Hingham Bay

Sheep Island is a small uninhabited island of about 3.2 acres (1.3 ha) (or less) in Hingham Bay, an outer arm of Boston Harbor. It is within the bounds of the town of Weymouth, Massachusetts, is owned by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation & Recreation, and is part of the Boston Harbor Islands National and State Park. Sheep Island is an eroded glacial drumlin, long and narrow, the highest elevation being 10 feet (3.0 m). A patch of vegetation grows on the west end, sumac and other grasses, and the shoreline is entirely gravel beach. The island was formerly a good deal larger, about 25 acres (10 ha) in early colonial times, and since then has been steadily eroding to its present size. The island (then called Round Island) was deeded to the town of Weymouth in 1636. In colonial times it was used by the town for grazing sheep. William Chamberlain is the first known owner. In the 19th century people would sometimes camp there, and in the 20th century there was a house and a hunting lodge, belonging to a Mr. Bicknell. No structures remain now. Sheep Island serves as a nesting ground for local birds. People birdwatch there, but the authorities discourage visits during nesting season (all visits are by private boat, as the island is not served by the park's ferry service). There are unimproved trails but no other amenities. Sheep Island has also appeared in maps and publications as Shean Island (1759), Sun Island (1775), Sheaf Island (1865), and Ship Island.

Grape Island is an island in the Hingham Bay area of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area. The island is part of the territory of the town of Weymouth, Massachusetts. The island has a permanent size of 54 acres (220,000 m2), plus an intertidal zone of a further 46 acres (190,000 m2), and is composed of two drumlins, reaching an elevation of 70 feet (21 m) above sea level, and connected by a marshy lowland. Tidal sand spits extend from the west end towards Weymouth Neck in Webb Memorial State Park and from the east end towards Slate Island. As a visitor attraction, Grape Island offers trails, rocky beaches, and camping in wooded campsites. At weekends and summer weekdays it is served by a shuttle boat to and from Georges Island, connecting there with ferries to Boston and Quincy.The island was farmed and grazed for three hundred years, until the 1940s. On the eve of the American Revolution, the island was owned by Hingham resident Elisha Leavitt, a Tory. In 1775, British troops raided the island during the siege of Boston, as Abigail Adams wrote to her husband John about May 24, 1775: "...it seems their Expidition (sic) was to Grape Island for Levets hay." A pitched battle ensued until the British were forced to retreat to the mainland. The angry colonists burned Leavitt's barn to the ground. In the end, very little damage was done to either side despite the effort expended. Three British soldiers may have been wounded (unconfirmed), no Continental soldiers or partisans were wounded, and less than two tons of hay were taken by the British.Since the abandonment of agricultural use in the 1940s, the natural succession of vegetation has created a wooded and shrubby landscape. Vegetation on the island includes early successional tree and shrub species on the drumlins, including staghorn sumac, gray birch, and quaking aspen. The island has an abundance of berries, including blackberry, dewberry, raspberry, blueberry, huckleberry, and American elderberry. The island's marshy lowland contains salt tolerant species such as saltspray rose, cordgrass, purple loosestrife, honeysuckle, and seaside goldenrod.Grape Island contains two freshwater springs. One spring is located on the north side of the western drumlin and is located underneath a large boulder that faces Peddock's Island. Another freshwater spring is located behind the marsh that is situated in the saddle between the two drumlins. Both of these areas are off the trail.

Slate Island is an uninhabited island of about 12.7 acres (5.1 ha) (at high tide) in Hingham Bay, an arm of Boston Harbor. It is part of Boston Harbor Islands National and State Park and is just east of Grape Island. The island mostly consists of slate outcrops partly covered with glacial till, and the shore is mostly rock. The highest elevation is 32 feet (9.8 m). The island was visited seasonally by Native Americans. In colonial times slate was quarried from the islands (the remnants of the quarry are still visible), mostly for house foundations. William Torey was given a grant for the island in 1650, with a stipulation that anyone was free to extract slate. Slate mining continued to a small degree into the 20th century and contributed to soil erosion on the rocky island. Later owners included Joseph Andrews, Samuel Lovell, Thomas Jones, and Caleb Loring. In the 17th century the island became part of the town of Hull (it is now in Weymouth). Around 1840 a hermit (his name lost to history) lived in a hut near the southern cove. (Moses Forster Sweetser opined that "his lonely hut must have made Thoreau's hermitage at Walden seem like Scollay Square after a theatre performance.") In the 1890s owner Edwin Clapp gave the island to the Clapp Memorial Association, which briefly hosted a summer camp there. Slate Island was privately owned until the 1970s when it became public property and part of the Boston Harbor Islands National and State Park. There are no trails, docks, or any other facilities on the island, which is overrun with vegetation including an abundance of poison ivy. The island is not serviced by the park ferry.

The Weymouth Back River, sometimes called Back River, is a short, primarily tidal river in Hingham and Weymouth, Massachusetts, about 10 miles (16 km) south of Boston. It arises from a number of tributaries in ponds and swamps, most notably Whitmans Pond, flows northward, and empties into Hingham Bay (just south of Grape Island and Slate Island).

