Gary Stellpflug says he is not sure when he first noticed the flat-topped granite rock off Kane Path in Acadia National Park, but he knew right away that it was not just any other boulder and more likely an undiscovered hidden gem in Acadia National Park.
We were thrilled to discover the Kane Path granite bench, a hidden gem in Acadia National Park, with Gary Stellpflug, seated on the left, and Terese Miller, standing on the right, as our guides.
“I remember walking by it, and saying, ‘Gee, that’s a bench’,” said Stellpflug, who retired from the National Park Service in 2022 after more than 35 years as foreman of the Acadia trails crew and now volunteers for the park.
Stellpflug said the stone bench was “unquestionably constructed,” likely hoisted out of a nearby boulder field more than a century ago by trail builders using a winch.
The Kane Path granite bench, roughly triangular-shaped with each side about 42 inches, is directly off a popular, maintained hiking trail. It’s very visible, but few people know of the bench’s existence and over the ages, countless visitors have probably walked by without noticing it. Or, if they did see it, they likely didn’t identify it as a bench and a hidden gem in Acadia National Park.
Secret spots on maintained trails in Acadia are rare
It’s remarkable to find an hidden gem in Acadia National Park off a maintained trail like the Kane Path bench. It is located in plain view just a few feet off one of Acadia’s up to 155 miles of maintained and mapped hiking trails. It is on the west side of Kane Path, only 0.3 mile one way from the Tarn parking lot.
Gary Stellpflug, retired trails foreman at Acadia National Park, on one of his visits to a little-known granite bench off Kane Path. The bench is next to the hiking trail, but most, if not all, people hike by it without realizing it is a bench, constructed in the early 1900s. (Photo provided by Gary Stellpflug)
Other similar, constructed granite benches are pretty much common knowledge and easy to spot. Those include two stone benches off Emery Path that ascends Dorr Mountain, one off the Orange & Black Path that goes up Champlain, and one at a viewpoint near the top of the Spring Trail, a popular way up Penobscot Mountain.
Stellpflug recently led us on a tour to the Kane Path bench with friends Maureen Fournier, a former ranger at Acadia, Jim Linnane, a longtime volunteer with the Friends of Acadia, and Terese Miller, a board member of the Tremont Historical Society who studies Acadia history as a hobby.
Fournier and Linnane are veteran hikers in the park and know it inside and out, but they didn’t previously know of the bench off Kane Path. We were all excited to get a tour from Stellpflug.
While the origins of the bench remain lost in history, Miller said that the bench was probably constructed by a crew that built Kane Path and was overseen by George B. Dorr, the first superintendent of Acadia and one of the park’s co-founders. Dorr may have even sat on the bench and held court, she noted.
Granite bench on Kane Path offers ideal view across The Tarn
“It’s a very clear view,” Miller said, as we looked out over The Tarn to a sweeping view of the face of Huguenot Head. “It’s kind of perfect.”
View across The Tarn to Huguenot Head, from the hidden bench along Kane Path.
Stellpflug said he considers the bench to be a largely forgotten part of Acadia’s history and a hidden gem in Acadia National Park. Stellpflug said the bench has its own story to tell about how trail builders more than a century ago constructed the bench just to provide a perch to enjoy the stunning view over the Tarn toward Huguenot Head, one of Acadia’s 26 peaks.
“Look how sturdy it is,” Stellpflug added before we all sat on the bench. “It’s not moving.”
It’s also unclear who built similar granite benches off the Spring Trail overlooking Jordan Pond, Emery Path with a view over the Great Meadow and the Orange & Black Path looking out at Frenchman Bay. Stellpflug told us the benches on Emery Path and Orange & Black Path were probably constructed by original builders.
“They are places that seem designed to fit a bench so I can only assume they were built as part of the original plan,” Stellpflug wrote in a follow up email. “I don’t have any documentation on that, just makes sense.”
“The one on Spring Trail?” he added. “Serendipity for that spot.”
Mysteries abound when it comes to Acadia benches and memorials
For example, did Princeton University Prof. Rudolph Brunnow, who laid out the Orange & Black Path around 1913 and named it for his school’s colors, call for the granite bench off the Orange & Black? Or maybe it was conceived and built by a crew overseen by Andrew Liscomb, longtime superintendent of paths for the Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association who is credited by Brunnow for supervising the construction of the Orange & Black.
A hiker enjoys the view from a granite bench off the Orange & Black Path
The stone bench was wiped out by a 1990s rock slide – not a 2006 earthquake that also struck the Orange & Black Path and forced closure of the path for three years. A replacement bench was built, according to our book Hiking Acadia National Park, which was fact-checked by the park before publication. Stellpflug said the bench was rebuilt more than once.
The uppermost bench on Emery Path was reset by the Acadia Trail Crew around 2010, he added. That bench had also become overgrown.
Acadia’s maintained hiking trails are dotted with memorial plaques and engraved stones in honor of trail builders, philanthropists who funded paths and others important to the park’s history.
