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The Many Intrigues of the Hamptons’ Most Secretive Island

Gardiner’s Island has long been the subject of local intrigue. It is the oldest and largest privately owned island in the country, a 3,318-acre mass between Long Island’s North and South Forks that is completely inaccessible to outsiders — even those who can see it from the decks of their East Hampton compounds. It was also the subject of a nasty little family feud that intensified following the death, in 1990, of its heiress co-owner, Alexandra Gardiner Creel.

In  The End , a documentary short directed by  New York  contributor Emily Sundberg and produced by Eric Arzoian, viewers can get a glimpse of the mysterious island, its history, and the  Succession- esque family saga that has kept it shrouded in secrecy for so long.

The End had its New York premiere at DOC NYC on Friday and will be playing at Cinepolis Chelsea on Wednesday, November 16.

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Gardiner's Island: A Rich History

Approximately five square miles in size, Gardiner’s Island, a part of the town of East Hampton, has a rich, tumultuous history that spans nearly 400 years of ownership by the same family. It is the only real estate intact in the United States that is part of an original royal grant from the English Crown. The Island has survived Indian wars, pirates, invasion by British forces, war, and family issues. It is home to more than 1,000 acres of old growth forest, the largest stand of white oak trees in the Northeast, 1,000 acres of meadows, rare birds, Indian artifacts, and structures that date back to the 17th century.

Robert David Lion Gardiner, the last heir to bear the name Gardiner, said of his founding ancestors survey of the Island, “When he walked over it he found it had magnificent forests, saltwater ponds and fresh streams that he could dam and use for his livestock.” The island was settled in 1639 by a man named Lion Gardiner after he retained a grant from King Charles I of England.

Gardiner purchased the island from the Montaukett Indians after his support of the tribe during the Pequot War, in exchange for a large black dog, a few Dutch blankets, and some powder and shot. Originally called the ‘Isle of Wight’ after the Isle of Wight in England, the royal patent issued to Gardiner gave him the “right to possess the land forever,” as well as the title “Lord of the Manor.” Lion himself passed away in 1663 at the age of 64. He is buried at the Old South Cemetery in East Hampton.

The Witch Hunt

In 1641, Gardiner’s wife gave birth to a daughter named Elizabeth, who was the first English child born in New York, and would be responsible for initiating the first witch hunt and witch trial in the American colony. In February 1657, 15-year-old Elizabeth lay deliriously ill in East Hampton. She screamed out from her deathbed, “A witch! A witch! Now you are come to torture me because I spoke two or three words against you!” Lion rushed to his daughter’s side and asked her what she saw, to which she replied, “A black thing at the bed’s feet.” Moments later, she died, spawning a witch hunt which would lead to the arrest of 50-year-old Goody Garlick whose husband worked on Gardiner’s Island as a farmer.

The Visit of Captain Kidd

In June 1699, Gardiner’s Island received a legendary visitor, Captain William Kidd, privateer and pirate. He sailed his ship Adventure Prize into one of the harbors on the Island on his way to Boston where he would attempt to clear his name. With Lion Gardiner’s grandson Jonathan’s permission, he buried $30,000 worth of treasure in a ravine between Bostwick’s Point and the Manor House.

Kidd gave Mrs. Gardiner a piece of gold cloth (it can be found on display at the East Hampton Library) which he captured from a Moorish ship off of Madagascar, as well as a bag of sugar – a rarity at the time. He warned the Gardiners that if the treasure was not there when he returned he would kill them, and he headed off to Boston. While in Boston, Kidd was captured, put on trial and later executed. Governor of New York and Massachusetts, Richard Earl of Bellomont ordered the Gardiners to deliver the treasure to the court as evidence. The treasure included gold dust, silver bars, gold Spanish coins, rubies, diamonds, candlesticks and porringers. One diamond remained in Gardiner’s hands. Some argue that he took it; others argue that it was accidently left in his travel bag. The diamond was given to his daughter Elizabeth who married the Island chaplain, Mr. Green.

