The Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area is a national recreation area situated among the islands of Boston Harbor of Boston, Massachusetts. The area is made up of a collection of islands, together with a former island and a

peninsula A peninsula (; ) is a landform that extends from a mainland and is surrounded by water on most, but not all of its borders. A peninsula is also sometimes defined as a piece of land bordered by water on three of its sides. Peninsulas exist on all ...

, many of which are open for public recreation and some of which are very small and best suited for wildlife. The area is run by the Boston Harbor Islands Partnership. It includes the Boston Harbor Islands State Park, managed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Twenty-one of the 34 islands in the area are also included in the Boston Harbor Islands Archeological District. Attractions include hiking trails, beaches, the Civil War-era Fort Warren on

Georges Island Georges Island, or George's Island, may refer to: Geography *Georges Island (Massachusetts), offshore from the city of Boston, Massachusetts *Georges Island (Nova Scotia), offshore from the community of Halifax in the Halifax Regional Municipali ...

and

Boston Light Boston Light is a lighthouse located on Little Brewster Island in outer Boston Harbor, Massachusetts. The first lighthouse to be built on the site dates back to 1716, and was the first lighthouse to be built in what is now the United States. The c ...

Little Brewster Island Little Brewster Island is a rocky outer island in the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area. It is best known as the location of Boston Light, one of only five remaining Coast Guard-staffed lighthouses in the United States, and an impo ...

, the oldest

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mar ...

in the United States.

and Spectacle Island are served seasonally by ferries to and from Boston, connecting on weekends and summer weekdays with a shuttle boat to several other islands,

Hull Hull may refer to: Structures * Chassis, of an armored fighting vehicle * Fuselage, of an aircraft * Hull (botany), the outer covering of seeds * Hull (watercraft), the body or frame of a ship * Submarine hull Mathematics * Affine hull, in affi ...

, and Hingham. In 1996, there was a project proposal by Boston's mayor

Tom Menino Tom or TOM may refer to: * Tom (given name), a diminutive of Thomas or Tomás or an independent Aramaic given name (and a list of people with the name) Characters * Tom Anderson, a character in ''Beavis and Butt-Head'' * Tom Beck, a character ...

and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Clifford A. Goudey to revitalize the

aquaculture Aquaculture (less commonly spelled aquiculture), also known as aquafarming, is the controlled cultivation ("farming") of aquatic organisms such as fish, crustaceans, mollusks, algae and other organisms of value such as aquatic plants (e.g. lot ...

and fish population in Boston Harbor. This would have involved using the old tanks and granite canals on Moon Island. In 2008,

Peddocks Island Peddocks Island is one of the largest islands in Boston Harbor. Since 1996 it has formed part of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area. Managed by the Department of Conservation and Recreation, the island is home to the now-defunct Fo ...

was used for filming scenes in Martin Scorsese's '' Shutter Island''.

List of islands and peninsulas

The Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area is made up of a series of rocky islands and other places on and around Boston Harbor. These include: *

Bumpkin Island __NOTOC__ Bumpkin Island, also known as Round Island, Bomkin Island, Bumkin Island, or Ward's Island, is an island in the Hingham Bay area of the Boston Harbor. In 1902, Albert Burrage, a Boston philanthropist, had a summer hospital opened on t ...

(Hingham) * Button Island (Hingham) * Calf Island (Boston) * Deer Island (Boston) * Gallops Island (Boston) *

(Boston) * Grape Island (Weymouth) * The Graves (Boston) * Great Brewster Island (Boston) * Green Island (Boston) * Hangman Island (Quincy) * Langlee Island (Hingham) *

(Boston) *

Little Calf Island Little Calf Island is a small rocky island in the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area, some 9 miles offshore from downtown Boston, Massachusetts. The island has no vegetation and no history of human occupation. It is used for nesting by g ...

(Boston) *

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...

(Boston) *

Lovells Island Lovells Island, or Lovell's Island, is a island in the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area, in Massachusetts. The island is across The Narrows from Georges Island and some offshore of downtown Boston. It is named after Captain Wil ...

