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In his biography of Stephen Mather, Robert Shankland explores the advent of the transportation system in Glacier National Park: “To run a park transportation line, he [Mather] gave his blessing to Roe Emery, who became a close friend of Mather’s.”   More than once, Emery was ‘in the room where it happened.’ Again, drawing from Shankland’s book, in 1917 Emery, and others of the inner circle, hosted a dinner for Stephen at the Cosmos Club in an attempt to steer and cheer him from an accelerating depression.  And most famously, Emery and Stephen’s daughter, Bertha, were on-site when Stephen—and thirteen charges of dynamite--blew up the Great Northern’s sawmill.     The Glacier transportation franchise was not Lereaux William Emery’s first rodeo.  In “1919 the National Park Service awarded an exclusive franchise to Roe Emery's Rocky Mountain Parks' Transportation Company to carry passengers in the Park for profit.”    At the same time Emery envisioned a lodge in the park and eventually secured financing from a wealthy friend, A. D. Lewis. Emery took over control of the hotels in 1923 and renamed the Lewiston the Estes Park Chalet. Later he acquired the landmark Stanley Hotel in Estes, CO.   With the completion of Fall River Road, Emery’s dream of a Circle Tour of the central Colorado Rockies became a reality. “White autos” [manufactured by the White Automobile Company] could seat eleven people. A two-day trip with hotel and four meals was $33. A three-day trip with 2 nights and seven meals was $39.00 and a four-day Trip with three nights and ten meals was $45.00. Roe Emery (left) with one of his Red Jammer busses in 1916.

Among the many samplers on display at Mather Homestead, one stands out for its detail, exceptional needlework, choice of verse, and its age. It has a flower and vine border, a design of flowers, trees, bird, butterflies, and cat, around a 20-line verse.  The work has an embroidered signature and date: Hannah Stuniken /December 20, 1794.   In a 2017 appraisal of the contents of the Homestead, the appraiser concluded that the sampler’s provenance was “Unknown” and that the sampler itself was “American Schoolgirl Needlework.”   In fact, the provenance can be established and Hannah Stuniken was British, not American, and never set foot on American soil.   An earlier blog (“A Petticoat…) identified a handkerchief belonging to Dorothea Stuniken, Stephen Mather’s great grandmother.   Dorothea Stuniken was the daughter of Daniel Stuniken and Hannah Warren.  Two years younger than Dorothea, her sister Hannah was born in 1780.  Hannah was fourteen years old when she made this sampler.    Hannah married Timothy Claxton in 1812 in London.  Unlike Dorothea who emigrated in 1858, Hannah lived in England her entire life, dying in Somerset in 1867.  In all likelihood, the sampler came to America with Dorothea or Dorothea’s daughter, Sophie Walker, Stephen Mather’s maternal grandmother.    A sampler that has not only traveled across the ocean, but through 230 years of time, now welcomingly rests on view just inside the front door of the Mather Homestead.  Come see.

According to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, “Samplers depicting alphabets and numeral were worked by young women to learn the basic needlework skills needed to operate the family household.”  In the Homestead we have three samplers that have not only letters and numbers, but much more as well.     The Eliza Sumner Sampler.  Dated 1821, this sampler, with figures, animals, and biblical script, was purchased by Bertha Mather McPherson from a local antique shop in 1957.  The first section reads, “Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain but a woman that feareth the lord she shall be praised.”   The lower text with figures of Adam and Eve reads, “Adam and Eve Whilest innocent in paradise were placed but soon the serpent by his while the happy pair disgraced.”  The stitched signature is: “ Eliza Sumner finished this work december the 8 1821 aged 9 years.” The Nancy McPherson Sampler.  This 1818 needlework sampler contains the alphabet and numerals in blue along the upper section, over uppercase alphabet in cross-stitched brown in the center section over a lower section of Biblical script… All the pious duties…”  The signature and date embroidered are:  Nancy McPherson Nov 24, 1818.   It would appear that this sampler was handed down in the McPherson family and given to Bertha’s husband, Edward McPherson.   The Mary Culbertson Sampler.  This 1834 sampler displays three alphabets rendered in white (except for a “UVWZ”) in blue above a two-handled bowl with a stylized floral arrangement flanked by two trees. The signature reads: Mary Culbertson’s work 1834 Shippensburg September 8th 1834.”   Research appears to show that Mary Culbertson was born 9 April 1822 and on 20 August 1840 married Samuel Henderson.  She died 8 July 1845.  Given that Margaret Henderson, whose letters were the subject of an earlier blog, was a great-great aunt of Edward McPherson, it appears likely that this work of Mary Culbertson Henderson was also passed down to Bertha’s husband.   To fully appreciate the folk-artistry and detail of these samplers, take a time to look for them on your next visit to the Homestead.  Indeed, walls do talk.

