For this Friday Fun post, we are dee-lighted to introduce you to Phil Morse, a Tedhead who knows a substantial amount about Theodore Roosevelt in Maine. We felt it was a perfect follow-up to our TR in every state post series from back in June to give him the opportunity to highlight the Theodore Roosevelt Maine Heritage Trail. We hope you enjoy!
Welcome to Maine! Phil Morse here from the Seashore Trolley Museum in Kennebunkport. I released the Theodore Roosevelt Maine Heritage Trail project during the summer of 2022, when the construction of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library began.
Personally, I’m part of a family with genealogical connections to Maine going back to 1637. And surprisingly, that family connection is directly with Winfield Scott Libbey, who worked to have the historic electric interurban, Narcissus, built in 1912.
Theodore Roosevelt was a passenger aboard the most elegant ride, Narcissus, here in Maine, on August 18, 1914. The Narcissus is on the National Register of Historic Places and is currently being restored at the Seashore Trolley Museum.
I have been a member of the Trolley Museum since 1991. I am a former Trustee, President/CEO, Executive Director, Director of Community Relations, and more. As a volunteer, I am the Board-appointed sponsor for the Narcissus Project.
I felt that Theodore Roosevelt, having been a passenger aboard the Narcissus, would become a very important talking point in developing support for the project
My interest in Theodore Roosevelt began in 2010. I began researching TR’s connections in Maine as I sought information on his visit when he was a passenger aboard the Narcissus. As my research progressed, I became fascinated with TR and his profound attachment to Maine.
I read TR’s biography in 2010. He was in Maine in 1872. He was 13. A portion of the story is of him being bullied by a couple of young teenage boys while they were in a stagecoach. It was a life-changing event for young Roosevelt in Maine.
He pledged to himself to work diligently to become physically fit so he could defend himself in the future. The steps he took to do just that are well-documented. This stagecoach ride in Maine in 1872 clearly had a direct impact on the boy who would become the man that we now know.
To me, what cemented TR’s attachment to Maine and its people was his next three trips to Island Falls, Maine (August 1878, February 1879, August 1879), spending weeks tramping, canoeing, snowshoeing, riding in sleighs and buckboards, through the woods, lakes, rivers, and up the mountains of Maine with William Sewall and Wilmot Dow.
Those three trips to Maine followed the earlier visit (1872), followed by several more visits over the years, until his final trip in August of 1918, when he, his wife, and other family members stayed in a cottage in Dark Harbor, on Islesboro, Maine, to grieve the loss of the youngest of TR’s sons, Quentin.
[TRC staff note: you can read more about Roosevelt’s visit to Dark Harbor in one of our previous Substack posts if you missed it and watch a presentation about TR camping and tramping in the wilderness of Maine as well as New York and North Dakota here.]
The thoughts about connecting various communities in Maine with TR and the Narcissus developed as I personally visited and conducted research in some of those communities that they had visited.
The Narcissus1912 Blog was created in April 2015. A professional friend, Patricia “Tricia” Erikson, PhD, suggested I create a blog to help expand public awareness of the project. Tricia expressed that the blog’s future public awareness would potentially benefit the Narcissus Project and the Trolley Museum. Tricia was correct. Last month (June 2026), there were 84,000 page views, the second most in a month so far in 2026. March 2026 had 110,000 page views.
In May of 2016, I sent an email to Sharon Kilzer, Project Manager at the Theodore Roosevelt Center (TRC) at Dickinson State University. I was seeking feedback on some TR-related research. On the TRC website, there was a TR Trail map of North Dakota. You tap on any of the highlighted signs/symbols; a small window opens with a photo and description of TR’s activities at that location. On that map page, the TRC invited other states with TR connections to reach out to the TRC to work together to add that state’s TR trail to the map on the TRC’s website. I began thinking of a TR map for Maine.
The thought became more concrete when I attended my first Maine Woods Forever (MWF) Roundtable meeting at Unity College in Unity, Maine, in October 2015. Mimi McConnell, a Board member, shared print materials with me, including a map and guide for the Thoreau-Wabanaki Trail. The map included Thoreau’s travels in the Maine Woods during 1846, 1853, & 1857. As I examined the map, I became inspired to work towards developing a similar product for what has become the TR Maine Heritage Trail.
I also met another Board member, Bart DeWolf. Bart, having learned of my interest in TR, shared his desire to research the trails and camping areas that TR used to access Mount Katahdin in 1879. For three summers, Bart had been the overseer of a team collecting all the geographic data for the 87,500 acres for the Federal application for what became the Katahdin Woods & Water National Monument. TR’s time spent on the property in 1879 was crucial evidence included in the application that the Federal government approved.
I felt Theodore Roosevelt and the Narcissus should work together on connecting Maine communities. With TR as its motorman, they could be the catalyst instilling collaboration among stakeholders, which, in turn, could lead to positive outcomes, providing benefits to Maine communities and to their visitors.
Theodore Roosevelt is omnipresent in Maine. From Kittery to Presque Isle, TR has left his mark throughout Maine. If not TR himself, admirers have, on his behalf. Theodore Roosevelt is one of the most recognized Presidents of the United States. I think that, working together, we could do more to enhance the general population’s understanding of TR’s relationship with Maine by making his trips and travels in Maine better known. By presenting a statewide description and then articulating the individual communities he spent time in, or had some indirect relationship to, visitors will develop an innate interest. Many of the TR stories are very compelling, leading people wanting to visit communities for a look-see.
The point I’m trying to make at this time is that TR has left us a gift here in Maine. A gift that keeps on giving. His Maine legacy is here, reflected in his writings, news stories, books about his time spent here, the friends he made here, and what those friends have also left for us. Each Maine community and organization in that area touched by TR has a TR story to tell. We have an opportunity to uncover, collect, organize, review, research gaps and questions, refine an overall plan, and create something incredibly special with those stories that will attract people to these special Maine places.
If you’re interested in learning more about TR in Maine, visit the Narcissus 1912 blog here, which links out to seven posts that contain links to TR-related posts in the title.
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