(Boston) * Middle Brewster Island (Boston) * Moon Island (Quincy) * Nixes Mate (Boston) *

Nut Island Nut Island is a former island in Boston Harbor, part of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area. The island has been connected through a short causeway to the end of Hough's Neck (Quincy, Massachusetts), Houghs Neck, becoming part of th ...

(Quincy) * Outer Brewster Island (Boston) *

(Hull) * Raccoon Island (Quincy) * Ragged Island (Hingham) *

Rainsford Island Rainsford Island, formerly known Hospital Island, Pest House Island, and Quarantine Island,Sarah Island (Hingham) * Shag Rocks (Boston) * Sheep Island (Weymouth) *

Slate Island Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

(Weymouth) * Snake Island (Winthrop) * Spectacle Island (Boston) * Thompson Island (Boston) * Webb Memorial Park (Weymouth) *

World's End World's End or Worlds End may refer to: Arts and entertainment Literature Novels * ''World's End'' (Boyle novel), a 1987 novel by T. Coraghessan Boyle * ''World's End'' (Chadbourn novel), a 2000 novel by Mark Chadbourn * ''World's End'' (Sincl ...

(Hingham) Two islands ( Castle Island and Spinnaker Island) in Boston Harbor are not part of the National Recreation Area, and other former islands (''e.g.'' Apple Island, Governors Island and Noddle's Island) were obliterated by the formation of East Boston and the expansion of Logan International Airport before the area was designated.

Management

The Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area is managed by the Boston Harbor Islands Partnership, a statutory body established as a federal operating committee by the park enabling legislation. The partnership consists of individual members who represent a range of federal, state, city, and nonprofit agencies, including: * United States National Park Service * United States Coast Guard * Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation * Massachusetts Port Authority * Massachusetts Water Resources Authority * City of Boston * Boston Redevelopment Authority * Boston Harbor Island Alliance * Thompson Island Outward Bound Education Center *

The Trustees of Reservations The Trustees of Reservations is a non-profit land conservation and historic preservation organization dedicated to preserving natural and historical places in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is the oldest land conservation nonprofit orga ...

In addition, the Partnership includes representation from the Boston Harbor Islands Advisory Council, whose purpose is to make recommendations to the Partnership about park management. There are 13 Partners in total, together with 13 Alternates. Apart from the representative for the Coast Guard, who is appointed by the Secretary of Homeland Security, all the members of the partnership are appointed by the

Secretary of the Interior Secretary of the Interior may refer to: * Secretary of the Interior (Mexico) * Interior Secretary of Pakistan * Secretary of the Interior and Local Government (Philippines) * United States Secretary of the Interior See also

*Interior ministry ...

after consultation with the appropriate agency or other body. In practice, day-to-day management of each individual island or other site is the responsibility of one of the partner agencies or other bodies. The partnership provides a consistency and coordination across the whole park.

Boston Harbor Islands State Park

Boston Harbor Islands State Park is a Massachusetts

state park State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use "state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on account of its natural ...

comprising 13 islands located in Boston Harbor, which now forms part of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area. The park was developed from the 1970s by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Management (DEM). In 1996, the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area was created, including the State Park's islands and many others. However, due to the unusual partnership management arrangements of the National Recreation Area, the State Park still exists as a low profile administrative entity. It is now managed by the DEM's successor, the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, from a park headquarters near to the ferry terminal in Hingham. The islands of the Boston Harbor Islands State Park are: *

* Calf Island * Gallops Island * Grape Island * Great Brewster Island * Green Island * Hangman Island *

* Middle Brewster Island * Outer Brewster Island * Raccoon Island * Sheep Island *

Transportation

Boston Harbor Cruises offers ferry service from Long Wharf at Christopher Columbus Park to Georges and Spectacle Islands. Free service is available between Georges and Spectacle, as well as between the other islands. Summer service is also available from

Hingham Shipyard The Bethlehem Hingham Shipyard of Hingham, Massachusetts, was a shipyard in the United States from 1941 until 1945. Located on Weymouth Back River, it was owned by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Company and operated by the nearby Fore River Shipyard ...

and

to Georges Island via Grape, Bumpkin, and Lovells Islands. (These services are separate from

