BOSTON OR VICINITY, CIRCA 1780

As indicated by an old label on the reverse, this chest-of-drawers was previously owned by Charles Hazen Dorr (1821-1893) and was transported to his summer house in Bar Harbor, Maine presumably from his Boston residence at 18 Commonwealth Avenue. In 1850, Dorr married Mary Gray Ward (1820-1901) and if the chest had descended in the family, it may have been first owned by the generation of their grandparents, members of the Dorr, Brown, Ward and Gray families, all of whom lived in Boston or its vicinity in the late eighteenth century. With philanthropic interests, Dorr supported the city of Boston through his charitable endeavors and involvement with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston Evening Transcript, 1 April 1871, p. 3). In 1868, the Dorrs purchased 98 acres on Mount Desert Island and thereafter built Oldfarm, a "cottage" with 30 rooms, one of which was furnished with this chest. Upon Charles' death in 1893, the chest may have been subsequently owned by his only surviving child, George Bucknam Dorr (1853-1944), who during the early twentieth century donated his property and fortune to the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations and was a key figure in establishing Acadia as a National Monument in 1916.