In the attic, we have found everything from an antique spinning wheel to a Civil War sword…from centuries-old deeds to day-by-day diaries.  Among it all, we have found some intriguing bits of clothing which, no doubt, hold stories and memories.  Here are just three of those items…   Jane Floy’s Wedding Petticoat.  Jane Thacker Floy married Stephen Tyng Mather on October 12, 1893 at St. James Church in Elizabeth New Jersey. Wrapped in paper with an identifying note, Jane’s petticoat from that day 131 years ago, has been stored in the attic and is now preserved in the Homestead archives.   A Christening Gown.  How many Mathers were christening in this gown? As of now, we do not know, only that the gown was found in a box marked “Christening Gown-Very Old…Belongs in Mather Homestead.”  And A Hanky.  Accompanied by a note from Bertha Mather McPherson, the handkerchief marked “D S 1840” belonged to Dorothea Stuniken (1778-1863).  Dorothea, who married James Shedel was Bertha’s great-great grandmother.

Persons reading this blog know of my great interest in American History. I am a volunteer docent at the Stephen Mather House in Darien, Connecticut. Stephen Mather was the first director of our National Parks, appointed to the post by Woodrow Wilson. Prior to that he was a very successful business person, having developed and marketed 20 Mule Team Borax. This post is the story I use with visitors to the house which puts in perspective the Mather family history and how they came to Darien, Connecticut and of the influence the family had over many years. STEPHEN MATHER HOMESTEAD NARRATIVE: Now that you are all sitting comfortably, I want to ask you to leave the 21st Century and go back with me 240 years and picture yourself here with Deacon Joseph Mather, son of Reverend Moses Mather, his wife Sarah and eight of their 11 children still living at home. One child is an infant, another just two years old. It is 15 degrees outside with a 25 mile per northeast wind blowing snow through tiny cracks in these walls and around the windows. Candles flicker, as there is no electricity. A fire glows in the hearth and in the pot above the hot coals is a rich stew which Sarah prepared this morning and will be ready for an early dinner after Joseph and the oldest boys return from the barn following milking their four cows and making them safe for the night. The Mathers were typical of a self-sufficient eighteenth-century New England colonial farm family. We will return to the hearth for supper. Now, you might ask yourselves who are these Mather people and where did they come from and how did they end up here in this place? In discussing the settlement of New England in the 17th Century, it is common to reference those hearty 120 brave souls who came here aboard the Mayflower and made landfall first on Cape Cod, then finally in what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts. They survived and established a colony primarily because they came as nuclear families, held deep religious beliefs, and brought with them tools and talent to feed themselves and survive in the wilderness. Despite some altercations and thievery, they were smart enough to befriend the Native Americans, without whom they would not have made it through the first year. In another migration fifteen years later, there were both similarities and differences. Now I ask each of you to rekindle your imagination and embark on another voyage across the treacherous Atlantic Ocean and go back with me 363 years and stand on a wooden pier on a bitter cold and rainy April morning in Bristol, England. A mother, father and four children all under ten years of age are peering through the fog out at an old wooden ship destined for the New World that these six brave souls had only seen in their imagination. The ancestors of Stephen Mather came to American shores in 1635, some fifteen years after the Mayflower. They were part of the very first mass immigration to America in what would later be called The Great Migration taking place between 1630-1635. Over that period of time some 20,000 souls, mostly Puritans seeking relief from the persecution of King Charles, left England bound for the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Their leader, Puritan Minister John Winthrop would later become governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1635 The Reverend Richard Mather with his wife and four children, Samuel, Timothy, Nathaniel and Joseph boarded the sailing ship James with 110 other men, women and children. It would be a three-month journey to the New World. The James was a three-mast vessel capable of sailing only with the trade winds. Conditions aboard the ships of the Great Migration were deplorable. There were no sanitary facilities, no privacy, rotting food, scurvy and of course unending seasickness on the stormy seas. Animals were carried aboard along with the human cargo. The stench was oppressive. Luck was with Richard Mather and his family on the Atlantic crossing through the Azores, the Caribbean and up along the Atlantic Coast of what would become