By: Sam Younger

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Sorrento faces the magnificent landscape of Acadia National Park along the rocky shores of Frenchman Bay. For generations, close-knit groups of people have enjoyed living and vacationing on this small peninsula in Maine. One theory says the native Wabanaki people called this place Waukeag for the seals that frolicked in its waters and with whom they shared the bounties of the sea. When colonists displaced the indigenous tribes, they named their settlement New Bristol in honor of the bustling maritime port west of London.

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During the American Revolution, volunteers of local men led by Captain Daniel Sullivan made numerous incursions against the British along the Maine coast. In retribution, Sullivan was kidnapped and his homestead opposite Mount Desert Island was burned to the ground. After American independence, his heroism was honored when the town was renamed Sullivan in 1789.  Many of the men who served in his brigades continued to live on Waukeag Neck with their families on points of land that jutted into the bays where they farmed, fished, and cut lumber. But year-round life along the scenic but isolated coast of Down East Maine was never easy.

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In the late 19th Century, another type of American began to visit, drawn to the area from the crowded cities by the fresh sea air and beautiful landscapes. One of these early “rusticators” was Charles Eliot, the president of Harvard University. After spending a summer camping on Calf Island, Eliot made an offer to the Bean family to purchase their homestead on Waukeag Neck. While his effort was unsuccessful, another investor named Charles H. Lewis presented Captain Elijah Doane with a suitable offer in 1886 to buy his point of land. Lewis then succeeded in purchasing the Bean family farm, which lay opposite Dram and Preble Islands along what was then called Point Harbor.

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Lewis incorporated the Frenchman’s Bay and Mount Desert Land and Water Company to pursue his dream of building a new resort to attract some of the well-to-do travelers who were flocking to Bar Harbor. When a friend suggested that the views from the property were reminiscent of the sweeping mountain vistas he had encountered along the Bay of Naples in Italy, Lewis chose to name his new development Sorrento.

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Within a short time, however, another investor – Frank Jones a powerful New Hampshire Democratic politician and the largest ale brewer in the US – took control of the stock in the land company. Jones built summer cottages for his family and a six-story, 100-room hotel with long piazzas overlooking the harbor. In 1893 his wife Martha Jones gifted the community a handsome library designed by the Boston firm of Ball and Dabney. Then in 1895, Frank Jones successfully lobbied the Maine legislature to incorporate the land on the peninsula as the Town of Sorrento, an independent village separate from Sullivan.

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While Sorrento was a lively summer resort during the late 1890s it never became as prominent as the Gilded Age resorts of Bar Harbor or Newport, and its cottages were never quite as large. The people who traveled by railroad and steamship from the cities along the East Coast were lured to vacation in Sorrento by promotional materials that advertised its clean pine-scented air, healthy pristine waters, temperate weather, and quiet atmosphere.

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One of those cottagers was Eva Cochran, the heir to a large New York-based carpet empire. Eva and her family loved spending summers at her modest cottage designed by Frank Hill Smith named “Tassletop.” She donated a silver cup awarded to the winner of the Maine State tennis championship held at the hotel, and to support the spiritual life at the resort, Eva commissioned Rotch & Tilden to design an intimate chapel that was consecrated as the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer in 1890.

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After Frank Jones died in 1903 his family began to divest themselves of their property holdings in Sorrento and a series of new owners tried to attract buyers to the small town. These efforts were largely unsuccessful and in 1927 an investor from Harlem in NYC named John Nail won the rights at auction to buy 1200 plots in Sorrento. Unable to raise the funds needed to make the purchase, however, Nail’s dream of establishing the first Black-owned resort for African Americans faded.

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In the 1940s Eva Cochran’s granddaughter Alexandra Ewing Stone was able to purchase the tracts of land previously owned by Jones from the family of Northeast Harbor businessman Merrit T. Ober.  Descendants of Eva Cochran continue to spend their summers in Sorrento and have given much to the community including the picturesque Blink Bonnie Golf Links.

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But Sorrento has always been so much more than a summer resort. Generations of residents dedicated their lives to the town, raised their families here, and made this special place their home. Many earned their livelihoods fishing in the bay, like the Wests and Trundys, or constructing houses like Ed Hale and his nephew Clif. Today, others carry on those trades as well as a host of new occupations their ancestors could not fathom. Over the years, the contributions of the full-time citizens who volunteer countless hours supporting the town, together with summer people fortunate to spend vacations (or eventually retire) in this lovely spot, combine to make Sorrento a truly unique community.