26 MAINE BOATS, HOMES & HARBORS | April / May 2014 | Issue 129

Members of the Champlain Society posed for a photo in 1881 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, before setting off for their second summer in Maine.Founded by Charles Eliot, the society was a group of Harvard College undergraduates interested in documenting the natural history of Mt. Desert Island.

Their work helped inspire land conservation efforts on the island and beyond.

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IN MAY 1871, Charles WilliamEliot had been president of Har-vard University barely two years,

and a widower just as long. He neededa break, for himself and his two youngsons, a “thorough vacation” in the openair, as he wrote to a friend.

He found means in the Jessie, a 33-foot sloop, and began planning a sailingand camping trip to Maine, “downMount Desert way.” Described as “a verypretty boat and tolerably fast,” the Jessieand crew made a few warm-up excur-sions around Boston Harbor and racedwith the Dorchester Yacht Club beforeleaving for Maine in July. Captained byEliot (with assistance from a hired sailor)and crewed by his brother-in-law,

Charles Eliot Guild, nephew RobertWheaton Guild, and Arthur C. Kelley ofNeponset, the boat was jammed full ofcamping gear, leaving little room for thepassengers in the four berths.

They reached Portland in a day, thensailed on to anchorages in Herring Gut

and the Deer Isle Thorofare. As theymade Bass Harbor Light on the third dayout, the fog cleared away. They passedLong Ledge and Great Cranberry Islandand sailed into Southwest Harbor.

This cruise and summer of camping,the first of many, helped instill in Eliot,and especially his son Charles, a sense ofplace that would have a lasting impacton the Mt. Desert region and beyond.The younger Charles Eliot, who becamea landscape architect and partner in thefirm of Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.,would go on to lead the first natural his-tory surveys of Mt. Desert Island in the1880s. Later, when he helped found TheTrustees of Reservations in Massachu-setts in 1891, he created the land trust

model that would be used to protect Mt.Desert Island’s diverse landscapes, andother places around the world. Sailingand camping on Frenchman Bay was aformative experience that changed theEliots’ lives. Their conservation leader-ship made it possible for millions of peo-

ple to enjoy the same experience today.At the time, the concept of cruising

the coast for pleasure was just beginningto take off. Robert Carter, Washingtoncorrespondent for the New York Tribune,had published a serialized account of hiscruise on the chartered sloop Helen toMt. Desert in 1858 (the newspaper arti-cles were published in book form as theclassic A Summer Cruise on the Coast ofNew England). An 1867 New York Timesarticle noted the visit of the newlyformed Boston Yacht Club to SouthwestHarbor. But in contrast to the Eliots,most visitors to Mt. Desert arrived viasome combination of train, steamship,and carriage, and boarded with local res-idents or stayed in hotels.

The log of the 1871 cruise and sub-sequent ones, preserved by the Mt.Desert Island Historical Society, describe

Early Maine sailing vacations inspireda land conservation movementBY CATHERINE SCHMITT

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Charles Eliot in 1897 at age 33.

Influenced by NATURE

This cruise and summer of camping, the first of many,helped instill in Eliot, and especially his son Charles, a sense of place that would have a lasting impact

on the Mt. Desert region and beyond.

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28 MAINE BOATS, HOMES & HARBORS | April / May 2014 | Issue 129

Charles Eliot and fellow members of The Champlain Society sailed his father’s yacht Sunshine on the first of what became many annual expeditions to Mt. Desert Island. The Eliot family had spent summers in the region since Charles was young and he wanted to share the experience with his classmates.

This photo of the yacht was taken July 20, 1881 by Marshall P. Slade, a member of the group.

Members of the Champlain Society in 1881 at Hadlock Brook, near their Northeast Harbor base camp.

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what sailing was like in those early years.Travel was still fairly rustic, and that wasthe idea. Sailing was a natural extensionof a desire to get out of the crowded city,and was faster and more calming than abumpy carriage ride, crowded train, orsteamship. These “were people wholoved the outdoors enough to actuallyget out in it,” wrote one scholar.

