A Trenton native brought it to life

by Brian Swartz

Aman with roots two generations deep on Mount Desert Island supplied the Civil War monument that Bar Harbor residents dedicated in 1897. Although funded by the town and private citizens, the monument owes its existence to Nehemiah H. Higgins Jr., of Trenton and Ellsworth. However, his father, Nehemiah Higgins, was born in Eden to Levi Higgins and Jerusha (Cousins) Higgins on December 18, 1819.

Covering roughly the northern 40 percent of Mount Desert Island, the town of Eden was incorporated by the Massachusetts General Court on February 23, 1796. Various villages dotted the town (Salisbury Cove and Town Hill are among those still existing); the built-up area that developed opposite Bar Island became known as Bar Harbor, which became Eden’s new name in 1918.

Levi Higgins hailed from Massachusetts, and while the District of Maine belonged to that state until March 1820, Jerusha was born in “Eden Me.,” not in Eden, Massachusetts, according to the Maine Vital Records. Nehemiah Higgins was a “ship master” or a “master mariner” (depending on the source), but either term meant he was a ship’s captain, well-experienced with offshore wind and blue-water wave. He married Rachel Porter, and by June 1860 the couple lived in Trenton with their five children.

Higgins apparently never appended

“Sr.” to his surname, but 10-year-old son Nehemiah H. Higgins Jr. was listed as such in the 1860 census. He was born in Trenton on December 24, 1849; technically he was 11 in 1860, but the official census-taker, Assistant Marshall Warren King, also got other information wrong for the Higgins household. He listed the family’s domestic servant, 39-year-old Mary Fowler, as a “master mariner.”

An Ellsworth history indicated that the elder Nehemiah later moved to Ellsworth to operate the “City Hotel” and that his namesake son assisted him for a while. The younger Nehemiah opened a granite business in 1885, during the heyday of Maine’s granite-quarrying industry. He quietly served Ellsworth as an alderman and school-board member and won election as mayor in 1893 and 1894. Among the Higgins-affiliated sites that exists into the 21st century is the Civil War monument standing in the cemetery on Mt. Desert Street in

Bar Harbor.

Many Eden men went into the Army or Navy during the Civil War, and some lie buried in cemeteries scattered across Bar Harbor. The Grand Army of the Republic strongly supported local efforts to erect a Civil War monument, and the effort gained traction in the mid-1890s.

The town provided $4,500 for the monument, and its backers raised the remaining $500 from “public subscription,” a term that translates as “private donation” today. Nehemiah Higgins Jr. got the contract to deliver the monument.

He purchased granite quarried in Barre, Vermont and hired Boston-based Cook & Watkins to sculpt the monument. John F. Cook and George R. Watkins had worked for the Vermont Marble Co. before starting their “wholesale granite and statuary business” in Boston in 1891.

The final, approved design incorporated a statue standing atop a pedes- tal, the entire monument rising 33 feet from ground level. The statue featured a grizzled Union veteran, identified as such by his moustache (common to most Union soldier statues in Maine). Sporting a kepi and wearing his great coat with his cape thrown nonchalantly over his right shoulder, the soldier rested his right hand on his hip and grasped his rifled musket with his left hand.

The monument was erected in the Mount Desert Street Cemetery, sandwiched between the Bar Harbor Congregational Church to the east and St. Saviour’s Episcopal Church to the west. The Abbe Museum now stands directly across the street, and the Village Green is a short walk east on Mt. Desert Street.

Placed facing Mt. Desert Street (and hence south), the monument was engraved with a three-part raison d’etre: “In Memory of Eden’s Sons Who Were” above, “Defenders of the Union” in the middle, and “1861 — 1865” down be(cont. on page 20)

(cont. from page 19) low. The front was also engraved with the GAR’s symbolic eagle-and-star ribbon and with a military scene: a stand of bayonets, two partially furled flags, and a cartridge box.

Eden residents dedicated the monument “with appropriate exercises” on Thursday, November 4, 1897. People gathered to watch a parade wind through the nearby streets. Among the parade’s participants were GAR members, Women’s Relief Corps members, Sons of Union Veterans, the Knights of Pythias, Bar Harbor firefighters, and local schoolchildren.

The parade “gave evidence of lively patriotism in the hearts of the people of Bar Harbor and the town of Eden,” an observer commented. People gathered in the cemetery and along Mt. Desert Street listened politely as GAR “Commander William Fennelly made the speech of presentation to the town.”

The program moved indoors with the monument’s unveiling. Additional speakers were Maine GAR Department Commander Leroy Carleton of Winthrop, L.B. Deasy and George Googins of Bar Harbor, and Eben Hamor of West Eden.

After his death on November 9, 1901, Nehemiah H. Higgins Jr. was bur- ied in Ellsworth’s Woodbine Cemetery. He lies forgotten, but his name lives on in Bar Harbor’s Civil War monument.

A MUST READ!!!

Written by Maine at War blogger and Discover Maine contributor Brian Swartz, the new book Maine At War, Volume 1: Bladensburg to Sharpsburg tells the story of Maine’s involvement in the first 18 months of the Civil War, as experienced by Maine men and women who answered the call to defend and preserve the United States. Maine At War Volume 1 draws on diaries, letters, regimental histories, newspaper articles, eyewitness accounts, and the Official Records to bring the war to life in a storytelling manner that captures the time and period.

Released by Epic Saga Publishing. Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online retailers: 492 pages, 313 photos and illustrations. $30.00