Dock and Visitor Center at Georges Island

Georges Island is one of the

islands An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

in the

Boston Harbor Boston Harbor is a natural harbor and estuary of Massachusetts Bay, and is located adjacent to the city of Boston, Massachusetts. It is home to the Port of Boston, a major shipping facility in the northeastern United States. History ...

, situated just over from downtown

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

. The island has a permanent size of , plus an intertidal zone of a further , and rises to a height of above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardise ...

. Historic Fort Warren is on the island. Because of this, and since a ferry operates from

to the island, it is a popular destination and one of the easiest islands to access in the

Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area 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 peninsul ...

History

At the time of Euro-American colonization, Georges Island was composed of two

drumlins A drumlin, from the Irish Gaelic, Irish word ''droimnín'' ("littlest ridge"), first recorded in 1833, in the classical sense is an elongated hill in the shape of an inverted spoon or half-buried egg formed by glacier, glacial ice acting on und ...

, rising out of the bay like other nearby islands. The island was used for agriculture for 200 years until 1825 when the U.S. government acquired it for coastal defense. Over the next 20 years the island was dramatically altered, and one of the country's finest forts was built. Dedicated in 1847, Fort Warren's defensive design was virtually obsolete upon completion. However, the fort served as a training ground, patrol point, and

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

prison A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, corre ...

that gained a favorable reputation for the humane treatment of its

Confederate Confederacy or confederate may refer to: States or communities * Confederate state or confederation, a union of sovereign groups or communities * Confederate States of America, a confederation of secessionist American states that existed between 1 ...

prisoners. After 100 years of military use, the fort was decommissioned in 1950 and acquired by the Metropolitan District Commission for historic preservation and recreation in 1958. To this day, in the fort's dark corridors, the legend lives on of "The Lady in Black," the ghost of a Confederate prisoner's wife who is said to have been sentenced to death for aiding in an escape after disguising herself as a male soldier, and hanged in a black robe which was the best the soldiers could do to accommodate her last request of being executed in female clothing. The myth was a creation of author Edward Rowe Snow to bring attention to Fort Warren need for preservation and protection. His efforts through the Friends of Fort Warren were instrumental to Georges Island's inclusion in Massachusetts State Parks and eventually National Park System.

Present day

The island has fields for recreational use, a small food vendor, and twenty one mooring balls available to the public by reservation. It is served throughout the summer and early fall by ferries to and from

and by a shuttle boat to and from the surrounding islands during the summer season. Today the

Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation The Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) is a state agency of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, situated in the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. It is best known for its parks and parkways. The DCR's mission i ...

owns and staffs the island. Rangers patrol and give interpretive tours. The island is open to the public May through October. Georges Island is a transportation hub, as inter-island ferries run from Georges to other islands in the park. State laws prohibit alcohol, fireworks, and firearms on the island. Also, the island has a strict carry on–carry off policy for trash.

Confederate memorial, removed

The Commonwealth's only Confederate memorial was installed on the island in 1963 by the Boston Chapter of the

United Daughters of the Confederacy The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is an American neo-Confederate hereditary association for female descendants of Confederate Civil War soldiers engaging in the commemoration of these ancestors, the funding of monuments to them, ...

. The

cenotaph A cenotaph is an empty tomb or a monument erected in honour of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been reinterred elsewhere. Although the vast majority of cenot ...

commemorating 13 southern Civil War soldiers, who died while imprisoned at Fort Warren, remained on display until Governor

Charlie Baker Charles Duane Baker Jr. (born November 13, 1956) is an American politician and businessman serving as the 72nd governor of Massachusetts since 2015. A member of the Republican Party, Baker was a cabinet official under two governors of Massach ...

called for its removal in June 2017. The memorial was subsequently covered over, then removed in October 2017, when it was placed in storage at the Massachusetts Archives.

References

External links

Georges Island web page
with visitor information.
Flickr
Photos, 2009
Flickr
Photos, 2011 {{Boston Harbor Islands Boston Harbor islands Islands of Suffolk County, Massachusetts