During The Wars

Gardiner’s Island played a significant role in many great American wars. During the American Revolution, the Gardiner’s sided with the colonists. Thirteen ships sailed into Cherry Harbor and foraged the Island and the Manor House. Guests at the Manor during the time included Henry Clinton and John Andre, who would at one point exchange toasts with Gardiner’s son Nathaniel, a surgeon in the New Hampshire Continental Infantry. Later in the war, Nathaniel would attend to Andre after he was caught spying with Benedict Arnold and executed.

During the War of 1812, seven British ships and small frigates anchored in Cherry Harbor where they proceeded to conduct raids on American shipping. Crews would go ashore on the island for provisions, and several British military personnel who were killed were buried on the island.

Julia Gardiner Tyler

On May 4, 1820, Julia Gardiner was born on the Island. Her mother, Julian McLachlan, was an heiress to a large fortune, and as a result, Julia grew up in a world of opulence. In 1842, she was introduced to President John Tyler at a White House reception. Julia and the President, 30 years her senior, began a relationship after the death of Tyler’s first wife. Julia, her sister, and her father, David Gardiner, joined the President on the steam frigate, Princeton, where David would lose his life in an explosion.

After the tragic death of her father, Julia agreed to marry Tyler in a small, private ceremony in New York in June 1844. She only served as First Lady for eight months, but during that time she threw many lavish parties and dressed in flamboyant, trendy fashions. She retired with Tyler at their estate, Sherwood Forest in Virginia. During the Civil War however, Julia openly defended slavery, and was forced to return to an anti-slavery New York after her home in Virginia was seized by Union soldiers. She died in Richmond, Virginia on July 10, 1889 at the age of 69.

The Manor: Then and Now

In the late 19th century, famed Long Island poet Walt Whitman wrote of Gardiners Island, “Imagination loves to trace (mine does, any how,) the settlement and patriarchal happiness of this fine old English gentleman on his island there all by himself, with his large farm-house, his servants and family, his crops on a great scale, his sheep, horses, and cows. His wife was a Dutch woman – for thus it is written by his own hand in the old family Bible, which the Gardiners yet possess.”

​The original Manor House on the island was built by David Gardiner in 1774, however in 1947, the house, along with its contents were burned in a fire after a guest fell asleep while smoking. The current Manor House, a 28 room Georgian estate, was built in 1947 by Sarah Diodati Gardiner. Diodati died at the age of 90 and left the Island to her nephew Robert David Lion Gardiner, and his sister Alexandra Gardiner Creel. Robert served as the 16th Lord of the Manor until his death in August 2004. He had no heir. The island is run today by Creel’s daughter Alexandra Goelet, the last remaining heir in the Gardiner family.

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America's aristocrats: gardiner's island.

