This book serves to demonstrate the history and stories of a freshwater wildlife preserve island, which hosted over 100 residents at its height during the ice harvesting done on the Kennebec River in the 1800s, an ancient island village with abandoned, deteriorating houses today, and deer, fox, raccoons, birds, and many forms of flora and fauna, stay overnight in camping lean-tos, enjoy a meal from the grills provided, walk the hiking trails and ponds, and where a catch and release fishing experience can be enjoyed.
How, where, and why did these first individuals conclude life would be improved by journeying to another continent, an ocean away from the comfortable life we presumed they enjoyed? Did they initially plan to stay where they first landed or plan to relocate northward from Plymouth or Massachusetts Bay? Had they intended to establish where they landed on Cape Ann, or were they initially blown off course, making the decision to stay where conditions seemed conducive to live peacefully and raise families? Did they offer encouragement to family members to look beyond Plymouth, or were they banished from that colony due to religious or other beliefs of their fellow settlers? What businesses did they create? Were they drawn to what they believed were lucrative business deals up the coastline or enticed by relatives who sailed directly up the Kennebec River and farther inland? The reader will find answers to these and other questions as the story unfolds.
PURCHASE a booklet at the non-profit organization Richmond Historical Society Archive Center at 17 Spruce Street, Tues.-Wed. & Sat. hours posted at the door, mostly between 9:30-1.
State of Maine IF&W has granted access to the island permission for only those with personal watercraft.
Tidbits of history accompany the acrylic paintings in the booklets, done from black-and-white family photos, b/w postcards, and newspaper articles from 1940-1970 about the years of neglect and destruction of these historic homes.
Swan Island and the homes there are on the National Registry of Historic Places.
Take home a copy to learn about Swan Island’s history.
WE APPRECIATE YOUR PURCHASE and HOPE TO SEE YOU VISIT THE ISLAND SOON!
BE LOOKING FOR BOOK TWO of the Swan Island Trilogy …. coming out soon!
Book 2 of the Swan Island Trilogy ~ brings us back to the story of a girl, kidnapped by First Nations Abenaki people from Swan Island in the Kennebec River and ransomed to an affluent couple in Montreal. Hiking through the wild frontier with Abenaki guide teaching her his language and vital herbal remedies, and a French trapper with whom her language is natural, brings hardship to its head. Upon her return and being reunited with her biological father, life turns even more challenging. Boarding with Reverend Jacob Bailey and wife Sally Weeks Bailey at abandoned Fort Richmond, she learns what life is about on the Maine Frontier in the 1700’. The remainder of her once-privileged life moves into a much more improved place from the rustic cabin her biological father offered.
The Dunbar-Blen house is scheduled to be demolished due to mold.
DUNBAR-BLEN-STAFF HOUSE, still standing, but scheduled to be demolished due to mold.
The house where the artist stayed during the 1950s and 1960s with grandparents, caretakers of the island, Parker & Marion Blen. Today, the flowering shrub in front is gone, and a bathroom ell was built sometime in the 1970s.
UNDERWOOD-SAUNDERS-M.C. PRIEST house sat on the KENNEBEC RIVERSIDE. The home underwent several renovations when owned by different families, badly damaged in the 1936 flood and was decorated in a marine theme. Mr. Priest had the house dismantled in 1950 rather than sell it, as described in the news story below:
THEOBALD house at the south end of the island may have been the first home built there.
GARDINER-DUMARESQUE house. DOCTOR SYLVESTER GARDINER built this house sometime before 1758 as a wedding gift for his daughter Rebecca who married CAPTAIN Philip Dumaresque of a Boston family. The painting is included due to the vast changes in architectural style to the saltbox we see today when visiting the island.
Doctor John Hebbard or Hibbard purchased the home sometime after the Dumaresque’s moved on following several family drowning tragedies. His brother Ellery Cole (E.C.) Hebbard operated SWANGO SPA there, based on a Swedborgian model promoting living a life mainly out of doors, eating healthy basic foods, and getting lots of fresh air and group exercising. Advertised in Ballou’s Pictorial, visiting Swango Spa boasted a stay could cure all ills. Mrs. Ida M. Hebbard wrote articles regarding food safety and was known by locals as Mrs. Buttercup.
TALLMAN-EASLER property
Upper PRIEST house sat approximately where the new garage was built to house tractors.
Lower PRIEST house, sat at the bottom of the circle driveway at the DUNBAR-BLEN-STAFF house.
DARRAH FAMILY HOUSE
CAPTAIN WILLIAM LILLY & wife SARAH TALLMAN LILLY’S property. The house was dismantled in 1962. The windows were donated to the Boothbay Railway Village where they are now in a building in the village.
LITTLE RED SCHOOLHOUSE – also served as a voting place, meeting house, and for church services. Was moved across the Kennebec to become an ell attached to an existing home.
E.C. HATCH-MAXWELL-TARR-HIGGINS house. Jesse Tarr once operated a black fox farm here. State of Maine Game Warden Don Higgins & family lived there during the 1950’s.
UNDERWOOD-SAUNDERS-M.C. PRIEST house sat on the KENNEBEC RIVERSIDE. M.C. Priest had this house dismantled in 1950, rather than sell it. The home was badly damaged in the 1936 flood but escaped further damage as the two oak trees in the front crashed over, preventing more ice & water damage. The home underwent several renovations and was decorated in a marine theme.
C.F. and LILLIAN WADE house. The WADE family began an apple orchard with many varieties of apples. A well-sweep on the front lawn was where the family obtained fresh water.
AN OLD-FASHIONED WAY TO DIP A BUCKET DOWN A WELL FOR WATER
W.A. LEWIS house. Note the stone base for the front porch.
MACDONALD-PUSHARD house. A small gazebo once sat to the front and right of the house.
SEE BELOW:
The Pushard gazebo at the riverside
TALLMAN FAMILY GRAVESTONE in the Curtis-Hatch Cemetery. The stone does not look like this today. The ball on the top was removed, along with the column, and the bottom was ground down to leave a pencil point above the TALLMAN name.
One of the first lean-2s built at the campground. Looking across the channel to Little Swan Island
An early iteration of the Swan Island landing. A couple of boys in a small duck boat pulled up onto the dock watched as a bearded man attempted to tie off the ferry which had transported a tractor to the island. A power boat pushed the ferry across the Kennebec River.
CORN CRIB where harvested corn was left to dry and kept away from munching raccoons and other animals.
“SWANGO” (written about the saltbox house above where Swango Health Spa existed)
by MRS. M.C. PRIEST in 1905
There’s a spot by the banks of a river
Far away from all turmoil and strife,
By the banks of a swift-flowing River
Where one breathes in the meaning of LIFE.
And when turbid and slow runs the life-sap,
And a lash is stern duty’s command…
Come with me where eternal the tides lap
Soft caress to the deep-wooded land.
And the great vault of blue arching over
Swaying vistas of green reaching north…
Star-eyed daisies and sweet-scented clover,
Make a fragment of Heaven on earth.
O, ’tis Life just to bathe in the sunshine,
And ’tis living to feel yourself part
In this wonderful bit of creation.
Here’s to SWANGO…the Home of my Heart!
PLEASE TELL ME which paintings, stained glass windows, masks, stories or poems resonated with you. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME! Check back regularly, as I post my latest stained glass window or painting monthly!