America. However, upon nearing Boston, the James ran directly into the Great Hurricane of August 1635 that raged along the coast of New England. It stands as among the worst ever recorded. The ship and all of its passengers and crew were thought lost by those anticipating its arrival in July. They were forced to ride it out just outside the Isles of Shoals, New Hampshire and lost all three anchors, as no canvas or rope would hold. As if a miracle, on Aug 13, 1635, torn to pieces, but not one death aboard, all one hundred plus passengers and the James managed to make it to Boston Harbor. The family established a homestead in Dorchester near Boston and quickly became part of the religious community there. It should be remembered that ministers in colonial times were poorly paid, if at all. Very likely then, the Mather family depended a great deal on the largess of their parishioners for their sustenance. Aside from a place to live they had very little and lived a truly hardscrabble life. Upon the death of Richard Mather’s first wife Catherine, he married Sarah Hankridge who was the widow of Reverend John Cotton of Boston. That is how the Cotton name became part of the Mather collateral ancestry. Richard and Sarah had three children together not including the four older children from Richard’s first marriage, all of whom came from England with him on board the James. One of the three children of Richard and Sarah was Increase Mather born in Boston in 1639. Increase Mather became a most prominent clergyman in Boston and in 1685 he briefly served as the first American born President of Harvard College. In 1661 Increase Mather further extended the ties to the Cotton family by marrying his stepsister Maria Cotton. Maria Mather gave birth to a son Cotton Mather in 1663. Cotton was an extremely bright child, home schooled by the fireside in his early years by his mother and then incredibly, graduating from Harvard College at the age of fifteen in 1678. Of course, he could have had a little support from his father, Increase as president of the college. Both Cotton Mather and his father Increase played important roles in the Salem Witch Trials in 1692-1693. The trials were without doubt due in great part to religious tyranny and Puritanical belief’s and suspicions. Both Cotton and Increase helped fuel the flames. Somewhere between 12 and 20 so-called witches were put to death, mostly by hanging, in the towns of Salem and Andover, located about 20 miles north of Boston. While the trials are another entire subject, writings of both Cotton and Increase Mather in their later lives indicate they had misgivings about the trials and the lack of true evidence. Timothy Mather, who was born in England in 1628 and had sailed with his father Richard and mother Catherine on the James in 1635, did not become a clergyman. To this day, his descendants refer to Timothy as The Mather Farmer. He lived until 1685. Timothy and Catherine resided in Dorchester. They had a son Richard born in 1653. He was named for his grandfather and after his marriage to Catherine Wise in 1680 he moved to Lyme, Connecticut. Richard died in 1688 at the young age of 35. He and Catherine were married for eight years and had four children, the oldest being a son Timothy born in 1681 and who died in 1755. Timothy, known as Captain Timothy, married Sarah Noyes. Captain Timothy served with the colonists in the wars with the Piquant Indians. Timothy and Sarah had a son Moses born in 1719. Moses Mather grew up on the family farm in Lyme. However, Moses was not destined to become another Mather farmer. He enrolled at Yale in New Haven and graduated in 1739 and became a Congregational minister. After graduating from Yale in 1739 Moses struck out to what was then Stamford, Connecticut, an area that is now the Town of Darien. Moses had broken from the long-standing Puritanism of his ancestors as had many New England clergy seeking greater freedom of religious expression and was ordained a Congregational Minister. Moses built a farmhouse in Darien and shortly thereafter was installed as the pastor of the First Congregational Church in Darien that had been erected in 1740. The First Congregational Church and the original brick structure remains today at the corner of Brookside and the Post Road in Darien. Over his lifetime Moses married three times, first to Hannah Bell, then to Elizabeth Whiting and his third wife Rebecca Raymond. Together with his three wives he fathered ten children. One of his five children from his marriage to Hannah Bell was a son named Joseph who would later in life be called Deacon Joseph Mather. During his sixty-year tenure as the pastor of First Congregational Church Moses Mather was an outspoken early firebrand for the cause of independence. Young Joseph while growing up in Connecticut would have seen his father Moses arrested at least five times and taken off by Tories, British sympathizers, across Long Island Sound and imprisoned there for various lengths of time. Moses was never deterred in his advocacy for independence. In 1777, Deacon Joseph married Sarah Scott of Ridgefield