Said Donald Campbell, "a retired New York City teacher who has spent 35 summers in a modest lakeside cabin near Burnt Jacket Mountain," quoted in "Mystery Fuels Unease in Maine Woods: Who Bought Burnt Jacket Mountain? An anonymous new owner fenced off beloved trails and put up surveillance cameras in a region with a long tradition of allowing public access on private land" (NYT)(free access).
There's also this, from Lew-Ellyn Hughes, "a manager at the Greenville tourism center whose family roots in the region go back 200 years": "These weren’t the only trails — they weren’t in the top 10 trails. That’s not why people are sad. It’s people from away coming in and shutting things down. It’s the contrast between haves and have-nots — especially when the have-nots can’t find a place to live."
Mga Post
85 komento:
“…An anonymous new owner fenced off beloved trails [on Burnt Jacket Mountain] and put up surveillance cameras in a region with a long tradition of allowing public access on private land. (NYT)(free access).”
You mean like when newspapers stopped putting their articles online for free and started requiring subscriptions for access?
Golden Rule being applied. (psst, who has the gold makes the rules)
“It’s people from away coming in and shutting things down.
At least the outsiders are not eating the cats and dogs. Or getting elected to local office and say they are representing Somalia.
No Constructive Easement ?
Outsiders who change the culture. Mmm. Sounds like the NYT regrets Open Borders
I have a friend who used to swim on the beach across from Mar a Lago, but that’s been kiboshed since 2016
America's not really a country - its an economic zone. So, 'muricans love the idea of foreigners coming in and buying land and changing things for the worse. Or big corporations or hedge funds snapping up homes and driving up prices. Or importing millions of immigrants, so we can have cheap labor.
Increasing the GDP and making money is their God.
When I lived in England, I liked the fact that there was a culture of allowing "ramblers" to ramble across country - the rule was to leave any gate the way you found it and not disturb anything. I don't know if this custom - I don't know if it was ever actually part of law, common or otherwise - still applies.
I think we can expect an Achilles comment about high-trust societies at some point.
The tension between freedom to roam and private property rights strikes me as complicated to manage. In Texas, for instance, there's not much public land; the first time we moved there in 1999, we were flummoxed by the question of how and where to go mountain biking, not because of the dearth of mountains, but because there were no Forest Service roads to ride on as there had been in abundance in Washington, from which we moved. Turns out that what you do is contact the landowner and ask permission. Ironically, in a state where individual initiative is so highly valued, it's a lot easier to "ramble" (on a bike or on foot) by getting in touch with a biking or hiking organization that may already have secured the necessary permissions for many properties.
BTW, they had something similar in the Bay area years ago. One of those talented, hard working immigrants made a fortune in tech, bought up some coastside real estate and then shut down an access road that had been used by the public for 40 years to get to the beach.
He said that's "Muh free enterprise". They took him to court and forced him to reopen the road under the Calf law regulating beach access. IRC, the beach is considered public property in Calf. Needless to say, rich people constantly trying restrict access and breaking the law. Real 'muricans would side them, but they're all just envious commies in the Golden state.
I’m pleased by the lack of “if they wanted to walk on the land, they should have bought the land” comments. The reality is, even in property-based America, there is a history and culture of people living in undeveloped areas allowing the public respectful access. And if you try to change the culture by force, you’re going to piss people off.
Money Manger said...No Constructive Easement ?
I expect that if someone goes to court relatively soon, the judge will say, “yes, there is.” But the clock is ticking on that kind of action—rights undefended are lost.
’An anonymous new owner fenced off beloved trails and put up surveillance cameras in a region with a long tradition of allowing public access on private land…’
There are apps that show the ownership of every plot of land, so the new owner is certainly not anonymous. Even it’s held by a corporation, trust, or foundation, the information is available at the courthouse. Is ‘anonymous’ meant to imply something nefarious?
A little background about Maine's Great North Woods, a context that the NYTimes article omitted: The northern half of the state includes 3.5 million acres of forestland open to public use and managed by the North Maine Woods (NMW) organization. NMW is a nonprofit consortium of those holding title to the property, more than 90 percent of which is privately owned, including by family groups (39 percent), corporations (33 percent), institutional investors (17 percent) and conservation organizations (6 percent). The state of Maine holds title to 5 percent.
Modest fees are charged, used exclusively to help maintain the roads, trails and camping areas restricted to small-scale outdoor recreation.
Mainers blame everything on outsiders (whom they refer to as "flat-landers"). For all they know it was a Mainer who bought the land.