The day after arriving in SouthwestHarbor, the Jessie continued east aroundthe island, passing seven Eastern YachtClub yachts off Schooner Head on theirway to Ironbound Island. The Easternand Dorchester Yacht Clubs both formedin 1870; this was likely the first summerexcursion of the inaugural Eastern YachtClub fleet.

Eliot steered the Jessie north alongthe Gouldsboro peninsula, past Jordanand Stave islands to Calf Island and itsoutlying Thrumcap and Little Calf.There he edged the boat onto a curved,narrow beach. After getting permissionfrom the owners, the Eliots established acamp, which they called “Camp Sun-shine,” on Calf Island. They slept on haymattresses with rubber pillows in walled

canvas tents. There was also a large din-ing-room tent and a kitchen tent and aflagpole to salute passing boats.

Most of the small island had beencleared of trees but a few spruce andpine still lined the shores. The familythat owned the island had abandoned its

farm there a few years earlier, although ason still cut hay in the fields, and a fewoxen grazed where the Eliots establishedtheir summer home. Five miles west, thedark blue of the Porcupine Islands sepa-rated the blue of the bay from the high-est hills of Mount Desert. The sea breeze

Excerpts from the Champlain Society Record of Meetings and Yacht’s Log 1881

TUESDAY, JULY 5“Sunshine” went down to S.W. Harbor in the afternoon with Rand,Spelman, and C. Eliot. A very strong breeze in the harbor. The crewmade many purchases and visited the P.O. Also ordered two fishspears. Spelman carried a gun but shot nothing. Saw a sea pigeonnear Greening’s Island. E.L. Rand found 4 or 5 species of flower that were new tothe Botany List. Rand (H.L.) & Hubbard spent the afternoon on Robinson’s Mt….

MONDAY, JULY 25Wretched bad weather still. Woods too wet for walking; sky too wet for sailing. Yet the yachtwent out for a couple of hours this afternoon and gave Spelman several shots at sea pigeonsand Slade a “shoot” at the sound from Greening’s Island. They also picked up a weary Randwho had been on a tramp to Seal Cove via Bass Harbor. The principal occupation on boardseems to have been the eating of candy that was left by the lamented Dunbar as a token ofhis regard for his fellow campers….

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blew across the island, shimmering thegreen meadow grass and keeping mos-quitoes away.

Eliot and his crew were soon joinedby his boys, Charles, 11, and Sam, 8, andtheir attending nursemaid; the elderEliot’s sister Frances, and her husband,the Rev. Henry Wilder Foote (minister atKing’s Chapel in Boston); and theirdaughter, Mary.

The family spent the summer tastingthe salt of coastal life, picnicking, chas-ing butterflies, and combing woods andwrack lines for treasures. According toCharles William Eliot’s biographerHenry James, a sense of novelty andexcitement was part of the fun. “Onceaway on these holidays, Harvard and hisordinary cares seemed to drop out ofEliot’s mind. The sea, the wind, the day

and its small adventures, the procuringof supplies, the sailing of the boatabsorbed him completely.”

Back in Cambridge that fall, Eliotknew he would return to Calf Island. Hemade plans to sell the Jessie and startedlooking for a vessel better suited toextended cruising.

Built by Albertson Brothers ofPhiladelphia, the new sloop, Sunshine,was 43½ feet long, had a cabin tallenough to accommodate Eliot standingup, and room enough for four adultsand two children. James called it “one ofthe first American yachts designedspecifically for cruising along the NewEngland coast.”

The Eliots returned to Calf Island in1872 and every subsequent summerthrough 1878, with the exception of1873 when they went to Cape Cod. Withthe Coast Survey’s Atlantic Coast Pilot asa guide, and the historic voyages ofSamuel de Champlain as inspiration, thefamily came to know the harbors, shoals,islands, and beaches of the Maine coast.

