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Jesup Memorial Library placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991

Nonfiction stacks in the balcony

Barbara Ellen Joy Room housing collections for babies through young adults

Jesup Memorial Library

The Jesup Memorial Library has contributed a collection of antique postcards to the Maine Memory Network. They can be accessed on the library’s website.

History

With 176 volumes and a gift of $20 the Bar Harbor Village Library came into existence in 1875 through the combined efforts of seasonal and year-round residents. It was located in a small building on Ledgelawn Avenue and was soon outgrown.

Construction was started on the present library in 1909. On August 30, 1911, Mrs. Maria Jesup presented the library to the town of Bar Harbor in memory of her husband, the late Morris Ketchum Jesup, a New York financier and philanthropist who had summered many years in Bar Harbor.

Architects for the library were Delano and Aldrich of New York, and the building committee consisted of three well known summer residents, George Dorr, Ernesto Fabbri and Henry Lane Enno. Construction was done by Chester Hodgkins, a local builder, with a cost of approximately $77,000. Material used for the building was the finest available. It is paneled throughout in oak, and the stone for the basement is a fine-grained local granite from Bear Brook Quarry at the base of Champlain Mountain on Mt. Desert Island.

Mission

“The Library was at one time considered a luxury: now it is regarded as a necessary part of the equipment of every American community.” S. Weir Mitchell at the Jesup Memorial Library dedication August 30, 1911