1887-88 SORRENTO BIRD'S-EYE

1887-88 SORRENTO BIRD'S-EYE

Courtesy of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission

In the Fall of 1887, Charles H. Lewis was concluding a busy first season of construction at his new resort, owned by The Frenchman's Bay and Mt. Desert Land and Water Co.  As part of his efforts to market Sorrento, he hired Frank K. Smith, a printer and publisher from Bangor, to create a bird's-eye view of the Waukeag peninsula.  Panoramic views of cities and towns had become popular in America after the Civil War as a way to promote interest in an area and encourage land sales.

The visit to Sorrento by the artist who would create the piece, Joseph Jones, was highlighted in several articles including one in the Mount Desert Herald which reported:

"Mr. Frank K. Smith of Bangor, is making a fine lithograph of Sorrento for the proprietors of that resort. Mr. Joseph Jones, the artist connected with Mr. Smith’s establishment, is at Sorrento making sketches for the view."

A high-definition black and white version of this lithograph is featured in a new electronic collection of historic bird's-eye views of Maine recently published by the Maine Historic Preservation Commission. This version of the Sorrento lithograph, and the others in the commission's archives, is remarkable. The TIF file is scanned from the original artwork and allows you to zoom in on the many details the artist captured in the 1880s.

The views are a snapshot of Sorrento in the late Summer of 1887 after just a few of the original cottages were built.  It is unclear if the construction of all of the buildings shown was even complete when Joseph Jones visited Sorrento to make his sketches in 1887.  Some of the scenes he drew may only be depictions of what the developer was planning to build and asked the artist to include.

The company's steamship "Sorrento" is featured prominently at the center of the border. The sidewheeler had been busy that Summer ferrying potential land investors from Bar Harbor.

The bird's-eye depicts the wharf constructed for the steamer at the harbor and the "cafe" that opened in late July 1887.  The 70-room Hotel Sorrento, which later accompanied the cafe, was not built for another year and opened in the Summer of 1889.

This photo of the steamer Sorrento and the new company wharf from the collection of the Penobscot Marine Museum likely dates to around 1889 and also shows two cottages built after the artwork for the lithograph was completed.

Some accounts indicate that the hotel was built on what had been the Bean family farm homestead.  A structure shown to the right of the cafe could possibly be part of the original Bean family house or barn.  Between the wharf and the cafe is another cottage which we know as Harbor Lights and today houses Sorrento Dental Associates.  Harbor Lights was one of the first cottages built by the land company and originally sold to a woman from Ellsworth named Hannah G. S. Smith.

The two cottages designed and built on spec by Frank Hill Smith are seen adjacent to the cafe.  Shortly after the lithograph was released, the Cochrans and Lamonts would each purchase a cottage and name them Tassletop and Blueberry Lodge respectively.

It took the publisher several more months to complete the plates and the lithograph was printed in early 1888.  By the time the work was published, Charles H. Lewis had ceded control of the resort and brought in a new group of company directors.  These new investors included Frank Jones of Portsmouth, NH, and James P. Cook, a partner of Jones in the various brewing companies.  Cook would later construct his own imposing cottage directly behind Harbor Lights.

Looking at the artist's depiction of Bean Point, a service pier is seen near where Sea Level is today.  Also depicted are the cottages that would be built for Admiral Greely (West View), as well as one for the new investor in the land company, Frank Jones (Ledgemere), and another for his son-in-law Charles Sinclair.  The Jones cottage was not built and occupied for another year, so this may have been one of the homes the artist inserted from plans.

On the Eastern side of town, a few features on Doane's Point include what may be either the Doane farmstead or another family's farm (possibly Captain Arey's who sold his acreage to the company earlier in 1887).  Also depicted is a new pier on the point, and on the hill above, the turreted cottage that Charles H. Lewis was building for his family and which he would first occupy in the Summer of 1888.

I had been aware of this bird's-eye view for many years from two other sources.  A lower-quality version is found in the collection of the NE Harbor Library.  The library indicates that this version appeared in The New England Coast, Long Island and the Jersey Shore, An Illustrated Guide and Souvenir, an 1895 book published by the Continental Printing Co., in  Providence, RI.

