Thompson Island (Massachusetts)

The island has open meadows, forests, marine wetlands, sumac groves, and a variety of other geological features as well.

Amenities include a formal school campus complete with classrooms, dormitories, dining hall, auditoriums, gymnasium, lab space, outdoor challenge courses, and climbing towers.

Thompson, the namesake of the island, was a Scot who had been superintending the settlement of Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Captain John Mason near Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

[2] In 1628 David Thompson disappeared possibly as the result of drowning or foul play, and the town of Dorchester acquired the island.

[6] While on the island, parents were only able to see their child once a month during visit days and for two weeks during the summer when the boys were allowed to return home.

Thompson Academy became a college preparatory boarding school and continued the tradition of shelter and guidance to boys from the Boston area and beyond.

During some very turbulent times, the school was a model of successful community integration based on friendship and brotherhood for several hundred boys of all backgrounds each year during the late 60s and into the mid-70s.

[10] In the early 1990s, David Manzo of Community Providers of Adolescent Services, Inc. d/b/a COMPASS, John Verre of the McKinley Schools, Edward F. Kelley of RFK Children's Action Corp, and Peter Willauer of Thompson Island Outward Bound Education Center, created a comprehensive residential treatment program called Citybound, for adolescents with emotional and behavioral disabilities on Thompson Island.

[13] In 2002, the National Park Service and the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Management purchased a conservation restriction for Thompson Island.

With the assistance of The Trust for Public Land, who helped negotiate the deal, future development was limited to only the existing school campus.