Penikese Island

Penikese Island entered the historical record in 1602 AD when the English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold and some of his crew visited the island. Their visit frightened four visiting Wampanoag Indians into hiding, and the explorers stole their canoe.{{cite book |last1=Schneider |first1=Paul |author-link1=Paul Schneider (author) |title=The Enduring Shore: A History of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S9kYYqglR8wC&q=%22Penikese+Island%22+-wiki+-blog&pg=PA12 |access-date=18 March 2009 |edition=illustrated |year=2001 |publisher=Macmillan |location=New York |isbn=0-8050-6734-5 |page=12}}

Originally tree covered, at some later time the tree cover was lost, and the island was later used for pasturing sheep.{{cite journal |last=Jordan |first=D. S. |date=April 1874 |title=The Flora of Penikese Island |journal=The American Naturalist |volume=VIII |issue=4 |page=13 (193) |publisher=Peabody Academy of Science |location=Salem, Mass. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cDoSAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Penikese+Island%22+-wiki+-blog&pg=PA193 |access-date=18 March 2009 |doi=10.1086/271293|doi-access=free }} To this day, it remains primarily grass covered.{{cite news |first=E. Vernon |last=Laux |title= Is It a Plane? No, It's a Bird And a Very Rare Bird Indeed |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9400E6DA1E3AF930A15756C0A9669C8B63 |work=The New York Times |date=23 May 2000 |access-date=18 March 2009}} Ownership changed hands several times before the island was purchased by John Anderson, a businessman, who used it for vacationing.{{cite web |url=http://www.penikese.org/about/history/ |title=History: Penikese Island History: The Anderson School |access-date=19 October 2012 |publisher=Penikese Island School}}{{citation needed|reason=penikese.org no longer has this information and wayback machine copies do not either|date=January 2020}}

In early 1873, Louis Agassiz, the famous Swiss-American naturalist, persuaded Anderson to give him the island and $50,000 to endow a school for natural history where students would study nature instead of books. The school opened in July 1873, initially headed by Louis Agassiz. Following his death in December, his son Alexander Agassiz ran the school. The school was closed following a fire in 1875, but some of the former students opened in 1888 the Marine Biological Laboratory, in nearby Woods Hole.{{cite news |title=The Anderson School: Opening of the Establishment on Penikese Island by Prof. Agassiz |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1873/07/09/79038439.pdf |work=The New York Times |date=19 July 1873 |access-date=18 March 2009}}{{cite book |last1=Lattin |first1=Frank H. |title=Penikese: A Reminiscence by one of its Pupils |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mGJIAAAAMAAJ&q=Anderson+Agassiz+Penikese&pg=PA43 |access-date=18 March 2009 |year=1895 |publisher= Frank Lattin |location=Albion, N.Y. |page=43}}

In 1904, following local opposition to two previously selected sites on the mainland, the state of Massachusetts purchased the island for $25,000 to use as a leprosy hospital to isolate and treat all Massachusetts residents with the disease. When opened, the Penikese Island Leper Hospital had five patients. After being open for 16 years, it was closed in 1921 and the thirteen patients were transferred to the federal leprosy hospital in Carville, Louisiana. At the closing of the hospital, the state burnt and then dynamited the buildings, and all that remains of it are stone gate posts and a small cemetery.{{cite news |first=Hartnett |last=Ken |title=The tragedy of Penikese Island |url=http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/11/26/the_tragedy_of_penikese_island/ |publisher=The Boston Globe |date=26 November 2005 |access-date=18 March 2009}}

The island remains under the ownership of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and is primarily a bird sanctuary. There is no permanent population on the island. A residential school for troubled boys operated on the island from 1973 until 2011. and now offered environmental education experiences. There may also be visitors and researchers on island from time to time, as the island is publicly owned and is still used at times for biological research.{{cite web|url=http://www.penikese.org/faq.html |title=General FAQ |access-date=18 March 2009 |publisher=Penikese Island School |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090208222845/http://penikese.org/faq.html |archive-date=February 8, 2009 }} Beginning in 1990, the island was used as a test site for efforts to reintroduce the endangered American burying beetle, which appears to have succeeded; by 1997 the population had persisted for at least five generations since the last release.{{cite book |last1=Reading |first1=Richard P. |last2=Miller |first2=Brian |title=Endangered Animals: a Reference Guide to Conflicting Issues |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f_AWCtX29-kC&q=%22Penikese+Island%22+-wiki+-blog&pg=PA15 |access-date=18 March 2009 |edition=illustrated |year=2000 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |location=Westport, Conn. |isbn=0-313-30816-0 |page=15}}

{{more citations needed|section|date=September 2023}}

The Penikese Island School (PIS) was founded in 1973 as a non-profit 501(c)(3). PIS was a private rehabilitation school for teenage delinquent boys. The goal of the school was to teach by example, modeling responsible adult behavior in a spartan environment. Boys were exposed to life with earnest adults who enforced a code of behavior, as an alternative to incarceration. PIS aimed to provide an experience they hoped would help boys remanded to involuntary custody become productive citizens, instead of developing into adult criminals. The first student was from New Bedford and he had harpooned a policeman.

Having a school on the island is a benefit to the state and its efforts to protect endangered nesting birds, as the presence of staff on the island helps deter illegal hunters and campers.

During the mid 1990’s, the original founders of PIS were no longer in charge. New leadership continued the program to 2011, when funding from the state of Massachusetts was no longer available. In the fall of 2015, a long-term opioid-addiction treatment facility named Penikese began operation on the island. According to several newspapers, the treatment center shut down in 2017 after a lack of funding.{{cite news | url = http://nepr.net/news/2016/11/21/treatment-island-addicts-sent-recover-off-coast-cape-cod/ | title = Treatment Island: Addicts Are Sent To Recover Off The Coast of Cape Cod | work = NEPR.net | date = November 21, 2016 | author = Karen Brown | access-date = November 21, 2016}}

In 2019, PIS began offering programs with a new mission focused on environmental education. The new mission is to provide students with access to experiential, nature-based educational programs. PIS currently operates school trips during the academic year and a STEAM camp during the summer.

• Lauren Wolk's 2017 young adult novel Beyond the Bright Sea is set in the aftermath of the closure of the Penikese Island Leper Hospital, and the main characters frequently visit and explore the island.

{{Reflist}}

• [http://www.penikese.org The Penikese Island School website]
• [http://www.cuttyhunkhistoricalsociety.org Cuttyhunk Historical Society, the Museum of the Elizabeth Islands]

{{Islands and Peninsulas of Massachusetts}}

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Category:Defunct hospitals in Massachusetts

Category:Elizabeth Islands

Category:Leper colonies

Category:Coastal islands of Massachusetts

Category:Populated coastal places in Massachusetts