From collection People Biography List
(Notes from Matt Wheeler's interview with Rod Swift, one of Frank's sons.)
Born not Down East but in Wappinger's Falls, NY in 1902, Frank Swift would become known for inventing the now-iconic phenomenom of the Maine Windjammer coastal cruises.
Growing up in Poughkeepsie, Swift never finished high school. Instead he signed on to the Merchant Marine training ship brigantine NEWPORT. Ultimately she never left the dock, but
this brief exposure to a large traditional sailing vessel may have sparked an interest. "An artistic guy," who enrolled briefly at Yale's School of Fine Arts to study metal work and painting, Swift gained skills that would earn him a livelihood teaching in a vocational training program and in a stint as art director at the Poughkeepsie Community Theater. During an adventurous interlude, Swift signed on to the freighter ELKTON, and sailed to Asia via the Panama Canal.
The next phase of his life, in Maine, Swift, now married to Milllicent , developed partly from experience working as a counselor at a boys' summer camp in Waterford. In 1930 he and a fellow counselor split off to establish their own boys camp, Camp Blue Moon, on Toddy Pond in East Orland. In that first summer, Swift and his partner devised the idea of taking their campers out on the coastal waters on a schooner. Finding a willing guide in Bucksport Capt. Parker Hall, owner/operator of the GEORGE GRESS, Swift made learning offshore sailing a part of the camp's junior sailing program. Although Blue Moon Camp was discontinued after only one year, Swift continued the large vessel youth sailing project, including day and overnight excursions for the next six summers. During this time he would get his own training from Captain Hall.
Winters, getting by on his metal work and painting skills during the Depression, now with a family of three children, Swift came up with the idea of a business offering coastal cruises to paying customers. These would be "rustic getaways aboard converted merchant schooners along the idyllic Maine coast." In 1936, Swift managed to charter Schooner MABEL, outfit her cabin for temporary accommodations, and hire on a captain and cook. Swift would be cruise director and deckhand. With dock space and infrastructure as home base in Camden, the second and subsequent seasons proved successful and popular amongst a self-selecting adventuresome group, and heralded the beginning of the Maine windjammer cruise. Newspapers took notice, Life Magazine ran a cover article, and the word was spread to the urban world. Over time Swift would accumulate a fleet of converted working windjammers.
By the 1950s his nine vessels (the MABEL, MATTIE, LOIS M. CANDAGE, MERCANTILE, and CLINTON) had dwindled to two, MATTIE and MERCANTILE. Following several more seasons, Swift sold the business in 1961, and lived well into the next decade to see several successive owners successfully carry on the project. He died in 1978.
Swift was a long-time friend of the photographer Carroll Thayer Berry.
Born not Down East but in Wappinger's Falls, NY in 1902, Frank Swift would become known for inventing the now-iconic phenomenom of the Maine Windjammer coastal cruises.
Growing up in Poughkeepsie, Swift never finished high school. Instead he signed on to the Merchant Marine training ship brigantine NEWPORT. Ultimately she never left the dock, but
this brief exposure to a large traditional sailing vessel may have sparked an interest. "An artistic guy," who enrolled briefly at Yale's School of Fine Arts to study metal work and painting, Swift gained skills that would earn him a livelihood teaching in a vocational training program and in a stint as art director at the Poughkeepsie Community Theater. During an adventurous interlude, Swift signed on to the freighter ELKTON, and sailed to Asia via the Panama Canal.
The next phase of his life, in Maine, Swift, now married to Milllicent , developed partly from experience working as a counselor at a boys' summer camp in Waterford. In 1930 he and a fellow counselor split off to establish their own boys camp, Camp Blue Moon, on Toddy Pond in East Orland. In that first summer, Swift and his partner devised the idea of taking their campers out on the coastal waters on a schooner. Finding a willing guide in Bucksport Capt. Parker Hall, owner/operator of the GEORGE GRESS, Swift made learning offshore sailing a part of the camp's junior sailing program. Although Blue Moon Camp was discontinued after only one year, Swift continued the large vessel youth sailing project, including day and overnight excursions for the next six summers. During this time he would get his own training from Captain Hall.
Winters, getting by on his metal work and painting skills during the Depression, now with a family of three children, Swift came up with the idea of a business offering coastal cruises to paying customers. These would be "rustic getaways aboard converted merchant schooners along the idyllic Maine coast." In 1936, Swift managed to charter Schooner MABEL, outfit her cabin for temporary accommodations, and hire on a captain and cook. Swift would be cruise director and deckhand. With dock space and infrastructure as home base in Camden, the second and subsequent seasons proved successful and popular amongst a self-selecting adventuresome group, and heralded the beginning of the Maine windjammer cruise. Newspapers took notice, Life Magazine ran a cover article, and the word was spread to the urban world. Over time Swift would accumulate a fleet of converted working windjammers.
By the 1950s his nine vessels (the MABEL, MATTIE, LOIS M. CANDAGE, MERCANTILE, and CLINTON) had dwindled to two, MATTIE and MERCANTILE. Following several more seasons, Swift sold the business in 1961, and lived well into the next decade to see several successive owners successfully carry on the project. He died in 1978.
Swift was a long-time friend of the photographer Carroll Thayer Berry.
