Deer Island

Deer Island Wastewater Treatment Plant

Boston Harbor Now / Liz Cook

Quick Facts

Location:

Boston Harbor, connected to Winthrop

Significance:

Historical site of Indigenous internment during King Philip's War; site of Deer Island Wastewater Treatment Plant

MANAGED BY:

Massachusetts Water Resource Authority

Amenities

5 listed

Benches/Seating, Cellular Signal, Dock/Pier, Scenic View/Photo Spot, Wheelchair Accessible

One of five peninsulas within the boundaries of the park, Deer Island became connected to the mainland after the famous hurricane of 1938. Beach erosion filled in the Shirley Gut, which had separated the island from the town of Winthrop.¹ The former island bears the name "Deer Island" because of the abundance of deer on the island during early days of European colonization. Many accounts exist of colonists hunting "plentiful deer" who they said swam to the island from Maine to escape wolves.² 

Prior to European colonization, Indigenous communities accessed Deer Island seasonally for thousands of years. The colonists pressured Indigenous peoples to convert to Christianity, and those who did moved into separate ‘praying communities.’ As colonists continued to encroach on land in the region, tensions between colonists and the indigenous population grew and eventually led to Metacom’s Rebellion (also called King Philip’s War) in 1675. 

 Just five months after the war began, colonists set up an internment camp on Deer Island to relocate "Christianized" Indigenous people whom they believed could turn against the English and join the rebellion. Those interned numbered about 500 to 1,100 people and began with Nipmuc people from what is today South Natick, though exact numbers of those interned are unknown.³ Women and children made up the majority of those interned on Deer Island, as colonists pressured many men from these ‘praying communities, to join an English proxy militia and attack other local indigenous tribes. The English Council directed settlers to "Kill and Destroy" any Indigenous person who posed a threat of hostility or who aided the resistance.⁴ 

Deer Island eventually became overcrowded, and a secondary incarceration site opened on Long Island. Due to starvation, freezing temperatures and lack of shelter, very few survived internment. Colonists released survivors in May 1676. An unknown number of victims were smuggled off the island and sold as enslaved people in the West Indies or Tangier.⁵ 

In 1677, the first quarantine station in the harbor opened on Deer Island. It required all ships originating from the West Indies to stop on the island before entering Boston. During the Revolutionary War, Major Greaton captured a British man-of-war barge off the coast of Deer Island. Greaton and his soldiers captured sheep and horses from that island to be used by the continental army.

A resort opened on the island in the 1780s, which remained in operation until the mid 1800s. From the 1800s onward Deer Island essentially became a penal colony, an exiled settlement of prisoners. The first reformatory opened in the early 1800s. The Boston Militia established a fortification on the island in 1810. After the War of 1812, inmates from the reformatory constructed batteries on the sides of the island.⁶ 

In 1847, the city established a new quarantine hospital on the island in response to the rising numbers of ailing immigrants arriving in Boston. Of the almost 5,000 admitted to the hospital, around 750 people died on the island. By 1850, the city created a municipal immigration station on Deer Island, the quarantine operation eventually moved to Gallops Island.

Starting as early as 1849, the city reused some of the same facilities to house inmates from South Boston. Called the "Department of the House of Industry," the new establishment housed those who could not care for themselves or had committed misdemeanors such as drunkenness or vagrancy. They even received approval to convert a portion of the buildings into cells. The city also established the "House for the Employment and Reformation of Juvenile Offenders- Boys," which held boys responsible for idleness, and larceny. A similar reformatory for girls followed. In 1896, after many years of different types of people being housed on the island, and many name changes, the institutions which remained on the island formally became known as Suffolk County House of Corrections and The House of Industry. This officially designated them Suffolk County institutions. By 1902, the city had transferred all inmates from South Boston to this facility.⁷ 

During World War II, the federal government added batteries and established Fort Dawes on the eastern tip of the island. Tasked with harbor entrance command, they also worked with those on Georges Island and Outer Brewster Island to operate the underwater mines.  

The city built a primary wastewater treatment plant in 1968. In 1991 the Suffolk County House of Correction relocated off the island to allow for construction on an expanded treatment facility. The city also demolished Fort Dawes, the correctional buildings, and much of the old treatment facility at this time.⁸ 

In operation by 1996, The Deer Island Wastewater Treatment Plant is a state-of-the-art facility that continues to keep the harbor clean. Its 12 large digesters have become a highlight in the harbor landscape. Deer Islands also boasts a 2.6-mile-long perimeter trail that offers scenic views of the harbor.⁹ Although Deer Island’s history of imprisonment and containment are no longer visible, communities continue recognize this painful past. Every year, descendants of the Tribal Nations involved in King Philip's War host a commemoration of their ancestors’ suffering on Deer Island to raise awareness of the inhumane treatment Indigenous people endured and to demonstrate their communities' longstanding resilience and resistance.¹⁰ 

Learn More...

Island Facts: Deer Island - Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)

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Footnotes:

1. Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, Cultural Landscape Report: Boston Harbor Islands National & State Park, Volume 2: Existing Conditions (Boston: National Park Service, 2017), 34. 
2. Moses Foster Sweetser, King’s Handbook of Boston Harbor (Cambridge, MA: Moses King, 1883), 112. 
3. Julianne Jennings, "Deer Island: A History of Human Tragedy Remembered," Indian Country Today, last modified September 12, 2018; Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, Cultural Landscape Report: Volume 1: Historical Overview, (Boston: National Park Service, 2017), 122-123. 
4. “At A Council Held in Boston August 13, 1675,” accessed April 7, 2023, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/evans/N00148.0001.001?view=toc; "Legacy of Genocide Resurfaces in Boston as Construction Planned on Burial Site," Cultural Survival, last modified July 27, 2019.
5. Jennings, "Deer Island: A History of Human Tragedy Remembered;" Moses Foster Sweetser, King’s Handbook of Boston Harbor (Cambridge, MA: Moses King, 1883), 193-197; Olmstead Center for Landscape Preservation, Cultural Landscape Report: Volume 1: Historical Overview, 122-123. 
6. Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, Cultural Landscape Report: Volume 1: Historical Overview, 75, 90, 140; Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, Cultural Landscape Report: Volume 2: Existing Conditions, 34. 
7.  Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, Cultural Landscape Report: Volume 1: Historical Overview, 126-142; Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, Cultural Landscape Report: Volume 2: Existing Conditions, 34. 
8. Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, Cultural Landscape Report: Volume 1: Historical Overview, 90-102; Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, Cultural Landscape Report Volume 2: Existing Conditions, 34. 
9. “The Deer Island Wastewater Treatment Plant,” last modified Sept. 2, 2009, accessed March 31, 2023. 
10. "Ethnographic & Archeological Sites," Boston Harbor Islands, National Park Service, last modified February 26, 2015.