (GPS: N44° 22.298'  W068° 11.809'). Now, compliments of the Town of Bar Harbor via the A. C. Parsons Landscaping and Garden Center, it is a beautiful floral planter. A small plaque on it states: "Erected by Edith G. Bowdoin 1911."

Edith was born in New York in 1869 and lived on Park Avenue with her parents, George and Julia Bowdoin, and older siblings, Temple and Fanny. During summers they resided in Bar Harbor at "La Rochelle" on West Street.  Her father built the stately brick home in 1902. Upon his death in 1913, Edith inherited all of his property in Bar Harbor. Upon the death of her mother two years later, she inherited their Park Avenue home. Her brother and sister were already deceased.





Photo: David Goodrich

The 5' 5" tall, blue-eyed Edith Grinnell Bowdoin never married and seemed to keep herself occupied addressing the plight of horses in NYC and in Hancock County, ME. In 1896 in NYC there were nearly 74,000 horses. As a member of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, she advocated for their better treatment and donated horse troughs to the city. One of the three remaining troughs is outside the old ASPCA headquarters in Brooklyn and inscribed with the words: "Presented to the A.S.P.C.A. by Edith G. Bowdoin 1913."

In Maine Edith was Vice President of the ASPCA of Hancock County. She ensured water was available to horses by placing pails at watering spots throughout the county. The pails had the words "SPCA -- WATER YOUR HORSES." A New York Times article described her activity this way: "Miss Bowdoin has seen to it that on every road on the island of Mount Desert, where spring or brook flows, pails for the watering horses and cups for drinking have been placed, and this system has been gradually extended over the whole of Hancock County. Several men are employed by Miss Bowdoin in looking after this system, and pails and cups, conspicuously lettered with neat little signs, are put up by the roadside at short intervals."*2

The horse trough at the Route 3/Schooner Head Road corner seems to be the only remaining evidence of her effort to improve the lot of MDI's thirsty horses.

There are, however, other horse troughs on MDI:

at the southeast corner of Bar Harbor's Village Green (N44° 23.261'  W068° 12.270') 

 

in Acadia National Park west of the Great Head parking lot

(N44° 19.991'  W068° 10.931')

 

 

 

 

 

the Clement memorial in the center of the road in Seal Harbor
(N44° 17.792' W068° 14.360')

 

 

 

 

 

near the south end of Sargeant Drive in Northeast Harbor
(N44° 18.956'  W068° 18.307')

Last month Southwest Harbor approved a restored horse trough for placement at Harbor House on Main Street.

Elsewhere on the Island troughs were known to be located in Bar Harbor on Route 3 opposite the entrance to the Canoe Point estate,  near Duck Brook and in Hulls Cove. One was at the junction of Route 102 and the Crooked Road in Town Hill. Another, known as the Stone Horse Trough, was at the south end of Schooner Head Road near the outflow of the marsh. There was one on Cooksey Drive in Seal Harbor. Virginia Somes-Sanderson described yet another: "A well-known one on the outskirts of Somesville on the Southwest Harbor road had been chiseled out of a huge slab of granite and was filled by a continuous stream of water, piped from a nearby spring."*3

I suspect there are other existing horse troughs and former locations.

While Edith was highly engaged in ensuring the health of horses, her most enduring and important contribution for the people of MDI was likely the establishment of Bar Harbor hospital's west wing in memory of her parents. In 1916 she provided the funds to build the wing consisting of two sun parlors, a men's ward accommodating 20 to 25 beds, and four private rooms. For New Yorkers, besides the horse troughs mentioned above, she donated six stained glass windows to the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. Visitors from Great Britain will appreciate that she funded three beds in 1908 at London's Queens Hospital for Children and endowed their continuance with a $10,000 bequest from her will.

Edith died in 1943 at her Park Avenue residence and was buried with her family in NY's Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Her estate was valued at $1.6M, of which she left $250K to the ASPCA.

* Note: Some horse troughs accommodated drinking fountains for humans. This article does not differentiate their design, but mostly terms them horse troughs.

Footnotes:

1 New York Times. May 1, 1907, p.8.
2 New York Times. June 29, 1913, p. 20.
3 The Living Past by Virginia Somes-Sanderson. Beech Hill Publishing Co., Mount Desert, Maine. 1982, p. 281.

The Pulpits of Acadia

This is not about church pulpits, but about prominent rock formations on Mount Desert Island, ME and in Acadia National Park that resemble them, were so named, and became hiking highlights.