and she moved with him to Darien. Ownership of land was critically important to large colonial families and as children approached adulthood they needed to strike out on their own as there was little room left at the family homestead. Joseph was fortunate in that in 1778 he inherited from his mother Hannah Bell, the very tract of land upon which we are sitting today. The 100-plus acres was a sizable parcel and large enough upon which to establish a farmstead to support his family. The farm extended past Dorchester Road to present day Pilgrim Road. In 1778, in the middle of the Revolutionary War, Deacon Joseph built this farmhouse. It was prescient that Joseph, Sarah and their child Hannah, named after her grandmother, moved in over the July 4th weekend. The house was truly on the edge of the wilderness being some four miles from town along a well-worn cart path, originally an Indian trail. Joseph and Sarah raised eleven children over their lifetime in this small farmhouse. The original barns and other out buildings have long since been destroyed. Their total sustenance came from the family farm, from the wood to heat the house, to the fields that provided vegetables, flax and wheat and farm animals providing milk, eggs and meat. Game, particularly deer, turkey and rabbit, was also plentiful. It was a difficult existence made even worse by the bitter winters that plagued New England during the 18th century. All of the housework, cooking, making of clothes, care of the children and the keeping of the “kitchen garden” fell upon Sarah. For a family of that size it would not be uncommon for Sarah to bake a dozen leaves of bread a week in the oven here in the central hearth. During the Revolution Deacon Joseph would often be gone during the fighting seasons in the spring and summer for extended periods of time. At one time he served in Canada and was also part of the Militia guarding the Stamford coastline. The nearest neighbors were over two miles away and children were put to household chores as soon as they were able. Of the eleven children, all but one, Clara, lived to maturity and all except Hannah were born here. Sarah was a strong and resourceful woman and like most colonial period wives raised the children ran the household. One can only imagine the amount of work placed upon Sarah’s shoulders particularly when Deacon Joseph was off with other Patriots fighting in the Revolutionary War. While the Native Americans had long since been driven across the Hudson River there was another threat during the revolution. Tory raiding parties came across Long Island Sound and confiscated valuables from the farmhouses of the Patriots living along the Connecticut shore. Despite the fact that Joseph and Sarah’s house was four miles inland it was indeed a target during one of Deacon Joseph’s absences. A group of Tories came to the house demanding valuables at the point of a bayonet. Sarah had kept some items hidden in the well that the raiders found immediately. However, they did not find the family silver, which had been hidden, in a false top chest that you will see in the dining room. As the legend goes and to add to the insult, the raiders demanded Sarah serve them dinner before they departed. In the course of time the Mather children married and established homesteads of their own in Connecticut, others moved away. The family always returned here for the holidays with the house overflowing with grandchildren all gathering for a wonderful holiday meal prepared by Sarah. The family was deeply religious, no smoking, no liquor and plenty of prayer and reflection upon the Lord’s blessings. Deacon Mather and his wife lived here for the remainder of their lives. He died in 1840 and she in 1843. They are buried in the Mather Cemetery nearby across Brookside Road alongside their daughter Clara who died in infancy in 1786. Upon Sarah’s death the house was left to Joseph’s two maiden daughters, Rana and Phebe. A widowed sister Ann Elizabeth Lockwood also lived for many years here with Rana and Phebe. Upon their deaths Elizabeth sold the house and 12 acres in 1887 to her cousin Joseph Wakeman Mather, grandson of Deacon Joseph Mather. Under Joseph’s ownership and that of his wife Bertha Walker the house first became a summer home because he, his wife and his aged sisters could not stand the cold winters with no central heat. They lived in Brooklyn in the winter. Joseph Wakeman Mather died in 1905. He left the property to his one surviving son, Stephen T. Mather of Chicago and to a niece Bertha Mather who was the daughter of his Joseph Wakeman’s brother Henry. Stephen Tyng Mather was born on the Fourth of July in 1867 in San Francisco, which was appropriate for a child whose ancestors were colonists and indeed revolutionaries. Stephen represented the eighth generation of Mather’s in the New World. Stephen’s parents moved to New York after he graduated from Berkley in 1887. He expressed no interest in the ministry. He worked as a reporter for the New York Sun in the 1890s. In 1893 he married Jane Thacker Floy. They had a daughter Bertha Floy Mather a