Bumpkin Island, also known as Round Island, Bomkin Island, Bumkin Island, or Ward's Island, is an island in the Hingham Bay area of the Boston Harbor. In 1902, Albert Burrage, a Boston philanthropist, had a summer hospital opened on the island for children with physical disabilities. During World War I the island was used by the U.S. Navy. Starting around 1940, the island was used as a facility for polio patients. However, the hospital closed during World War II and burned down in 1945. Since 1996, it is part of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area. The island has an area of 30 acres (120,000 m2), plus an intertidal zone of a further 31 acres (130,000 m2). It is composed of a central drumlin with an elevation of 70 feet (21 m) above sea level, surrounded by a rock-strewn shoreline. A sand spit, exposed at low tide, connects the eastern end of the island to Sunset Point in Hull.On weekends and summer weekdays, Bumpkin Island is accessible by a shuttle boat to and from Georges Island, which connects from there with ferries to Boston and Quincy.

Webb Memorial State Park is a public recreation area located on a peninsula that extends nearly half a mile into the Hingham Bay area of Boston Harbor in Massachusetts. It is composed of three connected drumlins and a low marsh area. The state park forms the only mainland portion of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area.

Peddocks Island is one of the largest islands in Boston Harbor. Since 1996 it has formed part of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area. Managed by the Department of Conservation and Recreation, the island is home to the now-defunct Fort Andrews, active in harbor defense from 1904 to the end of World War II, on its eastern end, and a group of privately owned cottages on its western end. Campsites are also on the eastern end. Ferry service between Peddocks Island and Georges Island (where Fort Warren stands) is provided on a seasonal basis.

Hull Gut is a gut (a narrow, naturally dredged deep-water channel) about half a mile wide and thirty-five feet deep, in Boston Harbor running between Pemberton Point in Hull and the East Head of Peddocks Island. Along with its sister channel, West Gut, which runs between the West Head of Peddocks Island and Hough's Neck in Quincy, Hull Gut forms the southern entrance to the Inner Harbor connecting it to Hingham Bay. To the north the gut intersects with the deep-water shipping lane Nantasket Roads. Strong cross-currents and often heavy traffic make the gut a dangerous waterway. The channel is used by oil tankers and other freighters bound for industries around the Weymouth Fore River in Braintree, Weymouth, and Quincy and, historically, was used by the shipbuilding industry. In 1909 Rosie Pitenhof, a fourteen-year-old girl from Dorchester, was the first known person to successfully swim across the gut, from Peddocks Island to the shore at Pemberton in Hull, and back again at flood tide. Miss Pitenhof was in the water twenty-two minutes; nine minutes crossing and thirteen minutes returning. On July 31, 2022 Hull resident Barbara Lynn Kalb drove her brown pickup truck into the Gut and died several hours later after a dive team performed a large search and rescue effort. The event was widely covered by local news media and press with the investigation determining the death was accidental and there was no foul play. Barbara Kalb's daughter content creator Jamie Leigh Fischer, said she felt the investigation and explanation behind her mother's death "did not make any sense," and has since started her own relying heavily on the use of social media and input from those in the community. On February 11, 2023 she launched a youtube channel, "What Really Happened Mom" to encourage other spectators there that day to speak up, and also act as a resource to document her mother's life. Fischer collected evidence not included in the DA's case including dispatch 911 calls, autopsy reports, live video's from the scene, and other materials. She publicly stated on a South Shore radio show 95.9 WATD that she will not give up until she finds the truth of what happened.

Hull High School is a public high school located in Hull, Massachusetts, United States. It is located at 180 Main Street at the very edge of town adjacent to the Hull Gut, overlooking Boston Harbor and the Boston skyline. Hull has an approximate enrollment of 380 students in grades 9–12. The school's mascot is the Pirates and the school colors are Royal Blue, and Gold.

Fort Andrews was created in 1897 as part of the Coast (later Harbor) Defenses of Boston, Massachusetts. Construction began in 1898 and the fort was substantially complete by 1904. The fort was named after Major General George Leonard Andrews, an engineer and Civil War commander, who assisted in the construction of nearby Fort Warren in Boston Harbor. It occupies the entire northeast end of Peddocks Island in Boston Harbor, and was originally called the Peddocks Island Military Reservation. Once an active Coast Artillery post, it was manned by hundreds of soldiers and bristled with mortars and guns that controlled the southern approaches to Boston and Quincy Bay. The fort also served as a prisoner-of-war camp for Italian prisoners during World War II, who were employed as laborers following the Italian surrender to the Allies in 1943. Today, the fort is abandoned, and is managed by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, as part of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area.

Pemberton Point (formerly known as Windmill Point) is a peninsula in Hull, Massachusetts. It is located at the tip of the Nantasket Peninsula, in Boston Harbor.

Hull is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States, located on a peninsula at the southern edge of Boston Harbor. Its population was 10,072 at the 2020 census. Hull is the smallest town by land area in Plymouth County and the fourth smallest in the state. However, its population density is nearly four times that of Massachusetts as a whole. Hull is home to the popular resort community of Nantasket Beach and has been the summer home to several luminaries throughout the years, including Calvin Coolidge and former Boston mayor John F. Fitzgerald (also known as "Honey Fitz"), the father of Rose Kennedy and father-in-law of Joseph Kennedy Sr.