THE NEW SORRENTO - PART 4

THE NEW SORRENTO - PART 4

While Charles H. Lewis concentrated on his plans to develop Sorrento during the Summer of 1886, it was reported that Frank Jones, the Portsmouth NH Ale Brewer and industrialist, was cruising near Bar Harbor with his friend Samuel C. Lawrence.  They were aboard Lawrence's steam yacht the Ibis.  Lawrence was the head of his family's Medford, MA-based distillery, Daniel Lawrence & Sons which had been producing rum since 1824.

Frank Jones was the owner of the New Hampshire brewery bearing his name, which at the time was the largest producer of ale in the country.  Jones had many other business interests in addition to his breweries in Boston and Portsmouth, including factories, hotels, and real estate ventures.  Both Jones and his friend Lawrence were deeply involved in politics.  Jones had served in Congress in the late 1870s and had been nominated for Governor of NH in 1880.  Lawrence would later serve as the first mayor of Medford, MA.

Jones and Lawrence also had investments in new England railroad lines.  Together, both men held large stakes in the Eastern Rail Road line and served as directors.  When the line was leased to the Boston & Maine in 1884, Lawrence and Jones joined the B&M as directors.

The Eastern RR had routes throughout New England and the merger with the B&M would provide it with further connections to a larger railroad network, including those that terminated at Mount Desert Ferry in Maine.

Two years earlier, the Democratic Party had nominated Grover Cleveland, then Governor of NY, as its presidential candidate in the election of 1884.  Cleveland defeated Maine Senator, Republican James Blaine, by a slim margin of the popular vote and by 37 electoral college votes.  It had been a bruising campaign with rumors of Cleveland fathering a child out of wedlock and Blaine's alleged history of graft.  This election was notable for another reason. The Equal Rights Party nominated as its candidate Washington DC attorney Belva Ann Lockwood.  Although she could not cast a ballot, Lockwood was the first woman to run a full candidacy for US President and was quoted as saying "I cannot vote but I can be voted for."

Following the election, there were stories printed in the NH press that Jones would be named Secretary of the Navy by President Cleveland.  Either he was not nominated or chose to not take the cabinet post, which went instead to William C. Whitney. 

A year after his defeat, James Blaine purchased land on Highbrook Road in Bar Harbor and built a summer home he named "Stanwood Cottage" for his wife, Harriet Stanwood Blaine.

In the late 1800s, before personal income taxes were imposed, excise taxes on liquor in the United States comprised up to 25% of all federal revenues.  Brewers and distillers were a powerful force in this era and commanded the ear of politicians -- Jones was no different. There were allegations that he and a few other influential Democratic businessmen had bankrolled Cleveland's presidential run and as a result would have a great deal of influence in his administration.

Indeed, Jones was so friendly with Cleveland that in early November of 1886, while passing through Washington DC, he and one of his lawyers Parker C. Chandler, were at the White House having dinner with the President.

That same weekend, Mrs. Cleveland traveled to Boston accompanied by the Secretary of War, William Endicott, and his wife, to be the guest of the President of Harvard, Samuel Eliot.

At the end of the Summer in 1886, Charles H. Lewis enticed a reporter to promote his new Maine resort with a special article detailing the goings-on at Sorrento. It was written, no doubt to attract readers to come and visit his new retreat on the coast of Maine the next year.  

This article, with no byline, was published on the last day of August and ran on page 5 in the Boston Daily Globe.  It recounts how, while sitting on a porch at a hotel in Bar Harbor, the correspondent is asked by one Mollie Merriweather to chaperone a picnic party across the bay to Waukeag Neck.  

Her report is filled with details of the work being done to develop the Sorrento resort and the building of new cottages.  Lewis seeded the piece with details about improvements in the town with the writer exclaiming that "...there seems no obstacle in the way of building up an American Sorrento that shall rival the fair Italian city."  The article ends with the group departing Sorrento at the end of the day with the sun setting and giving a "varsity cheer" for The New Sorrento -- indeed it seemed that prospects for Lewis' new resort the next year looked more than promising.

THE NEW SORRENTO - PART 3

 THE NEW SORRENTO - PART 3

Listings for Sunday church services were posted every Saturday on the front page of the Boston Evening Transcript.  During the first week of March 1886, the Religious Intelligence column listed more than forty worship options -- including one at the Hollis Street Church.  Located at the corner of Newbury and Exeter Streets, the 10:30 service at the church would be led by the Rev. H. Bernard Carpenter.

In other news of the day, it was reported that 125 "Chinamen" had been forcibly chased out of a town in Oregon, the employees of a NY trolley service were threatening another job action, and the Western Union Company was settling a judgment on back taxes to avoid the seizure of its offices on Broadway in Manhattan.