Fly into JFK, look toward the setting sun, and you see Manhattan, the city that never sleeps, the Big Apple. Turn the other direction, however, and drive two hours east — past the scenic Southampton Golf Club and Napeague State Park — and you’ll take in a much different vista: a land where time stands still. By Trey Garrison Since 1639, Gardiner’s Island and its 3,300 acres have belonged to Lion Gardiner and his descendants. The six-foot scion of this American dynasty bought his domain not from the Crown or some colonizers but from Native Americans. More than 350 years later, his island is valued at $125 million (almost $40,000 per acre). Or at least that’s what it was when it was last formally appraised in 1989. On the island itself, the family manor stands as it has since 1774, nestled among chestnut trees, cherry trees, and willows, overlooking the bay. Behind the manor, a wide commons sprawls out to the edge of a white oak forest, interspersed with orchards and grain fields. Down near the shore, the famous Gardiner’s Island windmill can be found. The sense of legacy is palpable — from the Indian artifacts and the manor house and barns to the carpenter’s shed, the oldest wooden structure still standing in New York, built in 1639. Not surprisingly, the island has been witness to an enormous sweep of American history; warring Indian tribes, infamous pirates, and British forces during the American Revolution and the War of 1812 all sought refuge there. In 1869, it was a rally point for an American expeditionary force bound for Cuba. For more than a dozen generations, this Old World estate has remained in the hands of the Gardiner family, beginning with Lion Gardiner in 1639 and continuing to Alexandra Goelet today. Although the island and its properties are not cheap to maintain — property taxes and upkeep reportedly cost nearly $2 million a year — Goelet seems content to continue this tradition. This indomitable legacy begins with Lion Gardiner. Popular history has it that his ownership was derived from a land grant from King Charles I. This simple, clean, and very formal pedigree is in fact a fiction, one perpetuated by the Gardiners themselves. The reality of how Lion came to own the island is much more interesting. “Most of what you read about the early days of Gardiner’s Island comes from the Gardiner family themselves, so of course it sounds better and more prestigious to say it was part of a royal grant,” says Richard Barons, executive director of East Hampton Historical Society. Lion was a decorated military engineer in the English army who served in the Netherlands with great distinction during the war of liberation against Spain. According to Appleton’s Cyclopedia of American Biography , Lion was persuaded by Hugh Peters and other Englishmen to enter the service of a company of lords and gentlemen colonizing an American settlement for the Puritans. In 1635, he arrived in the New World and took command of 300 soldiers and workers, drawing up and executing plans for towns and forts. After Saybrook Fort was completed, the Pequots declared war on their new Connecticut neighbors. During the two-year war with the Pequot, Lion commanded Saybrook. At the same time, on the eastern half of Long Island, Wyandanch led the Montaukett tribe. According to Barons, Wyandanch watched the war between the English and the Pequot with great interest. Both Lion and Wyandanch were men who could think beyond their own perspectives, Barons says, and this was critical to the relationship that formed between the two. Wyandanch soon recognized the superior firepower of the English. He repudiated his Pequot kin and formed an alliance with the English commander. According to Faren Siminoff’s Crossing the Sound: The Rise of Atlantic American Communities in Seventeenth-Century Eastern Long Island , such a repudiation was fully within the bounds of traditional native culture. Wyandanch made sure to negotiate the terms of the alliance according to Indian standards, and he insisted on a client-patron relationship rather than complete subordination. In turn, Wyandanch enfolded Lion in traditional Indian forms by offering him land, specifically, the island that now bears his name. The Montauketts called it Manchonake, which loosely translates to “the place where many have died.” The island had been the site of an epidemic. Lion reportedly bought it for a large black dog, some powder and shot, and a few Dutch blankets. Conflicting reports say the purchase price was 10 coats of trading cloth. “Wyandanch could see that Gardiner had a great deal of empathy for the Native Americans that other [settlers] did not have, and that was critical in this relationship,” Barons says. “Gardiner’s son learned to speak Algonquin. So the first real estate deal on Long Island wasn’t a royal land grant but a purchase between the [English] and the Montaukett.” In 1639, Lion