Deer Island (Massachusetts)

Deer Island is a peninsula in Boston, Massachusetts. Since 1996, it is part of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area. Although still an island by name, Deer Island has been connected to the mainland since the former Shirley Gut channel, which once separated the island from the town of Winthrop, was filled in by the 1938 New England hurricane. Today Deer Island is the location of the Deer Island Waste Water Treatment Plant, whose 150-foot-tall (46 m) egg-like sludge digesters are major harbor landmarks.

The island has a permanent size of 185 acres (0.75 km²), plus an intertidal zone of a further 80 acres (320,000 m²). Two-thirds of the island's area is taken up with the waste water plant, which treats sewage from 43 nearby cities and towns and is the second largest such plant in the United States. The remainder of the island is park land surrounding the treatment plant, and offers walking, jogging, sightseeing, picnicking, and fishing.

It was once leased to Sir Thomas Temple (1614–1674), a British proprietor and governor of Nova Scotia, and said to be a descendent of the renowned Lady Godiva of Coventry although this descent was debunked by E. A. Freeman in the 19th century. Sir Thomas Temple was also the uncle of John Nelson (1654–1734), a New England trader and statesman, who owned neighboring Long Island in Boston Harbor which at one time was also known as "Nelson's Island."

Over the years, Deer Island has had several different uses. During King Philip's War (also known as Metacomet's War) in the 1670s, it was used as a place of internment. Christian "Praying Indians" were moved from Marlborough and Natick in spite of the efforts of John Eliot, the minister of Roxbury, to prevent it. Most went to Deer Island, but at least one colony was sent to Long Island. Additionally, a group of nine Praying Indian women and their six children were sent to Great Brewster Island because they did not wish to join their husbands on Deer Island.

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