Last updated: November 2, 2023
Place
Great Brewster Island
NPS Photo/ R. Burak
Quick Facts
OPEN TO PUBLIC:
No
MANAGED BY:
Located in the outer harbor, Great Brewster Island sits about 9 miles away from Long Wharf. It is the largest outer harbor island at 68 acres. Two drumlins—the Northern Drumlin and the Southern Drumlin—are connected by a marshy area. Its intertidal land includes a sandspit and mussel beds.1
Similar to several islands within the Boston Harbor, Indigenous peoples accessed Great Brewster Island as a summer residence and used its natural resources. In the 1600s, Great Brewster Island was granted Elder William Brewster, the first preacher and teacher in the Plymouth Colony. After his death, the town of Hull acquired Great Brewster Island.2
In 1856, the town of Hull built Bug Light on the edge of the Great Brewster spit to light the entrance of the Narrows Channel. In June 1929, during maintenance, Bug Light caught on fire and could not be saved. The lighthouse was replaced in 1930 by a gas operated lighted bell buoy. It remained in place until a small steel tower with an automatic light replaced it. The tower is still present today, near the original spot of Bug Light.3
Around the late 1800s to early 1900s, a colony of summer cottages occupied Great Brewster, allowing locals and tourists to visit the island. Guests included a group of four upper-class women from Lowell, Massachusetts. Visiting Great Brewster Island in 1891, these women kept a 58-page journal where they documented what they did, ate, read, and discussed during their trip, dubbed "Ye Square Partie of Ye Merry Trippers." Unfortunately, there are no traces of the Merry Trippers' beloved cottage, as all the cottages on this island were evicted and demolished at the outset of World War II.4
During WWII, the US military constructed a bomb and chemical-proof bunker on Great Brewster Island to serve as a control post for a harbor minefield that spanned from Hull to the Broad Sound Channel north of Deer Island. Two 90-millimeter rapid fire guns were installed on the northern bluff. Temporary barracks housed the 120 soldiers of Battery C, 9th Coast Artillery stationed on the island. Additional elements, including two 37-millimeter guns, machine guns, searchlights, and observation stations, helped complete the control post.5
In 1944, military operations on Great Brewster Island ceased. There are still remnants of a military bunker and observation station, and some stone wall foundations of summer cottages that were once there.6
Joining Boston Harbor Islands State Park in the 1970s, Great Brewster continues to be owned and managed by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation today.
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Footnotes:
- Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, Cultural Landscape Report: Boston Harbor Islands National and State Park, Volume 2: Existing Conditions, 77-79.
- National Park Service Boston Harbor Islands, "Great Brewster Island Facts." Date last modified November 30, 2022; Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, Cultural Landscape Report: Boston Harbor Islands National and State Park, Volume 2: Existing Conditions, 77-79.
- Moses Foster Sweetser, King's Handbook of Boston Harbor (Cambridge, MA: Moses King, 1883), 244; Jeremy D'Entremont, "Narrows Light History," NEW ENGLAND LIGHTHOUSES: A VIRTUAL GUIDE. Accessed April 3, 2023.
- Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, Cultural Landscape Report: Boston Harbor Islands National & State Park, Volume 1: Historical Overview, 188; Stephanie Schorow, "Roughing it on Great Brewster," Harvard Gazette (Cambridge, MA), April 16, 2009.
- Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, Cultural Landscape Report: Boston Harbor Islands National & State Park, Volume 1: Historical Overview, 98-99; Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, Cultural Landscape Report: Boston Harbor Islands National and State Park, Volume 2: Existing Conditions, 78.
- National Park Service Boston Harbor Islands, "Great Brewster Island Facts." Date last modified November 30, 2022.