bought the island for a second time — this time from the Earl of Stirling, who had been granted the property by King Charles I. Later, a manorship was granted that gave Gardiner ownership of the island under English law, Barons says. The holding was originally called the Isle of Wight. Although the Gardiners never declared themselves lords or any such thing, they exercised the privileges of the title. How the island came to be called a manor and then a lordship also had little to do with royal ambitions on Lion Gardiner’s part, Barons says. It had more to do with something each and every landowner can identify with: cutting taxes. “As the taxes on the property increased, Lion Gardiner finally sought to have the island declared a manor under English law,” Barons says. “You didn’t have to pay as much in taxes on a manor.” Lion, who died in 1663 in East Hampton, was always referred to as the Proprietor of the Isle of Wight as were his descendants until at least the 1790s. He was remembered as a steward of the island, a soldier hero, and a man with great vision. No descendant ever lived larger than Lion Gardiner, but the centuries that followed have proved eventful. Lion’s youngest daughter, Elizabeth, was born on the island in 1641, the first English child born in New York. Though she died in her teens, she played a key role in colonial witch hunts as the accuser in one of the earliest witch trials, according to Curtiss Gardiner, who wrote a history of the family in 1890. In the 1680s, East Hampton attempted to annex the island into the township. Gardiner heirs convinced the powers that be to affirm the island’s special status, which remained in place until after the American Revolution. The largely symbolic designation “Lordship and Manor of Gardiner’s Island” was bestowed by Governor Dongan in 1686. In 1699, Captain William Kidd entreated Lion’s grandson, John Gardiner, to allow the privateer to bury a treasure of gold, silver, candlesticks, and gems on the island before he sailed to Boston to answer charges of piracy. For their help, Kidd reportedly gave the Gardiners a piece of gold cloth captured from a Moorish ship off Madagascar, as well as a bag of sugar. Upon his departure, Kidd warned that if the treasure was not there when he returned, he would kill the Gardiners. John Gardiner later cooperated with authorities and turned the treasure over, reportedly keeping a diamond, which he gave his daughter. During the American Revolution, the Gardiners renounced their loyalty to the Crown and declared their support for the fledgling revolution. Throughout this strife-torn era and then some 40 years later during the War of 1812, the British Navy used the island for supplying and staging. All the while, the manor house, which had been built in 1774, was left untouched. According to the Encyclopedia of New York State , the family produced a number of important heirs through the years, from local representatives to US senators. Julia Gardiner, born on the island in 1820, became the First Lady of the United States, marrying President John Tyler in 1844. The great Walt Whitman took note of Gardiner’s Island in the latter part of the 19th century, writing: “Imagination loves to trace (mine does, any how,) the settlement and patriarchal happiness of this fine old English gentleman on his island there all by himself, with his large farm-house, his servants and family, his crops on a great scale, his sheep, horses, and cows. His wife was a Dutch woman–for thus it is written by his own hand in the old family Bible, which the Gardiners yet possess.” By the 1920s, however, portions of the island were leased for hunting. Debt and taxes mounted, and in 1937, the island was slated to be sold at auction. A Gardiner cousin, Sarah Diodati Gardiner, stepped in at the last minute and bought it, keeping Gardiner’s Island in the family. Title to the island was hotly disputed between two Gardiner descendants for decades. A regional writer named Mary Cummings summarized as follows: “In one corner was Robert David Lion Gardiner, who invariably referred to himself as ‘the 16th Lord of the Manor.’ An undisputed and indefatigable expert on Gardiner ancestral lore, he could hold forth on his ‘noble’ ancestry for hours at a time and rarely passed up an occasion to do so. In the other corner was … Alexandra Gardiner Creel Goelet … who battled under the green environmentalists’ banner.” The battle raged in the courts for years. It was finally settled when Robert David Lion Gardiner died in 2004, leaving Goelet as the sole owner of Gardiner’s Island. Survival, it seems, may be the dominant family trait. Robert David Lion Gardiner himself said as much during a rare interview: “We have always married into wealth. We’ve covered all our bets. We were on both sides of the Revolution and both sides of the Civil War. The Gardiner family always came out on top.”

