The Man Who Bought Cadillac Mountain.
John Stewart Kennedy might not be the first Kennedy people think of when they think of that last name or even of scandal, but the Scottish-born American businessman definitely made himself known in the United States and in Bar Harbor.
He is also the man who bought Cadillac Mountain.
The fifth son of nine children, Kennedy was born in 1830 in Blantyre, Scotland. His family eventually moved to Glasgow and he worked in the days as a shipping clerk and at night to finish his schooling. He eventually became a salesman at at twenty, an iron firm asked him to be its representative in North America. He returned to Glasgow for a while after his brother drowned. Once back in New York, he created a company with Morris Ketchum Jesup. They started off all about railroad iron, but recreated themselves to focus instead on banking. And eventually the New Yorkers would be Bar Harbor summer neighbors. Our local library is named after Jesup.
He formed a banking firm and his finances increased more and more until he was eventually the USA liquidator for the City of Glasow Bank shareholders. Then he became the president of the Bank of Manhatten Company. Not too bad for a kid who was a shipping clerk, trying to get his schooling done at night.
There are no trails or mountains named after John Stewart Kennedy, but he was instrumental in creating Acadia National Park. Part of the quietness around him was because he thought grand announcements were ostentatious when they were about philanthropy. Part of that lack of celebration of his accomplishments was because he was private. Part of it was because he died about ten years before Acadia became a reality.
One of the last things he told his wife, whispering on his death bed, was about a promise to buy Huguenot Head (then called Pickett Mountain). She sent a check.
John had married Emma Baker. Her dad, Cornelius, helped found New York University. They had no children, but Cornelius is remembered as a railroad builder and philanthropist. He died leaving behind $67 million.
In New York, John Stewart died of whooping cough. Emma died in Bar Harbor in 1930 at Kenarden, an estate currently owned by the Colket family, heirs to the Campbell Soup fortune. Emma was 96.
They’d built Kenarden Lodge back in 1892 and at the time it was part of the Shore Path. It cost $200,000 and it had its own power plant. The estate encompassed twenty acres of woods from Cromwell Harbor’s north side to the southern part of Maine Street. There were forty-five rooms in the mock-Tudor and 250 feet faced the sea. Allegedly because of its use of electricity, which was brand new in homes and still rare, people thought it looked “like a fairy palace.” Beatrix Jones Farrand created the gardens.
William Baker writes, “In the summer of 1899 the Kennedys hosted a large, boisterous lawn party of officers from six British warships docked off Bar Harbor.
“As boars came and went all afternoon from the ships to the Kennedys’ dock, colorfully attired naval officers ate, drank, and chatted with Bar Harbor’s summer society. A British military band played all afternoon and evening. To Kennedy’s great delight, a Scotsman strutted up and down the lawn in full Highland regalia, playing bagpipes.”
Kennedy liked to nap in the morning. He was not to be disturbed. J.P. Morgan decided to visit him then, but Jim Foley, the carriage driver refused to go on the grounds. He said Morgan would have to call ahead and ask if it was okay first. Morgan wasn’t used to be told no.
Baker writes, “Jim Foley declared simply that he ‘didn’t give a damn who Morgan was.’” He cared about Kennedy.
Kennedy’s passion in those Bar Harbor summers was to improve the community, a passion and philanthropy shared by Ruth Colket now. Mrs. Colket has supported more nonprofit work in the town than can possibly be listed here.
Kennedy wanted saloons to be hidden. He wanted gambling halls banned. When the Rodick family (who supplied the town water) refused to increase his water allotment to water the gardens, he created the Bar Harbor Water Company. The public could buy stock. That company was eventually purchased by the town. He was also one of the many men who created the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations. This became one of the big impetuses that allowed the creation of Acadia. The goal of the group was “to acquire, hold, and maintain and improve for free public use lands in Hancock County which by reason of scenic beauty, historical interest, sanitary advantage or for other reasons may be available for that purpose.”
Kennedy’s neighbor, George Dorr (who is remembered as the father of Acadia), told him that Cadillac Mountain (it was called Green back then) was being ruined. Two inns—not snazzy inns—and a railway that went from the mountain’s peak to Eagle Lake was going to ruin the mountain. It would be commercialized. It would be overrun by tourists.
That couldn’t happen, they decided.
So, Kennedy bought the mountain.
After the Kennedys, it was purchased by Dr. Thompson Dorrance. The original lodge was torn down in 1960. And eventually, it became one of the most visited sites of Acadia National Park.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1930/07/24/96171708.html?pageNumber=15
https://docslib.org/doc/12011451/investing-in-acadia-the-invisible-hand-of-john-stewart-kennedy