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.
