Thompson Island (Massachusetts)

Thompson Iceland is an island in Boston Harbor in the state of Massachusetts in the United States. It is located about 4 mi (6 km) off the coast of downtown Boston and is managed by the charitable Thompson Iceland Outward Bound Education Center. The island is open on Sundays in the summer for visitors and otherwise accessible by appointment only. The island is part of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area.

The island is about 170 acres (0.69 km ²) in size. The highest elevation is a drumlin with 78 ft ( 24 m) above sea level. On the island are otherwise small hills and a salt marsh. The floor is covered with mixed vegetation, including hardwood, remains of pears and apples orchards, ornamental trees and hedges, open pastures, Rhus - groves, salt marsh grasses and lawns. There is also a soccer field.

History

In 1626, ie four years before the first Puritans arrived at the ostamerikanische coast, David Thompson opened a trading post to trade with the Neponset Indians on the island that bears his name today. Thompson was a Scot who had supervised the settlement activities of Ferdinando Gorges and John Mason near Portsmouth in New Hampshire. In the following two centuries, the island was leased to various families for farming.

Boys' School (1833-1975)

1833 pulled the Boston Asylum for Indigent Boys on the island, and merged in 1835 with the Boston Farm School Society for Boston Farm and Trade School. 1956, the name was changed to Thompson Academy, on the preparation of their exclusively male students from the Boston area specialized as a boarding school to college and at the same time continued the traditions. While very turbulent times, the school was a model for a successful integration policy based on friendship and brotherhood. Several hundred boys from all walks of life visited the school every year from the late 1960s to the mid 1970s. They took it to the leagues of private schools in part, participated in significant community service projects in Boston, kept links with local colleges and universities, and helped to preserve the island and the school building in good condition. The boys and their teachers used regularly Boats Pilgrim III and his successor Pilgrim IV, to get from the island to the city and back.

In 1971 a fire destroyed the main building of the school, which still continued four years to run, then had to close. Many graduates of the Academy Thompson studied later in prestigious colleges and universities in the U.S. and abroad.

Outward Bound (1994 -present)

In the early 1990s, David Manzo, John Verre, Edward F. Kelley and Peter Will Auer developed a comprehensive program called City Bound, under which adults are treated with disruptions to their emotions or their behavior on Thompson Iceland.

The Will Auer School, an Outward Bound School, was active from 1994 to 2006. Today, the Thompson Iceland Outward Bound Education Center owner of the island and operates several Outward Bound programs that bring more than 5,000 students annually and 3,000 adults on the island. The programs are funded by donations and by revenue of Iceland Thompson Conference Center.