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- One must be a fox in order to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten off wolves. Machiavelli Niccolo
Visit Hart Island
The loneliest island in New York
In one version of this story, the island was named when it was used as a game preserve. Another version states that it was named for the deer that migrated from the mainland during periods when ice covered that part of the sound. A passage in William Styron’s novel Lie Down in Darkness describes the island as occupied by a lone deer which is shot by a hunter with a row boat.
In any case, the island’s history is steeped in death. In its period as a Civil War prison camp, 235 prisoners died and were buried on the island (they were moved at a later date), and during the 1870 yellow fever epidemic Hart Island hosted a major hospital facility.
Since then, it has also been home to a women’s lunatic asylum, a tubercularium, a corrections facility for delinquent boys, and a Nike missile base. Currently, the island is used as the New York Potter’s Field (a place of burial for unknown individuals), which makes it the largest tax-funded cemetery in the world. It is also used to bury amputated body parts. According to the most recent census the island has no permanent living residents.