In the 1960's very few people lived in Florida. Back then you could usually park anywhere along A1A - the ocean access road - to go surfing. Camp out if you liked. Or drive long distances on the north Florida hard packed sand which was considered a State road with a 10 mph speed limit. We would regularly beach drive from Jacksonville Beach to Vilano Beach at St Augustine (40 miles) to surf the best sandbars. All that free and easy access is gone now. Herded into pay parking or little parking areas... Florida's done. Stick a fork in it.
I can understand being upset that the land is no longer accessible, but when it's easy for someone to sue if they got injured, or when some do-gooder finds a rare animal on the land and makes it impossible for you to build on it, I can understand why people fence it off and block access.
Jamie: "When I lived in England, I liked the fact that there was a culture of allowing "ramblers" to ramble across country"
There is a right to roam statute from 2000, codifying what used to be tradition/common-law. Both sides still tug back and forth on this issue.
It's also one of the dozen or so standard plotlines of British mysteries - the hiker found dead on some cranky rich guy's land. Several variations as to who actually dunnit. CC, JSM
I thought land ownership was public knowledge. Or maybe the land is owned by company X, and who owns Company X is being masked.
Ownership of land in the United States is a matter of public information. I can go to Maine tomorrow and find out what entity owns the land and even if it is a trust or corporation, I can also figure out who the owners of that are just on the tools I have availble to a nobody like me. The owner/s are only anonymous because the writers are either stupid or don't want to reveal who the owner is.
The older I get the less I like Reagan. Take out the rhetoric and look at the actions and he comes as a Neocon. Free trade, troops in Lebanon, amnesty, cutting tax rates, defecits, Sandra Day Oconnor, etc. He vetoed the bill establishing the Calf Coastal commission. Why there was already open beach enough for everyone!
Thats where all the "smaller government" rhetoric leads you. No beach access for you. LOL.
Yancey is correct but for many it isn’t enough to know Lobstahboat LLC owns a property since it they won’t know who to target, who to sue, who to smooth talk to get the access you want. Hunting and fishing rights, hiking access or hoping it’s some old lady on her way to the exits and wants to sell…all easier when you have a person to harass
Delaware, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Nevada allow LLCs to be formed without publicly disclosing the owners' names. So it is very easy to own land anonymously. I would assume this is how the owner has taken title.
An anonymous new owner fenced off beloved trails and put up surveillance cameras in a region with a long tradition of allowing public access on private land."
Money Manger said...
No Constructive Easement ?
Sounds more like a prescriptive easement than a constructive easement, but that "tradition of allowing" may be a problem in making the adverse possession-type claim.
A constructive easement is a legal right to use another's property, often arising from the user's innocent but mistaken belief that they have a right to the property, such as a driveway that was built across a property line years ago. It is a type of equitable easement, created by a court to prevent a great hardship on one party that would be disproportionate to the hardship on the other if the use were to be stopped.
This differs from a prescriptive easement, which is based on continuous, open, and hostile use over a statutory period.
’Delaware, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Nevada allow LLCs to be formed without publicly disclosing the owners' names.’
I didn’t know that. I guess I need to reincorporate Lobstahboat, LLC in Delaware… :)
I just bought a chamois shirt and a pair of Bean boots so this all really sucks!
This story is structured to make a preconceived point. It is framed as hiker access. Now change the issues to snowmobile access or access by bear hunters. It's also odd that the ownership is unidentified. Mainers have legitimate grievances with the way Massholes displace them. OTOH, these grievances make them easy to manipulate.
In Texas, Deed holder is usually easy to identify. Many County Appraisal Districts have GIS map on the web showing ownership and taxing information. (For corporations etc. there are further steps to take.)
I am surprised finding ownership by pulling the tax thread is not so easy in Maine.
In Texas and I would think nationally (I am not a lawyer) the philosophy seems to be: to enforce your claim to land rights at law you must make your claim to those rights public knowledge. That is done by recording the document (Deed, etc.) with the County Clerk. In a small County if you know the previous owner (even well back into the 1900's) it is not hard to chase the title forward.)
Piscataquis County, ME seems not to have taxing or deed records on the web. Best I can find is a Land Use and Zoning map.
https://maine.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=89f9a143c79f4349a40a3ff77975f17a
Anyhow, I call bad writing or lazy research on NYT. First paragraph should have been summary of what you know - not a tickler to keep reading.
for years, i trespassed and used other people's stuff for free..
now the owners won't let me :(
Actually, Piscataquis County does have Deeds available on the web.
https://www.searchiqs.com/mepis/Login.aspx
Enjoy!