The black-and-white lithograph was evidently hand-colored at some point, and a reproduction of this edition of the artwork has been reprinted by a company on Cape Cod.  Copies of this high-quality modern edition are available for purchase from Maps of Antiquities.  While there may be period versions of either the black-and-white or color lithograph in collections elsewhere, I am not aware of any original lithographs other than the one with the Maine Historic Preservation Commission.

1887 (JANUARY - JUNE) - SORRENTO STOCK OFFERING & THE COLBY ATLAS

1887 (JANUARY - JUNE)

SORRENTO STOCK OFFERING & THE COLBY ATLAS

As Summer of 1886 along the coast of Maine transitioned to Autumn, Charles H. Lewis left the rugged properties he had purchased on the peninsula opposite Bar Harbor for the Winter (See THE NEW SORRENTO - Part 1, 2, 3 & 4).  If he had any hope for the new resort he had named Sorrento to open the next year, Lewis would need to coordinate work on the many projects from Boston. To support the influx of vacationers he hoped to attract in just a few months' time, he would need to oversee work to build a larger wharf, construct new roads, and secure sufficient drinking water to support the new houses.  It would be a busy off-season for Lewis as he attempted to finish the many improvements and carve a new community from the collection of saltwater farms by Spring.

Of course, Lewis would also need to continue to push the sale of lots the company had laid out from a plan drawn by local surveyor Gilbert E Simpson on file in the Hancock County Clerk's office. In addition to selling land to Boston architect Frank Hill Smith who was constructing two cottages of his unique design, Lewis had sold another dozen plots between July and December of 1886.

The archives of Norwich University in Vermont, where Lewis served as president for a few short years, contain several of his documents related to Sorrento.  One is a hand-typed draft of an advertisement and solicitation for land sales in 1886.  Rather than referencing the later Simpson Plan, we can date this very early document because it refers to the plan done by "...Mr. Herman Grundel the landscape engineer."   In an attempt to "....stimulate building, and improve the place as rapidly as possible...", Lewis offered to sell lots to the first 100 subscribers for $150.00.  The solicitation guaranteed that these early buyers could exchange their purchase within one year for any other lot at a value of $250.00.  Several of these initial subscriber's deeds recorded in July 1886 reference this introductory sales price of $150.00, including those to Capt. Parker M. Whitmore of Bath (Hancock Deeds 222 / 539), Charles V. Wood of Boston (Hancock Deeds 212 / 3), and Albert S. Rice of Rockland ( Hancock Deeds 208 / 87).

In addition to promoting this initial effort to sell $15,000.00 worth of land and completing construction on a few cottages, Lewis had one other major goal when he returned to Boston that Winter. To raise additional capital to fund the larger infrastructure improvements needed at Sorrento, he made preparations to issue stock in his new company on the Boston Stock Exchange. 

Sunday, February 13, 1887, fell on what should have been Lewis's wife Oriana's 44th birthday.  Sadly, Oriana Pendleton Lewis had died two years earlier on January 28, 1885, when the family was living in Brooklyn, NY.   After his wife's death, Lewis moved his family back to Boston where her funeral service was held at the Hollis Street Church.  Just a few weeks before his wife would be buried at the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Lewis was declared insolvent with more than $60,000.00 in debts.  Facing what for many might have been overwhelming events, over the next two years Lewis persevered with new plans for his next venture -- a resort on the coast of Maine. For this Civil War veteran, it was not the first time he had encountered adversity in his personal or business life, and he pushed forward after his wife's death and impending financial ruin to overcome those challenges. 

At the 10:30 service at the Hollis Street Church in Boston on that frigid Sunday morning of February 13, 1887, Rev. H. Bernard Carpenter delivered a sermon entitled "The Market of Life."  Charles H. Lewis may well have been sitting in the congregation that morning, two years after mourning the death of his wife in the very same sanctuary.  The five Lewis children might have accompanied their father to church that morning, including his youngest son named in honor of the minister, five-year-old Bernard Carpenter Lewis.  What message the well-known Irish-born minister and orator had for those gathered at his church that morning on what would have been Oriana's birthday is not known. But Carpenter may have tailored his sermon to inspire his friend Charles H. Lewis, who had suffered such huge personal and financial losses, to move on from those tragedies and remain productive in the market of life.

