Isaac Stanley's Wonderland Lobster Pound at Seawall and Abel's Pound at Richville
Identifier:
16631 
Title:
Isaac Stanley's Wonderland Lobster Pound at Seawall and Abel's Pound at Richville
Subject:
Description:
Bar Harbor Times, Wednesday, June 6, 1928
LOBSTER POUNDS ARE POPULAR PICNIC RESORTS
Wonderland at Seawall and Abel's Pound at Richville Opened for 1928 Season
The picnic lobster pound is a new and very popular form of beach resort. Lobster pounds, dammed-up pools or coves similar to salt water swimming pools, have been used for many years for the purpose of keeping large quantities of live lobsters for long periods. Within the last few years it has been found that a lobster pound that happens to be situated on a picturesque piece of rocky shore backed up by spruce groves, and is supplied with an open fire and iron kettle makes an ideal picnic place.
The two places on Mt. Desert that are primarily pleasure resort pounds are both new, and are both so busy that their boiling kettles work at capacity during the summer.
One is ''Wonderland", Isaac Stanley's pound at Seawall. Mr. Stanley's property consists of 147 acres of high wooded land with a shore front a mile and three quarters in length, including Bennett's Cove, Mullin's Cove, and Bennett's Cove Head between them. That point is the extreme southeastern tip of Mount Desert Island and is thrust out into the open ocean where Long Ledge runs off into the section of Atlantic Ocean between Great Gott's Island and Great Cranberry Island.
The pound is made by a dam across one corner of Bennett's Cove. Instead of putting lobsters into it, they are kept in a car floating in the pound, and the pound is stocked with cod and haddock, so that guests can get their own dinner with hook and line if they prefer that kind to lobster.
There is a large log cabin dining-room, sealed inside with fragrant cedar boards, for use on days when it is too cool or too damp to picnic on the beach or in the spruce grove. Besides the log cabin there are several other smaller cabins, and a house-boat which is hauled up on the beach inside the pound, which are let to guests as overnight camps or as cottages for the week or season. One of the cabins, just being completed, is built completely of cedar which was growing in trees a few weeks ago.
"Wonderland" is unique in several ways, with its remarkably cool location, its moss-carpeted woodland of big spruce, and its peculiar beach formation of huge sea-smoothe granite rocks, and it attracts many visitors by sea and land. On one Sunday last summer Mr. Stanley counted nearly three hundred cars at his place during the day. Not all of the people who visit the Seawall pound go there to buy lobsters; many of them merely wish to enjoy an hour on a bit of Mount Desert's rugged shore. They are just as welcome in any case, and customers and guests meet with the same real "down east" hospitality. Mr. Stanley's place is already opened for the season, and on the last two Sundays entertained quite a number of visitors.
Henry Abel's park is situated farther around on the western side of Mt. Desert, at Richville, a little cove between Bass Harbor and Goose Cove. Mr. Abel has one of the fine little headlands of the Island, which for purposes such as his, are rapidly decreasing in number as the shoreline is sold for summer estates. In some ways this spot is like Wonderland. It has a bluff granite promontory with a little harbor on one side, and a seawall beach on the other, and a growth of big evergreens with little grass and moss glades among the trees comes down to the landward edge of the ledges; but whereas Mr. Stanley's pound is on the open ocean, this one is on the shore of Bluehill Bay which is a deep and wide, but generally smooth, expanse of water. It has a beautiful panorama of the string of islands which some five miles out form the western and southern breakwater that shelters the bay.
Back of the beach at the east of the point is Gundlow Pond a curious little precisely skow-shaped salt pool that rises and falls with the tide, although it is separated from the ocean by a hundred
and fifty feet of high-heaped seawall.
Abel's Pound has a houseboat hauled up among the trees, and several cabins, which are used to serve lobster dinners in inclement weather, or for overnight or weekly parties. Then it has an outfit of rustic seats and tables along the shore and through the grove. The park furnishes boats and tackle to its guests so that they can enjoy the very good deep-water fishing to be had just off the shore.
Mr. Abel makes a specialty of taking care of his quests in any weather, or at any time of the day or evening, as he has found that people who are on the Island for a week-end of for a limited vacation period must utilize their time fully without waiting for ideal days and nights.
