You Must Remember This…

Ghosts inhabit the forests, paths and barren rocky summits of Acadia National Park. And avid hiker Don Lenahan of Bar Harbor knows where most of them are buried, literally and metaphorically.

Mr. Lenahan is the author and publisher of a new book “The Memorials of Acadia National Park,” which locates and illuminates the history behind the nearly 60 granite and bronze memorials scattered about the park’s more than 44,000 acres.

Unique in the national parks system, Acadia was created largely through private donations of land. The likes of Charles Eliot, George B. Dorr and financier John D. Rockefeller, Jr., gathered and slowly began accumulating land on Mount Desert Island to protect it from the lumberman’s ax and from overdevelopment. As this preservation effort was proceeding, village improvement associations (VIA’s) and societies (VIS’s) around the island were creating and maintaining a vast network of trails which allowed the summer swells and other visitors a chance to tramp about the attractive woods and hills.

All this, of course, cost a lot of money. And the VIA’s, VIS’s and the Hancock Country Trustees for Public Reservations, and the early park service, were only too happy to acknowledge gifts and bequests by, in some cases, affixing bronze plaques to prominent outcroppings of ledge, having granite boulders or stone steps engraved, or merely naming trails in memory of the benefactor or one of their loved ones. The golden age of trailside memorials happened during the early years of the 20th century. There is a plaque to honor Mr. Rockefeller on Otter Cliffs, and a monument acknowledging the “discovery” of Mount Desert Island by French Explorer Samuel de Champlain in 1604, which sits in its second home near Seal Harbor after having been moved from Ocean Drive. On Gorham Mountain, a weathered bronze shield memorializes the efforts of “Waldron Bates, Pathfinder.”

Federal rules now make it extremely difficult to place memorials in the national parks. The last one erected in Acadia was cemented to a boulder on the east side of Jordan Pond in 2008 to honor Tris and Ruth Colket of Bar Harbor who endowed the Acadia Trails Forever Campaign with a gift of $5 million.

For Mr. Lenahan, his five-year labor of love to track down and research the park’s memorials is a natural offshoot of his love for hiking and exploring Acadia. A retired federal government worker, he moved here with his wife Marycarol in 2002. Mr. Lenahan has given thousands of hours of volunteer work to the park. He has helped maintain trails, been a Friends of Acadia (FOA) Ridge Runner, and also is a crew leader for FOA volunteers. He’s also one of “Waldron’s Warriors,” volunteers who patrol historic trails repairing Mr. Bates’ distinctive type of stone cairn which consists of a flat stone across two others with an indicator stone on top.

“During the summer I’m out in the park every day doing some kind of volunteer work,” explained Mr. Lenahan.

According to Mr. Lenahan, the first few years or so he spent hiking in the park he barely noticed the memorials. “I was just focused on the natural beauty and on where my feet were going,” he said. About six years ago he began to wonder about the memorials. “I got curious. I’ve been to a lot of national parks and I’d never seen anything like this. And, I didn’t know who most of these people were.”

When he started his research Mr. Lenahan figured it might take a year. It took him five. His quest included tramping to all the locations in the park and also to local libraries and historical societies. But he didn’t stop there. He also visited repositories of historic records in other states and even traveled to cemeteries where the memorials’ namesakes were buried.

While his book stops short of lengthy biographies, it does fully explain the subjects’ connection to Acadia. “As my research continued I felt I got to know these people,” Mr. Lenahan said.

Along the way he also dispelled some historical myths, such as the one mentioned in the recent Ken Burns documentary on national parks that said George Dorr’s ashes were spread from an airplane. “They weren’t,” he said.

Mr. Lenahan makes it easy to find the memorials. The 130-page book includes photos of each one and several color maps. The appendix also includes the exact GPS coordinates of each one.

Visiting some of the memorials sometimes involves a bit of bushwhacking, as they are overgrown, flooded out by beaver activity, or just located in obscure spots. But that is exactly they type of challenge many who enjoy orienteering or using GPS enjoy.

Mr. Lenahan’s favorite is the Lilian Endicott Francklyn memorial along the Gorge Trail between Dorr and Cadillac mountains.

“It’s exciting to find these manmade items in the middle of the wilderness. At least now when someone sees one of these they will be able to find out more about it,” Mr. Lenahan said.

Altogether, Mr. Lenahan has documented 59 memorials and named paths, including some on Isle au Haut and one at Schoodic. He’s been as thorough as anyone can be, but he admits there may be more out there. “I’m always nervous I missed one,” he said with a laugh.

Others have been similarly inspired but did not publish the results of their work. Dr. Judith Goldstein of Somesville produced a scholarly paper more than a decade ago profiling many of the monuments both inside and outside the park but it was not widely distributed and Mr. Lenahan was unaware of its existence

During his travels to uncover the memorials, Mr. Lenahan and his wife, with permission of park officials, have done some limited trimming of grasses or bushes to make them more readily visible.

“These are hidden gems. They are virtually unique in the national parks,” Mr. Lenahan said. “I think they are as unique and valuable a part of the park as the trail system and the carriage roads,” he continued. “They aren’t just names, they were real people. At the very least they deserve our respect.”

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