Description: The Northeast Harbor Fleet was formed in 1923 to vigorously promote recreational boating and sailboat racing off the coast of Mount Desert Island. They have two locations: The Fleet House at Gilpatrick Cove built in 1945, and Clifton Dock in Northeast Harbor, added in 1946 to provide additional moorings, dinghy tie-up, and fuel for boats. (Taken form the NEHF website)
Description: A brochure for the Cranberry Island Museum, which was then located at the long fellows school. Inside the brochure was a postcard that with a photo by Henry Finklestien on it.
Description: The records in the Woman’s Literary Club Collection includes manuscripts, typescripts, letters, annual meeting notes, scrapbooks, news clippings, photographs, meeting programs, photographs, and some objects. Belle Smallidge Knowles and Stella P. Hill, two college-educated women living in Northeast Harbor in the early 20th century, thought the community could benefit from a woman’s club. The Woman's Literary Club of Northeast Harbor held its first meeting in 1908 and quickly gained membership. Club members actively wrote papers (many award-winning) ranging from poetry to local family histories and biographies of famous artists. Members also participated in community improvement projects, and attended state and national women’s club meetings. The club disbanded in 2000 due to dwindling membership. [show more]
Description: In 1880 Charles Eliot, son of Harvard president Charles W. Eliot, organized the Champlain Society, a group of Harvard undergraduates, to explore Mount Desert Island and study various topics of natural history: botany, ornithology, geology etc. (from Item 2114)
Description: "At Southwest Harbor after J. T. R. Freeman, Mrs. Emily Robinson Farnsworth had the [post] office for some time; then J. A. Freeman and William J. Tower held it alternately according to change of political administration for several terms. Then E. S. Thurston was appointed and held office for twelve years until Earll W. Gott was appointed by Franklin D. Roosevelt. The office has changed location with every new postmaster…" - “Traditions and Records of Southwest Harbor and Somesville, Mount Desert Island, Maine” by Mrs. Seth S. Thornton, 1938, p. 105. "William J. Tower built the building east of the Jackson lot and he kept the post-office there for a number of years. He sold to E. S. Thurston when Mr. Thurston took over the duties of postmaster and after his services of twelve years were past, the property was sold in 1936 to Mrs. Fred A. Birlem whose son, Wallace Birlem, built the double garage behind it with living rooms above which he occupies [1938]." - “Traditions and Records of Southwest Harbor and Somesville, Mount Desert Island, Maine” by Mrs. Seth S. Thornton, 1938, p. 157. [show more]
Description: Nell Thornton famously said, in her book, The Traditions and Records of Southwest Harbor, “The Southwest Harbor Public Library had its beginning [as the Tremont Public Library] in 1884 when Mrs. Annie Sawyer Downs gathered a number of discarded books from the hotels, mostly paper covered volumes, and placed them on a shelf in one corner of Dr. R. J. Lemont's drug store…” The library was, as were many small libraries on the coast of Maine, started by “people from away,” in other words, summer people. This small library, however, was quickly adopted by native Southwest Harborians, and has grown, in the almost one and a half centuries since its founding, to be one of Maine’s very few five-star libraries, according to the Library Journal Index of Public Library Service. Thornton, Nellie C., Traditions and records of Southwest Harbor and Somesville, Mount Desert Island, Maine (Merrill & Webber Company, 1938, The Southwest Harbor Public Library, 1988) [show more]