The Cottage Museum's Past

       First built in 1855 by Col. Milote Baker, “Baker Cottage,” as it was known, was the primary residence of prominent early settlers Andrew and Mary Baker for 58 years. Andrew Baker’s Adirondack guide business was headquartered at the cottage. Nearby Baker Mountain is named after him. Wilderness enthusiasts, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and James Russell Lowell, stayed in tents on the property as a base camp for their adventures. The Bakers rented out half of the cottage to Robert Louis Stevenson and his family in 1887-1888. For the rest of their lives, the Bakers obliged literary tourists by showing them where the author had lived.

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       The Stevenson Society of America was established on October 30, 1915 when the Robert Louis Stevenson Memorial Cottage was opened to the public—the world’s first site dedicated to the author. Charter members included Associated Press founder Charles Palmer, prominent journalist Robert Hobart Davis, and Mount Rushmore sculptor Gutzon Borglum, who unveiled his bronze relief sculpture of Stevenson, now in the museum’s permanent collection, at the Society’s founding. The newly formed Society arranged to rent rooms from the Baker family as an exhibit and purchased the house ten years later in 1925 as a permanent home for the collection, which grew considerably as Stevenson’s family members, friends, and admirers donated artifacts. The Stevenson Society of America, which stills owns and operates the Robert Louis Stevenson Cottage Museum, opened membership “to anyone interested in the author and his works and who desire to spread his brave philosophy of living.” ​

     Over the Society’s history, several of its leaders have been particularly instrumental in the preservation of the Cottage Museum and its collection through generous support with their time, skills, and financial resources. These include Stephen Chalmers, Robert Hobart Davis, Dr. Hugh Kinghorn, Col. Walter Scott, and others. Over the past 70 years, however, nobody has done more or deserves greater thanks than the Delahant Family, who have maintained the Stevenson Cottage, cared for the collection, and have shared it expertly and warmly with the public as resident curators and caretakers for three generations.

 

 

 

 

 

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Beginning with John F. Delahant Sr. in 1953, to his wife Maude Delahant, his son John “Jack” F. Delahant Jr., and down to his grandson Mike Delahant, who has served as resident curator since 1980, this family has kept the Robert Louis Stevenson Cottage Museum preserved and open, volunteering their time and donating their money to preserve the memory of Stevenson in Saranac Lake.

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Read Stevenson Society of America President Trenton B. Olsen’s moving tribute to the Delahants—“the family who literally and figuratively kept the lights on for more than 70 years”—originally published by the Adirondack Daily Enterprise here. 

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