Collections of Jesup Memorial Library

Pulpit Rock - Bar Harbor ca.1915

Pulpit Rock - Bar Harbor today

The earliest rock formation to be called Pulpit Rock appears to have been the one in Bar Harbor.

It was noted in 1869 by Benjamin F. De Costa. In his book, Sketches of the Coast of Maine, he mentions a shore walk from the steamboat landing [Bar Harbor wharf] south to Cromwells Cove: "Opposite Mr. Hardy's handsome cottage is an isolated rock. Every one must climb this, because, forsooth, it is Pulpit Rock. In some great cathedral, it would serve a good turn for the preacher.*1

It wasn't until 18 years later this pulpit rock became first depicted on a map.*2  It is located off the Shore Path alongside the Bar Harbor Inn.


Pulpit Rock - Gorge Path

The second pulpit rock initially appeared on 1896 path and MDI maps and was located in the gorge between Cadillac and Dorr Mountains.*3 

That same year a newspaper article describing the Cadillac Mountain path system stated, "The main path runs along the valley for a considerable distance, then crosses the [Kebo] brook and finally reaches the gorge and runs in the bed of the brook up between Green [Cadillac] and Dry [Dorr] mountains. Near the head of the brook one reaches Pulpit rock which affords a good resting place and charming vistas; then on up the gorge and at the top the path branches to east up Dry mountain, and west up Green to the Mountain house [a summit hotel]."*4

Francklyn Memorial - Gorge Path

Four-tenths mile before reaching this pulpit rock while hiking up the Gorge Path, the hiker will pass a bronze memorial to Lilian Endicott Francklyn (1891-1928), whose friends financially endowed the path in 1929.*5

 

 

The Pulpit - Maple Spring Trail

A 1906 path map depicted a third rock called "The Pulpit."*6  It is located in the Maple Spring Trail gorge 450' north of the carriage road's Hemlock Bridge.

A trail was named for it and called variously the Pulpit Trail, Pulpit Rock Trail, and Pulpit Rock-Maple Spring Trail. None of those appellations remains today.

The first time all three pulpit rocks appeared on the same map was in 1937.*7  Their last appearance on a map was in 1941.*8


SWHPL Collection of Photographs #8937

Pulpit Rock - Thunder Hole  1921

Apparently never mapped, there are two additional pulpit rocks.

The Southwest Harbor Public Library (SWHPL) has a 1921 photograph of "Pulpit Rock" at Thunder Hole off Ocean Drive.
This one is mentioned in a 1960 newspaper article: "As the flying spray obliterated vision of much of the pulpit rock at the side of Thunder Hole …"*9




Pulpit Rock - Thunder Hole today




SWHPL Collection of Photographs #11895

Pulpit Rock - Cadillac Mountain summit  1935

Another SWHPL photograph, of October 1935, identifies a pulpit rock overlooking Bar Harbor and the Porcupine Islands from the summit of Cadillac Mountain.

Why have these five pulpit rocks since disappeared from our awareness? Are there more pulpit rocks on MDI? Until we get the answers, have fun finding and enjoying them. Here are their GPS locations:

Bar Harbor Shore Path:           N44° 23.444'  W068° 12.083'            
Cadillac-Dorr Gorge Trail:       N44° 21.556'  W068° 13.211'
Maple Spring Trail gorge:        N44° 19.993'  W068° 16.876'
Thunder Hole:                         N44° 19.237'  W068° 11.318'
Cadillac summit:                      N44° 21.216'  W068° 13.306'

Pulpit Rock locations

Legend:   Trails     Park Loop Road     Carriage Road

 Footnotes:

1 Sketches of the Coast of Maine and Isles of Shoals, with Historical Notes, by B. F. De Costa. New York. 1869, pp. 130-131.
2 Map of Mount Desert Island. Colby & Stuart. 1887.
3 Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association Path Map of the Eastern Part of Mount Desert Island. Bates, Rand and Jaques. 1896. Map of Mount Desert Island. Bates, Rand and Jaques. 1896.
4 Bar Harbor Record. July 1, 1896, p. 5.
5 Francklyn memorial location: N44° 21.904'  W068° 13.254'  The Park had removed the memorial for maintenance by November 2012 and plans to reinstall it later this summer.
6 Path Map of the Eastern Part of Mount Desert Island. Bates, Rand and Jaques. 1906.
7 Map of the Eastern Part of Mount Desert Island. Bates, Rand and Jaques. Revised 1937.
8 Path and Road Map of the Eastern Part of Mount Desert Island. Bates, Rand and Jaques. Revised and published by William Jay Turner. 1941.
9 Bar Harbor Times. September 15, 1960, p. 1.

