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Sheep Island (Massachusetts)

Boston Harbor islandsCoastal islands of MassachusettsIslands of Plymouth County, MassachusettsWeymouth, Massachusetts
Sheep island in Boston Harbor
Sheep island in Boston Harbor

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.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Sheep Island (Massachusetts) (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Sheep Island (Massachusetts)

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Latitude Longitude
N 42.280083333333 ° E -70.925861111111 °
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Weymouth



Massachusetts, United States
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Sheep island in Boston Harbor
Sheep island in Boston Harbor
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Grape Island (Massachusetts)
Grape Island (Massachusetts)

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
Slate Island

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.

Hull Gut
Hull Gut

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.