portrait of who hangs in the parlor. They first occupied this house in 1907 and used it only as a summer home until Stephen’s death in 1930. Stephen Mather abandoned his career as a newspaperman and joined the Pacific Coast Borax Company, where his father Joseph was administrator and chief executive. Though the company was based in New York, all of the Borax at that time was mined in California. Borax was a compound used in early detergents. Stephen and his wife Jane at the request of his father moved from New York to Chicago to establish a marketing effort for the company’s products. Stephen created the famous advertising slogan “20 Mule Team Borax,” which quickly became a household name throughout the country. Mather saw the potential of Borax as a commercial product and together with a friend Thomas Thorkildsen, much to his father’s consternation, formed the Thorkildson-Mather Borax Company. It was a huge success and by 1914 both men had become millionaires. Now in his mid-forties, Mather was financially independent and decided to retire from the company. Stephen and Jane chose to travel and pursue their love of nature and the outdoors. He and his wife traveled extensively and became acquainted with the great naturalist John Muir, the savior of Yosemite National Park. Muir had been an enormous influence upon Teddy Roosevelt in convincing him to preserve millions of acres of pristine national resources. Roosevelt’s successor Howard Taft did not share Teddy’s keen interest in the outdoors and during his administration nothing had been done to build an organization to administer these vast natural resources. Upon the election of Woodrow Wilson, Stephen Mather was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Interior and lobbied Wilson to create a permanent bureau to operate the National Parks. On August 25th, 1916, Wilson signed a bill authorizing the creation of the National Parks Service. At Wilson’s request Mather agreed to become the first director of the National Parks Service. For Stephen Mather it was truly a labor of love. He was instrumental in extending the National Park Concept to the east and in 1926 the Shenandoah and Great Smokey Mountains national parks were authorized. Mather served with distinction until in January of 1929 when he suffered a severe stroke, had to leave office and died a year later in 1930 at age sixty-three. Before his death he began the modernization of this house while at the same time preserving its core. Stephen and Jane’s daughter Bertha inherited the property. She married Edward R. McPherson and they made the Mather Homestead their year-round home for seventy years. Stephen’s widow Jane lived with Bertha and Edward until her death is 1944. All of the McPherson children grew up in this house. Bertha was a graduate of Vassar and also earned a certificate in Architecture granted by Smith College’s School of Architecture in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Upstairs, there is a certificate of certification of this accomplishment. While Stephen and his wife Jane made substantial changes to the original Deacon Mather Homestead. They raised the rear roofline and made additional improvements including heating, modernization of the kitchen and additional bedrooms and bathrooms upstairs. Bertha and Edward continued to make improvements and restoration of the home exposing much of the original woodwork that you see here at the hearth. For the first time since 1905 the house once again became a full-time home. During this period Bertha founded the Darien Historical Society. Great family gatherings at Thanksgiving and Christmas were held around the hearth. Their three children, Anne McPherson Tracy, Stephen Mather McPherson and Jane McPherson Nickerson grew up in the house, becoming the ninth generation connected to the old homestead and continuing the tradition of the home always filled with children. In 2017, 25 years after their mother’s death the children made possible the transfer of the property to the Mather Homestead Foundation to be preserved in perpetuity. And so, beginning with Richard Mather’s stepping aboard the sailing ship James in 1635 during the Great Migration, we now, eight generations later, gather in the home of the distinguished gentleman whose portrait hangs on the gathering room wall. Stephen Tyng Mather. When you and your children visit a National Park, tell them you visited his home. Well, Sarah’s stew cooking on the hearth is nearly done and the roaring blizzard outside has snowed us in for a day or two, so we have the time now before dinner at the multi-generation Mather communal table here in the gathering room to take a tour and envision the original home. Imagine all the fireplaces burning, the windows frosted over, the cold floors creaking underfoot and when you reach upstairs throw privacy aside, pick a bedroom with a chamber pot because high drifts block the path to the outhouse. It may well be a couple of days before the storm subsides and you can brave the four-mile trek back into town. Sarah and Joseph would have been delighted with your company.