 

400th Anniversary of Mount Desert Island's First European Settlement and Introduction to Christianity

A bronze memorial outside St. Ignatius Church in Northeast Harbor, ME summarizes an event whose 400th anniversary on Mount Desert Island occurs this summer.*1  It states:

FIRST RECORDED LANDING OF WHITE PERSONS ON MT. DESERT ISLAND, MAINE 1613

FRENCH EXPEDITION, UNDER SIEUR DE LA SAUSSAYE, INCLUDING THREE JESUIT PRIESTS, FATHERS PIERRE BIARD, ENNAMOND MASSA, JACQUES QUENTIN AND JESUIT BROTHER GILBERT DU THET, LANDED ON WEST SIDE OF SOMES SOUND AT WHAT IS NOW KNOWN AS FERNALD’S POINT. THEY NAMED THEIR SETTLEMENT SAINT SAUVEUR. SEVERAL MONTHS LATER, A BRITISH FORCE ATTACKED THE COLONY, KILLED BROTHER DU THET AND DISPERSED THE COLONY. BROTHER DU THET’S BODY IS BURIED SOMEWHERE ON THE SHORE OF WHAT IS NOW KNOWN AS THE JESUIT MEADOW.

This event and its location have been recorded by many historians, among them Francis Parkman, William Otis Sawtelle, Samuel Eliot Morison and David Hackett Fischer. My intent here is to verify the location of the Saint Sauveur settlement on Fernald Point based on Father Biard's own description.*2

With regard to their landing on MDI after departing Port Royal, Nova Scotia, some 150 miles eastward, Biard records, "… by morning the fog had all disappeared. We recognized that we were opposite Mount desert, an Island, which the Savages call Pemetiq. The pilot turned to the Eastern shore of the Island, and there located us in a large and beautiful port,…"

Indians arrived and told Biard, "'It is necessary that thou comest, since Asticou, our Sagamore, is sick unto death; and if thou dost not come he will die without baptism, and will not go to heaven. Thou wilt be the cause of it, for he himself wishes very much to be baptized.' This argument, so naively deduced, astonished Father Biard, and fully persuaded him to go there, especially as it was only three leagues away, and in all there would result no greater loss of time than one afternoon; so he got into one of their canoes with Sieur de La Mote, lieutenant, and Simon the interpreter, and went off."

Biard met with Asticou, who was not dying but suffering from a cold, at his summer camp on Manchester Point, in Northeast Harbor, opposite Fernald Point. The Indians convinced Biard to settle nearby.

Biard's description of the settlement site: "This place is a beautiful hill, rising gently from the sea, its sides bathed by two springs; the land is cleared for twenty or twenty-five acres, and in some places is covered with grass almost as high as a man. It faces the South and East ..."

Saint Sauveur/Fernald Point from Flying Mountain

Regarding the two springs: In his autobiography, Boston Congregational minister and Fernald Point Road summer resident Charles Dole commented, "… where now the 'rusticators' come in troops to see splendid sunsets, and to look over the 'Jesuits' Field' on the old Fernald farm, with its springs of ice-cold water under the shore, each submerged twice a day with the salt tides and presently pure as crystal again."*3  Rev. Ephraim Cummings stated "… and as I recollect how they [Professor C.H. Fernald and his son Professor H.T. Fernald] walked with us [on August 3, 1893] over Flying Mountain, pointed out the two springs, …"*4  Clara Barnes Martin contributed, "… There is a spring at high-water mark on each side of the Point, …"*5 Benjamin DeCosta added, "…While at the farm-house, we inquired if there were any springs of water on the Point, as Biard says that it 'was supplied with water by a spring on each side.' The query was promptly answered by Mr. Fernald, who led us to a spring on the east side, and one also on the west. That on the east side ran into the sound. Its outlet has been greatly disturbed by the wearing away of the shore, yet we found the water still running. That on the west side of the Point overflows into a little cove, boiling up out of the sand with considerable force. At high tide the salt water flows into it, yet when the tide recedes the spring is found as pure and fresh as before. …"*6



West spring or "Jesuit Spring"

 

 

 

 

 

The west side spring is well known and has been marked on maps as "Jesuit Spring" from at least 1896. It still flows strongly into Fernald Cove.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

East spring

 

 

 

The east side spring has not been marked on maps and its flow is weak into Somes Sound, just as DeCosta described in 1869.

