The cast the Stevenson Cottage Museum. (Provided photo)

While adaptations of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic “Treasure Island” are staged around the world each year, the local youth actors of Pendragon Theatre prepared for their upcoming performance with a unique experience. The cast of “Treasure Island” visited the Robert Louis Stevenson Cottage Museum in Saranac Lake: the author’s 1887-1888 home and the world’s first site and finest collection dedicated to Stevenson. Pendragon Theatre is hosting a special performance of “Treasure Island” on Thursday, July 17 at 7 p.m. and generously donating all proceeds from the night to the cottage museum.

Cast members came to learn about the man who wrote “Treasure Island,” along with “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” “Kidnapped,” “A Child’s Garden of Verses,” and many other great works. Longtime resident curator Mike Delahant told them about the sickly writer who led a life as exciting and adventurous as his stories. Despite a life-threatening illness, Stevenson canoed through France and Belgium, backpacked 140 miles over a mountain range, got arrested as a suspected German spy, accidentally started a California forest fire, tried deep-sea diving, crossed the globe to propose to a married woman, and spent his final years in Samoa.

Camp Pendragon participants found the Stevenson Cottage filled with treasures from the author’s life from his infant cap to the last pen he ever used. These artifacts include the invalid desk that helped him write from bed, his blood-speckled handkerchief monographed RLS and the ice skates he used to glide and reel across Moody Pond. They saw the inscribed copy of “Treasure Island” that Stevenson gave to the 15-year-old Ralph Baker: the son of his Adirondack landlords and the pioneer family for whom Baker Mountain is named. “Treasure Island” was Stevenson’s first novel, and he dedicated the book to his 13-year-old stepson, Lloyd Osbourne. The two spent a rainy holiday in the Scottish Highlands drawing maps to entertain themselves when the author labelled his sketch “Treasure Island” and immediately began work on a story. The novel’s protagonist, Jim Hawkins, would be the same age as Lloyd. Around that time, Lloyd began his own publication on a tabletop toy printing press. He printed his stepfather’s poems and hand-carved woodcut illustrations, which also featured pirates. Stevenson’s original woodcut printing blocks are on display at the cottage museum.

The young actors learned about Stevenson’s short but pivotal stay in their village, which he called “a first-rate place” and rightly predicted “it shall do me good.” The famous author’s visit and published endorsement put Saranac Lake and its new sanatorium on the map. Stevenson’s health improved, and he made more money from his writing at the cottage than he ever had before. An explosive exchange of letters across the Atlantic destroyed his friendship with William Ernest Henley: the poet of “Invictus” (“I am the master of my fate, / I am the captain of my soul”), Stevenson’s literary agent, and the one-legged model for Long John Silver. This breach was the devastating low point of his Adirondack winter, but Stevenson did not give in to despair. From the cottage, he planned his greatest adventure yet: a South Pacific voyage that would ultimately lead him to Samoa. Before leaving Saranac Lake, the “Treasure Island” author confessed in a letter that fulfilling this “old dream … seems indeed too good to be true,” signing off exuberantly, “Robert Louis Stevenson, Pirate Captain.”

None of the Pendragon student actors had ever visited the cottage before. Our partnership with the theatre is part of a larger effort to reintroduce the museum, which guests often describe as a “hidden gem.” While the Stevenson Cottage has drawn visitors from all over the world for more than a century, most locals have never visited the great author’s Adirondack home: a buried treasure in plain sight. Our new board is working to revitalize the cottage and secure its future.

In the past year, we received our first-ever federal grant, completed an initial assessment with a collection conservator and preservation architect, raised $90,000 through private donations toward urgent building repairs, and even acquired donations of significant new artifacts to add to our collection for the first time since 1948! To learn about these new collection items and follow our progress, subscribe to our free newsletter here.

Get your tickets now for a special fundraising performance of “Treasure Island” at Pendragon Theatre for the Stevenson Cottage Museum on July 17th. Then plan a visit to the cottage — X marks the spot on Stevenson Lane!

Note: The Stevenson Cottage Museum is open July 1 to Oct. 15 at 9:30 a.m. to noon and 1 to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday to Sunday and by appointment the rest of the year. To learn more, visit rlscottagemuseum.org.

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Trenton B. Olsen, PhD is the editor of “The Complete Personal Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson” and president of the Stevenson Society of America, which operates the cottage museum in Saranac Lake.