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Glimpsing the gem that is gardiners island.

By Susan Carey Dempsey

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Journalist discusses ‘time capsule’

For residents of Shelter Island, who regard Gardiners Island as a distant, somewhat mysterious cousin, there can be few guides as well-acquainted with this 3,300-acre jewel as Karl Grossman, a journalist who first ventured there almost 50 years ago. Mr. Grossman, who has covered Long Island for more than four decades, writes the Suffolk Closeup column that appears weekly in the Reporter. He first met Robert David Lion Gardiner, the self-described “16th Lord of the Manor,” when he covered a large campout of Boy Scouts hosted by Mr. Gardiner in 1971.

“He was a very colorful character, a walking treasure in regard to oral history,” said Mr. Grossman in an interview, “but very eccentric.”  

On Saturday, Oct. 19, Mr. Grossman will give a presentation on the Gardiners and the island at the Suffolk County Historical Society in Riverhead. It will include a screening of the Gardiners Island portion of Mr. Grossman’s 1974 documentary, “Can Suffolk Be Saved?”

“Mr. Gardiner liked to show off the island, and tell the stories of his family’s four centuries on the island — the oldest English settlement in New York,” Mr. Grossman recalled. “Mr. Gardiner gets really animated in the film; he was really focused on the environment. In 1974 he was speaking out about plastic.”

A stunning landmark on the island is a Dominy windmill, built in 1795. “It’s striking to see this beautiful white windmill from a boat as you approach the island,” Mr. Grossman said. “It’s just as beautiful inside. It’s an utter gem.” There is a carpenter’s shed, built in 1639, said to be the oldest surviving wood-frame structure in New York State.

Over the years, Mr. Gardiner engaged in a bitter feud with his niece, Alexandra Gardiner Creel, over ownership of the island and plans for its future.

This past week, Robert Goelet, husband of Alexandra Gardiner Creel, died at age 96. His obituary in The New York Times, written by Sam Roberts, described him as a “grandee and naturalist.”

Scion of a French Huguenot family that settled in this country in the 17th century, Mr. Goelet brought his family’s wealth to support not only Gardiners Island, but several major cultural institutions in New York. He was president of the American Museum of Natural History, the New York Historical Society and the New York Zoological Society (now the Wildlife Conservation Society).

Mrs. Goelet is an environmentalist, Mr. Grossman said, and holds a master’s degree from the Yale School of Forestry. He describes the Goelets, as well as Mr. Gardiner, as excellent stewards of the island.

The Goelets had two children, Alexandra and Robert Gardiner Goelet. According to the Times account, they run a family investment office and state that they will preserve the island through trusts as the family home and as a wildlife sanctuary in perpetuity. Mr. Grossman said he has no concerns about the near term future of the island and the Goelets’ commitment, but questions whether some governmental action to protect it from development may be needed “for 400 years from now. We owe it to the future to make sure Gardiners Island remains totally preserved.”

Mr. Grossman describes the island as an environmental “gem,” quoting from an article by the late Paul Stoutenburgh, who wrote about nature for The Suffolk Times, about participating in an annual bird count on Gardiners Island: “Incredibly, he wrote, ospreys built their nests right on the beach.”

The island’s Bostwick Forest, Mr. Grossman describes as “breathtaking: a one-thousand-acre virgin forest of pre-Columbian white oak.”

Calling Gardiners Island a “time capsule,” Mr. Grossman compared the island to Shelter Island’s Mashomack Preserve and Sylvester Manor. “It’s very close to the time period of Sylvester Manor. The way the Manor has been preserved is a great environmental and historical success story. Their histories are so parallel. There were slave quarters on Gardiners Island also.”

Along with centuries of history, there is also the mystery surrounding pirate Captain Kidd’s buried treasure on the island, and the lore of the first “Lord,” Lion Gardiner, acquiring the island from the Montaukett Indians in 1639 for, reportedly “one large dog, one gun, some powder and shot, some rum and several blankets.”  

For those who can’t attend Mr. Grossman’s talk on Saturday at 1 p.m., the museum has a special ongoing exhibit on Gardiners Island and plans to screen the Grossman film along with a longer film on the island. For information or tickets to Saturday’s presentation, which are close to sold out, they are $25 and need to be purchased today at the latest by calling 631-727-2881, ext. 100.

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Gardiners Island

Gardiner's Island is a small island in the Town of East Hampton, New York, in Eastern Suffolk County. It is located in Gardiner's Bay between the two peninsulas at the east end of Long Island. It is 6 miles long, 3 miles wide and has 27 miles of coastline. The island has been owned by the Gardiner family and their descendants since 1639 when Lion Gardiner purchased it from the Montaukett chief Wyandanch. It is one of the largest privately owned islands in the United States, and is slightly smaller than Naushon Island in Massachusetts, owned by the Forbes family.

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Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardiners_Island

Coordinates 41°5'31.151" N -72°6'20.195" E

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Closely Guarded Secrets: Some Islands You Can't Get to Visit

By Bruce Lambert

• May 17, 1998

STANDING on the shores of the East End, you can see across the water to some of Long Island's greatest treasures, tantalizingly close yet forbiddingly inaccessible.

