A SHORT HISTORY OF NORTHEAST HARBOR The summer colony was founded in the 1880's by the Right Reverend William C. Doane, Bishop of Albany; Charles W. Eliot, President of Harvard Univer- sity, and Joseph H. Curtis, landscape architect. There was only one store and a dozen houses when they arrived - and no church. So, with money given by Mrs. Edward Perkins, Bishop Doane built a wooden chapel in 1882 and called it St. Mary's by the Sea - Mrs. Perkins' name was Mary. Pres! Eliot, not to be outdone, promptly raised money for the Unitarian Church- dubbed by local wits "St. Charles in the Woods". The Asticou Inn, where we will be having lunch, was started as the Harbor cottages. This Inn was built in 1890 by Augustus C. Savage. The original inn was burned down and rebuilt in 1910. It was reinovated in the early 1960's and is now run by Astikin - a combination of the old Asticou and the old Kimball House which was torn down. This corporation was started in 1964. The round buildings you will see on your right are called "Topsiders". They are built on a pipe in the middle and have 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, a living room and a kitchenette. They cost $114 per day for 2 including breakfast and dinner. Opposite the Asticou entrance is the very beautiful Azalea garden, some of the plants were given by Rockefeller. The garden was designed by Charles Savage in 1960. Mr. Savage also was in charge of maintaining the Thuya Gardens after Mr. Curtis' death and with Rockefeller support did some redesigning of the Thuya Gardens. A CAPSULE HISTORY OF MT. DESERT ISLAND First of all how do you pronounce it? According to Samuel Eliot Morison, President Eliot was in favor of the 'Sahara School pronouncing it Mount Dez'-ert. I quote Admiral Morison - "Bishop Doane, on the other hand, unwilling to take orders from a Unitarian, always accented the last syllable; (Mount Dez-ert') and, as my parents were Episcopalians we followed the Bishop rather than Cousin Charles." Most of us call it Mount Dez-ert' which is referred to as the Ice Cream and Cake School. About one million years ago the ice cap in Pleistocene epoch was per- haps 2 miles thick, and swept from North to South - grinding the granite mountains smooth; gouging out all the lakes and ponds lengthwise from N. to S. including the only fiord on the East Coast - Somes Sound. Mt. Desert WAS left, an island, 16 miles long, 13 miles wide - or 108 square miles. It is our largest island, after long Island and Martha's Vineyard, on the East Coast. We have 9,000 year round inhabitants. Before 4,000 B.C. there was evidence of tuna fishermen in these waters, living on the island. By 4,000 B.C. the Red Paint People had turned up- so called because they were highly addicted to making up their faces and bodies with red and oohre paint. They made cutting tools of smoke slate, tobacco. pottery and struck flint with iron for fire. They did not The next record we have is of the Abnaki Indians. They were of the Algonquin language group. The Pasamaquoddy and Penobscot tribes of the Abnaki were here to welcome the first Europeans when they arrived. These Indians were summer folk on Mt. Desert, which they called Penetic. Would you believe they could make birch bark buckets in which you could boil water? Their enormous shell heaps were silent proof along the shores of their many happy summers spent here. Sometimes, in winter, the young braves would return to hunt moose - forcing them, with lighted torches into the water where they would kill them with their bows and arrows. Their summer colony lingered into the 2840's and Admiral Morison un- earthed the following poem by Adelma Joy, a local storekeeper "They often made us visits, wearing their bright plaid shawls, and shining beaver hats. They sat at the table with them on;