Mission:
Bar Harbor Historical Society is a non-profit organization that strives to collect, preserve, promote and celebrate the history of our community.
Collections:
Exhibits featuring the public and private lives of prominent citizens can be found here. Also, pictures and blueprints of homes, hotels, and buildings. Books and pictures from estates lost in the fire of 1947 are on display. The museum is now a depository for materials from schools, past sports teams, clubs and local businesses.
Facilities:
The former St. Edwards Convent, now home to the Bar Harbor Historical Society, was built in 1916 by Colonel and Mrs. Louise Drexel Morrell and was given to The Holy Redeemer Church.
Col. Morrell died before the dedication in 1918, but his and Louise's likenesses are reproduced in stained glass windows in the chapel on the second floor dedicated to him.
When St. Katherine Drexel visited her sister at her home "Thirlstane," she stayed at St. Edward's Convent. St. Katherine Drexel, a wealthy Philadelphia socialite, chose to take her vows as a religious and later founded the Sisters of The Blessed Sacrament. St. Katherine used her inheritance to start schools and a university in the west to educate Native and Black Americans.