Yesterday

A century ago, farmers hauled hay across the bay to feed their island livestock.

Perhaps it was French explorer Samuel Champlain who gave the name of Brule-cote to the large island located southwest of Monts-desert. Whoever it was, the given name was known to British cartographers in the middle part of the 17th Century, gradually assuming the English variant of Burnt Coat.

The island remained uninhabited until 1777 when Thomas Kench supposedly settled on Harbor Island.

Col. James Swan, a Scotsman, purchased the island in 1785. He built a lumber mill and gristmill at Burnt Coat Harbor and advertised for settlers. A deed for 100 acres was promised for every farmer who would settle, 10 acres for every fisherman. Settlers moved in from Deer Isle, Mount Desert and Brooksville, creating a thriving settlement of lumbermen who cleared the virgin timber, and fishermen, farming the abundant waters of Penobscot Bay.

Col. Swan’s business enterprise quickly ran into trouble, as the colonel had the propensity to spend beyond his means. By 1812, then in a debtor’s prison in France, he was forced to mortgage his property to Michael O’Malley, a Baltimore merchant. Settlers were then forced to deal with O’Malley and his attorney, Rufus Allyn. Swan’s Island quickly became an island of transients. Families would move onto the island, and off, following the whims of fortune.

It was not until 1834 that the island was organized into a plantation. The island finally achieved the status of a town in 1896.

Swan’s Island developed into four distinct communities: Burnt Coat Harbor to the west, also known as Old Harbor, Minturn opposite Burnt Coat, Atlantic on Mackerel Cove, and the Northeast Shore where the best farmland existed. The farms of Swan’s Island provided a perfect complement to the annual cycle of fishing. In 1850, 40 percent of the wage earners on the island were farmers, though the figure dropped to 15 percent by 1880.

The cod fisheries, in Penobscot Bay and on the Grand Banks formed the backbone of the community. Small boats were used in the local fisheries, with larger vessels being used as the fishing spread northward toward the offshore fishing banks. By 1880, the Swan’s Island fleet consisted of 21 vessels, a fleet comparable to that of Deer Isle and Vinalhaven. The herring industry, for bait or canning, assumed importance by 1890, along with lobster fishing. Ownership of their own boats was an important goal for every fisherman, and by 1895, almost a quarter of the taxpayers on the island were listed as owning their own craft.

Family has always been an important element of island life, and the family connections have created an extended community that includes Mount Desert Island, Deer Isle, Brooksville and Castine. The family names of Albee, Babbidge, Bridges, Gott, Joyce, Morey, Smith, Stanley, Staples, Stinson, Stockbridge and Torrey are familiar in all of these communities, providing countless hours of frustration and joy for the family historian. Deep roots in the community, a love of the sea, and a determination to make a go of it, despite the hardships, have combined to create a unique culture, a culture that still reflects the traditional values that have made Hancock County so unique.