About Pretty Marsh
About the Property
About Mount Desert Island
About Acadia
A Family Connection
"At only 1,530 feet, Mount Desert Island's Cadillac Mountain, in Maine's Acadia National Park, lays a singular claim to fame: it is the highest point on the eastern coastline of the Americas, from Canada all the way south to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. But for anyone standing on Cadillac's summit on a brilliant summer afternoon, it's the view, not the statistic, that dazzles. To the west, ponds and lakes glisten in dense forests. To the east, a green tapestry of pine and spruce trees stretches to the outskirts of Bar Harbor. Beyond that seacoast village, yachts and sailboats ply the icy Atlantic waters off the four Porcupine Islands in Frenchman Bay." (Full article)
-Jonathan Kandell, “Acadia Country,” Smithsonian, April 2008.
About the Property
In 1930, Arthur Cushman (Cush) McGiffert (1892-1993) and Elisabeth Eliot McGiffert (1897-1991) purchased fourteen acres of land in Pretty Marsh, Maine on Mt. Desert Island. They bought the land from the neighboring farmer/carpenter, Allen Freeman, who lived in an old farm house at the head of the harbor. The first structure build was a one-room cabin, which was gradually expanded into a three bedroom house over the years, but is still lovingly called “The Cabin.” Cush used the cabin as his study. Elisabeth had her own small cabin not far away.
Elisabeth and Cush designed “The House”, which Freeman built in 1930-31, and they spent long summers there with their three children, David (1926-2005), Michael, and Ellen. After Cush retired in 1959, they lived there half the year and modernized the place by putting in electricity and telephone, adding a refrigerator, and replacing the wood-burning stove with a gas range. Upgrades since their deaths include a remodeled kitchen and a baseboard heating system.
The property is now held as the Pretty Marsh Partnership by their seven grandchildren, who themselves grew up spending summers in Pretty Marsh.
About Mount Desert Island
Mount Desert Island, off the coast of Maine, is widely known as the home of Acadia National Park and the town of Bar Harbor. If we viewed the island from the air (a look at the Acadia map will do), we would notice north and south aligned gouges scooped out of the land as if by a very large hand. Indeed, in this case, the hand was that of a huge, slow moving, continental glacier over a mile high, 2 miles thick in some places. When this giant glacier finally melted and retreated, it left rounded mountain tops, long lakes, many boulders, and the 7 mile long Somes Sound - the only fjord on the East coast of the United States. Elsewhere on the island is the massive Cadillac Mountain. Even after being sheared off by the glaciers, it remains the highest point along the North Atlantic Seaboard at 1,532 feet above sea level and provides spectacular panoramic views of Acadia National Park and other out islands.
To the original coastal Abnaki Indians, Mount Desert Island was known as “Pemetic” (the sloping land). Although the Abnaki's permanent villages were located on the mainland, they regularly fished and gathered shellfish from Mount Desert Island. (Check out the Abbe Museum for this history.) The island got its current name from the French explorer Champlain who ran aground here in 1604 AD. Today, Mount Desert Island is best known as the home of Acadia National Park, where land and sea, mountains and shore, people and abundant wildlife meet in a natural and spectacular setting.
There are many people who are surprised to hear that there are actually only 4 official townships on the island. They are Bar Harbor, Mount Desert, Southwest Harbor and Tremont. Bar Harbor encompasses the sections of Eden, Hulls Cove, Salisbury Cove and Town Hill. Mount Desert, although having no official “center,” consists of Hall Quarry, Northeast Harbor, Otter Creek, Seal Harbor and Somesville. With Southwest Harbor comes Manset and Seawall. Bass Harbor, Bernard, Seal Cove, and West Tremont are part of the town of Tremont. (from www.acadiamagic.com)
About Acadia
Approximately one half of Mount Desert Island is protected by and comprises the major portion of Acadia National Park. It is the most visited park in the United States. Acadia National Park has 17 mountains and over 150 miles of trails, as well as 55 miles of carriage roads that are also used for horseback riding and biking. There are lovely villages and public gardens. By car, you can travel the scenic Park Loop Road and drive to the top of Cadillac Mountain where you get a 360 degree view of the surrounding waters and islands. Cadillac Mountain is the tallest mountain along the eastern coast of the United States, and during certain times of the year, it is the first place in the United States to see the sunrise.