 

Both springs are below the high tide line.

 

Their locations are noted on the attached aerial photograph.*7

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As to the acreage: Biard described the land as being 20 or 25 acres. Using GPS software and U.S. Geological Survey aerial photography I measured Fernald Point along its current shore and tree lines. It encompasses 25 acres.

Aerial view of Saint Sauveur or "Jesuit Field" now Fernald Point

While the exact location of Biard's landing on MDI is not known, his many references to league distances while he was in the Port Royal/Bay of Fundy area equate a league to about three miles. Back plotting three leagues or nine miles from Asticou's summer camp at Manchester Point indicates Biard's ship landed at or near Sand Beach in Newport Cove on MDI's eastern shore.

The English ship Treasurer, sailing from Virginia and under the command of Samuel Argall, destroyed the settlement within a few months of its establishment. This event effectively started an English-French war of colonization that would last 150 years.

No known artifacts of the settlement have been found, nor is it known if any attempt has ever been made to recover them. Yet Biard states that the three individuals killed in Argall's attack, including Brother du Thet, were buried there. On a return visit to completely destroy the settlement, Argall executed one of his own men. Perhaps then there was a fourth body buried on Fernald Point. The question begs, Would a serious archaeological search to locate their remains, and any other remains of the settlement, still be feasible?

Footnotes:

1 GPS location of memorial: N44° 17.643'  W068° 17.619'  For this memorial's information see my blog post of September 27, 2012 titled J.J. O'Brien and His Jesuit Settlement Memorial.

2 The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents - Travels and Explorations of the Jesuit Missionaries in New France, 1610-1791, multiple volumes ed. by Reuben Gold Thwaites and published from1896.

3 My Eighty Years by Charles F. Dole. E. P. Dutton & Co., New York. 1927, p.290.

4 Father Biard's Relation of 1616 and Saint Sauveur by Rev. E.C. Cummings. Read before the Maine Historical Society, December 7, 1893.

5 Mount Desert on the Coast of Maine by Clara Barnes Martin, 4th ed. 1877, p.50.

6 Sketches of the Coast of Maine and the Isle of Shoals by B. F. De Costa. 1869, p.49.

7 GPS location of springs:

West spring: N44° 17.858'  W068° 18.809'
East spring: N44° 18.049'  W068° 18.641'

Hiking the Trails of Acadia NP's Schoodic Peninsula

ANP's Schoodic Peninsula trails

In early May my wife and I visited the Schoodic Peninsula to hike up Schoodic Head, a 440-foot high coastal mountain. This is an area of Acadia National Park across Frenchman Bay that is off the beaten track for Park visitors to Mount Desert Island, as it is about a 48-mile, 75-minute drive from Bar Harbor, ME.

Three trails lead to Schoodic Head. We did a 2-mile loop hike from the Blueberry Hill parking lot, which is on the one-way road bearing left away from the Schoodic Education and Research Center and the Schoodic Point parking lot. We walked the level Alder Trail for 3/4 mile before turning right at the Schoodic Head trail post to start the ascent. Along the way we passed an active beaver habitat and enjoyed seeing Black and White, Yellow-rumped and Blackburnian Warblers.

The heavily wooded 0.70-mile ascent to Schoodic Head has intriguing rock formations, bogwalks and stone and logcrib steps.





Schoodic Head summit station benchmark

The summit is marked by a U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey triangulation station benchmark stamped Schoodic 1860.*1

Our 1.25-mile descent to the main road via the Anvil Trail involved a stop at an overlook that provided a beautiful view of MDI's mountains. Upon reaching the road we found the parking lot just 500 feet to the right. Both the ascent and descent trails are moderate in difficulty, but extra caution is advised when they are wet. We did not hike the East Trail off the summit, but that will happen on the next visit.

