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GULF OF MAINE BOOKS, BRUNSWICK MAINE STREET
RICHMOND ARCHIVE CENTER, 17 SPRUCE STREET, RICHMOND, MAINE, (HOURS OPEN POSTED AT THE DOOR)
A children’s adventure book with historical tidbits of living on a wildlife preserve in the 1950-1960s
ABOUT CINNAMON’S STORY, REVIEWS:
“Cinnamon’s childhood on Swan Island feels both tender and powerful. It shows how a grim diagnosis gives way to healing through patience love and the quiet magic of nature.
Her bond with the island’s wildlife and the lessons from her grandparents create a vivid portrait of growth and courage.
The image of a child feeding deer from a truck window, giving a spotty fawn a baby bottle on the braided rug in front of the big black wood cookstove, or journaling beside the river in her teepee of winding bean poles her grandfather-built stays with the reader.
The arc from fragile beginnings to an adult returning to write on the island carries beautiful emotional weight.”
“Cinnamon’s Swan Island Adventures isn’t just a children’s story. It’s layered:
- A medical miracle wrapped in island magic
- Homeschooling resilience
- Intergenerational wisdom
- Wildlife stewardship
- Maine heritage
- A child who chose imagination over prognosis
Not just a story.
A piece of the Kennebec River’s soul.”
“Cinnamon’s Swan Island Adventures is a tender, soul-lifting story where love, patience, and nature’s quiet strength rewrite a child’s destiny. Through the eyes of young Cinnamon, readers witness the healing bond between family, wildlife, and the enchanted beauty of Maine’s Kennebec River. Each page hums with the music of deer in the woods, the whisper of river winds, and the faith that miracles unfold in places untouched by hurry. It is not only an inspiring tale of resilience but a timeless celebration of how storytelling, imagination, and the wild can restore life itself.”
Living with grandparents, caretakers of an island wildlife refuge, was more exciting than visiting doctor’s offices or trying to navigate frequent tests and overnight stays in the hospital, the first experiences Cinnamon had in life. Grandparents had more time and patience, a loving home. On her magical island, she became increasingly healthier, excited to be outside where deer romped while she read her book under a tall pine tree. Deer friends arrived at the kitchen window expecting stale bread and vegetable peelings each morning. What a delight for Cinnamon to sit before the big black woodstove on grandmother’s braided rug feeding a late-born spotty fawn like a baby from a ginger-ale bottle fitted with a goat nipple!
INFORMATION ABOUT SWAN ISLAND:
Swan Island sits in the Kennebec River, in Sagadahoc County, between Richmond and Dresden, Maine. The island is a wildlife refuge, named the Steve Powell Wildlife Refuge in 1972 following the death of Steve Powell, the resident wildlife biologist for 15 years.
Several investors with interest in the ice harvesting trade in the 1800’s, built the first substantial homes (with impressive sea captain designed details) on Swan Island next to their enormous ice warehouses. Ice was harvested by many hard-working men who dared to cut & store the blocks to fill the warehouses. Ice was stored in the holds of sailing ships that traveled across the sea, around the world to trade on the “silk road”, returning with spices, silk and porcelain from foreign ports.
Doctor Sylvester Gardiner (father of Gardiner, Maine) invested in Swan Island property, building a summer home in the saltbox style about halfway down the Perkins for his daughter, Rebecca, who married Captain Philip Dumaresque. He built mills in a town that was named Dresden Mills for grinding flour & corn, while recruiting workers from Massachusetts (when Maine was not a state yet) to work his mills, clear land, process lumber, and build homes for more settlers to live.
Colonel Thomas Handasyd Perkins, also known as T. H. Perkins (December 15, 1764 – January 11, 1854), was an American merchant, slave trader, smuggler and philanthropist from a wealthy Boston Brahmin family. Starting with bequests from his grandfather and father-in-law, he amassed a huge fortune. As a young man, he traded slaves in Saint-Domingue, worked as a maritime fur trader trading furs from the American Northwest to China, and then turned to smuggling Turkish opium into China. His philanthropic contributions include the Perkins School for the Blind, renamed in his honor; the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; McLean Hospital; having a hand in founding the Massachusetts General Hospital. (Wikipedia)
HISTORICAL NOTE: Colonel Perkins put up the money needed to incorporate Swan Island in 1847, for which the island citizens honored him by naming the “village” Perkins. The one dirt road from the north to the south end of the 3.5-mile-long island is referred to as the “Perkins Highway.”
Today, the island is accessible only by personal watercraft. The State of Maine, IF&W shut down the public ferry service (utilizing several progressively comfortable watercraft) in 2022, which had operated for over 40 years. School buses full of excited children, nature hikers enjoying the marked trails, other organizations and interested historians, Audubon members, LL Bean workshops, and campers (log lean-tos with floors, a well for fresh water, have grills, and a public restroom) have been disappointed since. If you have a personal watercraft, and enjoy a strong paddle to the campgound dock, the trip is magical and well worth the effort.
BOOK ONE of the SWAN ISLAND TRILOGY: An historical novel ranging from first contact with Indigenous peoples through the Noble-Whidden Abenaki raid in 1750.
A booklet filled with island history and paintings of many homes built in the 1700-1900 time period, now demolished. AVAILABLE AT: Richmond Archive Center, 17 Spruce Street, Richmond, Maine.
Book TWO of the Swan Island Trilogy begins with the RETURN of Fanny Noble, a captive taken in the Noble-Whidden Abenaki raid on Swan Island in 1750. UNPUBLISHED JANUARY 2026,
Excerpts available from HOME MENU – CAPTIVE RETURNED
WEBSITE: https://www.swanislandmaine.com
e-MAIL: swangomaine@gmail.com
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GOODREADS: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18400241.T_Blen_Parker
