Emily Chan
For more than a century, New York City’s Hart Island has served as a burial ground for the unclaimed dead. It is the final resting place of over one million individuals.
The public was not allowed to visit the island, but in 2023, visitors were finally accepted. Here’s what to know about the history of Hart Island.
The island was originally purchased from the Siwanoy Indigenous people by Thomas Pell. Ownership of the island has passed through many hands, with differing ideas about how to utilize it.
Hart Island’s remote location made it a go-to site for boxing matches. It was out of the way of police, who might’ve taken issue with the drunken unruliness and gambling that occurred during these events.
Aside from being a mass grave and a place to hold fistfights, the island had other functions as well. During the Civil War, the 31st Infantry Unit of U.S. Colored Troops used the site as a training ground and barracks. Later in the war, the island became a camp for prisoners of war.
After the Civil War, the island served as a workhouse for young delinquent boys, and it was called the Industrial School for Destitute Boys. There was also a psychiatric hospital and a quarantine area during the yellow fever epidemic.
In 1869, Hart Island started to be used for city burials. The first person to be buried there was 24-year-old Louisa Van Slyke. More were soon to follow.
A man named Solomon Riley from Barbados wanted to build an amusement park that catered to Black people on Hart Island. Riley made his fortune in real estate, and when a plot of land went up for sale on the island, he bought it immediately. He planned to open the park on July 4, 1925, but the city prohibited him from doing so.
In 1955, the government installed barracks and a missile base on the island during World War II. Six years later, the base was relocated. Next up was a drug rehabilitation program called Phoenix House. They held huge festivals and events that attracted crowds of people. In 1976, the Phoenix House relocated to Manhattan.
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