The so-called “golden age” of ancient classical Greece was about 50 years, circa 480 to 430 B.C. The golden age of the Stevenson Society of America, Inc., in Saranac Lake, was even shorter: 1916-1931. The purchase of their Stevenson Cottage “shrine” in 1925 from their evictor, Joseph H. Vincent, was to them what the dedication of the Parthenon, temple of Athena, was to the Greeks after their history-shaping victory over the Persian Empire.

The guestbooks of visitors’ signatures to the Stevenson memorial fill a box in the society’s archives, starting in 1917. Legend has it that at least one U.S. presidential autograph is somewhere in those books, among other notable names, e.g. Albert Einstein.

On Aug. 29, 1925, the day of the annual meeting, someone noted in the margin of a guest book page that 175 people attended the event, which concluded with the introduction of the first-appointed resident curator to live in their precious shrine, to protect it and the matchless collection of memorabilia within; also, to provide access to the kinds of people who like to look at such things. Col./President Walter Scott asked Mr. and Mrs. Charles Griffith of New York City to stand up and be recognized as the chosen ones to be the first to occupy “Baker’s–emphatically Baker’s!” (RLS) but only after the last of the Bakers, children included, had died.

At that time, the museum proper was only two rooms, the bedroom and study of the author during his residence. The rest of the house was the residence of the resident curator. Today the public gets to see four of the seven rooms used by the Stevenson expedition during the winter of 1887-88. One is the sitting room with fireplace, the other is “Maggie’s Room,” meaning the mother of RLS.

On Aug. 30, 1925, the Griffiths woke up to their first day as approved receptionists. About the same time, Baker’s private driveway became officially Stevenson Lane. Coincidentally, a 34-foot wooden hand-hewn flagpole was set up on the grounds which lasted until 1984. The most recent pole was steel and wouldn’t stop rusting until a wet windstorm left Old Glory on the ground in 2017, its corroded hardware still attached. There is no flagpole at present.

Charles Herbert Erskine Griffith was born in Bengal, India, and was educated in England and Scotland. He came to America in 1887 and decided to stay but always remained a British subject. Charles specialized in antiques and became a partner in the firm of Cooper and Griffith, dealers in antiques, on 44th Street, New York City. Like so many before him, Charles came to Saranac Lake, thanks to tuberculosis.

On Aug. 28, 1926, Charles gave his report at his first annual meeting as the official resident curator. According to the record, “Mr. C.H.E. Griffith, a former vice-president of the Society, called attention to the constantly increasing number of persons visiting the Memorial Cottage, approximately twelve hundred having been there in the period between June first and the second week in November of last year.”

Among the many communications received at the meeting was a letter from Mrs. Isobel Field, “Belle,” Stevenson’s stepdaughter featured elsewhere in this series. Belle intended her letter to be read by proxy at the meeting. As it is typical too often, after the death of a great man, smaller men try to take him down. Belle’s letter is in that context:

“For all these years, during his life-time and since his death, his name has stood for honor, courage, romance and glorious achievement. The volume of praise increasing with the years has irritated a few envious spirits who have endeavored to show that R.L.S. was not a good writer, that his brave spirit was a legend, that his morals and his manners were reprehensible–in fact, that he was a person of no importance whatever. But the Stevenson Society of America by its very existence proves that the fame of a great and good man still endures. Isobel Field.”

Poultney Bigelow was a mixture of explorer, adventurer, lecturer, diplomat and whatever, who travelled widely and met Robert Louis Stevenson at his South Seas home in Samoa, in 1892. They conversed about things like the turbulent political environment in Samoa, detailed in Stevenson’s book, “A Footnote to History–Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa.” The Germans, the British and the Americans had all gone there, in that order, basically to exercise their presumed rights to take it all from the indigenous population, the prerogative of colonial white imperialism, backed up by warships in the harbor of Apia.

At Stevenson’s request, Bigelow had sent to the Kaiser of Germany, one of his friends, a copy of the above-mentioned book. In 1926, Poultney Bigelow was the guest speaker at the Stevenson Society’s annual meeting. During his talk he produced two short letters concerning the Samoa politics they had discussed. He read them to his audience. The first was Bigelow to RLS: “I have done as you suggest and sent a copy of the Footnote (to History) to the Emperor. From his silence, which has been up to now August, I gather that he did not like it.”

Then he read Stevenson’s response: “Dear Mr. Bigelow: I fear that my cure for Samoa is not one likely to please the German Emperor. When my book was written it was still possible to have reconciled Mataafa and Laupepa (rival Samoan chieftains); this is now too late; the treaty has lost all authority with the Samoans, they have plunged again into that state of declared rebellion and sporadic war which was natural to them from the beginning and which always must be natural to a nation of armed clans. And what I wish I could hope is that we should pass into the hands of Great Britain…But I fear it would not be easily commended to the Kaiser. Yours very truly, Robert Louis Stevenson.”

The text of this letter was widely published in English and American newspapers soon after Stevenson’s death, including London’s The Times, Jan. 7, 1895.

When Mr. Bigelow was finished talking, the 1926 annual meeting came to an end after some singing and the benediction.