“The annual meeting of the Stevenson Society of America was held at the Stevenson Cottage on July 21, 1951. The weather was good and the meeting was held in the open air … The great event of importance during the past year was of course the transfer of the Stevenson Cottage to the village of Saranac Lake. This was deemed advisable inasmuch as the Cottage will now be kept in proper repair, and the valuable relics of Stevenson will be in safe hands. I may say here that I have heard that our relics of Stevenson are perhaps the best in the world. They are certainly well worth seeing. The signing of the agreement with the Village occurred on Aug. 3, 1951, and was signed by your president.”

— From the Annual Report of the Stevenson Society of America, 1952.

When Mrs. C.H.E. Griffith left town in 1945 for reasons of health, the Stevenson Cottage was left without a resident curator for the first time since the deaths of Andrew and Mary Baker in the winter of 1924. Plus, Griffith knew her Stevenson, an asset that should be required for the job. Unfortunately, homeless RLS authorities are not easy to find on short notice.

For the next seven years Dr. Kinghorn would rely on semi-reliable transients, the Grinnells and the Henkys, to play the parts of host and hostess for visitors to the Cottage in summer. For the first time, the Cottage would be boarded up and closed down between Sept. 15 and June 1. That condition would persist until the village of Saranac Lake found their first (and last) resident curator.

Meanwhile, spring 1952 came around and Kinghorn resorted to the Henkys from Somerville, New Jersey to pass another season at the Stevenson Cottage receiving visitors. In a letter to Mr. George Raymond Henky, Kinghorn said: “I saw Tony Anderson, mayor of Saranac Lake village, a few days ago, and asked him what he was doing about a curator for the Cottage for this summer. He said they had a number of applicants.” Kinghorn was rooting for the Henkys and sent Mayor Anderson a letter of recommendation.

Meanwhile spring 1953 came around without a new curator yet, so Kinghorn resorted to the Grinnells, address unknown, to be the keepers of the shrine and its treasure until Sept. 15. Kinghorn said each year brought about 1,000 visitors to the “Hunter’s Home.” So passed the first two years of village oversight. The most significant improvement to the Cottage in that time was a “new furnace” according to Kinghorn, but in fact, the village had converted a previously installed coal steam boiler into an oil firing one.

It was in 1952 that the village acquired a suitable parking lot for their anticipated guests. In a transactional arrangement, the late Thomas Quesnell, owner of the desired property, let the village landscape it into a convenient place to park. In return, the village blacktopped select portions of his property for free. The statute of limitations on this convenience was found to be 1988. There is no designated parking area.

According to the Annual Report of the Stevenson Society of America for 1954, the VSL and the Stevenson Society finally got around to choosing their resident curator: “The Annual Meeting of the Stevenson Society of America for 1953 was held at the Stevenson Cottage in Saranac Lake on July, 25, 1954. The afternoon was warm and there was bright sunlight. The meeting was held in the open air …The feature of the past year which deserves mention is the great improvement in the appearance of the Stevenson Cottage and grounds under the able care of Mr. John F. Delahant, Sr., director of the Stevenson Memorial. The property has improved greatly, and a much larger number of visitors visited the Cottage … and in addition over 200 children have inspected the hundreds of items including letters, books, pictures and other personal effects pertaining to the life of the author of ‘Kidnapped,’ ‘The Master of Ballantrae’ and ‘Jekyll and Hyde.’ In addition to the immensely improved appearance of the property, signs have been placed throughout the village directing the visitor to the Stevenson Memorial Cottage. The work and interest of Mr. Delahant has been so satisfactory that I take pleasure in calling attention to it.”

With the employment of Resident Curator John F. Delahant, Sr., at Baker’s, the Delahant family name unintentionally became entangled with the fate of the “shrine” for decades to come, for better or worse. According to Delahant’s son, John F. Delahant, Jr., better yet “Jack,” the family’s involvement was triggered by a broken ankle on Old Military Estates. By 1984, Jack had been president of the Stevenson Society, since the death of John Sr. in 1958. In 1984, the following article showed up in the Watertown Daily Times:

“Three generations of the Delahant family have cared for the Stevenson Cottage. John F. Delahant, Jr., 74, is the curator now. (He succeeded his namesake father, who served for six years until his death in 1958, and his mother Maude, who served for 20 years until 1978, five years before her death. Mr. Delahant’s youngest son, Mike, lives in the Cottage, cares for it and acts as assistant curator in addition to his regular job.)

“Mr. Delahant moved here with his family in 1949 from New York City where he worked in advertising and real estate (he wrote for the Watertown Daily Times from 1952 to 1978). ‘I just got fed up with New York City with the buses going by and the smog coming in the window. So we moved to Saranac Lake.’ His recently retired father (from Bogota, New Jersey) visited in 1952 and broke his ankle as he was packing to go home.”

That broken ankle was one of those “X” factors that just happen without warning and tip Fate in a new, unforeseen direction. In the case of John F. Delahant, Sr., his recovery kept him in town long enough for his son, Jack, to notice the new ad that the village had put in the Daily Enterprise, the one where they are still looking for their first custodian. The article continues: “‘Dad,’ Mr. Delahant said, ‘they need a curator at the Stevenson Cottage. Why don’t you go over and see about it?’ The senior Delahant got the job and stayed, starting the family tradition.”

When it came to appreciating the mystique of Robert Louis Stevenson, Kinghorn and Delahant were like-minded. That RLS had something about him that was greater than all his books combined, goes without saying. When these men were kids growing up like millions of other kids, their pursuit of entertainment led them into stories of fiction, good or bad. They were deprived of technology, no TV, no social media, no games. It was the Age of Reading for adolescents back then and Stevenson was among the best they had to choose from along with the likes of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, etc. It was Stevenson fiction that fired them up as kids and then they would turn to his essays as they matured and mellowed.

Story has it that when Dr. Kinghorn finished interviewing J.F.D., Sr., he finished his interviewing. Mr. Delahant succeeded Dr. Kinghorn as President of the Stevenson Society of America in 1956 until his death in 1958. Their friendship flowered during the time they had. John Sr. also befriended Tom Quesnell and made regular appearances at the Belvedere tap room.

Mrs. Maude Hotaling Delahant, his wife, was not too excited about this abrupt change in their retirement plans. They had left a bourgeois home in Bogota, New Jersey, to live in this shack by comparison which was not inviting to Maude, based on all previous experience; but Mrs. Delahant would adapt the way “Maggie,” Stevenson’s mother, had done in the “Hunter’s Home,” only 66 years earlier. Maude would even become a popular fixture in the place and leave her own legacy as receptionist at the little museum on Stevenson Lane, like Mrs. Griffith before her.

In September 1953, Mr. and Mrs. John F. Delahant, Sr., moved into the residential part of the Robert Louis Stevenson Memorial Cottage, in full charge of the museum therein while assuming responsibility for its daily operation as a public landmark. The village of Saranac Lake would do everything else.

The framed print of the Roman Coliseum is still where J.F.D., Sr., hung it, 70 years ago this fall, over the living room fireplace.

It’s the only thing left from Maude’s former home in Bogota, Bergen County, New Jersey.