While Dave, Bennett and Cheryl hiked along the beach, Jerry and Anna Lee took the Missing Mansion Tour to learn about the history of Acadia. In 1800s this area, now lush with trees, was farmland. Then wealthy families escaping the summer heat of New York and Boston began to build summer homes. In the late 1800s the Dorr family of Boston, heirs to a textile fortune, bought one of the farms and built a 15,000 square foot mansion called Oldfarm overlooking Frenchman’s Bay.
We were shown several photographs of the exterior and interior of the mansion as well as its floor plan.
Their son, George, a Harvard graduate, loved Oldfarm on Desert Island where Acadia is located, and made preserving it his life’s work. Here is a photo of him as a young man.
He was part of a group of wealthy men who stopped further growth and committed themselves to saving the land. George lobbied the Secretary of Labor who recommended $50,000 to establish the park when what all George hoped for was $4000 ($10,000 was appropriated). The State of Maine opposed the park because of the loss of tax revenue from the high end estates.
Acadia has had two previous names, Sieur De Monts National Monument and Lafayette National Park. It was the first NP on the East Coast and the only one formed from private donations. The Moore sisters offered to donate their land if the “French” name was removed, so it became Acadia NP.
Unfortunately, the Park Service did not want George’s house as part of the natural area so it was torn down. The herringbone brick floor remains.
The granite that made up the mansions walls were buried near by. Dorr was Superintendent of Sieur Du Monts for the salary of $1 a month, a post he held until his death in 1944.
No comments:
Post a Comment