The newspaper also contained several pages of real estate advertisements. On page 9, among the listings for homes for sale or rent from the Back Bay to Wellesley Hills, was a notice for a "NEW SUMMER RESORT."

Located only 20 minutes from Bar Harbor, "Sorrento" at Point Harbor Maine was hailed as a "good opportunity to acquire seashore homes at moderate rates and easy terms." The Frenchman's Bay and  Mount Desert Land and Water Co. announced it had "secured extensive tracts of land comprising seashore with beach, mountain island property," for sale "in desired quantities and in locations suitable for cottages, villas, hotels, wharves and buildings for business purposes."

The ad boasted that the new resort, on the northern shore of Frenchman's Bay, could be reached by train from Boston in only nine hours.  It also touted that with "the rapid growth of Bar Harbor in popularity and value of real estate," Sorrento was both an attractive vacation spot and a good investment.

It does not appear that this advertisement in March resulted in any immediate land sales.  However, Charles H. Lewis was an adept salesman, and the skills he had honed during his years trading stocks on Wall Street would soon attract buyers.  The advertisement listed the company's office on Milk St. in Boston where "...plans, maps, and photographic views of the property..." could be seen.  In addition, subscription books to the "...stock of the company..." were also available.

In July of 1886, Lewis made his first few land sales in Sorrento.  The Hancock County deed records indicate the very first lot was sold on July 7, 1886, to Frank Hill Smith of Boston (see Hancock County deeds Book 208, page 121).

This first Frank Hill Smith deed -- like a handful of other early Sorrento sales -- is notable as it references the lot's location (Number 2 in Section 7{?} in Sorrento, Point Harbor), on the plan made by Hermann Grundel, Landscape Architect.  The transfer was authorized for the land company by its president Charles H. Lewis and its secretary, Charles P. Simpson.

Frank Hill Smith was a Boston artist and interior designer whose house on Beacon Hill still survives today. Smith had trained in Europe and worked in Boston in the 1870s with his contemporaries, the painters Thomas Robinson and William Morris Hunt.

Smith worked not only in portraiture but also in other forms of decorative arts. More on his life and work was compiled by historian Michael Henry Adams, in this blog post. Adams writes that in 1880, Smith:

"...was among the group engaged to decorate New York's new Union League Club. Had this high point of Aesthetic Movement tastes survived, doubtlessly it would be ranked today alongside the widely admired Seventh Regiment Armory. At the Union League Smith worked in collaboration with John La Farge, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and Will H. Low."

Frank Hill Smith was also an architect. Around this same time, Smith was asked to draft a plan for a new home for Walt Whitman in New Jersey. However, even though money was raised, the poet never seemed interested in a new cottage for himself.  

By the end of 1886, Smith had acquired five lots in Sorrento and began to design two cottages he would build on speculation.

During the first year of operation, Charles Lewis and the land company would sell over twenty additional lots to others, including Charles V. Wood, Albert S. Rice, Mary Worrall, John H. Haines, Francis W. Goss, J.W. Suminsby, brothers George Henry Forsyth & James Bennett Forsyth, George Howe Eddy, and John P. Riley.

Following the first few purchases, the deeds of sale also contained several new restrictions.  The new owners had to stipulate that:

"...no buildings shall be erected on the herein granted premises except dwelling houses and necessary outbuildings & churches. No low-class tenements or elements and no house costing less than one thousand dollars (exclusive of outbuildings) shall be erected thereon.

No intoxicating liquors or merchandise of any kind shall be kept for sale on the land herein conveyed. "

 

Among the final sales of the year were several more lots to Frank Hill Smith (see Hancock County deeds Book 217, page 56 & 58).  In addition to the new covenants, his were the first deeds that did not reference the plan drawn by Hermann Grundel.  Going forward the developers only referred to lot locations on the new plan, drawn in 1886 by Gilbert E. Simpson (see Hancock County Deeds Book 1, page 36).

THE GRUNDEL AND SIMPSON PLANS

THE GRUNDEL AND SIMPSON PLANS

The Norman B. Leventhal Map Center Collection at the Boston Public Library includes an 1887 plan for Sorrento Maine by landscape architect Hermann Grundel. The plan was a gift to the library in 1912 from the estate of Henry W. Haynes, a Boston lawyer and trustee of both the library and the  Massachusetts Historical Society.  I have been unable to find any ties Haynes may have had to Sorrento.

Shortly after acquiring their first parcels of land on Waukeag Neck, the partners of the Frenchman's Bay and Mount Desert Land and Water Company engaged Grundel to design their new resort of Sorrento.  The plan shows not only street layouts in the new development but includes an illustration of the company's other property, the Waukeag House in Sullivan Harbor.

There is very little known about Hermann Grundel, other than he is referred to as a landscape architect.  Contemporary accounts also refer to him as a "florist."  An 1890 edition of the Massachusetts Horticulture Society journal relates a story from a Mrs. H.L.T. Wolcott who said that Grundel had recommended to her the best method to cultivate roses.

