“It is not claiming too much to say that it was directly the influence of The Penny Piper of Saranac that led to the creation of the Saranac Lake Memorial.”

— “The Penny Piper of Saranac,” Stephen Chalmers

Stephen Chalmers was not a modest man — plus, he was right. It isn’t claiming too much to say that Chalmers was the key ingredient in the circumstances that preserved Baker’s farmhouse for posterity as the Robert Louis Stevenson Memorial Cottage.

For the Bakers, it began in 1906, when Chalmers rang their bell for the first time. He might have seemed like just another literary pilgrim at first, until he began interviewing them for his new literary project, that being “The Penny Piper of Saranac: An Episode in the Life of Robert Louis Stevenson.” As the years passed, Chalmers became more than just familiar to the Bakers as the man who would always be returning with new strangers to look at their house.

Stephen Chalmers was a journalist and author when he came to these mountains for “the cure.” Things began to happen at Baker’s in August 1915, when Chalmers brought his friend and colleague, Robert Davis, to see close-up Stevenson’s “Hunter’s Home.” Davis was a well-known and widely read columnist for the “New York Sun.” In 1927, he wrote an article for his readers, reliving the experience:

“We crossed the bridge over the river and climbed the hill. A kindly faced woman opened the door. Stephen explained our mission. ‘There isn’t much to see,’ she volunteered. ‘These are the rooms he occupied and this is some of the original furniture. There in that corner is the desk he used. His bed is still set up in the next room and there are a few other pieces still here. People like to come and look at them.’

“‘Of course you were glad to have such a lodger,’ I observed. ‘Tell me, was he interesting’ ‘I can’t say that I found him especially so,’ Mrs. Baker replied. ‘He wasn’t well and kept pretty much to himself. When not at work he took long walks; played the flute now and then and smoked a good many cigarettes. He used to set the lighted things along the edge of the mantel. See where he burned the wood? I can’t scour the marks out. ‘Bout ruined it. I don’t agree with you that these scars should be left there. But there they are.’

“Stephen Chalmers, himself a Scot and a lover of Stevenson if ever there was one, swallowed what he was about to say and walked over and looked down affectionately at Robert Louis’s desk. He knew every line which the master had written upon that altar. We thanked the Bakers and walked away, exhilarated despite the cigarette burns.

“‘Let’s rent those two rooms,’ I said, ‘and turn the Baker cottage into a Stevenson shrine.’ ‘Where can we get the money?’ ‘From the lovers of Stevenson; all over the United States. I’ll get Gutzon Borglum to make a bas-relief in bronze. Taking that as an initial step the people of Saranac will start the ball rolling. Let’s draft a legend to go on the tablet and then send out the call. You should be the first secretary.’

“Together we framed this record:

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ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

During the Winter 1887-1888

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“I was walking in the veranda of a small house outside the hamlet of Saranac. It was winter, the night was very dark, the air clear and cold and sweet with the purity of forests. For the making of a story here were fine conditions. ‘Come!’ Said I to my engine. Let us make a tale.'”

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The Genesis of Ballantrae

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Here he wrote “The Master of Ballantrae,” “A Christmas Sermon,” “The Lantern Bearers,” “Pulvis et Umbra,” “Beggars,” “Gentlemen,” “A Chapter on Dreams.”

1850-1894

“The matter was laid before Charles M. Palmer, Dr. Trudeau, Dr. Lawrason Brown and other public spirited citizens of Saranac, all of whom ratified the suggestion with fine support. Borglum made the bas-relief which shows Stevenson in his great coat and fur cap wrapped against the wintry winds of the Adirondacks. A committee was appointed and on Oct. 30, 1915, the Stevenson Memorial Committee unveiled at the Saranac Lake Cottage the Borglum tablet. The committee was resolved into a permanent organization, the ‘Stevenson Society.'”

In a letter to Livingston Chapman, Secretary, Stevenson Society of America, dated Sept. 17, 1923, Davis emphasizes the importance of Chalmers: “That Stephen Chalmers was the first man in this country who specialized in taking visitors to the Saranac Cottage. It was he who took me there. It was his fervor and his devotion to Stevenson that appealed to me. I would never have seen the cottage but for him.”