Henry Parker
In the early 20th century, Hart Island was a place of last resort, a small strip of land in the Long Island Sound set apart from the bustle of New York City. It served multiple functions for the city’s Department of Public Charities and Correction, housing the living who were forgotten and burying the dead who were unclaimed. The island was a combination of a workhouse, a hospital, and the city’s official potter’s field.
The primary and most enduring purpose of Hart Island was as a public cemetery. The city’s unclaimed dead were brought to the island by ferry for burial. These were individuals who died without family to claim them or whose families could not afford a private funeral. The burials were carried out by prisoners, typically men serving short sentences for minor offenses from the city’s workhouse on nearby Blackwell’s Island (now Roosevelt Island). They would dig long, deep trenches, and the simple, unidentified pine coffins were stacked inside, three high. A single marker would note the trench number, but individual graves were not marked.
Beyond its role as a cemetery, Hart Island was also a place of confinement and convalescence. A reformatory, known as the “Workhouse for Boys,” operated on the island. It housed young men, generally between the ages of 16 and 21, who were convicted of misdemeanors. They lived in dormitories and were put to work on the island, with some of the older boys assisting in the burial of the dead.
The island also served as a place to isolate the sick. In an era before effective antibiotics, tuberculosis was a major public health crisis. A hospital pavilion specifically for female tuberculosis patients was located on Hart Island. This kept contagious individuals separated from the general population of the city. Women would live out their days in this hospital, and if they succumbed to the disease without family to claim them, their final resting place was just a short distance from where they were treated. The island’s remote location was seen as ideal for keeping such diseases contained.
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