What is known about Grundel confirms he was the initial winner of a competition to design a new park in Boston's Back Bay.  Early in 1879, the Boston park commission asked designers to submit proposals to turn a piece of undesirable marshland in the city into a new park.

The city received twenty-three entries for the new Back Bay Fens, and the commissioners selected Hermann Grundel's plan for the park.  Although they awarded him the $500 prize, the city later rejected his design.

The commissioners likely declined to use Grundel's plan because of the objections made by another designer, Frederick Law Olmsted. Olmsted appealed to the head of the commission arguing that Grundel's design completely ignored the realities of the site.

Evidently, Olmsted made a persuasive case, because his firm was awarded the contract for the new park.  However as a compromise, since Grundel was judged the winner of the competition, both he and Olmsted were paid by the city.

The park commissioners report diplomatically explained that the Olmsted plan was substituted for Grundel's winning submission and construction on the park began after 1880.  

Olmsted's plan dealt with the brackish marshland by flushing it with fresh water daily.  It included a string of public gardens and turned what had been a public health nuisance into an attractive green space.  New train lines terminated at the park and real estate values in the area soared.  Of course, the Boston Red Sox later made the area even more desirable when the team constructed Fenway Park nearby in 1912.

Charles H. Lewis may have learned about Grundel's abilities after he won the Fens Park competition.  Lewis needed a design for his new resort in Maine and hired Grundel to draw up a plan.  Grundel did not disappoint.  When Lewis hired him in 1886 or 1887, the land company owned only a small portion of land on Waukeag Neck.  Despite this, Grundel's plan for Sorrento included street grids and avenues laid out for large areas of the lower half of the peninsula not owned by the company.

A portion of the Bean Point section designed by Grundel is framed in the Sorrento Library.  When the first few lots in Sorrento were sold by the land company, these deeds reference locations on "The Grundel Plan."

Grundel's plan shows his ideas for creating sweeping non-linear avenues.  His design concept for several streets radiating like spokes from the top of the hill -- above where the pool is today -- and down to the back bay, are particularly striking.  Perhaps like the Boston commissioners, Grundel's plan was found to be impractical, especially since he seems to have created a plan for pieces of land that Lewis had not yet purchased.

Regardless of the reason, Grundel was not hired to do the survey and final street grid layout.  This work was done by a local surveyor named Gilbert E Simpson.  Later sections of the development, including Doane’s Pt., are better quality surveys and are referenced on deeds as “The Simpson Plan.”   While the first Simpson Plan and the Grundel Plan for Bean Point are similar, Simpson's was the one used for most real estate transfers and is more detailed, although perhaps less artistic.

There was another local surveyor named Simpson also involved in the area's land developments – Charles P. Simpson.  Charles P. Simpson’s name was on the 1883 survey of Hancock Point.  He was also one of the founders of the Long Pond Water Co. which was organized in 1885, prior to the development of Sorrento.

 

Charles Simpson’s wife was a descendant of Daniel Sullivan, and the Simpson family was long established in the Town of Sullivan.  Charles P. Simpson would go on to do other work in the area, first as the engineer for the land company in Winter Harbor and then he and his son Paul worked with the Rockefellers constructing the carriage roads on Mount Desert Island.

I believe Gilbert E. Simpson was Charles' uncle or cousin.  Because Charles is listed on some early deeds as the secretary of the Frenchman's Bay land company, it is possible that Charles recommended Gilbert to do the initial Bean Pt. survey of Sorrento.  By the Summer of 1888, Gilbert completed additional grid plans for several other sections of the Sorrento resort, including Doane’s Point.  These better quality "Simpson Plan" surveys include street names and lot dimensions (see Hancock County deeds, Book 1, pages 44, 45, 46 & 47).

THE NEW SORRENTO - PART 2

 THE NEW SORRENTO - PART 2

Prior to 1886, the land on Waukeag Neck had been owned by descendants of the families first awarded grants by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1804. Many of these families had been on these same plots of land since before the American Revolution.  The 1803 Peter's Plan shows the boundaries of these original land grants (Hancock County Deeds – Book 1A / Page 25).

The 86 acres, identified as Lot No. 5 on the 1803 Peter's Plan, had been sold to Sophronia H. Doane by Mary Bean in 1859 for $900.00 (see Hancock County deeds book 109 / page 42). For the next 25 years, the Doanes pursued, as related in her husband Elijah’s obituary, “…the peaceful pursuits of agriculture and a part of the time in porgy fishing until the general recognition of the attractions of Sorrento gave his farm a boom.” 

