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Charles W. Eliot
Lisa Horsch
The United States have but this one short
stretch of Atlantic seacoast where a
pleasant summer climate and real picturesqueness
of scenery are to be found together;
can nothing be done to preserve for the use
and enjoyment of the great body of people in the
centuries to come some fine parts at least of the
seaside wilderness in Maine?
- Charles Eliot in "The Coast of Maine"
Charles W. Eliot as a young Harvard president. |
In 1897 Charles W. Eliot, president of
Harvard and one of the first summer residents
of Northeast Harbor, organized the notes, letters,
and other papers of his son, noted landscape
architect Charles Eliot,* after his death.
It was in these papers that he rediscovered
an article written by Charles and published
in 1889 in Garden and Forest describing "the
wild charm of the coast of Maine." Charles
pointed out how the increase of private ownership
might deprive the public access to
the many mountains, ponds, and waterways
of Mount Desert. Charles suggested that public
access could be secured and traditional
landscapes maintained by establishing reservations,
a common name for parks at the
time, for public use.
Charles' article, coupled with the invention
of the portable saw mill and increased
development of Mount Desert Island, served
as the inspiration for the Hancock County
Trustees of Public Reservations. In the summer
of 1901, Eliot modeled the new preservation
organization after the Massachusetts
Trustees of Public Reservations, which was
successfully established ten years earlier.
He chose George B. Dorr, a wealthy, single,
and energetic summer resident of Bar
Harbor, as vice president of the organization,
charging him to "rescue and promulgate
the monumental beauty of Mount Desert."
According to the 1939 history of the
Trustees, Eliot and Dorr were joined by
Edward S. Dana, Lea McI. Luquer, George
L. Stebbins, Luere B. Deasy, Edward B.
Mears, Loren E. Kimball, and John S.
Kennedy as the first officers, executive committee,
and incorporators of the Hancock
County Trustees of Public Reservations. It
was the first conservation group to preserve
land in Maine for future generations.
Throughout the years, President Eliot was
often mistakenly credited with developing
the idea for the Trustees. In fact, at a celebration
of the establishment of Sieur de
Monts National Monument, President Eliot
corrected speaker L. B. Deasy, crediting his
son with the idea for preserving land on
Mount Desert Island for future public use.
Though modest in his credit for establishing
the Trustees, Eliot did, in a round-about
way, create the foundation for Charles'
future conservation work. Eliot introduced
his family to the coast of Maine and fostered
in his sons a love, respect, and intellectual
curiosity for the outdoors in. In 1871
Eliot, Charles, and younger son Samuel
Atkins Eliot began cruising in the summer
along the coast of New England in Jessie,
33' sloop. For seven years, a favorite destination
was Calf Island in Frenchman's Bay,
where they would camp in tents on the
seashore. According to an introduction from
Charles William Eliot Family Cruising Logs of
the New England Coast, Eliot attributes these
adventures as one method of withstanding
the rigors of the Harvard presidency.
The Anchestral, Eliotıs family home, was one of the first summer cottages in Northeast Harbor. |
After many years of sailing the waters of
Maine, Eliot built a family home in 1881. By
this time, Charles had led a group of Harvard
classmates, named the Champlain Society
after the French explorer Samuel de
Champlain, for several years in scientific
explorations of the island. Through his studies,
Charles became intimately familiar with
the lands and coast of the Mount Desert. At
the recommendation of Charles, Eliot selected
a tract of land on the east side of the harbor,
"a site with beautiful views of sea and
hills, good anchorage, fine rocks and beach,
and no flats."
It was one of the first summer cottages in
Northeast Harbor. Other summer cottages
quickly followed along the harbor's edge, forever
changing the landscape of the coast.
While the new development changed the
landscape, there was a much greater threat
to the landthe portable saw mill.
Eliot recognized the ease with which lumber
companies could transport the portable
mills to mountain tops and strip bare the hillsides
of the island. Once the forests were
gone and the traditional landscape was
destroyed, the beautiful land of Mount Desert
would no longer be as desirable to visitors
and residents and would be most appropriate
for further commercial, not residential,
development.
With many threats looming, the Hancock
County Trustees of Public Reservations
incorporated. In 1908, Eliza Homan gave
to the Trustees its first significant gift - the
Beehive and the Bowl. The Trustees made
gifts of land and money to help acquire other
properties but, more importantly, they influenced
others to make gifts to preserve the
mountain tops and green space of the
island. Mr. Kennedy enabled the Trustees to
secure the top of Green (Cadillac) Mountain,
preserving the summit of the highest point
on the Atlantic coast for public enjoyment.
In 1919, John D. Rockefeller Jr. joined in
the preservation effort by donating Beech Hill
and the cliffs on the western shore of Echo
Lake. Over the years, he generously donated
other lands and money to acquire lands,
built carriage roads and bridle paths, and
constructed the "Mountain Road."
The Trustees decided to accomplish their
preservation goals in perpetuity by converting
their accumulated protected land into a
national monument. In July 1916, Sieur de
Monts National Monument came into existence.
It became Lafayette National Park in
1919 and was renamed Acadia National Park
in 1929.
At the celebration of Sieur de Monts in
1916, Eliot said, "One of the greatest satisfactions
in doing any sound work for an institution,
a town, or a city, or for the nation is
that good work done for the public lasts,
endures through the generations; and the little
bit of work that any individual of the passing
generation is enabled to do gains the
association with such collective activities an
immortality of its own."
As Acadia approaches its centennial in
2016, admirers of Acadia and its surrounding
communities should all be
inspired by Eliot's words and actions and
each, in their own way, strive to leave a legacy
for future generations. It is then that the
dreams and wishes of Acadia's founders will
be realized.
* Writer's note: There is often confusion
between the father, Charles W. Eliot, and
the son, Charles Eliot. The former, often
referred to as President Eliot or Charles W.
Eliot, was the longest serving president of
Harvard (1869-1909) and was instrumental
in formation of the Hancock County
Trustees of Public Reservations in 1901. The
latter, known simply as Charles Eliot with no
middle initial, was a noted landscape architect
in Boston who organized in 1890 the
Massachusetts Trustees of Public
Reservations, a preservation group that
served as a model for the Hancock Country
Trustees.
Lisa Horsch is the director of development
at Friends of Acadia.
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