You will probably like to know, on reaching New York, what has been done at Point d’Acadie during your absence.

Every Winter seems to be in some way a trying one at Mt. Desert. The special trial of the last was a fall of snow, followed by a warm rain, and then by intense cold, the result being that while the surface of the ground was thoroughly soaked, ice formed all through it and it was overlaid with a thick coat of ice instead of the usual blanket of snow. It seems to have resulted that all late sodding, all grass sowed late and all trees and shrubs planted late, were killed. Nearly everything planted early; that is to say, while Mr. Manning and I were there, and which had had time and warmth of soil enough to make roots in the Fall, is living and promising, and the effect, especially in the sheltered places of the woods, is already very good. The exception with respect to this early planting is of certain species near the shore which were probably killed by the salt spray. Other species along the shore, especially the Wild Roses, are flourishing. The trees set out under your personal direction were all killed absolutely.

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Most of the ground where the turf was killed has been re-sodded. The plantations have not been fully renewed, because at the planting time it was yet to be hoped that many of the shrubs might revive. The Spring was an unusually dry one, unfavorable to feeble plants. A great deal of labor had to be given to watering. It was not until the last of June that heavy rains came. Everything alive, we are advised, has been greatly revived by these; good growth is now making and I think you will find the general rural character of the place greatly improved when you next see it.

You will remember that just before you left, you had told us that you did not wish Haskell re-employed. This set us searching for a man to take his place. Engineers were in great demand at the moment, the City Engineer of Boston saying when I applied to him, that he had been himself for some time in need of six just such men as we wanted and had been unable to obtain them. One after another, we found three who were willing to go, provided they could be let off from previous engagements. We were in correspondence with each for a week, and each in succession failed us. The planting season came, and as a last resort, we engaged a man who was not an Engineer, but who we thought would answer the purpose, and Mr. Manning and I went to the place expecting to meet this man there. On arrival, we found a telegram saying that the sudden illness of his father compelled him also to break out of his engagement. This was our fourth disappointment. We fell back, first, on a gardener named Kirk, whom we knew to be a respectable and capable man, living in Brookline. He came to us within two days and we established him in general charge, Mr. Manning remaining a week after I left, to oversee and get him well started.

To set out the work, and more particularly to supervise the bathing pool operations, we engaged a local Engineer, named Savage, to serve by the day as he should be needed. He is a young man, but has good certificates of character from United States Engineers who have employed him on the breakwater and elsewhere. We were driven, as you will see, into a corner and the arrangement I have stated was the best we could make, without accepting delays in the advance of the work that I was sure would be very disappointing to you. Subsequent accounts from the work indicated more than usual difficulties with laborers. To get the better of them, men were brought from Bangor and Portland, but some of these, when they came to the place, refused to work in the wet ground; many left in a few days, seeking pleasanter work, and those remaining pursued such courses as to make Kirk feel exceedingly impatient, and to write to us that he could not prevent the work from being excessively costly. That you may understand the nature of the demoralization with which he had to contend, I will mention that when I was on the ground, I heard one Irishman, from whom I was accidentally concealed, say to another: “Vanderbilt don’t feel the cost of a thousand dollars more’n you or I would a penny.” Besides the anxiety which Kirk’s account gave us, we did not feel satisfied to trust a young and little known Engineer’s judgment as to the construction of the dam. There appeared reason to think that the force [355]of the sea, under certain circumstances, became intensely concentrated just at the point in question, and between the danger of a construction not strong enough and one excessively costly, we thought it better to call an Engineer in consultation who had special experience with sea walls on the Maine coast. We engaged for this purpose Mr. E. C. Jordan of Portland, with whom my son and I, with Mr. Savage, had a conference on the ground on the 17th of June. After careful review, Mr. Jordan approved our plans as they stood.

On account of the labor difficulties, we got an offer from Mr. Wescott, the mason who had been employed by Mr. Fox, to take the entire bathing pool work at fixed prices. Mr. Wescott was said to be the only man at Bar Harbor qualified for the work. There has, consequently, been no competition. The prices given us by Mr. Wescott seemd to us excessive, but, after much debate and efforts to reduce them, we at last contracted with him for all but the simple earth excavation. This we felt sure could be done by “day’s work” under Kirk, at less cost than Mr. Wescott was willing to undertake it for.

Just as we had come to the preliminary arrangement with Wescott, a great storm occurred, with a flood and eruption of the sea through the beach, injuring the coffer dam which Savage had already built, filling the pond, and in various ways setting back the work. This compelled a revision of the contract, especially with reference to the period of completion. Savage met the emergency in a very creditable way, getting an outlet for the brook above the bridge into the town sewer and starting at once a preventer coffer dam. The contract now requires Wescott to have the dam completed, except as to the coping, by the 20th, and he promises to put on a night force, if necessary to accomplish the object.

In my visit to the place in the Spring, I had expected to meet Mr. De-Grasse Fox, but he had returned to Philadelphia before I arrived. His associate (or the man whom he left in charge of the stable work) said that Mr. Fox had said that he had no instructions from you as to the plan of what was to be done between the house and the stable and about the stable, and had told him to look to me for his orders. I had had no instructions from you and could not fully recall what you had told me you had in view. I made sketches, however, and stated what I considered would be fitting at all points, and left word for Mr. Fox that if he had no contrary impression as to your intentions, I thought it would be better not to wait to hear further from you. He has accordingly gone ahead with the fences; and the paving, draining, sloping and sodding which I thought desirable has been done under my orders by Kirk. The result will not, perhaps, be just what you are anticipating, but I do not think you will find it inconvenient, or displeasing in general effect. It seemed to me, in the incomplete condition in which I last saw it, (June 17th) that, with some additional shrubbery and vines growing upon the fence, the general effect of the establishment as a whole was going to be very agreeable.

The platform you wished by the birch tree at the foot of the bank east of the house has been made and the slopes in all that quarter reformed and [356]

[357]turfed. The platform looks meaningless, needing plantations over and about it, and furniture in the form of seats and tables; but, as far as it goes, it will, I think, fairly meet your intentions.

I found the little bridge or culvert over the beach on the approach road looking badly in the Spring, the walls being evidently insecure from the effect of frost and the scouring of floods. I had it rebuilt more firmly and with a parapet of rocks, in place of the logs first laid, which had always had to me a shiftless look.

The statement of accounts for Bar Harbor is enclosed, showing that we had paid for you, up to 1st July, $7,252.90. Since then, we have paid some $1300.00 additional and we shall have to pay about $2500.00 on the dam contract during the next three weeks. The amount of pay-rolls and other outlays that will need payment by the 1st of August will probably be about $3000.00. To cover what is now due, and to enable us to avoid further borrowing at present, I suggest that before leaving for the South, you send us a cheque for $14,000.00, if convenient.

I have been nearly disabled by mysterious and painful disorders which the Doctors have lately demonstrated to have their origin in arsenical poisoning from upholstery in my private home. I am reckoning to go on with you, if you wish, on the 13th, but as I am not up to all the business now needed of us on the estate, especially if the weather should be bad, and as it is desirable that my son John should, before we set about the general plan, have some knowledge from personal observation of its topography and outlooks, I propose, with your leave, to have him with me. If your car is full, he can bunk elsewhere on the train. Mr. Codman is in Chicago.

Please telegraph, naming the train by which you propose to leave.

Yours Truly,