The Families of Swan's Island
From the Late 1700's To Present

We at the Swan's Island Historical Society have been gathering family history or 'Genealogy' information based upon the work of Dr. Hermon W. Small's 'History of Swan's Island' and the work of Grace Bishoff, a former summer resident of the island. Ms. Bishoff traced connections of many Island families to Mayflower and Revolutionary ancestors.

We will periodically assemble and add portions of this huge work for presentation on the Swan's Island Web Site. This initial information provides ancestor roots and descendant trees of some of the earliest settlers of the Swan's Island group of Islands.

• We ask all viewers to please provide us details about any detected errors, and information to more completely cover all related people and additions about people not currently documented.
• Also, if you'd like to ask for specific family information, please contact us and every effort will be made to satisfy your request.
• We provide on this site, files you can download to print blank forms to submit additional family information for which we will be most grateful.

PDF copies of blank genealogical documents are available to download here.
Download Blank Family Group Sheet

Download Blank Pedigree Chart

Many early settlers came after the Revolutionary War and were former soldiers. A lot were enticed by Colonel Swan, also a former soldier, to work on his Island and take up a lot of land for their own. Others later came for the same purpose but perhaps not with the soldier background.

See Explanations to find out about what is and is not included in the reports available here.

Email Swan's Island Historical Society with any questions you may have about this genealogy information.

The Early Settlers

Person	Approximate Arrival	Comments
Thomas Kench	About 1777	Harbor Island
‘King’ David Smith His Ancestors	About 1791	Employed at Swan's Mills
Joseph Toothaker His Ancestors	About 1791	No known descendents
Moses Staples His Ancestors	About 1793
Joshua Grindle His Ancestors	1794
John Rich	1794	Went to Isle au Haut soon after
William Davis	1794	Went to Frenchboro in 1797
Alexander Nutter	1796	At Irish Point
William Nutter (See Alexander Nutter’s descendents)	About 1800
John Finney	1803
Samuel Kent	1805	At Irish Point
James Joyce His Ancestors	1806
Benjamin Stinson His Ancestors	About 1810
Courtney Babbidge	Before 1812
Jeptha Benson	After 1812	Marshall's Island
Levi Torrey	About 1814
William Stanley	After 1814
Robert Mitchell	1814
Rev. Bryant Lennan	1814
John Stockbridge	About 1816
Thomas Dunbar	1819
Peter Gott	Before 1820
James T. Sprague	About 1820
Israel Conary	1820
Zachariah Kempton	1821
Seth Kempton	1821
Cushing Stewart	1822
Thomas Colomy	1823
Silas Hardy	1825	Harbor Island
Joshua Trask	1825
Enoch Billings	1826
Elias Morey, Jr.	1832
Joshua, Thomas and Moses Sadler	1834
Hardy Lane	About 1835	Harbor Island
Oliver B. Lane, Jr.	About 1835	Harbor Island
Abram Holbrook	1836
Kimball Herrick	1839	At Irish Point
John Adams	1840
Alexander Kiff	1841
Solomon Barbour	1843
Jacob S. Reed	1845
Moses Bridges	1847
Genealogy Reports about ancestors are being prepared for some of the above early settlers