The following day was Valentine's Day and the weather in Boston remained extremely cold.  The Boston Evening Transcript reported that the temperature at sunrise was 10 degrees.  While the skies were clear with an Easterly wind, the temperature would not break 20 degrees all day.

A short feature revealed that although the "old-time custom" of sending Valentine's Day cards was popular, the volume handled at the Post Office was not nearly as large when compared to Christmas or Easter greetings.

On the front pages of other newspapers around the country were stories about the testimony heard during the previous two weeks at the US Supreme Court in the latest telephone patent cases.  Representing the Drawbaugh Telephone & Telegraph Company's interests in the purported inventor's challenge to Alexander Bell's patent was Lysander Hill.  

Since the organization of the Drawbaugh company four years earlier, Hill had brought numerous suits on behalf of his client, whose principal investors included New Hampshire brewer Frank Jones.  These suits had gone nowhere in state court, but Hill would be well compensated for this determined attempt for relief at the country's highest court.

Together with other more notable plaintiffs, Hill was granted one final chance to persuade the justices to side with his argument that Daniel Drawbaugh had in fact conceived of his telephone technology before Alexander Bell.  Hill would put Drawbaugh on the stand once again to tell his story of how he invented the telephone in his Pennsylvania barn as early as 1870. If the attorney could convince the majority of the court to vote in his favor, the Drawbaugh company might break Bell's telephone monopoly, and with it reap millions of dollars in future business for the company's investors.

Since 1883, Jones had been a principal investor in several companies that backed the patent claims of Daniel Drawbaugh.  Jones was known to closely follow the cases he held a financial interest in and may have traveled to Washington to personally witness the testimony.  Also making an appearance to hear some of the testimony in the case that week was the 23-year-old First Lady, Frances Cleveland.  The Supreme Court chamber at the time was still housed in the US Capitol and spectators could move between sessions of Congress and the Court.  Frances, who had married President Cleveland a little more than six months earlier, attracted the full attention of everyone with her stunning presence.  Mrs. Cleveland was but a one-day distraction in the highly litigious case, which would generate over 20,000 pages of records for the justices to examine and take the court another year to decide.

The front-page news in Boston that cold Monday in February was dominated by reporting on a strike by streetcar workers in Cambridge.  A letter from the pastor of the First Parish Church was published supporting the stance of the company against the strikers.  Rev. Hall hoped the company would "...not find itself obliged to yield in the least..." to the demands of the union which had united to "...frighten the rest into submission to their demands."

The union was struggling to reach a settlement with the owners to recognize the rights of workers to organize and negotiate for better working conditions, including such things as an 8-hour day and fair wages. While the strike had been contentious, the paper reported that no assaults had taken place the day before, although two passengers had been verbally harassed by striking workers.

 

Also published that day was a railway company advertisement offering any worker willing to cross the picket line $2.00 per day to replace striking conductors and drivers.

Despite the action by the streetcar workers, shares in the Cambridge Horse Railway company continued to trade at a healthy valuation of $124.50.  On the financial pages of the same paper, where listings for the Boston Stock Exchange were published, was a small announcement for a stock in a new company being listed for the first time that Monday morning -- The Frenchman's Bay and Mount Desert Land & Water Company.  Capitalized at a value of $5.00 per share, 100,000 shares in the company would begin trading at the exchange the next day.  It seems Lewis, the lead director of the company, had taken the message from his minister friend to heart to remain active in the market of life.

Under the leadership of Charles H. Lewis, his brother William D. Lewis, and John Shoenbar (the owner of the Waukeag House in Sullivan), their Frenchman's Bay stock would open for trading on February 15th at a bid price of $3.75 per share. 

By the end of the week, the strike against the streetcar company in Boston headed by the Knights of Labor was over.  While this strike was quickly broken, conflicts between workers and railroad companies -- and increasingly violent reactions to union demands to be recognized to arbitrate on behalf of the employees -- would be a continuing theme in America for many more decades.

