Thompson Island (Massachusetts) facts for kids
Cathleen Stone Island, also known as Thompson Island, is a 170-acre (69 ha) island in the Dorchester Bay part of Boston Harbor. It's located near downtown Boston, Massachusetts. The island is a little over 4 miles (6.4 km) by boat from Boston's Long Wharf. It's also about 1 mile (1.6 km) straight across the water from Boston's Columbia Point.
The Cathleen Stone Island Outward Bound Education Center, a non-profit group, manages the island. You can visit the island on Saturdays and Sundays from Memorial Day to Labor Day. At other times, you need to arrange your visit. Cathleen Stone Island is one of the biggest and easiest-to-reach islands in the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area. It has many different types of nature to explore.
The highest point on the island is a small hill called a drumlin. It reaches 78 feet (24 m) above sea level. The rest of the island has gentle hills and a salt marsh. The island has many kinds of plants, including hardwood trees, old pear and apple orchards, and marsh grasses. You can also find open fields, forests, and wet areas by the sea. The island has a school campus with classrooms, places to sleep, a dining hall, and a gym. There are also outdoor challenge courses and climbing towers. When the tide is low, a sandbar connects the island to the Squantum peninsula. This means you can walk between them.
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History of Cathleen Stone Island
Early People and Settlers
Many old Native American items have been found on the island. This shows that people lived there for hundreds of years before Europeans arrived. In September 1621, a Pilgrim named Miles Standish was the first European to visit the island. He named it "Island Trevoyre" after a shipmate. Standish thought no one lived there at the time.
In 1626, four years before the Puritans came, David Thompson started living on the island. He had a trading post there to trade with the Neponset Indians. Thompson, who the island is named after, was from Scotland. He was in charge of a settlement near Portsmouth, New Hampshire. David Thompson disappeared in 1628, perhaps by drowning. The town of Dorchester then took over the island. Thompson's son later got the island back. But Thompson eventually lost the island because of his debts. Other private owners then bought the island and rented it out for farming.
The Boys' School on the Island (1833–1975)
In 1833, a school called the Boston Asylum for Indigent Boys moved to the island. In 1835, it joined with another group to become the Boston Asylum and Farm School for Indigent Boys. Many students at this school had lost one or both parents. Some had parents who could not care for them. To join the school, parents had to sign a paper. This paper gave the school care of the boys until they were 21 years old.
Parents could only visit their children once a month. They also had two weeks in the summer when boys could go home. Some mothers changed their minds and wanted their boys back. The school did let some boys return home to their parents.
The boys and their teachers traveled between South Boston and the island by boat. The boats were named "Pilgrim III" and "Pilgrim IV." Sadly, there were two serious boating accidents. In 1842, 29 people died. In 1892, 9 people died.
In 1955, the school's name changed again to Thompson Academy. It became a boarding school that helped boys get ready for college. The school gave shelter and guidance to boys from Boston and other places. In 1971, a fire destroyed the main school building. The school kept going for four more years, but it closed in 1975.
Outward Bound Programs (1994–Present)
In the early 1990s, some groups started a program called Citybound on Thompson Island. It helped teenagers with emotional and behavioral challenges.
The Willauer School, an Outward Bound school, operated from 1994 to 2006. Today, the Cathleen Stone Outward Bound Education Center owns the island. It runs Outward Bound programs. These programs bring more than 5,000 students and 3,000 adults to the island each year. Thompson Island Outward Bound gets money from donations. They also earn money from their conference center and adult team-building programs.
In 2024, the group that owns the island got a large gift of $12 million. It came from the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Foundation. Because of this, they renamed the school to honor Cathleen Stone. She is an environmental lawyer and used to be Boston's Chief of Ecological Services. They also plan to rename the island itself. This will need approval from the United States Board of Geographic Names.
Cathleen Stone Island: A Protected Space
In 2002, the National Park Service and the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Management bought a special agreement for Thompson Island. This agreement limits new buildings to only the existing school campus. It also makes sure that the public can always visit the island. This helped protect all of the Boston Harbor Islands forever. A politician named Joseph Moakely helped get $2 million from Congress for this. Massachusetts also added another $2 million.