They are privately owned islands, and although just a short boat ride from the main body of Long Island, they are off limits to the public. Visits are held to a handful of guests, by invitation and special arrangement.

A mystique as thick as an East End ocean fog envelops the islands, and it is well earned. These islands -- Gardiners, Great Gull, Little Gull, Plum and Robins -- have been the setting of some of Long Island's most exciting historical chapters.

Captain Kidd buried pirate treasure there. One Island woman was tried for witchcraft decades before Salem's trials. Another was so beautiful that she dazzled Washington society, married the President and inadvertently saved his life. And during the cold war, one island was used for secret research for a germ warfare attack on the Soviet Union.

Today, by an odd combination of design and chance, the islands have evolved into land preserves, sanctuaries from the suburban highways, malls and subdivisions that continue to gobble up Long Island's remaining open spaces.

''These island oases near populated resorts are phenomenal,'' said Sara Davison, executive director of the Long Island chapter of the Nature Conservancy, a nonprofit group that has been in the forefront of the preservation movement. ''Especially as more and more people come to the East End, we've got to have'' refuges for wildlife.

Naturalists prize the islands, with their coastal cliffs, freshwater ponds and glacial boulders, as home to an abundance of creatures and vegetation. The bounty includes the world's largest tern colony, ospreys with wingspans up to six feet, turkeys, seals, deer, the state's healthiest eastern mud turtle population, tiny voles, one of the biggest stands of white oak in the northeast, swamp maple and beach plums, to name but a few.

Despite their idyllic image, the islands have figured in conflicts dating back to the Indian wars. Disputes over control and use of the islands have prompted court battles among feuding owners and bitter political fights involving preservationists, developers and government officials.

An island is no small financial commitment. Louis Moore Bacon, a reclusive hedge fund manager and currency trading star, paid $12 million for Robins Island in 1994. And the annual cost of taxes and maintenance at Gardiners has been estimated at $2 million. Guests on the islands have included the likes of Dag Hammarskjold and Ernest Hemingway.

Culturally, the islands have inspired naturalist painters and contemporary authors. Nelson DeMille's current best-selling novel ''Plum Island,'' published by Warner, is about a detective investigating the murder of a couple who may have been engaged in germ warfare research. In one passage, the detective describes his arrival on Plum:

''Here I was on a restricted island with this blond SS lookalike, an armed helicopter circling around, armed guards all over the place, and I'm feeling like I somehow stepped into a James Bond movie, except that this place is real. I said, 'When do we meet Dr. No?' ''

Steven Gaines devotes a big chunk of his new book, ''Philistines at the Hedgerow, Passion and Property in the Hamptons,'' due next month from Little, Brown & Company, to colorful tales of the Gardiner family, which has occupied its island for 359 years. His book calls the island ''a sanctuary not just for wildlife but from the 20th century as well.''

Raising the issue of public access during a debate five years ago over what to do about Robins Island, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo said the problem was ''how you preserve it but allow people to enjoy it without trampling on it.''

For Ms. Davison and many other environmentalists, the answer is to keep people away and let them appreciate the vulnerable islands from afar. ''I don't think the lack of public access is a big deal,'' she said. ''There are plenty of other places -- parks and preserves -- where people can go.''

Outsiders are clearly unwelcome at the private islands, as no-trespassing signs attest. The owners of Gardiners Island have gone so far as to advertise its off-limits status in public notices in The East Hampton Star.

The owners of all the islands are silent about their caretakers and security measures to keep out intruders, although Mr. Gaines's book says that Gardiners Island's ''please leave'' signs are enforced with shotguns and dogs.

One man rowed ashore at Plum Island and was caught breaking into the abandoned lighthouse, recalled Carlos Santoyo, the assistant director of the Federal Agriculture Department's Animal Disease Center there. Because the man's boat was not very seaworthy and the center was legally responsible for his safety, ''we were nice and even took him back, but we told him not to return without permission,'' said Mr. Santoyo.

