10 things you didn’t know about the Harbor Islands

Spectacle Island is a popular destination for a Harbor Island Cruise, but it’s had a varied and unusual history. It has served as a home for a quarantine hospital, a glue factory, resorts, and even as a place to store excavated material from the Big Dig.

Boston Light is a lighthouse located on Little Brewster Island. It is the oldest continuously used lighthouse in the country, dating back to 1716.

Throughout the Civil War, many of the Harbor Islands served as sites for recruiting and training camps, harbor defenses, and prison camps.

Local folklore claims Georges Island is haunted by the ‘Lady in Black.’ Legend has it that she came to the island to free her husband, a Confederate soldier being held there during the Civil War, when the two were caught. She was then punished by hanging, and some believe she still haunts the island.

In 1900, a Boston-based philanthropist named Albert Burrage founded a hospital for children with disabilities on Bumpkin Island. It also served polio patients in the 1940s, but burned in 1946. Some wreckage still remains, as seen here.

The Harbor Islands are home to a number of fish, birds, and other wildlife, including six species deemed ‘rare’ or ‘threatened.’ These include the barn owl, common tern, least tern, and Northern harrier, as well as protected plant species such as the sea beach dock and American sea bite.

Thompson Island, the only privately owned Harbor Island, was home to the country’s first vocational school in the 1830s. The school also had America’s first formal school band.

During the Irish Potato Famine, thousands of Irish immigrants came to Boston via Deer Island. In 1847, Boston built a hospital there to treat the sick travelers.

Lovell’s Island was the site of a famous shipwreck in 1782, when the French battleship Magnifique ran aground off the island’s northwest end. Historians believe the ship’s remains lie under part of the island.