MBTA Boat The MBTA boat or MBTA ferry system is a public boat service providing water transportation in Boston Harbor. It is operated by Boston Harbor Cruises (BHC) under contract to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA). In , the system h ...

harbor ferries.) Thompson Island is only open to the public on Sundays during the summer. It is served by a ferry leaving from both Spectacle Island and the EDIC dock on Terminal Street in South Boston, operated by the Thompson Island Outward Bound Education Center. Private boats can dock (with various restrictions) at Spectacle, Grape, Bumpkin, Lovells, and Peddocks Islands. The public dock on Georges Island was recently condemned by engineers, although access is still available by making anchor off shore and using a dinghy to row ashore. Deer Island, Nut Island, Worlds End, and Webb Memorial are accessible by road from the mainland. Moon Island and Long Island are not open to the public; though Moon Island is accessible by road from Quincy, access is controlled by a police guard station at the beginning of the causeway on the Squantum peninsula. The causeway from Moon Island to Long Island was demolished in 2015 and it is no longer accessible by road.

References

Bibliography

* Best, Neil A.
"Preliminary Design of a Recirculating Aquaculture System in Boston Harbor"
Masters Thesis, Ocean Engineering, MIT, February 1997. Technical Advisor, Clifford A. Goudey. * The Boston Globe
"Harboring recreation"
Guest Editorial, June 3, 2006. * Kales, Emily, Kales, David, "All About the Boston Harbor Islands", Hewitts Cove Publishing, 1983. * Marcus, John
"Scientists Test Once-Polluted Harbor’s Crop Potential"
Los Angeles Times, Sunday, January 11, 1998 * Mikal, Alan, "Exploring Boston Harbor", Christopher Publishing House, North Quincy, Massachusetts, 1973. * Northeastern Naturalist, Volume 12, Issue sp3, July 2005. Articles on the Boston Harbor Islands

* Richburg, Julie A.
Patterson, William A.
III
"Historical Description of the Vegetation of the Boston Harbor Islands, 1600-2000"
Northeastern Naturalist, v.12, Special Issue 3, 13-30, 2005. * Sammarco, Anthony Mitchell, "Boston's Harbor Islands", Images of America series, 1998. * Sherman, Annie
"The Other Islands: The Harbor Islands make for an easy day trip for sunbathers, history buffs—and especially the traffic-weary"
Boston magazine, May 2007 issue. * Snow, Edward Rowe ** "The Islands of Boston Harbor", 1935.

** "Sailing Down Boston Bay", Yankee Publishing Company, 1941.
"Some Events of Boston and Its Neighbors"
printed for the State Street Trust Company, Boston, Massachusetts, 1917.

in "Some Events of Boston and Its Neighbors", Chapter 4, printed for the State Street Trust Company, Boston, Massachusetts, 1917. * Sweetser, M.F., "King's Handbook of Boston Harbor", Moses King Corporation, Boston, 1882; reprinted in 1988 by Applewood Books, and The Friends of Boston Harbor Islands, and in 2010 by BiblioLife. (2010 reprint). This book was written about the time when the first Boston almshouse was being built on Long Island.

External links

Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area

Boston Harbor Islands Visitor Guide

Boston Harbor resources site

NOAA Soundings Map of Boston Harbor

Island Alliance (Boston Harbor)

- Massachusetts Department of Conservation & Recreation (DCR).
The Boston Harbor Association resources
*
Volunteers and Friends of the Boston Harbor Islands Inc. records, 1770-2011
University Archives and Special Collections, Joseph P. Healey Library, University of Massachusetts Boston * {{authority control 1996 establishments in Massachusetts National Park Service National Recreation Areas Islands of Massachusetts Coastal islands of Massachusetts Boston Harbor State parks of Massachusetts National Park Service areas in Massachusetts Parks in Boston National Register of Historic Places in Suffolk County, Massachusetts National Register of Historic Places in Plymouth County, Massachusetts Protected areas established in 1996

List of islands and peninsulas

Management

Boston Harbor Islands State Park

Transportation

See also

References

Bibliography

Further reading

External links