Lewis Kilborn
Lewis Kilborn was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts in 1902, the son of John Dexter Kilborn and Sarah Cahill Kilborn. He was the descendant of many generations of the Kilborn family who first began to settle in Essex County, Massachusetts in the 17th Century. When just a baby, Lew Kilborn was taken to the family home on Grape Island, in Ipswich, Massachusetts and grew up there, fishing and clamming with his father. When the Department of the Interior took possession of Grape Island for the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, most of the families on Grape Island had already begun to leave for the mainland, but the Kilborns remained. After the death of his father, Lewis Kilborn was the last resident on the island, and remained there until his death in 1984.
