Abbe Museum

1926

Founded in 1926 by a New York physician and summer resident

The Abbe Museum was founded in 1926 by Dr. Robert Abbe, a New York physician known for his pioneering use of radiation therapy and a longtime summer resident of Bar Harbor. He assembled a collection of early Native American artifacts found in the Frenchman Bay area. Early supporters included George B. Dorr, the father of Acadia, and John D. Rockefeller Jr.

1928

A trailside museum opened in 1928 at Sieur de Monts Spring

The museum opened on August 14, 1928, as a private trailside museum at Sieur de Monts Spring. The building, designed by Edmund M. Gilchrist, mixes Spanish Colonial Revival and Italian Renaissance styles, with an octagonal space made for Abbe's collections. It is on the National Register of Historic Places as one of Maine's first purpose-built museum buildings.

Baskets

The largest and best-documented Wabanaki basket collection

In 1931 Mary Cabot Wheelwright, founder of the Wheelwright Museum in Santa Fe, donated an important collection of Native American baskets. The Abbe became the holder of the largest and best-documented Wabanaki basketry collection in any museum. Its collections represent about 12,000 years of Native cultures and history in Maine.

12,000years of Native cultures in Maine in its collections

Wabanaki voices

Led by a Wabanaki majority board, in a downtown landmark

The museum is led by a Wabanaki-majority Board of Trustees and works with the Tribal Nations of the Wabanaki Confederacy, the Maliseet, Mi'kmaq, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot peoples. Since 2015 it has been recognized as a national leader in museum decolonization. The downtown location, in a former YMCA building of 1893, opened on September 29, 2001.