Piracy, Prisoners and Lepers of Old

Carson Beach and Columbia Point sit on the edge, and no matter where you go you can see the Federal Reserve Bank on the horizon, so it's hard to convince anyone that Boston Harbor is a romantic place. But it is.

From Long Wharf, which just out into its murky waters, to the Brewster Islands--its farthest outposts--Boston harbor reeks of history, not to mention dead fish. For it was here that the British sailed furtively after their evacuation from Boston, it was here that great naval battles of the Revolution were fought, it was here that pirates hung for their crimes, it was here that the words and tune to John Brown's Body, later elevated to the Battle Hymn of the Republic, were composed.

Use the smallest island in the harbor, Nix's Mate, as an example of how history-laden the yawning harbor is. Once, it was a few acres of sand and brush. Now it is rocks, and then only at high tide. But from a gallows erected on this small hump of land, nine pirates and mutineers were hung. The last to go was a ship's mate, convicted of mutiny against his captain, Mr. Nix. He reported his innocence to the last, promising those assembled for his execution that were he not guilty, the island would soon sink into the sea. Two months later, and it is almost needless to say "as legend has it," the island did disappear, leaving only a pebbly home for seagulls.

One of the larger islands in the chain, George's Island, is blessed with more than its share of history. Although it saw service in every war from the Revolution through the Second World War, George's Island and its refuge, Fort Warren, are best remembered for their role in the Civil War.

That's right, the Civil War, not the puny revolution that Boston is so full of, but the war between the states, fought to preserve the union forged in the first conflict. Fort Warren was a huge Civil War prison, housing captured and cold Confederates in its musty dungeons. Visitors to the island today can clamber inside the earthen and granite prisons and imagine how lonesome life must have been for these sons of the South. So lonesome, in-indeed, that one young officer devised a way out of his predicament. He smuggled a message to his Georgia wife, asking her to aid his escape. She came to the island dressed im men's clothing, and managed to reach his cell before being discovered. Fighting her way out, she unfortunately killed her husband when the pistol she was carrying exploded. But her ill luck was not quite through. Prison authorities ordained that she must die, and so she did, but before she hung she made one request--that she be allowed to meet her maker in women's clothes. A black dress, last used by the lonesome troops for some ribald vaudeville,was found, and in it she died. But her story is only just beginning. From that day to this, the Island has been haunted by her ghost, and if you don't believe me, just ask the caretakers, none of whom ever managed to explore all 17 miles of underground tunnels on the Island before being scared off by The Lady in Black. Kinder to tourists than custodians, the Lady graciously permits thousands of Bostonians to visit her home each year, aboard the less than regal vessels of the Mass Bay, Boston Harbor or Bay State cruise companies. Three dollars and don't trust the schedules.

One final bit of George's Island trivia, also connected with the Civil War. It was here that a group of ditch diggers composed John Brown's Body. Noticing the resemblance between the names of one of their company, John Brown, and the late abolitionist, they wrote the tune. Soon it had spread all over the island, but that was as far as it went until Abraham Lincoln heard a unit on paraxe detail in Boston playing the song. He liked the music more than the words, turned to Julia Ward Beecher for help, and the rest, as they say, is music.

The music of these islands is ghostly and black, echoing over hundreds of years right up to the present. The islands have what Boston could never tolerate on its own landscape. Spectacle Island--so named for its bifocal shape--housed a leper colony during the 18th and 19th centuries. The most advanced cases of leprosy were dispatched to the island, a natural quarantine. Later, a glue factory located itself on the island, and later yet, a huge dump, where much of Boston's sewage and trash was left for much of this century. An island-wide, spontaneous-combustion fire devoured the island in the early '60s, and what remains is perhaps a microcosm of every holocaust/armageddon novel ever written.

Other islands date their history to more recent times. Long Island was a huge tuberculosis hospital, its 1200 beds once full. The market for its service has decreased, but parts of the hospital complex still are in use. Deer Island is famous for another institution--The Deer Island House of Correction. It's not exactly Alcatraz, but there could be worse locations from any viewpoint. Bird Island? Well, it's not there anymore. In its place is Logan Airport.

You can see the island from the cruise boats, most of which pull up at Long Wharf, next to the Aquarium and right on the Blue. Line. You can get a friend with a boat. You can swim, if you're not adverse to a little oil. Or you can just look out the window of your 727 as you start the return flight back to the coast.