Acadia NP's 2,000 acres on the Schoodic Peninsula were donated in 1927 by heirs of John Godfrey Moore, a Mainer from nearby Steuben who made his fortune in NYC from his lumber, telegraph and financial businesses. Moore earlier had established the Grindstone Neck community in Winter Harbor as an optional wealthy enclave to those on MDI. His cottage, which he named Far from the Wolf, a reference to Wall Street, is still there. Moore's bronze memorial plaque is attached to a rock in the Schoodic Point parking lot.*2


Moore memorial plaque

A few years after the Moore donation an interesting June 1931comment appeared in a National Geodetic Survey datasheet about the Schoodic Head station benchmark: "The station is in the Acadia National Park, on what was until recently known as Schoodic Mountain, but which is now called Schoodic Head by the park authorities, probably to distinguish it from another Schoodic Mountain some 16 miles to the n[orth]."

Hikers might want to visit the above-mentioned SERC, Acadia NP's research learning center. It occupies a former U.S. Navy base that had its origin on MDI's Otter Cliff peninsula where the Fabbri Picnic Area is now located. The site was the innovation of New Yorker and Bar Harbor summer resident Alessandro Fabbri, who established it in 1917 during WW I. He subsequently offered it to the War Department after realizing the site's communications operators could listen to enemy radio communications in Europe. In the early 1930s John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who was building the Park Loop Road, proposed to finance the Navy's relocation of the site to the Schoodic Peninsula, on property obtained from the Moore donation. The Navy agreed and in 1935 commissioned the new base there. The French Romanesque building just beyond the SERC entrance was the former base headquarters. It resembles the two gatehouses JDR, Jr., built for his MDI carriage roads. The Navy decommissioned the base in 2002 and returned the property to the Park. Fabbri's bronze memorial plaque is in a traffic island opposite the Park Loop Road entrance to the Fabbri Picnic Area.*3

Fabbri memorial plaque

 

Footnotes:
1 Schoodic Head benchmark GPS location: N44° 21.046'  W068° 03.217'
2 Moore memorial GPS location: N44° 21.046'  W068° 03.217'
3 Fabbri memorial GPS location: N44° 18.853'  W068° 11.799'

Start of FOA/Acadia NP's 2013 Volunteer Season

This Tuesday a group of volunteers raked drainage ditches, cleaned culverts and removed forest litter from the Kebo Brook Trail in Acadia National Park. This was the first day out for the volunteers this year and there will be many more days until the volunteer season ends with the arrival of next winter's snow.

The volunteers are under the aegis of Friends of Acadia, an independent nonprofit located in Bar Harbor, ME, with work projects selected by Acadia National Park. They meet at the flagpole outside Park Hq off Route 233 at 8:15 Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, depart for their assignments at 8:30 in Park-provided and equipped vans and return by noon. The work varies from easy to difficult, non-technical to technical and can accommodate physically fit youth to seniors. Contact FOA for additional information and other ways to volunteer (http://friendsofacadia.org/).




Work break


















Finished and smiling

Tuesday's task had the volunteers working on one of the Park's newest trails. The Kebo Brook Trail, a gently rising 1-mile trail, starts at Kebo Street beside Holy Redeemer Cemetery and ends near the Park Loop Road bridge over Route 233.*1

It parallels then crosses Kebo Brook, which originates in The Gorge between Dorr and Cadillac Mountains, and runs along the base of Kebo and Cadillac Mountains. Completed in 2012 by the Park's trails crew and FOA volunteers, it sets up access to several loop hikes by use of the Strath Eden Path, the Kebo Mountain Path, the Gorge Path, and the Cadillac North Ridge Trail.*2



Kebo Brook Trail (purple)

Strath Eden Path stone at trail junction

A nice feature of the Kebo Brook Trail is its easy accessibility from downtown Bar Harbor via the Great Meadow Loop Trail. It is a pleasant1-mile walk from the village green to the trailhead on Kebo Street.*3  Plans are in the offing for transportation this summer to the Park Loop Road end of the trail by the Island Explorer, a free shuttle bus service.

This FOA/ANP volunteer effort is fun and social and a unique way to get into the heart of one of America's best hiking and most beautiful national parks and contribute to its care and well-being. The physical exercise and exertion are also welcome personal benefits.

Footnotes:

1 Kebo Brook Trail GPS coordinates:

Kebo Street: N44° 22.555'  W068° 12.827'
Park Loop Road: N44° 22.773'  W068° 13.930'

2 Strath Eden Path - an engraved stone identifying this path is at its junction with both the Hemlock Trail and the Hemlock Road near Sieur de Monts. GPS location:
N44° 21.997'  W068° 12.765'

3 See blog post "A Memorial Walk: Bar Harbor to Sieur de Monts," dated June 24, 2012.