Regattas are sometimes held near the islands, and tourist cruises also pass by to view the flourishing seal population, whose varieties include harbor, gray, harp and hooded.

Boaters are free to sail around the islands, of course, and depending on the season, those who stop to fish may be rewarded with fluke, flounder, porgies, bluefish, blackfish, striped bass or weakfish. The waters are also noted for oysters.

For people intent on setting foot on one of the islands, the best bet is Plum Island, which is Government property. For many years, it was the most tightly guarded of the islands, because of the classified work done there. But now the center has occasional tours for outside groups, by arrangement.

Perhaps people are drawn to the islands as much by the lure of the forbidden as by their history and natural beauty. Mr. DeMille, the novelist, recalled how he became interested in Plum Island: ''Growing up, I used to see it from boats, and you saw those signs that said: 'No landing.' It always intrigued me.''

Today he has mixed feelings about access to the islands. ''In one way, I like seeing them go back to nature, but I'd still like to have them opened to people, in a very limited way.''

GARDINERS ISLAND

With 3,300 acres and 27 miles of coastline, Gardiners Island is said to be the nation's largest privately owned island and oldest family estate.

But after a reign of more than three centuries, the Gardiners are not one big happy family. After prolonged litigation, two feuding relatives have been forced into shared custody of the island, and they alternate their stays to avoid crossing paths.

One is Robert David Lion Gardiner, who proclaims himself the 16th Lord of the Manor. The other is his niece, Alexandra Creel Goelet. In Mr. Gardiner's obsession to control the island's destiny, he once searched out a distant relative in Mississippi and tried to adopt him as a son to inherit the property, but the man declined.

Despite the hostilities between Mr. Gardiner and Mrs. Goelet, both say they are dedicated to preserving the island. They can well afford to do so, although Mr. Gardiner stopped paying his share of the upkeep years ago. Mrs. Goelet recently paid to help preserve the abandoned farm buildings, the oldest dating to 1690. The complex, which once housed slave quarters, includes a windmill.

Historians, naturalists and other academics are sometimes given tours, and when Mr. Gardiner is the guide, he relishes telling the island's stories.

In 1639, the original Lion Gardiner, over six feet tall and red bearded, bought the island from the Montaukett Indians, bartering a large black dog, blankets, a gun, powder and shot for it. Hedging his bets, he also obtained a land grant from King Charles I of England.

The Montaukett tribe's wiley sachem, the legendary Wyandanch, had decided to make allies and trading partners of the English after white soldiers killed hundreds of fierce Pequots in Connecticut.

But the sachem and the Englishman also became dear friends -- some say blood brothers -- especially after an enemy tribe kidnapped Wyandanch's daughter and Gardiner personally arranged her safe return. When Wyandanch died, Gardiner was grief stricken.

Gardiner's daughter was the first child of English descent born in New York. She died as a teen-ager, and in her terminal delirium accused an unpopular local woman, Goody Garlick, of witchery. Soon a tribunal was convened, and others accused her of causing several premature deaths by sorcery.

Lion Gardiner did not believe the charges and had the proceedings moved to Connecticut, where she was acquitted. By some accounts, she returned to Gardiners Island to live out her years.

Late in the 1600's, Capt. William Kidd, a privateer who had been declared a pirate, landed on the island to bury his plunder of gold and jewelry, then turned himself in and sought to clear his name.

The authorities ordered the Gardiners to return the treasure, which they did, except for one large diamond, or so the story goes. In London, Captain Kidd was convicted of murder and was hanged twice, the second time because the rope broke the first time.

Perhaps the most colorful of the Gardiners was Julia, whose looks and charm earned her the description the Rose of Long Island. Overseas, she broke the hearts of an English nobleman and an Italian prince. That was just a rehearsal for her assault on Washington, where she dated two Congressmen and three Supreme Court justices, among others, while in her 20's.