“…I shall greatly appreciate if you will autograph one of your photographs and send it to me here.  I assure you it will have an honored place in my collection …”  From a letter to Stephen Mather from Howard Hays October 1929.   Stephen Mather and Howard Hays shared mutual admiration.  From Shankland’s Mather biography, “Mather liked him [Hays]…and pushed his application for the permanent-camp franchise.”  Years later, Hays wrote of Mather, “I thought of him as my greatest benefactor.”    Who was Howard Hays?    Howard H. Hays (1883-1969) was a native of Metropolis, Illinois and in 1905 moved to Montana to “seek healthful outdoor employment.”  An entrepreneur whose career ranged from driving surreys in Yellowstone to running a newspaper in Riverside, California, he was above all an unmatched force in developing and controlling transportation services in National Parks from Glacier to Sequoia.    By 1919 he consolidated the many camping and transportation companies in Yellowstone NP to become president of Yellowstone Camps Company. In 1924, Hays sold his Yellowstone interests to recuperate from exhaustion. He wasn’t long out of the concession business, though, returning in 1926 to operate the transportation concession in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park in California. In 1926 he purchased the Glacier Park Transport Company from Roe Emery. Hays quickly won essential respect from Great Northern officials.  Hays was responsible for beginning the trend of hiring only college students as drivers and, In 1936, Hays came up with the now famous Drivers’ Manual, a 200-page book "chock full of practical information" to assure accurate answers to the inevitable tourist questions.  Early Glacier Park Transportation Company bus on a dirt road- Glacier NP Archives (L-R) H.H. Hunkins, Howard Hays, Stephen Mather, Frank Miller

According to Robert Shankland in his biography of Stephen Mather,  Mather had to overcome bureaucracy and vested interests to establish his vision for NPS concessions.  Whereas some lobbied for a host of competing concessionaires in a park, Stephen favored a monopolistic approach, giving one company full responsibility.   In Yosemite, the one company was the Yosemite Park and Curry Company.  Its president was Donald B. Tresidder, who quite literally married into the business when he wed Mary Curry, the daughter of David and Jenny Curry in 1920.   Leading the company, Tresidder oversaw the construction of new roads, the establishment of the  Badger Pass Ski Area , and the  Ahwahnee Hotel , which was built in 1927 and is now recognized as a  National Historic Landmark .  For many years, Tresidder assumed the role of the Squire at the  Bracebridge Dinner , a grand Christmas feast held annually on Christmas Day at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite.   Forming a close bond with Stephen Mather, Tresidder hosted Stephen’s 61st birthday party luncheon on the sixth floor “roof garden” of the Ahwahnee in July 1928.   In the Bancroft Library archives we have a 1929 letter from Tresidder to Mather expressing his sorrow at Stephen’s resignation from the NPS and encouraging him to make the move to California.   In 1943, Tresidder became the fourth president of Stanford University, serving until 1948, when on university business in New York, he died of a heart attack at the age of 53. Stephen Mather and Don Tresidder on the site for the Ahwahanee Hotel. Stephen Mather’s 61st Birthday Luncheon (STM at the head and Don Tresidder at the foot.)

