Stephanie Schorow - East of Boston: Notes from the Harbor Islands

A map of the Boston Harbor Islands National Park Area. Courtesy of the Boston Harbor Island Alliance.

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2008 by Stephanie Schorow

All rights reserved

Cover design by Marshall Hudson.

All images by the author unless otherwise noted.

First published 2008

Second printing 2013

e-book edition 2013

Manufactured in the United State

ISBN 978.1.62584.383.8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Schorow, Stephanie.

East of Boston : notes from the Harbor Islands / Stephanie Schorow.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

print edition ISBN 978-1-59629-379-3

1. Boston Harbor Islands (Mass.)--History. 2. Boston Harbor Islands (Mass.)--Guidebooks. 3. Boston Harbor Islands (Mass.)--Anecdotes. 4. Schorow, Stephanie--Travel--Massachusetts--Boston Harbor Islands. 5. Boston Harbor Islands (Mass.)--Description and travel. I. Title.

F73.63.S36 2008

974.46--dc22

2008015019

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

contents

acknowledgements

It would be difficult to name all the people who so graciously shared their memories and their research on the Boston Harbor Islands both for the first and second edition of this book. Many park rangers, volunteers and visitors willingly gave up time to talk to a pesky reporter; any mistakes in these pages are the fault of the writer, not her sources. I am very grateful to Suzanne Gall Marsh for her extraordinary help in preparing the second edition. I would like to thank (in no particular order) Susan Abell, Walter Hope, Karen ODonnell, Charlotte Knox, Carol Fithian, Claire and Bill Hale, Judy McDevitt (rest in peace, my friend), Robert L. Rab Sherman, Tom Powers, Kelly Fellner, Diane Haynes, Elizabeth Carella, Carol Thistle, Valerie Wilcox, Ellen Berkland, Tom Loring, Eleanor Cutting, Sally Snowman, Bob Enos, Walter Enos, Bruce Jacobson, Richie Sutherland, Matt Hillman, Lawrence Walsh, Allen Gontz, Robert Dillon, Brett, Richard Baldy Murphy, Sheila Martel, Steven Marcus, Susan Kane, Kathy Abbott, Michael Madej, Nancy Martin, Kristen Sherman and Mary Eng for her title suggestion. Also Mary Keith and Erin Schleigh of the MFA and Victoria Stevens of the Hull Lifesaving Museum. Im grateful to the library staff of the Boston Herald for their patience, Renee DeKona for her photography input, Paul Stevenson for his Photoshop lessons, Aaron Schmidt for his help at the Boston Public Library and Paul Christian, Michael Gerry and Ted Gerber for their encouragement. Many thanks to Kathy Alpert for her postcard expertise and to Kathryn Jacob for telling me about the Great Brewster diary. A shout-out goes to Melissa Cook for her editing skills and excellent suggestions. Thanks go to Bill and Mary Stevenson, who took me on that first boat trip, and Linda Kincaid for sending me on my first island assignment. I especially want to thank Saunders Robinson of The History Press and Shawna Mullen, who gave me an excuse to spend my summer camping on the islands of Boston Harbor.

CHAPTER 1

welcome to the islands

The Boston Harbor Islands form a transition between the open ocean and the settled coast, between the world beyond Boston Harbor and the features specific to it.

Boston Harbor Islands: A National Park Area, general management plan

This book is a guide, a history and a love letter. It was written in the heat of fresh passion, a time when a relationship is flush with the sense of discovery. But like any letter written by an ardent wooer of a coy mistress, its a bit peevish at times. Most passionate affairs are a mixture of infatuation, adoration, impatience and frustration. So is this one. Perhaps it seems strange that the object of my affection is a series of dots in the ocean, small islands in Boston Harbor within sight of the city, islands that since 1996 have been gathered into a most unusual national park.

Yet these thirty-four islands (actually islands, former islands and peninsulas) have been beloved by generations of New Englanders. Their history reaches back to the beginnings of Boston, when those prickly, uptight Puritans grabbed a bit of rocky coast and decided to build a city on a hill. Before these immigrants arrived, the islands were the territory of Native Americans, who fished and gathered food along their shores. Like todays island campers, they gazed over the ocean, pondering deep questions of existence: What is my purpose in life? Whats over the horizon? Whats for dinner?

As happens in many affairs, my relationship with the Boston Harbor Islands began through a coincidence. Im not a Boston native (although I can say wicked smaaht with the best of them), but like many converts, Ive become a booster of the Hub, with its Revolutionary War history, do-gooder spirit, incomprehensible traffic patterns and madcap drivers. Like many city residents, I had only a vague idea that there were islands in Boston Harborthat much-maligned waterway now undergoing restoration. For years I saw the islands only when I took off in a plane from Logan Airport, which, as I later learned, assimilated some of the islands like a land-based alien Borg Collectiveresistance being futile. Then, one day in early 2001, friends who are ardent sailors invited me along on a cruise of the harbor with their boating club.

During the warm weather, passenger ferries carry people from downtown Boston to the Boston Harbor Islands. Photo by Justin Knight, courtesy of the Boston Harbor Island Alliance.

Im not a big fan of boats. Oh, I love the sea and relish the feeling of getting away from it all, taking a salty journey where you get to say Aargh a lot. Truth be told, however, Id rather be hiking on my own two feet with a pack on my back. Not to mention theres something about being a neophyte on a boat that brings out the Captain Ahab in everyone else. Tie that. Hold out. Not that way. This way. Whatever. But my friends bribed me with a fine picnic lunch, so I was happy to bundle up and watch the shore rush by. The boat departed from Hingham and wove its way around Boston Harbor. We passed Spectacle Island, then undergoing its metamorphosis into habitability. It used to be a garbage dump, I was told, so packed with junk that it would spontaneously catch fire. Now the two humps of the island were as bare as a babys bottom. This is where the dirt from the Big Dig is going, my friends explained.

The boat rounded Georges Island, its Civil Warera fort in view. Ever hear the ghost story about the Lady in Black? my friends asked. The sun was starting to set as we passed a long, narrow island and a curious red brick structure sitting totally exposed on its beach. This was Lovells Island, my friends explained. The island looked wild, mysterious, deserted, its rocky shores bordered by thick trees and foliage. That strange little shack was the only visible evidence of past habitation. You can camp on that island, my friends said.