History
What’s a “Swamp Yankee”? | New England Lexicon
The origin of the term “swamp Yankee” may be muddy, but we know who they are.
By Featherston Barrett|Sep 30 2021|
Photo Credit: <a href="https://flic.kr/p/jfAN1g">simpleinsomnia/Flickr</a>
Photo Credit : Photo by simpleinsomnia / CC BY 2.0
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I’m a Swamp Yankee from Eastford CT. You might contact the Historical society there about exactly what a swamp Yankee is. I am very proud of my heritage in Eastern CT.
My maiden name is a Polish name but my mother was an “original” Winsor from the first settlers of this country. I have a typed copy of our heritage and its Preface entails an explanation of why the “Windsor’s” who sailed to the new world made a pact to drop the “d” in their last name so as to Not be associated with the “Windsor’s” of England. Thus the “Winsor’s” of the USA do not have the “d” in their name even though are an extension of the Windsor’s in England.
That was a very genteel description of the term. I’ve never heard it used except in a derogatory sense, similar to White Trash, except it was reserved only for poor rural Yankee families in New England. I definitely don’t see how it could be used to refer to “rich old money families” as the article states.
Exactly what I thought. My father who was of french canadian decent referred to our English neighbors as swamp yankees and it was a derogatory term for people who inherited land and continually sold it off to support themselves. We lived in southern Massachusetts.
You are correct. I grew up in northern Maine, home to many Swamp Yankees. I never encountered much gentility among them.
Complete agreement. In Eastern Connecticut, a “Swamp Yankee” is basically synonymous with “redneck” or “hillbilly.” They’re the folks who live in rural areas, go off-roading in ATVs and motorbikes, drive pick-up trucks, attend vocational-agricultural schools, and inexplicably have Confederate flag bumper stickers…in New England.
Mind you, you can drive a pick-up truck, go off-roading, or attend a vo-ag without being a Swamp Yankee! But if you’re doing all of the above in Connecticut…you’re definitely a Swamp Yankee.
It also often gets shortened to “Swamper.”
thought that territory went way down yonder a lot more…an skirtin’ tha gulf…
I remember when I was growing up in the mid 40s there were old yankees with money living frugally. We lived on land that had been in my father’s family since 1713 .My sister is still there.
I’m a direct descendent of Governor William Bradford, as well as several other Pilgrims. I was always told we were “Swamp Yankees,” because we had the “Pedigree” but not the old money.
lived in farmhouse w/indian-shutters hand made nails beams w/wooden pegs
Grandpa always told me we were descended from Swamp Yankees, the early colonists who lived deep in the solitude of the rugged swampy areas of New England, with the natives. Having been researching my ancestry for decades, I’ve come to know that most were land rich and basically cash poor or struggling, hence the need for the land to eventually be sold off and yes there were several generations of different ancestry families who managed to hold on to the family homestead until it too was sold off.
I lived in Portsmouth RI and we had students in Portsmouth High from Tiverton and Little Compton RI. They referred themselves as Swamp Yankees and proud of it, old Yankee blood lines.
Had a friend from Tiverton, RI whose family goes way back and referred to his family as “swamp Yankee”. I always thought it meant poorer or working class old Yankees living on poor grade of land.
I think the term came from the Rhode Islanders who lived very near the great Swamp in South Kingstown. They were so swamped Yankee type that the name swamp became part of their description. We used it on an old 1740 house on Ministerio Road near the swampAnd that’s my input.
Thompson, Ct. has the distinct honor of having the term “Swamp Yankee” ascribed to it. Reference the New England story by Jane Shwedo February 18, 2018.
https://newengland.com/today/living/humor/swamp-yankees-whats-in-a-name/
Joe Lindley was the local Thompson Historian related that story often prior to his passing.
Just keeping history on a ‘thought too be accurate’ path.
I’m Yankee. My father said it was used for guys who dodged military service in the Civil War by hiding back in the swamps. Of course, my dad got a lot of things wrong.
Would like to be able to send my 86 year old, proud swamp Yankee, mother more info. Can you direct me where to join for that focus?
My parents moved down to Florida in 1968 from New England .
They all moved up to Georgia in the 1990s. So I followed them to Georgia when I retired. I never heard term Swamp Yankee until a couple years ago.
They call me a Swamp Yankee due to the fact I am from the north and live in the South and like the Southern Lifestyle.
I remember the term being applied to the two President Bushes ancestors, who came to America as part of a second wave of English immigrants, too late to get any of the good land, just the swamps.
The Puritans preferred swamps for farming like where they came from, they could drain em for cattle to graze on. Regional thing, moors and such.
The definition I heard had to do with Thompson, CT. Back sometime in the 1700s, there was a rumor of an attack coming from either the British or the Indians (I forget which). Some people panicked at the unconfirmed rumor, and fled into the nearby swamps, where the mosquitoes had a fine old time with them. Nowadays, the term is applied to gullible, rumor-ridden people, and to people who are are fairly anti-social, distrust “outsiders”, and who seem to value ignorance. Unfortunately, it’s also sometimes dismissively applied to people who tend to be on the lower end of the economic and educational scale, and are thought to be sort of a local version of a stereotypical “hillbilly”.
My dad, too, called himself a swamp yankee
My maternal grandfather whose family came from La Rochelle, France to Worchester County in 1647 taught us to claim Yankee-American ancestry. I’ve never heard the term “Swamp Yankee” before today.
My grandfather said a swamp Yankee and an old cranberry bogger could not communicate with each other.
I am from “poor” workers who were thought to be uneducated. However. it is
amazing that in just one generation we have improved status to ell-educated &
Living in much better circumstances.
I thought it might have originally referred to trapping and fishing in, and getting their lumber from, the cedar swamps in northeastern Connecticut. But, I’m a Northwest Cornerite. So, what would I know?
I lived in a swampy town in Maine as man and boy without having heard the term. After hearing it, I realized it fit many people around here. My impression is that Swamp Yankees are from NW European Protestant stock and have been around for a long time without accomplishing much in society at large.