As a teenager, Marion H. Gibson Woods was a long-distance swimmer for the Tenean Swimming Club in Dorchester, Massachusetts. She swam in all weather and conditions, utilizing a combination of breast and trudgen strokes (a variation of sidestroke) and long arm crawl, allowing her to outlast even male swimmers in competition. Gibson swam from Boston’s Union Boat Club on the Charles River to Boston Light, the historic lighthouse that overlooks the sea from Little Brewster Island. She accomplished this before the City of Boston installed locks to manage the marine traffic from Boston Harbor to Back Bay.
In 1913, the Tenean Swimming Club in Dorchester hosted Marion Gibson Day to celebrate her record-breaking swim from Charlestown Bridge to Boston Light. She competed against several male swimmers in rough seas. Two swimmers gave up and were pulled into the accompanying boats, while another swimmer proposed to her during the event, hoping she would stop racing.
In 1916, after swimming for the Brookline Swimming Club, Gibson became the first female champion of the New England Association Amateur Athletic, setting new records in the 50 and 220-yard (furlong) swims. After getting married to a Boston businessman and moving to Cohasset to start a family, she continued her long-distance swimming as a form of exercise. During her swims from the Cohasset Yacht Club to Minot’s Light, she often stopped for tea with the lightkeepers.
Marion’s eldest son, Edward F. Woods, is also buried at the cemetery. Woods, a respected Cohasset dentist, practiced on Ripley Road for over 40 years and was known to make house calls and serve sherry to nervous patients.
He was a longtime member of the Society of the Cincinnati, the oldest hereditary organization in the United States, first established by George Washington’s Army officers (see #19 James Hall and #23 George Hall). His ancestry traces back to Ensign Josiah Magoun, Second Regiment, New Hampshire Continental Line. Woods served as the New Hampshire secretary for over 25 years and Co-Chairman of the membership committee for almost four decades. He also was on the Society’s Board of Directors and Standing Committee at their National Headquarters in Washington, DC, for over two decades. In 2010 Woods was awarded the Washington-Lafayette Eagle for Service of the Highest Distinction to the Society of the Cincinnati. He was also on the Cohasset Central Cemetery Board of Directors for over 40 years.
