Boston Harbor Islands

Boston Harbor Islands are a system of about thirty islands and peninsulas within an urban setting, valued for their natural and historical resources and preserved for public access, enjoyment, and education. The islands have been inhabited by humans for more than 8,000 years; Native Americans used harbor resources extensively, hunted and fished there, developed crops suited to the Northeast about 1,000 years ago, and left artifacts, bones, shells, and a 4,000-year-old skeleton later unearthed in the 1970s. With the arrival of Europeans in the 1600s, the islands became places of settlement, work, farming, navigation, commerce, and isolation, and they also figured in hardship, as in the 1660 winter ordeal of Boston residents caught by ice and storm. The islands played an important role in European exploration and New England’s maritime entry, and in later coastal defense through the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. Their history includes Donald McKay’s shipbuilding in East Boston, the association of Fort Warren with the tune that inspired Julia Ward Howe’s “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” the legend of Nix's Mate, quarantine and prison uses, and the internment of Indians during King Philip’s War, when many died of starvation and exposure. Geologically, many of the islands are drumlins shaped by glacial action and isolated by rising seas about 15,000 years ago. Over time some islands were altered by erosion, dumping, and industrial uses, while pollution damaged Boston Harbor, but cleanup and sewage treatment on Deer Island have helped renew the harbor’s ecosystems, turning the islands once more into places for wildlife, recreation, and personal renewal.

Boston, Massachusetts · United States