In the early part of 1886, Charles H. Lewis negotiated the first of his purchases on the peninsula he would rename Sorrento. Two deeds (see Hancock Co. deeds book 205 / page 386 & book 215 / page 483) transferred ownership of the Doane farmland and buildings on the eastern side of Waukeag Neck in the town of Sullivan from Captain Elijah S. Doane and his wife Sophronia H. Doane to Charles Lewis.  The February 1886 purchase, which also included Sowards Island (now Treasure Island), cost Lewis $4,000.  

The deeds reveal that Lewis agreed to allow the Doanes to remain in their house and continue to work the farm for an additional period of time. The deeds indicate that the purchase included 86 acres of land, which matches with the entirety of John Bean’s acreage as seen on the 1803 Peters Survey of Waukeag Neck.  While the first deed relating to the Doane’s Point property was signed by the parties on February 15, 1886, a second agreement, filed on May 21, 1887, extended the time the Doanes could remain on the land and continue to occupy their farmhouse until October 1887.

Importantly, the sale to Lewis excluded both the “Cemetery Lot” located on “Burying Yard Hill”, (now the Doane’s Point cemetery) as well as the mineral rights on Treasure Island.  Several years earlier, the Doanes had leased the mineral rights on the Treasure Island to Stillman White, and the Golden Circle Mining Company had begun gold explorations there in 1880.  Stillman and his brothers were the original builders of the  Waukeag House Hotel at the head of Sullivan Harbor.

During this same period, in the Spring of 1886, a general strike to demand an eight-hour workday was called by various unions in Chicago to coincide with the May Day celebrations.  On May 3rd two workers at the Cyrus McCormick Reaper factory were attacked and killed by police as they tried to prevent strikebreakers from crossing the picket lines. Two days later, labor unions organized a protest at Haymarket Square to protest the deaths.  Despite the presence of the Mayor of Chicago at the rally to keep the peace, a bomb was detonated which killed seven police officers and scores of protesters, many of whom were injured by police when they opened fire.

Police rounded up hundreds of likely conspirators and eventually arrested eight men for trial.  After a trial that presented little credible evidence, four of the men were found guilty of murder and publically hanged on November 11, 1887.  As a result of this incident, May Day was thereafter recognized by socialist and unionist movements around the world as a worker's holiday.

A week after the Haymarket Square riots, the President of the United States, Grover Cleveland, recommended to Congress that the United States accept a gift from the French government of a Statue of Liberty to commemorate the long alliance between the two countries.  In October of that year, Cleveland would make a trip to NYC to preside over the statue's dedication.   

In June of 1886, Cleveland married 21-year-old Frances Folsom, 27 years his junior, in the Blue Room at the White House.  Cleveland was the first Democrat elected as president since before the Civil War.  Cleveland was part of what was then a conservative pro-business party and the only "Bourbon Democrat" to serve as president.

The only guests at the wedding were close family, friends, and members of his cabinet, including his private Secretary, Daniel Lamont, the Secretary of the Navy William C. Whitney, and their wives.  Also present was Wisconsin politician and Postmaster-General William Vilas.  Not invited was Vilas' protege, Adlai Stevenson, the Assistant Postmaster-General and the future Vice President in Cleveland's second term.  Stevenson was in charge of over 55,000 post offices across the country that played a central role in organizing political campaigns and distributing information.  More importantly, Stevenson, a former congressman, controlled a vast patronage system and had replaced scores of Republican loyalists with Democrats earning him the nickname "Adlai the Axeman."

Meanwhile, back in Maine, Charles H. Lewis was busy making an additional land acquisition on Waukeag Neck.  On May 8, 1886, Lewis paid $50,000 to buy the 60 acre Bean Point property from William Hill Jr. of Boston (see book 205 / page 378) on behalf of the Frenchman’s Bay and Mount Desert Land & Water Co.

John Bean was one of the original settlers in Sullivan and acquired this land on the point in the 1803 land grant, (see Book 162 / page 357).  Melatiah and Joseph Bean obtained title to the property from his father John in 1834 upon his death.  His daughter-in-law, Melatiah, died in 1869 and is buried in the Doane's Point cemetery.

In the fall of 1883, the daughter and granddaughter of Melatiah Bean -- Nancy Bean and her daughter Louisa Urann -- had decided to sell their family homestead to John R. Mason of Bangor (See book 192 / page 43).  In turn, Mason sold the land to William H. Hill Jr. of Boston, the proprietor of the Boston and Bangor Steamship Company, and several other partners for $3,168.00 in October of 1883 (see book 190 / page 248).

A few years later, in May 1886, Lewis bought the 60 acres on Bean Point from Hill and his partners for $50,000.  Lewis then hired a Boston landscape designer, Hermann Grundel, to outline a plan for the first section of land he wanted to develop into a Summer community.  By the end of July 1886, Lewis had sold seven lots near the harbor in his new resort of Sorrento.