Outer Island (Connecticut)

Horse Island, at 17 acres (69,000 m²), is the largest of the Thimble Islands off Stony Creek, a section of Branford, Connecticut. It is owned by Yale University and is maintained as an ecological laboratory by Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History. It was purchased and donated to the university in 1971 as a convenient addition to the Yale Coastal Field Station in nearby Guilford, which has its own dock and boats, and is also managed by Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History.A large house on the island has been kept in good repair and can serve as a base for experimenters or others remaining on the island for overnight stays or longer. According to the Yale Alumni Magazine, "Horse Island used to be a summer retreat; there’s still an eight-room house and evidence of a tennis court. The island now functions as a natural classroom, used for research and teaching. It’s also visited by a wide variety of migrating birds, which are actively studied by Yale researchers." In 2020, Yale faculty and students from the School of Architecture partnered with the Peabody Museum to build a teaching and coastal research center for the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. The center was built using a "regenerative approach." This approach aims to reduce the carbon footprint of the building, from construction to daily use, and limits the number of toxic materials used during construction. The Center will function off-grid with a kitchenette, toilet (which incinerate waste into ash), and two bunks for sleeping. The Center will feature a 30-foot-by-16-foot classroom with projection screens and barn-style doors.The origins of the island's name are not known. Some say that at some point a cargo of horses may have found its way to the island from a capsized or wrecked ship, but no physical or documentary traces of such an event exist. Others speculate that the island's horseshoe shape may have influenced its name. For many years it was owned by an executive of Standard Oil named Clark, and was called "Clark's Island" by everyone. When James and Esther Rettger purchased the island in 1946 they restored the original name as found on the geodetic survey maps.

Pot Island is one of the Thimble Islands in Branford, Connecticut. It was named for the numerous glacial potholes of various sizes.

Money Island is one of the Thimble Islands off Stony Creek, a section of Branford, Connecticut. It is named after a legend that Captain Kidd buried his treasure there. The island, 12 acres (49,000 m2) in size, bears an entire village of 32 houses, a post office, and one library. Former buildings included a school, a church, and a grocery store. There are three roads and several piers. At this time, none of the houses are occupied year-round.The three roads are Montowese Avenue, Pequot Avenue, and Kidd's Lane.

Mother-in-Law Island is an island in the Thimble Islands group, part of the Stony Creek–Thimble Islands Historic District on Long Island Sound in Branford, Connecticut. It is also known as Johnson Island, Prudden Island, and Little Stooping Bush. One house, a frame-structured house built around 1965, stands on the island.

Governor Island is one of the Thimble Islands off Stony Creek, a section of Branford, Connecticut. It has 14 residences, although none are inhabited year-round.Inhabited initially as an oyster company's base of operations. Since pigs will feed from an oyster shucker's waste pile, a "watch pig" was installed rather than a dog, eliminating the daily row out to feed the animal. The assertiveness of this pig quickly earned it the name "Governor". By the fourth season, the pig had grown so large and onerous that it kept even the oystermen off the island. Something had to be done since this was a commercial operation. In memory of the first pig roast, the island was named "Governor's". There remains a debate among the older islanders if Governor was a pig or a goat; with recent gentrification looking down upon "goat roasts".One of the oldest houses on the island was built in 1880 by R.H. Brown and is still held by his family's descendants. R.H. Brown was a notable Connecticut brass manufacturer and is known to have made some of the finest yacht cannons ever made.

Davis Island, one of the Thimble Islands off Stony Creek, a section of Branford, Connecticut, was the site of President William Howard Taft's "Summer White House".

Rogers Island is one of the Thimble Islands off Stony Creek, a section of Branford, Connecticut. Also known as Yon Comis Island, Rogers bears a 27-room Tudor mansion, with tennis and basketball courts and a caretaker's residence on a 7.75-acre (31,400 m2) estate valued at $15.41 million. It sold in 2003 for $22.3 million to Christine Stoecklein Svenningsen, widow of party goods magnate John Svenningsen. It sold again, most recently, in August 2018 for $21.5 million.

Cut in Two Island , East and West, are two of the Thimble Islands off Stony Creek, a section of Branford, Connecticut. It is actually two separate islands, but, as the name suggests, it looks like a single island that was cleaved in two.

The Stony Creek–Thimble Islands Historic District is a historic district encompassing a 19th-century summer resort area in Branford, Connecticut. Located in the southeastern part of the town, it encompasses the mainland Stony Creek neighborhood, and all of the major Thimble Islands which lie offshore from Stony Creek in Long Island Sound. The district includes a well-preserved array of domestic summer resort architecture spanning more than a century preceding World War II, as well as worker housing and other artifacts related to the area's brief importance as a granite quarry. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

Bear Island is one of the Thimble Islands off Stony Creek, a section of Branford, Connecticut, USA. It is the site to a former granite quarry, which exported high-quality pink granite to such constructions as the Lincoln Memorial, Grant's Tomb and the base of the Statue of Liberty. The famous Stony Creek granite is still quarried in Stony Creek.Bear Island was called "Goat Island" by locals until the 1890s, referring to goat herds kept there for milk by its community of Swedish immigrant quarry workers.

The Isaac C. Lewis Cottage is a historic house at 255 Thimble Islands Road in Branford, Connecticut. Built in 1882, it is a well-preserved example of an eclectically styled Victorian seaside summer house. The house was included in the Stony Creek-Thimble Islands Historic District in 1988, and separately listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.

The William J. Clark House is a historic house at 32 Prospect Hill in the Stony Creek neighborhood of Branford, Connecticut. Built in 1878–80 to a design by New Haven-based architect Henry Austin, it is a particularly fine example of the Stick style of architecture popular at the time. The house is individually listed for its architecture on the National Register of Historic Places as the Stick Style House at Stony Creek, and is a contributing property to the Stony Creek-Thimble Islands Historic District.