Bar Island, in one of the harbors of Frenchman Bay, consists of 157 acres of woodland and pasture and rises abruptly above the ocean to 175 feet at its higher eastern end. At its western end, a rock and sand bar connects the island to the town at low tide, forming a natural roadway that allows people to walk or drive across for about four hours and giving Bar Harbor its name. The town was incorporated on February 23, 1796, by an act signed by Samuel Adams as the town of Eden, named for Sir Richard Eden, and its name was changed to Bar Harbor in 1918. Although only several hundred yards from the village center and connected to Bar Harbor, the island originally fell within Gouldsboro's jurisdiction across the bay, having been annexed under that town's 1791 incorporation, before Maine became a free state in 1820. In 1814 Daniel Rodick of Hulls Cove acquired Bar Island from Gouldsboro, and he and his descendants lived there for the next century, making a living by fishing, clamming, farming, lumbering, and cutting ice. Today Bar Island is part of Acadia National Park and is managed and regulated by the National Park Service.