Just like how the "Native Americans" felt when Europeans arrived and took over the continent.
I recall a similar response when Solzhenitsyn fenced off his property in Vermont, but he went to a town meeting and explained that he needed the security.
…use a trustee and they don’t know who you are. We have had cops call the office trying to find owners, so we tell them. It’s the llc and here’s the name of the trustee…
What is the problem with the surveillance cameras? It's the owners' property. You don't have any right to privacy while trespassing. Maybe vandalism is an issue? Wasn't there a guy arrested a few years ago who had lived in the Maine woods for 30 years by breaking into cabins?
Access is a bit of a problem. Allow it and liability arises when the users break a leg, electrocute themselves with their fish pole on the power lines or the grizz eats them.
Hiking is racist.
https://www.sierraclub.org/outdoors/2016/12/unbearable-whiteness-hiking-and-how-solve-it
Are there minorities demanding access to this land?
I am an abutting landowner to the property at issue and know the trails and the issues discussed here quite well. Donald Campbell and other neighbors have maintained the trails on Burnt Jacket Mountain for the past thirty years, cutting down trees that have fallen across the trails , raking the leafs off the trails, and even rerouting the trails when extensive tree falls made that advisable. They left logbooks at the top for people to sign — they have these logbooks going back decades. A couple of years ago they put a two-person swing on a tree at the top, which was still there this past summer. Before they started doing this, the boys at Camp Allagash, which was closed and sold off for summer houses forty years ago, did the same thing. The trails on Burnt Jacket were loved because they were well maintained, close to Greenville, had great views of Moosehead Lake from the top, and, unlike most of the hiking trails nearby, suitable for families with small children.
This guy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Thomas_Knight
Seems mostly harmless, but I wouldn't want him breaking into my cabin.
Same thing occurs in Wisconsin when lakefront homeowners fence-off their length of shoreline, to prohibit any beachfront public crossing access along low-tide waterfront. Wisconsin doesn't enforce public access law, particularly for their high-end homeowners. Frankly, Wisconsin doesn't enforce a lot of their homeowner and condo association regulations.
One can unravel an anonymous LLC- it takes time and a bit of money, but the tools for doing so are available to anyone. An organization like the NYTimes should have all the necessary resources to do this in short order. I am guessing the owners are counter-narrative facts to the story itself. Would the story reveal, for example, that a big Democratic Party donor/s were the owners- of course not.
Who? Why? Perhaps they're worried about migration reform a la Martha's Vineyard, homeless squatters a la San Francisco. Perhaps they want to spread the Green Blight.
CT has a statute that immunizes landowners from liability for injuries on their property if they make their land available for public recreational use. I wonder whether Maine has something similar.
The Maine Recreational Use Statute
https://www.teellaw.me/recreationaluse
My sympathies are 100% with the property owner. Suppose the owner has had problems in the past with poachers? The same steps that keep illegal hunters from sending a high powered rifle round whizzing past your kids’ heads also offend hikers who (for unknown reasons) do not wish to be recorded on trail cams. Too bad for the hikers!
The trails are even more open and shut. Some idiot hiker slips and breaks an ankle. Next thing you know, as property owner you’re in court defending yourself from someone who’s complaining about your lack of maintenance of the trail and lack of having created a helicopter landing zone, forcing him to be carried for miles instead of a few hundred meters to where a trauma helo could be waiting.
No thanks.
Moosehead Lake
I got distracted picturing a lake of Moosehead. No one person could consume all of that.
As for the legal issues, under Maine law, there is a difference between private prescriptive easements and public prescriptive easements. Both types of easements require proof that the use was without the consent of the landowner and adverse to his interests. However, in a case of a claimed public prescriptive easement, the owner’s consent to the public’s use of his land for ordinary recreational purpose, like hiking or swimming, is presumed. Useage during the period of presumed consent is not adverse to the owner and so cannot establish a prescriptive easement. The owner can revoke that consent at any time.
The other legal issue is the identity of the new owner here. He’s operating through a couple of shell companies and has required everyone working on or receiving any information about the project, including the Greenville police, who are getting a gift from the landowner of $100,000 to purchase a new boat, to sign NDAs. Eventually someone will get drunk in a local bar and talk but that hasn’t happened yet.