In the spring of 1880, the elder Eliotannounced that he and his second wife,

During the Eliot family’s first cruise to Mt. Desert Island, they set up camp on Calf Island in FrenchmanBay opposite Bar Harbor. Charles Eliot drew this sketch of the camp, later printed in a Pulitzer-prize win-ning biography of his father, Charles William Eliot, by Henry James (nephew to the well-known novelist).

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Grace, would be traveling in Europe forthe summer. He offered the yacht andcamping gear to Charles and Sam, thenstudents at Harvard College, whojumped at the chance to sail downeastand camp on Mt. Desert Island. Theyounger Charles invited friends andclassmates to be part of an expedition, inwhich each member would “do somework in some branch of natural historyor science.” They named their club theChamplain Society.

Charles Eliot sailed Sunshine fromBoston to Mt. Desert with the help ofOrrin Donnell, a young man from Sulli-van who was hired as boatman. Theyestablished “Camp Pemetic” on the east-ern shore of Somes Sound near the out-let of Hadlock Brook. Sunshine wasmoored close by.

Champlain Society members chosewhich “specialty” or department theywould contribute to: collecting flowersfor the botanical department, dredgingfor marine invertebrates, shooting birdsfor the ornithology department, record-ing the weather from their meteorologi-cal station, or surveying geology. They

fished for food and for science. Theyoften walked to and from camp, andused boats (“the little boat,” “the whiteboat,” “the black boat,” the dory FairPlay) rented from local residents. Sun-shine enabled them to roam farther andexpand their collections.

Every few days they sailed Sunshineto Southwest Harbor for mail, provi-sions, and to pick up or drop off mem-

bers and visitors at the steamship land-ing. Somesville was another regular portof call. They took longer sails around theisland, to the Cranberry Isles, to Green-ings and Suttons islands, “bummingtours” to socialize in Bar Harbor, and toexplore Frenchman Bay and beyond.Entries from the yacht’s log describetheir daily activities.

In 1882 the Champlain Societymoved its camp to Asticou, at the headof Northeast Harbor, so that the mem-bers could eat at the Savage family’s inninstead of hiring a cook—Camp Asticouwas also closer to the Eliots’ new sum-merhouse. The Champlain Society bor-rowed Savage’s sailboats, the Eddie,Vyvyan, and another “very stiff boat”which they named Junco, “after the wife

of that noble chieftain Asticou who haskindly allowed us to give his name to ourcamp.” Donnell was not hired as boat-man, so members of the party “weredoomed to do all their own work,”according to a log entry.

As early as 1881, the ChamplainSociety began to express concern for theisland’s future, and to initiate plans for

They took longer sails around the island, to the CranberryIsles, to Greenings and Suttons islands, “bumming tours” tosocialize in Bar Harbor, and explore Frenchman Bay andbeyond. Entries from the yacht’s log describe their daily

activities and note the passing of other vessels.

its protection as publicly accessible landin its natural state. Charles Eliot went onto apprentice with landscape architectFrederick Law Olmsted, design some ofthe Boston metropolitan park system,and help start The Trustees of Reserva-tions, the world’s first land trust. Afterhis untimely death in 1897, his fathertook the helm of his late son’s vision andworked with George Dorr to form theHancock County Trustees of Reserva-tions and acquire properties that becameknown as Acadia National Park.

Catherine Schmitt is Communications Coor-

dinator for the Maine Sea Grant College Pro-

gram at the University of Maine.

Catherine Schmitt would like to thank the fol-lowing for help with research for this article:Wendy Gamble, Pat Lown and Matt Murphy atWoodenBoat Publications, Tim Garrity and theMt. Desert Island Historical Society, and Mau-reen Fournier and Brook Minner of NortheastHarbor Library. More on the Champlain Societycan be found at http://mdi.mainememory.net/page/3817/display.html.

32 MAINE BOATS, HOMES & HARBORS | April / May 2014 | Issue 129

This majestic view of Sutton and the Cranberry Islands was taken from the top of Penobscot Mountain in Acadia National Park. Charles Eliot and his father helped start the conservation movement

that led to the park’s creation.

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