Below is certificate number 811 for fifty shares in the Frenchman's Bay and Mt. Desert Land Co.issued in April of 1887 to Jeremiah Barnstead Jr. and signed by Charles H. Lewis.  By the time those fifty shares were issued to Barnstead -- and Winter turned to Spring -- the stock had risen two dollars a share. 

Lewis had succeeded in advancing his goals for that Winter. In addition to finding buyers for the first three cottages, work was continuing on the wharf and a new restaurant.  He also made another major capital investment. Lewis purchased a small steamer to ferry visitors from both Bar Harbor and the train depot in Hancock to Sorrento.

A few weeks later the Ellswork American reported a new name in connection to Sorrento.  Of course, Lewis could not organize all of this construction without help, and he had hired a manager to oversee this work.  W.H. Lawrence is reported to be ready to begin "work in earnest" at Sorrento.  Lawrence would be a fixture in town from that point onward and responsible for much of its next successes.

In late April shares jumped half a point in one day and the Boston Daily Globe published a piece on the new company, repeating the question many on the street were asking, "What is Frenchman's Bay?"  

The answer was it was a land company opposite Bar Harbor where "...a man of moderate-income and property can purchase land and build his summer residence."  Lots of land in the town were reported, "...selling like hotcakes at from $300 to $1000 each."  Lewis was betting that as the market for land in Bar Harbor bubbled even higher, his new venture would be positioned at the perfect time to take advantage of the surge. It was also rumored that dividends in the stock of his new Sorrento land company would pay investors 8% by October.

The article went on to provide a few more details, no doubt carefully salted by the owner and promoter.  Before being banned from the NY Stock Exchange, Lewis had worked for several years as a broker on Wall Street. He had become an expert at stock promotion schemes while working with the unscrupulous speculator Jay Gould.  Lewis and his partners had also been among the promoters of the short-lived companies that issued stocks in several Sullivan mining companies a decade earlier.  About his new enterprise, he bragged to the reporter that he had  "...disposed of about 100 lots, and fourteen houses are under contract to be built" at Sorrento.  He predicted that the first houses would be occupied by July with another forty cottages of "elaborate design" ready to be built.  Also under construction in Sorrento that Spring were a steamboat wharf, roadways, and a cafe costing $6,000.00 to "...cater to Bar Harbor residents, with a genuine French cook in the cuisine."

Based on land records I have reviewed, his statement about the number of sales and buildings under construction may have been somewhat exaggerated.  But his interview no doubt had the desired effect to boost Lewis' goal of creating interest in the company's stock price.  While Lewis may not have sold anywhere near his estimate of 100 lots he had made a dozen or more sales since the end of the Summer.  And while it is doubtful that 40 cottages would be built by the Summer, a handful of cottages were indeed under construction.  Below is a hand-written ledger, also from Norwich University archives, of some lots sold to Dr. William Goss of Boston in the Fall of 1886.  Goss would soon begin construction on his home which still stands today overlooking the harbor.  This note documents the exchange of plots Goss made for another better-situated lot.

Lewis used his stock proceeds to make one more large land investment in the Spring of 1887.  In one of my prior posts, I went into the details of Lewis's activities in 1886 to secure both the Doane and Bean acreage on Waukeag Point.  This additional purchase in 1887 would join those first two sizable purchases by the Frenchman's Bay Land Company.  In March of 1887, Lewis secured a portion of Lot #3 on the Peter's Plan from Captain James Arey (see Hancock Co. Deeds Book 223 / page 54).  Captain Arey took his profits from the sale and relocated to Gouldsboro.

Lot #3, seen on the Peter's plan below, was originally owned by Joseph Bragdon, and Captain Arey had married into this branch of the family.  Lewis's land company now owned Doane's Pt., Bean Pt. and part of the land in between.  But he would still need to convince other long-time owners on Waukeag Neck to part with their holdings if he wanted to control the end of the entire peninsula 

In May the resort was featured in the Industrial Journal, a Bangor publication. This story was picked up by other papers including the Portland Daily Press on May 2nd, and the next week it was republished on the front page of the Bar Harbor Record.  In the article, Lewis releases the news that not only is land selling well (Lewis says he had sold 127 lots) but that interest in the company's stock was booming.  More importantly, the article reveals that the company had acquired 5,500 acres in Sullivan for a "...game preserve..," and in exchange for 20,000 company shares, secured controlling interest in the Long Pond Water Company.  He also announced the formation of a new company - The Sorrento Improvement Company - that would take on construction projects at the resort.