I think the landowner is a tech of finance bro from Boston, since he named his mile-long driveway “Beaconsfield Rd.,” which happens to be the name of a small road in the very tony suburb of Brookline, Massachusetts.
Yancey Ward said...
One can unravel an anonymous LLC- it takes time and a bit of money, but the tools for doing so are available to anyone.
This simply is not true. They MIGHT be able to unearth the actual owner by careful investigation, but if the LLC is properly structured, it could also be impossible. I would assume a wealthy buyer wanting to conceal his identity would do a good job of setting up the LLC.
but if the LLC is properly structured, it could also be impossible
This is true. You may uncover a name of a lawyer, accountant, trustee but necessarily the party you want to reach…
Well, we know one thing for certain. Mr. Levene is not a reporter for the NYT.
Old and Slow, there is always a paper trail- always.
I think the landowner is a tech of finance bro from Boston, since he named his mile-long driveway “Beaconsfield Rd.,” which happens to be the name of a small road in the very tony suburb of Brookline, Massachusetts.
Douglas--is the area of Greenville perhaps a little more tony and a little less rustic than the NYT article conveys? (Which is why it is of concern to the NYT?)
I would assume a wealthy buyer wanting to conceal his identity would do a good job of setting up the LLC.
Hire those Biden family lawyers.
Always a paper trail, but like the trails on Burnt Jacket Mountain, sometimes trails lead nowhere or are closed to the public.
Old and Slow, there is always a paper trail- always
We do this but I’m all ears- you’ve found the llc and the trustees names involved. Where does this paper trial go now?
@Boatbuilder: waterfront property in Greenville - on Moosehead Lake - can be quite expensive but away from the lake, without dedicated lake access, it’s very cheap. Most of the homes on the lake are seasonal. Greenville today has fewer residents than it did in 1960. That’s because the timber industry collapsed and the ski mountain closed. Tourism and seasonal residents have not been enough to sustain growth in Greenville. The children raised in Greenville mostly move away as soon as possible in search of jobs and better opportunities.
Interestingly, the person they quoted to complain was an outsider from New York. Is this really an argument between vacationers?
One other point about Burnt Jacket and Greenville. This area is really remote. Greenville is a five hour drive from Boston with no traffic, i.e., too far for a weekend home. To get there by plane you have to fly to Bangor and then drive 1-1/2 hours northwestly. I don’t think jets can land at the small private airport in Greenville, the runway is too short. That’s probably why the Burnt Jacket owner is building a helipad on his property, to ferry him in from the Bangor airport. If you start driving north up the lake from Burnt Jacket, you get into the great north woods — pretty close to wilderness — pretty quickly, in about 15 miles.
@Sean: Donald and Nancy have owned their cabin on Moosehead Lake for over thirty years and during Covid, they moved to Greenville full time. They are back to splitting their time between NYC and Greenville. So yes, by the extremely insular standards of rural New England, they are outsiders, but in my opinion that’s not an accurate way to look at them.
I spent a lot of my youth in western Massachusetts, and, 50 years ago, public access to private land like that was common. Sadly, there have been just too many bad incidents, coupled with rising populations to allow it to continue. It was all a fantastic dream.
After I lived in other parts of the country, I found that was the exception, not the rule.
I understand the Maine residents' frustration, but there is really nothing to be done about it.
"That’s not why people are sad. It’s people from away coming in and shutting things down. "
I know the feeling. There are places I used to want to visit that have been changed so much by outsiders that I no longer want to go there. (London comes to mind.)
My father had a complete set of "the Golden Boys" from his youth in the 20s.Same Stratemeyer group Group which did the Hardy Boys
Basically the Hardy Boys and similar adventures but set in the Maine woods.
Sadly not available online that I can find
I read them over and over and over again in rth through 8th grade
Always wanted to visit the Maine woods
John Henry
John McPhee has written some great stuff about his travels in the Maine woods.
See "Survival of the Birch ark Canoe" for example.
Of course, McPhee could not write 2 consecutive words without them being interesting.
John Henry
In his 1920s novel Babbit Sinclair Lewis character George Babbit dreams of a life in the Maine woods.
He sneaks sneaks off for a rustic week with local guide. He thinks it would be an ideal life until the guide tells him his dream is moving to Portland and owning a shoe store.
Lewis probably also couldn't write an uninteresting word.
John Henry
I own 38.5 acres of prime hunting land. When we moved in I chose not to post no trespassing signs. The day after opening day, while touring my property, I found 10 empty beer cans under a tree. 100 yds down the trail I found the remaining 14 cans and the empty box.
