Quimby donates land to Acadia NP

By Bill Trotter
BDN Staff

ACADIA NATIONAL PARK — A firm owned by Roxanne Quimby that hopes to donate more than 87,000 acres of land in northern Maine to the federal government for the creation of a national monument has completed a separate donation of 80 acres of land on Mount Desert Island to Acadia National Park.

The transfer of the land owned by Elliotsville Plantation, spread out among nine properties on MDI, was completed on Aug. 11, according to park spokesman John Kelly.

The nonprofit acquired the land on MDI through a series of purchases that date back to 2005, when it expressly set out to acquire land that it would later donate to the park, Elliotsville officials said this past spring.

All of the donated land lies within a boundary limit for Acadia that was established by Congress in 1986, Kelly said Friday. Some of the donated parcels were part of larger properties owned by Elliotsville that straddled the 1986 boundary limit. Quimby’s firm subdivided those properties and is retaining the portions that lie outside that mandated limit, he said.

Among the properties Elliotsville donated last week to Acadia are:

— 32 acres at the north end of Round Pond in Mount Desert.

— A parcel smaller than 1 acre that is near Wildwood Stables in Mount Desert and is completely surrounded by the park.

— 15 acres close to the south end of Long Pond in Southwest Harbor.

— The former White Birches Campground, 9 acres in size, on Seal Cove Road in Southwest Harbor.

— 5 acres of woods and wetland in Southwest Harbor that line the eastern bank of Marshall Brook.

Two properties that straddle the 1986 boundary limit that were subdivided and then donated in part to Acadia include one in the Tremont village of Bass Harbor and another on Otter Cliffs Road in Bar Harbor.

Kevin Schneider, superintendent of Acadia, said in a prepared statement that the park is “very grateful” for Elliotsville’s gift of land on MDI for public use.

“We also appreciate the great support and coordination of our land conservation partners, Maine Coast Heritage Trust and Friends of Acadia, which helped make the donation possible,” Schneider said. “This donation continues the tradition of philanthropy that resulted in the creation of the national park from private land 100 years ago.”

Elliotsville also has acquired lands in other states and donated them to Saguaro National Park in Arizona, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park in Colorado, Colorado National Monument, Glacier National Park in Montana and Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania, according to the nonprofit’s tax returns.