Now the site of "Indian Lot Cottage" built in 1927 by the Norwoods for George Ashbridge Rhoads and still owned, in 2007, by Rhoads descendents, the Obbard family.
"I think it was the same year (1847) that fifteen or twenty Indians from Oldtown camped on the salt water shore opposite Parkers. The chief said they had been rehearsing their old customs and would like the right to give an exhibition if a hall could be found that was large enough. The woolen factory was not in use at that time so it was opened for the purpose…The Indians dressed in their war paint and feathers and gave their dances with flourishing tomahawks and blood-curdling yells. One of the tribe could play the violin with considerable skill…" - Traditions and Records of Southwest Harbor and Somesville, Mount Desert Island, Maine by Mrs. Seth S. Thornton, p. 255 - 1938.
"For many years Indians from Oldtown came every summer and encamped on the rocky lot across from the Parker property. They pitched their tents and remained for the summer, selling their baskets. The men roamed the woods gathering sweet grass and occasionally cutting an ash tree, which right they were vouchsafed by the owners of the land as it was an unwritten law that the Indians could have an occasional tree to use in their work from the land that, not so long before, had belonged entirely to them. They were quiet, law-abiding neighbors and the encampment was one of the picturesque sights of the town. When in 1925 George A. Rhoads of Wilmington, Delaware, built his house on the camp site, he called it Indian Lot.” - Traditions and Records of Southwest Harbor and Somesville, Mount Desert Island, Maine by Mrs. Seth S. Thornton, 1938, p. 167.
"Indians from Oldtown, Maine camped on the rocks across [Clark Point Road] from our house [the Parker house at 143 Clark Point Road] each summer. They lived in tents and sold baskets, moccasins and small birch bark canoes. Some of the baskets were made of wood and some almost entirely of sweetgrass which had a very pleasant odor. This grass was secured from the marshes at Bass Harbor and would be cured by being hung up in large bunches. They also cut some ash wood for use in making the wooden baskets. As the same Indians returned year after year we became well acquainted with them. In later years the older Indian boys played baseball with us." - “Recollections of Southwest Harbor, Maine 1885-1894” by Jesse L. Parker, p. 40, manuscript, 1955. This valuable manuscript is a narrative of the early history of the town by an eyewitness. There are largely unknown or unreported facts on almost every page.
See “Indians in Eden: Wabanakis and Rusticators on Maine’s Mount Desert Island, 1840s-1920’s” by Bunny McBride and Harlod E. L. Prins.