LOBSTER POUNDS ARE POPULAR PICNIC RESORTS
Wonderland at Seawall and Abel's Pound at Richville Opened for 1928 Season
The picnic lobster pound is a new and very popular form of beach resort. Lobster pounds, dammed-up pools or coves similar to salt water swimming pools, have been used for many years for the purpose of keeping large quantities of live lobsters for long periods. Within the last few years it has been found that a lobster pound that happens to be situated on a picturesque piece of rocky shore backed up by spruce groves, and is supplied with an open fire and iron kettle makes an ideal picnic place.
The two places on Mt. Desert that are primarily pleasure resort pounds are both new, and are both so busy that their boiling kettles work at capacity during the summer.
One is ''Wonderland", Isaac Stanley's pound at Seawall. Mr. Stanley's property consists of 147 acres of high wooded land with a shore front a mile and three quarters in length, including Bennett's Cove, Mullin's Cove, and Bennett's Cove Head between them. That point is the extreme southeastern tip of Mount Desert Island and is thrust out into the open ocean where Long Ledge runs off into the section of Atlantic Ocean between Great Gott's Island and Great Cranberry Island.
The pound is made by a dam across one corner of Bennett's Cove. Instead of putting lobsters into it, they are kept in a car floating in the pound, and the pound is stocked with cod and haddock, so that guests can get their own dinner with hook and line if they prefer that kind to lobster.
There is a large log cabin dining-room, sealed inside with fragrant cedar boards, for use on days when it is too cool or too damp to picnic on the beach or in the spruce grove. Besides the log cabin there are several other smaller cabins, and a house-boat which is hauled up on the beach inside the pound, which are let to guests as overnight camps or as cottages for the week or season. One of the cabins, just being completed, is built completely of cedar which was growing in trees a few weeks ago.
"Wonderland" is unique in several ways, with its remarkably cool location, its moss-carpeted woodland of big spruce, and its peculiar beach formation of huge sea-smoothe granite rocks, and it attracts many visitors by sea and land. On one Sunday last summer Mr. Stanley counted nearly three hundred cars at his place during the day. Not all of the people who visit the Seawall pound go there to buy lobsters; many of them merely wish to enjoy an hour on a bit of Mount Desert's rugged shore. They are just as welcome in any case, and customers and guests meet with the same real "down east" hospitality. Mr. Stanley's place is already opened for the season, and on the last two Sundays entertained quite a number of visitors.
Henry Abel's park is situated farther around on the western side of Mt. Desert, at Richville, a little cove between Bass Harbor and Goose Cove. Mr. Abel has one of the fine little headlands of the Island, which for purposes such as his, are rapidly decreasing in number as the shoreline is sold for summer estates. In some ways this spot is like Wonderland. It has a bluff granite promontory with a little harbor on one side, and a seawall beach on the other, and a growth of big evergreens with little grass and moss glades among the trees comes down to the landward edge of the ledges; but whereas Mr. Stanley's pound is on the open ocean, this one is on the shore of Bluehill Bay which is a deep and wide, but generally smooth, expanse of water. It has a beautiful panorama of the string of islands which some five miles out form the western and southern breakwater that shelters the bay.
Back of the beach at the east of the point is Gundlow Pond a curious little precisely skow-shaped salt pool that rises and falls with the tide, although it is separated from the ocean by a hundred
and fifty feet of high-heaped seawall.
Abel's Pound has a houseboat hauled up among the trees, and several cabins, which are used to serve lobster dinners in inclement weather, or for overnight or weekly parties. Then it has an outfit of rustic seats and tables along the shore and through the grove. The park furnishes boats and tackle to its guests so that they can enjoy the very good deep-water fishing to be had just off the shore.
Mr. Abel makes a specialty of taking care of his quests in any weather, or at any time of the day or evening, as he has found that people who are on the Island for a week-end of for a limited vacation period must utilize their time fully without waiting for ideal days and nights.
Publisher:
Bar Harbor Times
Place:
Southwest Harbor, Seawall
State:
ME
Country:
USA
Date:
June 6, 1928
Source:
Rights:
Citation
“Isaac Stanley's Wonderland Lobster Pound at Seawall and Abel's Pound at Richville,” Southwest Harbor Public Library, accessed October 4, 2023, https://swhpl.digitalarchive.us/items/show/12781.Item 16631