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The Pest Houses of Bar Harbor

For half a century the Town of Eden kept a small isolation hospital in the woods for anyone with smallpox, diphtheria, scarlet fever or typhoid. It moved three times. Deeds, town reports and old newspapers say where; GPS points, foundations and a scatter of pots and buckets confirm it.

See the three sites Open in the Atlas
Low stone foundation in a spruce wood with an old galvanized washtub in the foreground
Second pest house foundation, Brewer quarry road, 4 Aug 2010
What a pest house was

Not a joke, a plague house

"Pest" is short for pestilence, the old word for plague, and in the 1800s nearly every town kept one of these houses. The law said they had to be well away from other homes, and in Bar Harbor (still called the Town of Eden until 1918) that meant a cabin in the woods near Witch Hole Pond, and later near Eagle Lake.

The village hospital did not take contagious cases, so families, and sometimes children on their own, went into isolation there until they recovered or did not.

This page draws on David Goodrich's 2020 paper, Preliminary Findings Regarding Bar Harbor Pest Houses, and the field work that he and Les Heilakka did in 2010 and 2020.

White enamel bowl and a rusted bucket lying among leaves and birch saplings
Bowl and bucket below the ridge at the second site, 6 Aug 2020
Three sites, 1895–1947

Where they stood

The numbered pins mark each foundation. Smaller dots are the related points: deed corners, lot lines, wells, cairns and finds. The old roads to each site are drawn over the 1942 USGS map. Click any point for its field note.

Foundation or find Deed corner or lot line Cairn
1

Witch Hole Pond

In use by 1895 · bought by the town 1903 · sold back 1904

The first record is a sad one. The Bar Harbor Record of 18 December 1895 told of John Young, who had lost his wife and two children to typhoid; his ten-year-old son was living at "the pest house at the Witch Hole" in the care of Nicholas Curran. The building stood on land of the late Daniel W. Brewer, whose family ran an ice business on Witch Hole Pond.

At the March 1903 town meeting Eden voted $750 for the lot and $250 for repairs. On 14 March 1903 Frank Brewer sold the town 0.3 acre with the buildings on it, on the Corkscrew Hill Road about 125 yards from the Paradise Hill section of today's Park Loop Road. The Board of Health described an eight-room building, fairly well fitted, about two miles from the village.

A year later the town sold it back to Brewer for $1,000 and a new half-acre lot near Eagle Lake. Why he wanted it back is not recorded. Perhaps he needed it for the ice business, or perhaps a pest house beside the pond was bad for the reputation of his ice. The sale closed on 10 June 1904.

Found in the field · 31 July 2020

  • Foundation, 25 by 21 feet Show on map
  • The well beside it Show on map
  • The private way off the Corkscrew Hill Road, and where it ends Show on map
  • Deed corners paced out from a clump of birches at the junction (PH1-0 to PH1-3)
  • A "Relic" cairn nearby Show on map
Square stone and concrete well curb choked with leaves and branches
The well at the first pest house, 31 Jul 2020
2

Brewer quarry road, Eagle Lake

Built 1904 · in use into the 1920s · sold to George B. Dorr 1927

The town moved fast, perhaps too fast. On 13 April 1904 the Bar Harbor Record reported that Seth Hopkins had started work on a new pest house, three weeks before the town owned the land. It was a two-story wooden building, 24 feet square, with a hall, a large ward, a kitchen and a servant's room downstairs and a second ward upstairs. The deed of 6 May 1904 gave a half-acre lot, 143 by 152 feet, on the "old New Mill Meadow line", with a 16-foot right-of-way to the old Eagle Lake Road.

The deed alone could not place the lot, but the newspaper could: "on the eastern side of the Brewer quarry road just north of the old Eagle Lake Road … on the southern slope of the hill." That description brought back a 2010 walk. On 4 August 2010 Les and David had found a foundation on the east side of that very road, about 250 yards north of the Eagle Lake Road, with an old washtub beside it.

In 1910 George Marshall, his wife and their child were nursed here through diphtheria; the child died. Because the family were paupers, Eden sued Southwest Harbor for the cost of their care and won (Maine Reports, vol. 108, p. 489). By 1926 the town reported "no cases in the pest house". In 1927 it voted to sell, and on 21 April 1927 the lot went to George B. Dorr. It is now part of Acadia National Park.