Though most of the coast is rugged, Acadia is also home to a few sand beaches and lovely inland lakes for boating and swimming. The towns range from the bustling Bar Harbor to the one-block Seal Harbor and Somesville. It is a small island, and it rarely takes more than 20 minutes to drive anywhere. For more information, go to www.acadiainfo.com.
A Family Connection
Our family has a special connection to Acadia National Park, beyond the fact that we are lucky enough to be able to enjoy it regularly. Elisabeth Eliot’s grandfather, Charles W. Eliot, the former president of Harvard University (1869-1909) was one of its founders. In fact, according to the National Park Service, “the story of Acadia National Park’s creation begins [in 1901] on a cold winter day in the Boston home of Charles W. Eliot, president emeritus of Harvard University, and a summer resident of Mount Desert Island. He was looking through the papers of his deceased son when he came across an article written by him for Garden and Forest, noting that the increase in private ownership in Maine might eliminate public access to its scenic beauties. The younger Eliot wrote:
It is time decisive action was taken, and if the state of Maine should…encourage the formation of associations for the purpose of preserving chosen parts of her coast scenery, she would not only do herself honor, but would secure for the future an important element in her material prosperity.
Mount Desert Island no doubt played a part in developing in the son, Charles Eliot, a keen eye for, and love of, natural beauty. He spent many summers exploring the island on an intimate level, as a member of the Champlain Society, a group of college students that studied the natural sciences and performed field work from their base camp on Somes Sound.
Charles Eliot [the son] became a landscape architect with the Olmsted firm in Boston, pioneering in developing design plans for preserving outstanding natural features in parks, while retaining their regional character. His defense for preserving a stand of virgin trees led to the formation of the Trustees of Public Reservations in Massachusetts. His work ended prematurely with his death in 1897.
Inspired by the article, Charles W. Eliot brought his son’s ideas to Mount Desert Island. The atmosphere on the island was receptive. Since the 1880s, others beguiled by the island’s beauty had organized themselves into public-spirited Village Improvement Societies, located in Bar Harbor, Seal Harbor, and Northeast Harbor. Their concerns ranged from sanitation to cultural events, and to the building of hiking trails. Eliot proposed to them to create an organization to set aside special lands. The response of the Village Improvement Societies was enthusiastic. Committees were formed, and on September 12, 1901, the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations was incorporated for the purpose of ‘…acquiring, owning and holding lands and other property in Hancock County for free public use.’
Donations of land were slow to come in at first, but five years after the inception of the Trustees, they were presented with a large tract encompassing the Bowl and the Beehive. When timber harvesting threatened Cadillac Mountain, the Trustees acquired its western slope in a tract that also included Pemetic and Bubble Mountains. The work of the Trustees gained steam. Donors presented gifts of land ranging from an acre or two to preserve a brook or favorite view, to much larger, wild tracts. Some land was purchased with aid from the island’s water companies to protect watersheds of lakes and ponds used as public water supplies, further preserving undeveloped tracts.
The efforts of the Trustees were not without criticism. The withdrawal of so much land from town tax rolls provoked a challenge in the Maine legislature to repeal the group’s tax-exempt status. Without it, the Trustees could not afford to retain their lands. The measure was defeated, but Trustee George B. Dorr feared they would be challenged again, and he believed the only way to truly protect Trustee lands was to attain national park status. With Charles W. Eliot’s blessing, George B. Dorr pursued national park status, and in 1916, presented 5,000 acres to the American people in the form of a national monument, penned into existence by President Woodrow Wilson. An act of Congress in 1919 designated Acadia as the first national park east of the Mississippi River.
When stating the case for a national park on the coast of Maine, George B. Dorr wrote:
Saved to future generations as it has been to us, in the wild primeval beauty of the nature it exhibits, of ancient rocks and still more ancient sea, with infinite detail of life and landscape interest between, the spirit and mind of man will surely find in it in the years and centuries to come an inspiration and a means of growth as essential to them ever and anon as are fresh air and sunshine to the body.
George B. Dorr’s words are still relevant today as Acadia National Park journeys into a new century. Thanks to the good stewardship of the park and its resources, Acadia is still much the same as when its lands were held by the Trustees. It is each generation’s responsibility to ensure this magnificent gift, enjoyed by millions, endures into the next century and beyond.”
Later, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. built the carriage roads and gave more than 11,000 acres, about one-third of the park's current area, to Acadia National Park. Additional small tracks of land and easements have been purchased to preserve scenic vistas.
