Thompson Island (Massachusetts)

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Thompson Island is an island in the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area, some 4 miles offshore from downtown Boston, Massachusetts. The island is managed by the Thompson Island Outward Bound Education Center, a non-profit educational organization. The island is open to visitors on summer Saturdays; otherwise access is by arrangement only.^[1]

The island has a permanent size of 170 acres, and the highest point is a drumlin which reaches a height of 78 feet above sea level. The rest of the island comprises low rolling hills and a saltmarsh. The island has a mixed vegetation, including hardwood tree stands, remnant pear and apple orchards, ornamental trees and shrubs, open meadows, sumac groves, saltmarsh grasses, and lawns, including a soccer field.^[1]

[edit] History

In 1626 (four years before the Puritans arrived in Boston) David Thompson established a trading post to trade with the Neponset Indians on the island that now bears his name. Thompson was a Scot who had been superintending the settlement of Sir Ferdinando Gorges in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. For the next two centuries, Thompson Island was leased to several different families for farming.

In 1833, the Boston Asylum for Boys was moved to the island, and in 1835 it merged with the Boston Farm School Society to become the Soton Farm and Trade School. The island is currently owned by the Thompson Island Outward Bound Education Center, which operates the Willauer School and an Outward Bound program that brings more than 5,000 students and adults a year to the island.^[1]