Penikese Island

Penikese Island is a 75-acre (300,000 m2) island off the coast of Massachusetts, United States, in Buzzards Bay. It is one of the Elizabeth Islands, which make up the town of Gosnold, Massachusetts. Penikese is located near the west end of the Elizabeth island chain.

Penikese Island enters the historical record in 1602 AD when the English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold and some of his crew visited the island. Their visit frightened four visiting Wampanoag Indians into hiding, and the explorers stole their canoe.

Originally tree covered, at some later time the tree cover was lost, and the island was later used for pasturing sheep. To this day, it remains primarily grass covered. Owned by several successive owners, it eventually became owned by a businessman named John Anderson who used it for vacationing.

In early 1873, Louis Agassiz, the famous Swiss-American naturalist, persuaded Anderson to give him the island as a site for and $50,000 to endow a school for natural history where students would study nature instead of books. The school opened in July 1873, initially headed by Louis Agassiz. Following his death in December, his son Alexander Agassiz ran the school. The school was closed following a fire in 1875, but some of the former students opened in 1888 the Marine Biological Laboratory, in nearby Woods Hole.

In 1904, following local opposition to two previously selected sites on the mainland, the state of Massachusetts purchased the island for $25,000 to use as a leprosy hospital to isolate and treat all Massachusetts residents with the disease. When opened, it had five patients. After being open for 16 years, it was closed in 1921 and the thirteen patients were transferred to the federal leprosy hospital in Carville, Louisiana. At the closing of the hospital, the state burnt and then dynamited the buildings, and all that remains of it is a small cemetery.

The island remains under the ownership of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and is primarily a bird sanctuary. There is no permanent population on the island. A residential school for special-needs juvenile boys located on the island, opened in 1973, so at any time there will be school staff and some students on the island. There may also be visitors and researchers, as the island is publicly owned and is still used at times for biological research. Beginning in 1990, the island was used as a test site for efforts to reintroduce the endangered American Burying Beetle, which appears to have succeeded as by 1997 the population had persisted for at least five generations since the last release.

Penikese Island School Located 12 miles off Woods Hole, the Penikese Island School had operated as a private residential school for troubled boys since it was founded in 1973 by Woods Hole resident George Cadawalader. The school was closed in February 2011 due to funding cuts. The school had a capacity of nine students, and employed 15 full-time staff who rotate shifts on-island, in addition to eight administrative staff and a boat captain.

Seen as an alternative to juvenile detention, the school gained a reputation for its intimate size, quaint setting, and “choice and natural consequences” philosophy, attracting media attention and countless documentaries about the program. The school's mission was to serve teenage boys who have not recovered with more traditional programs. Penikese Island School was more expensive than jail or non-residential schools, admitted Executive Director Toby Lineaweaver. But state funding trends have not reflected the therapeutic approach. Directly funded by the state Department of Children and Families, the Department of Education, and private donations, Mr. Lineaweaver said that Fiscal Year 2012 appears to be “the worst yet” for the school’s budget.

The three students currently enrolled at the school were transferred off-island, said Mr. Lineaweaver. One will graduate from the program, one will enter a group home, and another will head back to his family and public school, he said.