The Quintessential Mode of Transport for Mount Desert Island - The Buckboard
Buckboards and Bar Harbor were at one time synonymous. But the first buckboards, or boards as they were sometimes referred, in that part of the country were not made in Bar Harbor, though the idea may have originated there. The claim for the first buckboard was made by Landlord Swann, of the Biddeford House, who said he built the first vehicle of this type while he was keeping the Green Mountain House in Bar Harbor in 1871. The buckboard was the carriage type best suited to the roads of the island. The gentle swaying motion of the board while travelling at full speed over the hilly roads was simply delightful, and no person who had travelled in one wished to use any other type of vehicle during their stay. Perhaps the best-known maker of buckboards was Mr. W.H. Davis who went into the carriage making business in 1869 with his father James W. Davis in Ellsworth. They formed a co-partnership under the firm name James W. Davis and Son. In 1881 he bought his father out, and later took