One of the most beautiful and active fishing communities on the East Coast, the village of Bernard (formerly called Tremont) is located on the west side of a harbor, which looks across to the more well-known village of Bass Harbor. It was named for the English administrator Sir Francis Bernard (1712—1779). Bernard came to the colonies as governor of New Jersey in 1758, and for his successful efforts there was promoted in late 1759 to be royal governor of Massachusetts. (Travel being what it was back then, the new appointee didn’t reach his office in Boston until August 1760.)

Things didn’t go as well for Governor Bernard in New England because things like the Stamp Act increased tensions among the citizenry, and he was recalled to England before the decade was out. (It couldn’t have helped his spirit to hear about mobs in the cities burning him in effigy.) His main interaction with this area took place in early October 1762, when — the General Court of Massachusetts having earlier made him a grant of one-half of Mount Desert Island — he sailed Down East to inspect his property, including the Cranberry Islands, and to see about claiming the province for Massachusetts.

While in the area, explore the Bass Harbor Head Light, as well the Wonderland and Ship Harbor trails of Acadia National Park.

Fun Fact: After Bernard sailed back to England in 1769 (leaving, ironically, on the 4th of July), one Boston newspaper wrote that he “for nine years past has been a Scourge of this Province, a Curse to North America, and a Plague to the whole Empire.” The article added that if the captain of his ship, “on the rising of the first Storm,” should “throw the Baronet overboard [as a sacrifice] for fair Weather, and he find his way into a Whale’s Belly, it is hoped he will not be called out, dead or alive….”