ALTHOUGH served by several daily ferry trips from the mainland at Bass Harbor, Swan’s Island is still remote, with few of the mainland amenities normally taken for granted. There are only one or two stores, no liquor sales, and no amusements except those the islanders make for themselves. The pace is slow—and Swan’s Islanders like it that way. The year-round population is about 350 people, and it triples in the summertime. Fishing is still the main occupation. In recent years, several real estate developments on Swan’s Island have brought controversy. Change may be coming to the island.
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Swan’s, a large island of some 7,000 acres, has a highly irregular shoreline that provides secure and interesting anchorages. It is hilly, but not particularly high. There is a quarry for swimming as well as places to visit on foot or bicycle. The island has three little villages— Atlantic in Mackerel Cove on the north coast, where the ferry comes in, and Minturn and Swan’s Island, on the shores of Burnt Coat Harbor in the south. Burnt Coat is the best harbor and has the most facilities. Mackerel Cove is also a good harbor but has fewer facilities. Buckle Harbor, on the northwest coast, is an attractive and secure little anchorage.
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It must have been a dry year in 1603; perhaps lightning started a fire in the forests of Swan’s Island. When French explorer Samuel de Champlain visited the area in 1604, the story goes, he named it “Brule Cote,” meaning “burnt coast.” This later was Anglicized to Burnt Coat.
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Thomas Kench, the first white settler, came to Burnt Coat in 1786 and lived as a hermit for 14 years. He was followed by “King David” Smith, who built his cabin on the same islet in Burnt Coat Harbor. Smith was not of hermit stock. He and his three wives produced and raised some two dozen children, practically populating Swan’s by themselves.
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The same year that Thomas Kench took up residence, a colorful land speculator named Colonel James Swan bought the island from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, along with a group of other nearby islands. Swan had participated in the Boston Tea Party and was wounded at Bunker Hill. This bright and energetic young man was noticed early by those in power, and he moved easily among the leaders of the day. George Washington was a friend, and so was Lafayette. Swan’s portrait was painted by Gilbert Stuart. With inherited money, Swan became a speculator on a grand scale, buying up land confiscated from the Tories and also commissioning privateers. The “Burnt Coat Group” of islands, which included Swan’s, was to become “an island empire,” and indeed, an enormous mansion was built on the island as his headquarters. To populate his empire, Swan offered 100 acres to any homesteader who stayed seven years.
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In 1788, Swan’s speculations turned sour. He escaped his creditors by moving to France, where his fortunes rose again until he was charged with embezzlement and thrown into debtor’s prison. Although he could have paid his debts and regained his freedom, Swan chose to protest his innocence and spent 22 years in a Paris jail, where he died in 1830. Swan never lived in the mansion built for him on the island.
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Since 1986, honoring their island’s bicentennial, Swan’s Islanders have made a deliberate effort—in defiance of the nautical charts and the U.S. Postal Service—to restore the grammatically and historically correct apostrophe to the name Swans, a fitting tribute to their colorful founding father.
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