“Scenery is a hollow enjoyment to the tourist who sets out in the morning after an indigestible breakfast and a fitful night’s sleep on an impossible bed.”-Stephen Mather   To that end, Stephen Mather cajoled, corralled, and called for NPS concessionaires to provide all the comforts of home—and more—to America’s growing traveling public.   Responding to the challenge, the Yosemite Park and Curry Company, under its president Don Tresidder, began construction of the landmark Ahwahnee Hotel which opened July 14, 1927 with Stephen Mather serving as Master of Ceremonies for the inaugural dinner.   A few months later at the Ahwahnee’s first Christmas, Tresidder launched a tradition that has grown, endured, and delighted guests for nearly a century— The Bracebridge Dinner!   Called “America’s, if not the world’s premier Christmas dinner,” by the Wall Street Journal, the Bracebridge Dinner is an evening of pageantry, music, and a seven-course feast held in the Ahwahnee’s dining room which is decorated to recall the baronial halls of England.   In its first years, the portrayal of the comic Lord of Misrule was played by Ansel Adams.  Adams then went on to continue direction of the pageantry for the next forty plus years.     Initially only held on Christmas and New Year’s Days, in 2024 Bracebridge Dinner will be held on eight evenings from December 10th to 23rd.  Information can be found at bracebridgedinners.com

Late in 1963, Conrad Wirth, Director of the National Park Service wrote to Bertha Mather McPherson saying in part…   ”It will always be a source of lasting pleasure to me to have been able to present you, as one of my last official National Park Service acts the Registered National Landmark certificate covering the Stephen Tyng Mather home…We owe so much to Stephen T. Mather, The Founder, that Park Service people will always regard the Mather home as a particularly sacred place…”   In the Homestead archives we have the draft of a letter Bertha wrote to Wirth in reply…   “What a wonderful Christmas present you sent to this house and to all of the family that belongs to it.  I can’t describe how thrilled each of us is to know that Father’s house has been so honored.  We will continue to take the most loving care of it that it may live up to its new and lofty status. And, of course, your beautiful letter that accompanied the document will always be equally treasured by us all and will be framed under glass on the reverse of the citation.  Thank you with all my heart for the appreciation of Father’s work which you expressed so wonderfully and which anew brings vividly to the children and to me the unique heritage which he left.     We look forward to greeting you and Helen here at this National Historic Landmark very early in 1964.”   Then in July of 1964, National Park Service dignitaries visited the Homestead to present Bertha with the official Registered National Historic Landmark plaque. The next time you visit the Homestead, take a moment to see the plaque yourself.  It is firmly affixed to the Homestead where it fittingly faces Stephen Mather Road.

Of the hundreds of photographs in the fifth edition of the National Parks Portfolio, only two individuals are identified by name.  One is Judge Walter Fry (See blog “Wintriest winter…”) The other is Mary Roberts Rinehart.   Per Wikipedia: Mary Roberts Rinehart  (1876 –1958) was an American writer, often called the American  Agatha Christie . Rinehart published her first mystery novel  The Circular Staircase  in 1908, which introduced the " had I but known " narrative style. Rinehart is also considered the earliest known source of the phrase "the butler did it", in her novel  The Door …”   In fact, both Mary and her husband Stanley were good friends of Stephen Mather.  In a letter dated January 31, 1929, Stanley wrote in part to Stephen…       My dear Steve,       I can’t tell you how distressed Mary and I were to hear about your illness…I don’t suppose you are well enough yet to write letters or even to dictate them, so I don’t expect a reply to this.  In fact, we are going to Florida on Monday for a short stay and I don’t expect to be back in Washington for at least a month.       Just about this time every winter, in recent years at least, the pressure of Washington life gets to much for Mary and she has to seek refuge somewhere else, so we’re going to Useppa Island, a little dot in the Gulf off the west coast of Florida to see if fishing and very little golf and especially the freedom from social obligations will put a little pep into her.  She’s really very well but needs a rest…I have just been reading what Mr. Cramton said about you and your work in the Park Service and I agree with every bit of it.  Our love to you… Stanley Rinehart died in 1932.  Outliving her husband by 25 years, Mary divided her later years between her luxurious 18-room Park Avenue apartment and her home in Bar Harbor, Maine, continuing to write prolifically. Following her husband's death, she and her sons formed a publishing firm, Rinehart & Co.. By this time it was estimated that her novels sold over 10,000,000 copies in English and 13 translations. Rinehart passed away peacefully on September 22, 1958, in New York City.

