On Thursday, September 11, Mac Smith, historian and author, spoke about his latest book “Plain Madeleine: Mrs. John Jacob Astor in Bar Harbor” at the Northeast Harbor Library.

The story of Madeleine and Colonel John Jacob Astor is very much part of the story of Bar Harbor. The relatively poor Madeleine Force met Colonel Astor, the third richest man in the United States, in Bar Harbor in 1910. The vicious scandal after their wedding caused the newlyweds to board the Titanic to return to America; the ensuing tragedy would claim the life of the colonel.

Madeleine Astor returned to Bar Harbor after the Titanic disaster, where all eyes were on her, and where she was triumphant in claiming the role of social leader. In 1916, she remarried in the center of Bar Harbor, and gave up everything Astor. Following 17 years of her second marriage, Madeleine, now in her 40s, is married a third time, to a penniless young boxer, and her name was erased from the Social Register, dying a lonely figure in her 40s. In telling Madeleine's story, the story of a changing Bar Harbor is also revealed.

A Navy veteran of the first Gulf War and former reporter for The Bar Harbor Times, Mac Smith lives in Stockton Springs, Maine, in the village of Sandy Point. He is the author of several books of Maine history, including Mainers on the Titanic, Peyton Place Comes Home to Maine, Siege at the Statehouse, and Disaster at the Bar Harbor Ferry.