Ruth Swett Mayhew worked as a nurse in the American Civil War, helping to run the Maine field hospital at City Point, Virginia.

She cared for ill soldiers in Washington and worked as an agent for the Maine Camp Hospital Association, distributing supplies to soldiers.

She was born in Orland and grew up on the Cranberry Isles and in Surry. Her husband, the Rev. Andrew H. Mayhew of Rockland, died in 1856.

After the war, Mayhew taught for several years at an Indian school in Kansas, then returned to Rockland.