My position changed on posting my property. PA game law states to hunt on privately owned property you need written permission.
Douglas,
If it makes you feel any better, it sounds like the trails will soon go wild and disappear without the foot traffic and people volunteering their own time to maintain them.
@Humperdink: In Maine, if you want to keep hunters off your property you have to post No Hunting signs every 100 feet around the perimeter of your property.
The British know how to deal with surveillance cameras.
@Xmas: I suppose I can just bushwhack my way up Burnt Jacket Mt. since all the landowner has done is forbid use of the trails.
William O Douglas wrote a series of My Wilderness “ books, and as I recall, East to Katahdin was a good one, The Maine Woods, by Thoreau, who made his “living “ as a travel writer, was a great read.
In Maine, if you want to keep hunters off your property you have to post No Hunting signs every 100 feet around the perimeter of your property.
…same in other parts of New England, too. Often repeated story of the Guy from Hanover NH that bought the ranch in Montana where, when you don’t want company the custom was a circle of white paint on your corner post of your property. Dartmouth used the posted signs every 100ft and each received an all caps WE GET IT in red paint as a welcome gift from the locals…
’I am an abutting landowner to the property at issue and know the trails and the issues discussed here quite well.’
Very cool! I’m sure it’s gorgeous up there…
John Henry: McPhee ... very true.
typingtalker said...
"Just like how the "Native Americans" felt when Europeans arrived and took over the continent."
Just like they did to each other. Early and often and with great enthusiasm. Long before us Europeans ever got here.
This brought to mind a trespassing case, starring the inimitable John Eastman, where a carpetbagging landowner is suing hunters for hopping through air space to reach surrounded public land:
https://oilcity.news/community/wyoming-community-2/2025/08/13/attorney-who-backed-trump-on-jan-6-now-urging-supreme-court-to-hear-corner-crossing-case/
"Very cool! I’m sure it’s gorgeous up there…"
"Burnt Jacket Mountain, near Masardis, Maine, is currently
under a Winter Weather Advisory until 1 p.m. today, with a forecast of rain and snow this afternoon, changing to snow tonight. Snow is likely on Monday, followed by a mix of rain and snow, and then more snow on Monday night."
Sounds lovely. Althouse weather.
Pennsylvania recently made it easier. You could use purple paint in lieu of no trespassing signs, one swipe chest high.
@Rabel: Moosehead Lake is 1,000 feet above sea level and is so big it makes its own weather. The winters up there are very harsh. There aren’t many people so you can often see no boats on the lake even in the peak of the summer. You’re more likely to see loons.
And, FYI, I think your weather report is for the other Burnt Jacket Mt. in Maine.
There’s the Burnt Jacket Mt. in Beaver Cove, next to Greenville, and there’s the one west of Jackman. Just to make things more confusing, there are over a dozen Greenvilles in the U.S. and the one in Maine is I believe the smallest.
Was there a thing about burning jackets? Seems like an odd thing to name one mountain for, let alone two.
"When we first came here, you could go anywhere, land your kayak anywhere, and you never gave it a thought."
Well then don’t make the place a national park or state park or you will be so regulated and permit feed you can’t stand to go there.
Well then don’t make the place a national park
Walden pond used to be a great place, with showers and a pier for swimming. It was a public good, now it is a sterile museum. I wish Robbins had never located the remains of that darn cabin. Disclosure: Robbins was a neighbor back in 1952.
You're right. The Burning Jacket Mt. near Beaver Cove, ME is just SW of First Roach Pond.
I'm starting to understand Steven King.
I recall going on hunting trips, with my Father, in that area. The cabin we stayed in was inaccessible by road, and the trip involved a canoe trip across Moosehead Lake, and a portage to another body of water. This was in the early 60s. I sometimes wonder if the cabin is still there.
@Joe: Do. you remember seeing a boom chain filled with logs being pulled across Moosehead?
"IRC, the beach is considered public property in Calf."
By federal law, ocean beaches are public property in every state up to the high-tide mark. What's specific to California is the coastal commission that forces landowners to allow access corridors for people to get TO the public area along the water. Great Lakes beaches are similarly public up to the 'high tide' mark (essentially the sand that is wet or gets wet in high wave conditions). But inland lakes do not have these rules. On inland lakes, surrounding property owner do own the shoreline and also the pie slice of lake bottom out to the middle. But people are legally allowed to fish and navigate over the private lake bottom.
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