Swan Island

The story

Swan Island lies in the Kennebec River between Richmond and Dresden, Maine, and holds the abandoned village of Perkins — a town that voted itself out of existence. First settled around 1730, the island community made its living from shipbuilding, farming, and fishing, and was incorporated as the town of Perkins in 1847, with close to a hundred residents at its peak.

The town disincorporated in 1918, becoming a state-managed township, and its remaining people left over the following decades. The Great Depression and the growing pollution of the Kennebec — then one of the dirtiest rivers in the Northeast — undercut the island's livelihoods, and by the mid-1940s Perkins was empty.

The State of Maine now owns the whole island as the Steve Powell Wildlife Management Area. Several 18th- and 19th-century houses still stand along the old island road within a National Register historic district, kept up amid deer, eagles, and returning forest. Visitors reach it by state ferry, and camping, hunting, and wildlife viewing are allowed by reservation from spring through fall.

What remains today

Several restored 18th- and 19th-century houses along the island road, cellar holes, and old farm fields — a National Register historic district on state land.