The Homestead archives recently acquired a copy of the first National Parks Portfolio . The Portfolio text was written by Robert Sterling Yard, Stephen Mather’s best man at his marriage, and whom Stephen enlisted in his campaign for a National Parks Service.   As TIME Magazine wrote, “Mather and Yard reasoned that public support for a centralized management of the  national parks  would be a key step in making sure that the government took action…The cornerstone of the Mather-Yard public relations endeavor was the  National Parks Portfolio , a collection of nine heavily-illustrated pamphlets that conveyed the grandeur and diversity of America’s natural scenery, and also suggested that visiting these national parks, aside from being enjoyable, was an act of good citizenship. The Portfolio’s 1916 first edition ran 275,000 copies, many of them distributed to prominent Americans, including every member of Congress.” In that first edition Stephen wrote: “The Nation must awake, and it now becomes our happy duty to waken it to so pleasing and profitable a reality.  This portfolio is the morning call to the day of realization…”   Twelve years later, in the fifth edition of the National Parks Portfolio, Stephen wrote: “When the first edition of this Portfolio was issued in 1916 comparatively few people were aware that the country possessed this empire of grandeur and beauty…In that year only 356,097 people visited the national parks.  Since then, however, the visiting list has steadily mounted…until in the 1927 travel year 2,354,643 visitors saw the national parks…”   In 1931, the sixth and final National Parks Portfolio was published, and in the Forward, Stephen’s successor as NPS Director, Horace Albright, acknowledged the fortitude and foresight of his mentor and predecessor…   “To Stephen T. Mather, first Director of the National Park Service, is due the greater part of the successful development of the national park and monument system.  The issuance of the first National Parks Portfolio in 1916 was his personal accomplishment.”

On the north wall of the Keeping Room hangs a portrait of Michael Floy, Sr., the great-grandfather of Jane Thacker Floy Mather, Stephen T. Mather’s wife. Michael prized the portrait enough that in his will he stated, “My portrait I leave to her [Deborah Sniffen Floy, his second wife] during her life and thereafter will belong to my son James Floy and his heirs…” From a family record in the Homestead attic, we learn that Michael Floy was born 18 December 1775 in Devonshire England and emigrated to New York City in July 1800. On his naturalization filing in 1807, Michael Floy listed his occupation as “Gardner” (sic). In fact, he was a noted horticulturist and identified himself as “Nursery and Seedsman” on the sales catalog he produced in 1816. A retrospective article in the National Horticulture Magazine in 1953 reads, “What are believed to be the first importations of Camellias into the United States were the plants received by John Stevens, Hoboken, New York, in 1797 or 1798, and Michael Floy of New York in 1800.” Michael Floy owned ten acres of land between Fourth and Fifth Avenues from 125th to 127th Streets in Harlem, which he purchased for $8500 in 1827. (Yes, ten Manhattan acres, and yes, $8500!) Michael Floy, Sr. had four children by his first wife. Michael Floy, Jr. died in 1837; the surviving son and two daughters had no interest in continuing the nursery business. Michael married first, Margaret Ferris (b. 23 Aug 1778) on 8 Dec 1802. Margaret died 25 July 1825. He subsequently married Deborah Sniffen (b. 7 Sep 1789) on 6 February 1828. Michael Floy, Sr. died on 23 April 1854. Deborah died 9 Mar 1866. In the attic, in addition to the Floy family record, there is a small book of Common Prayer, “A Pious Country Parishioner.” The flyleaf reads “Given to Michael Floy 18 Nov 1793. It was presented by Denys Rolle Esq.. Rolle (1725-1797) was, at that time, the largest landowner in Devon. In addition, he was noted as a philanthropist and a benefactor of charities. In his will, Michael Floy, Sr. directed that “The plants and shrubs of my nursery and greenhouse may be sold by my executors at any time in their discretion.” Although much of the property was retained by the heirs, the nursery business ceased upon his passing. A transplant himself, Michael Floy, Sr. not only took root but purpose-fully and abundantly flourished in America. His is a story now firmly and lastingly grafted to the history of the Mather Homestead. In upcoming Mementos, we will look the lives of his two sons who followed different paths…and at two second cousins of Jane Thacker Floy Mather, each of whom is remembered for an historical first. Photo 1: Michael S. Floy Photo 3-5: Book of Common Prayer: The Pious Country Parishioner Photo 6: 25 October 1849 advertisement in The Evening Post