Found in the field · 2010 and August 2020

Bates-style cairn of stacked flat stones in the woods near the second pest house
"Cairn LG" near the second site, 4 Aug 2020
3

The isolated hospital, Woodbury Road

Bought 1911 · in use through 1918 and 1926 · burned in the 1947 fire

In 1911 the town decided the Eagle Lake house would not do: it had no plumbing and no good water supply, even though the main water pipeline ran about 100 yards away. Eden voted $5,000 and on 24 March 1911 bought 4.5 acres off the Woodbury Road from Harriet Roberts. Town reports went on calling it the hospital "on the Eagle Lake Road".

Fred Savage, the architect of many Bar Harbor cottages, drew plans for an isolated hospital in 1913, although it is not certain they were the ones used. The 1916 Sanborn atlas marks a "Contagious Hospital" here. It was used in the 1918 influenza epidemic and again in 1926. The town paid for its upkeep most years until 1947, and the building burned in the great fire that October.

Found in the field · 31 July 2020

  • Foundation Show on map
  • Survey bolt at the lot Show on map
  • A "hospital" cairn beside it Show on map
  • The 1911 lot boundary, plotted from the deed survey ("New Isolate" 1 to 8)
Tumbled concrete and stone foundation under young trees and ferns
Third pest house foundation, 31 Jul 2020
Timeline

Fifty years in eleven dates

  1. 1895A typhoid case: the Young boy goes to the pest house at the Witch Hole, on Brewer land.
  2. 14 Mar 1903Eden buys the Witch Hole lot and its eight-room building from Frank Brewer.
  3. Mar 1904The town meeting votes to sell it back to Brewer for $1,000 and a new lot near Eagle Lake.
  4. 13 Apr 1904Seth Hopkins is already building the second pest house on the Brewer quarry road.
  5. 6 May 1904Brewer deeds the half-acre lot on the old New Mill Meadow line.
  6. 10 Jun 1904The Witch Hole lot is sold back to Brewer.
  7. 1910The Marshall family is nursed through diphtheria; the case ends up in Maine's highest court.
  8. 24 Mar 1911The town buys 4.5 acres off Woodbury Road for a proper isolated hospital.
  9. 1918The isolated hospital takes patients during the influenza epidemic.
  10. 21 Apr 1927With contagious disease on the wane, the old pest house lot is sold to George B. Dorr.
  11. Oct 1947The isolated hospital burns in the Bar Harbor fire.
From the archive

Deeds, reports and clippings

The documents behind this story, all in the Library.

Preliminary Findings Regarding Bar Harbor Pest HousesDavid Goodrich, 2020 · research paper with maps and photos Deeds for the three pest housesBearings and distances for all three lots Brewer deed for Pest House 2Frank Brewer to the Town of Eden, 1904 Brewer to Town of Eden, 1904Deed Pest house news clippingsBar Harbor Record, 1903–1904 The Young family, 1895Bar Harbor Record State Board of Health reportClinical notes on the 1895 typhoid case Sanborn atlas of Bar Harbor, 1916Shows the "Contagious Hospital" Bar Harbor annual report, 1918Lists both isolated hospital properties Pest house and Half Moon Pond lot correspondenceProperty papers MDI Hospital Historic Journal120th anniversary, 2017 Hidden history: the pest houses of Mount Desert IslandBecky Pritchard, Mount Desert Islander, 19 Jul 2020

Further reading: Hidden history: the "pest houses" of Mount Desert Island (Mount Desert Islander), which also follows the Town of Mount Desert's pest house near Somes Sound, burned in 1966. Goodrich's paper cites the Hancock County Registry of Deeds, the Bar Harbor Record, the Bar Harbor Times and Lydia Vandenbergh and Earle Shettleworth's Bar Harbor's Gilded Century.

Walk lightly

The second site is inside Acadia National Park, and the others are in or near it; check land ownership before you go. Look, photograph and leave everything where you find it: the pots, buckets and pipe are part of the record, and removing artifacts from park land is against federal law.

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