For example, Kane Path prominently features a memorial plaque honoring John Innes Kane, an early donor of land that became Acadia, near the start of the trail, even if the granite bench further along the path is not apparent.
History of memorial bench on Jordan Pond is puzzling
Yet in another spot in Acadia, it’s not the bench on the south shore of Jordan Pond with an iconic view of the Bubbles that is hidden, but the memorial plaque on it that is cloaked in mystery.
Why was Sarah Eliza Sigourney Cushing honored with this prominent memorial bench on Jordan Pond in Acadia National Park? It’s an enigma. The reasons for the recognition are clear for the other 17 historic plaques and markers inside the park installed along the trails between 1844 and 1942, an historic period for the trails recorded in the National Register of Historic Places. (Photo by Don Lenahan, author of The Memorials of Acadia National Park)
Who was Sarah Eliza Sigourney Cushing?
It’s obvious that the memorial bench honors Cushing but the reason for the recognition is puzzling. According to her obituary, she died in 1915 and she was the wife of Prof. Edward Tuckerman, an accomplished botanist of Tuckerman Ravine fame in New Hampshire. The inscription on the plaque states, “In grateful loving memory of Sarah Eliza Sigourney Cushing wife of Edward Tuckerman 1832-1915. She dearly loved this spot.”
While it’s very noticeable to anyone walking Jordan Pond Path, the Cushing bench is engulfed in mystery and maybe its background qualifies as a hidden gem in Acadia National Park.
Even the National Park Service’s Cultural Landscapes Inventory on the Jordan Pond House offers little, saying only that the bench and plaque were installed sometime before 1933.
Historic trail system honors people with memorial plaques
Two feet in width at its widest end and nearly 7 feet long, an historic granite bench off the Spring Trail provides a stunning view of Pemetic Mountain to the east over Jordan Pond. in Acadia National Park. Thomas McIntire, who laid out the original Spring Trail. owned the Jordan Pond House from 1895 to 1928 and operated it for 51 seasons until 1945, according to an NPS report.
There are 18 plaques or markers installed along the trails in the historic Mountain Desert Island Hiking Trails system between 1844 to 1942, according to a report on the system in the National Register of Historic Places. For all of them, except for Sara Cushing, the reasons for the honor are clear, spelled out on the plaque or obtained through some easy research.
See plaques for Edward Rand, Waldron Bates, Joseph Allen, Lilian Francklyn, Morris and Maria DeWitt, and John Van Santvoord, to cite some examples.
Miller wrote in an email that she thinks the Cushing bench was placed around 1915 by the Seal Harbor Village Improvement Society. “Sarah Cushing died in 1915 and it would make sense that Edward Rand, a friend of the family, would want to make a memorial to her. As well, the extended family of Sarah Cushing were longtime summer visitors to Seal Harbor, often residing at the Glencove Inn in Seal Harbor.”
“Sarah’s husband, Professor Edward Tuckerman, was an established authority on lichens and a professor of botany at Amherst College from 1854 to his death in 1886,” Miller wrote. “Tuckerman was a friend of Waldron Bates, and well known to Edward Rand. Edward Rand was a botanist too, a member of the Champlain Society and a member of the Seal Harbor Village Improvement Society at the time of Sarah’s death. It’s possible that Edward Rand could have been behind the memorial bench since Jordan Pond fell within the Seal Harbor Village Improvement Society area.”
A hiker rests on an historic granite bench on Emery Path in Acadia National Park. Located near the top of the path, near the intersection with Schif Path, the bench is about 5 feet long and offers views of Frenchman Bay. It’s unclear who constructed the bench. We do know that Mrs. Alfred Anson donated the funds for the construction of the Emery Path in 1916 in memory of her first husband, John Emery.
It is unmistakable that Kane Path is a memorial trail that dates back to 1915 and history records who built it. The path was funded by Annie Schermerhorn Kane, the wife of John Innes Kane, chair of the Bar Harbor VIA from 1911 to 1912 and an early donor of land that helped create Acadia, according to “Pathmakers: Cultural Landscape Report for the Historic Hiking Trail System of Mount Desert Island,” an NPS report. Park founder George B. Dorr oversaw the construction and it was later improved by the Civilian Conservation Corps.
Schermerhorn Kane, and her sister, Fanny Schermerhorn Bridgham, also donated Lake Wood, a small pond with surrounding land, which is now part of the park, according to Miller.
Miller added that Schermerhorn Kane and her sister made a significant donation to Mount Desert Island Hospital. The two sisters also funded scholarships at Mount Desert Island High School and those scholarships still exist today.
NOTE: Gary Stellpflug is scheduled to speak about “Acadia’s Historic Trails” during an event starting 5:30 pm on June 18 at the Terramor Outdoor Resort. The event, part of the Pints for a Purpose series, is hosted by the Friends of Acadia and the resort. While the event is free, $1 of every beer purchased benefits the non-profit Friends of Acadia.