Swan's Island: Six miles east of ordinary

This home was probably built by the Reeds, and is located at 439 Atlantic Rd, across from the Baptist Church. Grover Cleveland 'Clevie' (1885-1967) and Bessie (Joyce) (1893-1989) Dunham opened the store in their home. Bessie was a Postmaster from 1940-1956 and used the front part of the house as the post office, while the back was the store. Dunham's store sold a variety of food items such as the ice cream and candy that made it memorable to the younger islanders.

Island resident Carolyn Martin describes the store experience: "You went in to this little store, and I mean little. And on this side was some old post office boxes. And you had your numbers, you know, to get your mail out. Then you went right to the counter and except for what few canned goods there was on the side towards the road you had to ask for everything you wanted. You couldn’t go pick up a loaf of bread or do anything like that. But you know, they was good to the kids too. They was really good people."

Later on, Maynard and Ethel Staples purchased the property and also ran a store there. Ethel took over the post office and ran it from 1956 to 1990. The last Atlantic Postmaster was Debbie Staples, who worked there from 1990 to 1995. Maynard and Ethel's son, Donald 'Donnie' Staples, once kept livestock such as the bull Big Fella at his parent's home. Donald currently lives in the house with his wife Bonnie (Joyce) Staples.