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Inveting in Acadia:
The Invisible Hand of John Stewart Kennedy
The following has been excerpted from an article originally
published in the 2008 issue of ChebaccoThe
Magazine of the Mount Desert Island Historical
Society.
John Stewart Kennedy was one of the "invisible hands" who worked behind the scenes to help build
Acadia National Park. |
In The Wealth of Nations (1776), Adam
Smith extolled the "invisible hand" of logic
linking individual enterprise to the common
good. Although the relation of personal
self-interest to larger social concerns is an
arguable topic, Smith's "invisible hand"
metaphor is a term potentially rich with meanings
beyond the metaphorical. History is filled
with literal examples of invisible hands working
quietly behind the scenes on projects beneficial
to large numbers of people.
In the creation of Acadia National Park,
John Stewart Kennedy is one of those
unrecognized, unremembered patrons
whose philanthropic generosity contributed
to the common good. Histories of
the park invariably focus on the monumental
efforts of George B. Dorr, Charles
W. Eliot, and John D. Rockefeller Jr., not
on Kennedy. They are the dominant players,
he an afterthought. In contrast to their
fame, the Kennedy name is not popularly
attached to any mountain, historic home,
or carriage road on Mount Desert Island.
Kennedy himself is partly to blame for
his own invisibility. On projects ranging
from hospitals, libraries, and museums in
New York City to mountain peaks on
Mount Desert Island, he adamantly refused
to allow public mention of his financial
support. Having once made a huge donation
to the enlargement of the New York
Presbyterian Hospital with the proviso that
no announcement of his gift be "po-claimed
ostentatiously," he similarly put a
publicity lid on all the energetic and financial
contributions he made to the early
stages of the dream that became Acadia
National Park.
More than self-imposed privacy, the timing
of Kennedy's work determined his low
profile in the history of the park. He died in
l909, shortly before his 80
th
birthday, and a
full decade before Congress passed a bill,
signed by President Woodrow Wilson in
l9l9, designating a public park, then called
Lafayette National Park, protected and supported
by the federal government. By contrast,
Eliot lived until 1926, Rockefeller
until 1937, and Dorr until 1944, enabling
them to give generously to the crucial early
phases of park development and provide
interpretive commentary in correspondence
and memoirs.
Sometime around 1880, Kennedy first
made his way to Mount Desert Island.
Having spent more than 30 years on the
busy streets of New York City, he instantly
appreciated the slower pace of MDI life.
Island mountains, lakes, and rugged coast
reminded him of his native Scotland,
where he was born the sixth of nine siblings
in a mining community in County
Lanarkshire, near Glasgow, in 1830.
With little formal education, at age 13
Kennedy began work in a local iron mill.
His superiors, impressed with his intelligence
and sunny disposition, sent him at
age 20 to the United States to solicit orders
for their iron to be used in the expansion
of American railroads. Two years later he
returned home to manage the company.
By the time Kennedy crossed the
Atlantic again in 1856 to settle permanently
in the U.S., he had decided to stake his
future not on the production of iron rail
and machines but rather on gathering and
dispensing funds for the building of western
railroads. For 10 years he negotiated
loans and commissions through a New
York company, but in 1868 he went his
own way with the creation of a new banking
and investment house, J. S. Kennedy &
Co. For the next 15 years, he boldly provided
funds for new railways, bought and
sold railway stocks and bonds, and repre-sented
numerous British and European
investors in American railroads transactions.
At the apex of his financial empire,
Kennedy owned more than $60 million in
stocks and bonds. For good reason, he was
known as the Railway King.
For almost three decades the king lived
royally in semi-retirement for several
months each summer at Kenarden Lodge
in Bar Harbor. Beyond his sumptuous
estate, however, Kennedy chafed at the
commercial growth that threatened to
deface the Island's pristine beauty.
Meetings with other wealthy summer residents
produced an application to the
Maine legislature for a tax-free Hancock
County Trustees of Public Reservations. In
January 1903, the legislature granted a
charter to this organization "to acquire,
hold and maintain, and improve for free
public use lands in Hancock County,
which by reason of scenic beauty, historical
interest, sanitary advantage, or for other
reasons may be available for the purpose."
Alongside the names of George B. Dorr
and Charles W. Eliot, the name of John S.
Kennedy stood as one of the eight incorporators
of this endeavor that became the
cornerstone of Acadia National Park.
In 1908, just a year before he died,
Kennedy was approached by George B.
Dorr with the news that Green Mountain,
the highest and most rugged of all the
granite peaks on Mount Desert Island,
could possibly be purchased at a reasonable
price. Without a moment's hesitation,
Kennedy offered to pay whatever the cost
to secure this priceless gem for the public
enjoyment of future generations. Dorr
negotiated the details and presented his
old friend with the bill. Green Mountain
would shortly be renamed Cadillac, the
centerpiece of the emergent park.
Prior to returning to New York in the
late summer of l909, Kennedy met with
Dorr to discuss the possibility of acquiring
Pickett Mountain (now known as
Huguenot Head) and an adjoining part of
Newport Mountain (now Champlain).
Kennedy promised to provide the funds,
but signed no papers before he returned
home to New York. By late October, he was
dying of pneumonia. Bending over his
bed, his wife strained to hear his final
words: "Remember... that I promised Mr.
Dorr... to help him get that land." Shortly
thereafter, she sent Dorr a check to cover
the acquisition of yet another crucial piece
of the future park.
No one but Emma Kennedy heard her
husband's dying words. Certainly no men-ion
was made of this incident in any of the
many press notices of his death. Although
the names of the three mountains purchased
by Kennedy funds were subse-quently
changed, none today honor the
Kennedy name. John Stewart Kennedy
died as he lived, a man extravagantly successful
but a private, modest man who
found good ways to invest generously in
the future of his beloved Acadia.
William J. Baker is a resident of Bass
Harbor. He is an emeritus professor of
history at the University of Maine and the
author or editor of 10 books, including
Playing with God: Religion and Modern
Sport.
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