At the end of May, a similar story in the business pages of the Boston Daily Globe noted the increase in land sales in Sorrento and a significant jump in the price of the land company stock to over $9.00 a share.  The paper also reported on the progress of construction on a dozen buildings, roads, a wharf, and the cafe that was expected to open for the season.  Work seemed to be progressing well and Lewis had evidently succeeded in his goals to promote land sales, prepare the town to open for the Summer, and more importantly, drive the share price in the company's stock to new highs.

 

Lewis made one other very keen public relations move for his new company, one that likely began the previous year.  In 1887 George N. Colby of Houlton and J.H. Stuart of South Paris published a detailed map of Mount Desert Island, Lamoine, Hancock, and Sorrento.

The map was based on Colby's earlier 1881 atlas of Hancock County and is one of the first local atlases to list all landowners on Mount Desert Island.  Assisting him in drafting the map were the land surveyors E. M. Hamor and Charles P. Simpson.  Charles P, Simpson was from Sullivan and would later serve as an officer of the Frenchman's Bay and Mt. Desert Land and Water Co. in Sorrento.

Both the 1881 map and the revised 1887 version are wonderfully detailed and show the topography of the various mountains now part of Acadia National Park.  Also depicted is the narrow-gauge railroad that once climbed to the top of Cadillac Mountain -- at the time known as Green Mountain -- and the hotel at the summit   More interesting, featured prominently in the upper right-hand corner of the 1887 revision is a detailed map of the new resort of Sorrento across the bay from Bar Harbor.  Also depicted are the ferry routes that would serve the peninsula from the new Maine Central RR depot at Mt. Desert Ferry in Hancock.

The outline for the new resort of Sorrento seen on the Colby Atlas used many of the same street designs seen on the Charles Grundel plan.  These include sweeping road layouts, some like the spokes of a wheel, that Grundel envisioned but never realized.

 

The 1887 Colby & Stuart Mount Desert atlas shows several other new details about Sorrento not drawn on Grundel's plan. Steamship wharves are depicted on both Doane's Point and Bean Point.  And up the hill from the wharf on Bean Point is a legend for the new Sorrento Cafe as well as a few houses on newly constructed streets surrounding the cafe.

Three of the houses were among the first begun that year, including the two spec houses built by Frank Hill Smith.

The 1887 Colby & Stuart Mount Desert atlas was useful in marketing efforts aimed not only at Sorrento but the entire region.  According to an article in the Portland Daily land companies from Bar Harbor to Petit Manan were ready to turn all available land into "a sportsman paradise." 

Before the Summer season of 1887 would begin, Lewis had some other significant news to announce about improvements at Sorrento.  This article from June in the Boston Daily Globe reported not only that the company's stock continued to trade at above $9.00 a share but that water pipes to the resort were being laid.  The reporter indicated that "...this is something extraordinary, and demonstrates the liberality of the management in supplying an unfailing water supply among the first improvements."

A week later the Bar Harbor Record had a small piece about a group of men staying in Bar Harbor who had made a visit across the bay to Sorrento.  It mentions that John Shoenbar, one of the founding officers of the Frenchman's Bay land company, was also in town tending to his interests in Sorrento and Lamoine.  Among the gentlemen highlighted on the tour of the new resort were Charles F. Manderson, a US Senator from Nebraska, and Camden C. Dike a wealthy merchant from Brooklyn.  It was reported that after their trip by coach around the peninsula they were "...well pleased by their excursion, and filled with admiration at the wonderful beauty..." of the resort and were "...largely interested."  While seemingly impressed with the improvements, what other interests they may have been representing and what other plans they were contemplating that Summer is not explained.