Travis Beal Jacobs, the son of Albert C. and Loretta Beal Jacobs, died on Sept. 16 at his 200-year old home in Bridport, Vt., overlooking Champlain Vally fields and the Adirondacks, surrounded by his loved ones. He was 89.

His parents were Albert C. Jacobs, former provost at Columbia University under Dwight D. Eisenhower and later president of Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., and Loretta Beal Jacobs.

He graduated from Deerfield Academy and Princeton University, 1958, and he received his M.A. and PhD from Columbia University.

In 1965 he joined the faculty at Middlebury College and soon began teaching a popular two-semester lecture course on 20th Century American History. He served as department chair for 17 years.

His publications include America and the Russo-Finnish Winter War, 1939-1940; co-editing Navigating the Rapids, 1918-1971, the Diaries of Adolf A. Berle, a FDR Brain Truster; and Eisenhower at Columbia. He received several Earhart Foundation Fellowships, taught in Tunis on a Fulbright, served on the Presidential Studies Quarterly Editorial Board, and attended many Salzburg Seminars on American Studies. He retired as Fletcher D. Proctor Emeritus of American History in 2008.

Loretta Jacobs and her husband Albert had some old family friends on Chappy and in Edgartown who found a place for them to rent on Chappy in 1953 — the Vineyard was in driving distance from their home in Hartford. The next year Loretta purchased from Mrs. Elizabeth Litchfield, the widow of prominent New York architect Electus Litchfield, her Green Pastures property with its Stanford White House on Katama Bay and over 90 acres. The house had been closed for four years, and Travis would spend parts of the coming summers working on the house and clearing the overgrown brush near the house and on the property, opening up some lovely water views.

In the 1970’s, Travis and his mother decided the only way they could preserve the beautiful property would be with a limited development with some common land. After a series of struggles, they established the Green Pastures Association in 1982. Loretta Jacobs died in 1985. Her children could not afford to keep the large house, and Travis built a house on the adjacent lot. As much as he loved Green Pastures and Chappy — he also had spent a number of falls there — the traveling distance became too much and he sold it in 2020.

From 1983 to 1986 he had served as president of the Chappaquiddick Island Association. In the early 21st century he and his traveling companion Connie Carroll made a series of trips to Europe, ranging from France to Hungary, Spain, Italy, Sicily and Tunisia to Russia and Finland. During the past decade, Travis spent time throughout the year at Chazy Lake in the Adirondacks.

Besides his parents, he was predeceased by two older sisters, and two former wives. One, Eleanor T. Morison, was the mother of his sons, T. Beal Jacobs, Jr., and Holmes M. Jacobs, who own Two Brothers Tavern in Middlebury and loved Chappy as much as he did. He had three grandchildren who he lovingly adored: Jackson, Piper and Sally Jacobs.

A memorial will be held at Saint Stephens Episcopal Church in Middlebury, Vt. on Oct. 18.