Mother-in-Law Island is an island in the

Thimble Islands The Thimble Islands is an archipelago consisting of small islands in Long Island Sound, located in and around the harbor of Stony Creek in the southeast corner of Branford, Connecticut. The islands are under the jurisdiction of the United Sta ...

group, part of the

Stony Creek–Thimble Islands Historic District The Stony Creek–Thimble Islands Historic District is a historic district encompassing a 19th-century summer resort area in Branford, Connecticut. Located in the southeastern part of the town, it encompasses the mainland Stony Creek neighborh ...

Long Island Sound Long Island Sound is a marine sound and tidal estuary of the Atlantic Ocean. It lies predominantly between the U.S. state of Connecticut to the north and Long Island in New York to the south. From west to east, the sound stretches from the Eas ...

Branford, Connecticut Branford is a shoreline New England town, town located on Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut, New Haven County, Connecticut, about east of downtown New Haven, Connecticut, New Haven. The population was 28,273 at the 2020 United Sta ...

. It is also known as Johnson Island, Prudden Island, and Little Stooping Bush. One house, a frame-structured house built around 1965, stands on the island.Stony Creek/Thimble Islands Historic District NRHP Registration Form
(November 14, 1988), section 7, p. 21.

Naming of the island

The island is said to have been named "Mother-in-Law Island" after two people got married on Money Island and then rowed off to the nearby island, planning to spend the night there in a tent. The newlywed woman's mother followed them to the island in another rowboat. That night, when the mother-in-law fell asleep, the couple, who felt their privacy was being invaded, went back to Money Island and took both boats with them, leaving her stranded there for three days before she was rescued.Van Auken, Ceceli
"Boat's captain tells the story of enchanting Thimble Islands"
''

Bridgeport Post The ''Connecticut Post'' is a daily newspaper located in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It serves Fairfield County, Connecticut, Fairfield County and the Lower Naugatuck Valley. Municipalities in the Post's circulation area include Ansonia, Connectic ...

'', July 17, 1966—via

Newspapers.com Ancestry.com LLC is an American genealogy company based in Lehi, Utah. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites. In November 2018, ...

. In the entry of the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

for the Stony Creek –Thimble Islands Historic District (filed in 1988), the island is called Johnson Island, with Prudden and Mother-in-Law listed as alternative names. It has also been called Little Stooping Bush.Anne Farrow
"Summer Places"
''

Hartford Courant The ''Hartford Courant'' is the largest daily newspaper in the U.S. state of Connecticut, and is considered to be the oldest continuously published newspaper in the United States. A morning newspaper serving most of the state north of New Haven ...

'', July 11, 1999. Retrieved 2017-03-05.

Bernay Johnson and Current Owners

Originally named Prudden Island, Commander Bernay Johnson was the owner of the island before 1981. Johnson was a friend of

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

, and, as a favor to his friend, Nixon got an

Act of Congress An Act of Congress is a statute enacted by the United States Congress. Acts may apply only to individual entities (called Public and private bills, private laws), or to the general public (Public and private bills, public laws). For a Bill (law) ...

passed renaming the island Johnson Island on all U.S. nautical maps. Rocks nearby are also named for him – Bernay’s Reef and Commander Rocks – but no local citizen knows those rocks’ names, except for sailors who read the charts to avoid them. It was said that Johnson was also a friend of

Liberace Władziu Valentino Liberace (May 16, 1919 – February 4, 1987) was an American pianist, singer, and actor. A child prodigy born in Wisconsin to parents of Italian and Polish origin, he enjoyed a career spanning four decades of concerts, recordi ...

, a pianist who dressed in outlandish costumes. Liberace would visit and play on an old upright piano. Boaters would circle the island in the evening and listen to his classical music. Johnson tried to con an oil company into purchasing the island after he claimed that he had found oil there. Johnson also said that he invented the first one-man submarine. He was a skydiver. And supposedly, he said that he wanted to be cremated and his remains were to be laid to rest in the pothole on Commander Rocks. He finally stopped summering on Johnson or Mother-in Law Island when he was 75 years old and it was put up for sale shortly thereafter. In 1981, Johnson sold the island to a family who have resided there each summer ever since. Although they did not strike oil, they did find a productive clam bed. While locals know the island as Mother-in-Law and it’s Johnson Island on nautical maps, the island remains Prudden Island on the deed.

References

*
Wealthy Widow Buying Up Thimbles
', "New Haven Register", January 22, 2006, page A1 {{authority control Branford, Connecticut Thimble Islands Long Island Sound Landforms of Middlesex County, Connecticut