Invited to a White House party, she proceeded to captivate President John Tyler, a widower. One account said that ''by evening's end, the President, 30 years her senior, was chasing Julia down the stairs and around tables.''

Julia's mother frowned on the President's courting, because he was not rich enough for a Gardiner. In 1844 the Gardiners were invited to the ceremonial firing of a large gun, the Peacemaker, on a Navy ship. Unfortunately it exploded, killing the Secretaries of State, Treasury and the Navy and Julia's father, a State Senator. She and the President would have been likely victims, too, except that they had slipped below deck for champagne together. Soon after, they wed.

GREAT GULL AND LITTLE GULL ISLANDS

These are the smallest of the private islands. Great Gull is a 178-acre sliver of land, and the adjoining Little Gull is a tiny islet, both east of Plum Island.

Thanks to naturalists who restored a habitat that had been destroyed by military fortifications, the Gull Islands are today home to the world's largest tern colony.

In the 1800's, the Federal Government used Little Gull as the site for a lighthouse, and Great Gull was farmed by the lighthouse keeper. In that era, the Gull Islands became a refuge for terns, who were being slaughtered in more accessible locations so that their feathers could be harvested for the millinery trade.

But the terns eventually lost their refuge. In the Spanish-American War, Great Gull was transformed into Fort Michie, which was not abandoned until after World War II.

In 1949 the American Museum of Natural History and the Linnaean Society, a bird-lovers group, bought the property and began enticing terns to return. By 1955, there were 25 pairs. Volunteers began the tradition, still followed today, of counting and banding the birds and checking their nests and eggs.

Today, thousands of pairs nest every year, and the program is so successful that some people have given Gull Islands a nickname: Guano Islands.

Terns are sea swallows distinguished buy their black caps and forked tails. Other birds on the islands include ospreys, double crested cormorants, bald eagles, oyster catchers, mergansers, loons, sandpipers, tufted titmice and song sparrows.

PLUM ISLAND

As Government property, Plum Island is not privately owned. But access to it is strictly controlled and it has the tightest security of all the islands. The 105 workers there commute by the Orient Point ferry.

Unlike the secret germ warfare project in the 1950's, the first Federal project on Plum Island was quite open and ordinary. In 1826, the Government belatedly bought 3 of its 800 acres for a lighthouse that had originally been authorized by President George Washington. In 1869 it was replaced by another, which still stands today, more or less. Since the Coast Guard closed the lighthouse in 1978, it has deteriorated, and erosion keeps gnawing at the cliff, which moves ever closer.

About the time of the Spanish-American War, the Government bought the rest of Plum and built Fort Terry as the headquarters for artillery batteries at Montauk and on Gardiners, Great Gull and Fishers Islands. In World War II it was used for training and for arming torpedoes, and then the fort was closed. Boarded-up military buildings, fortification ruins and overgrown gun placements remain, but no guns.

Suffolk County was in the process of buying the island for tourism when Federal officials backed out and converted the site to the Animal Disease Center in 1954. The island was chosen as a safeguard against accidental contamination. Since 1929, the country's only outbreak of the dreaded foot-and-mouth disease was in 1978, when it spread to animals outside the laboratory buildings.

For ecades, officials denied rumors of biological warfare experiments. But in 1993, Newsday unearthed previously classified documents on plans to disrupt the Soviet economy by spreading diseases to kill its pigs, cattle and horses. Most of the diseases studied, like African swine fever and rinderpest, affect only livestock. But one, Rift Valley fever, also occurs in humans.

The warfare plans ended long ago, officials say, and now the laboratory focuses exclusively on preventing diseases. To satisfy their own concerns, Russian scientists inspected the center in 1994.

Although there is no formal conservation program on Plum Island, the laboratory occupies only a small part, leaving the rest untouched. ''We don't call it preservation,'' said the center's assistant director, Mr. Santoyo. ''It just happens.'' Some conservation advocates say that Plum would benefit from an organized program like those on the other islands.

ROBINS ISLAND

Robins Island has changed hands many times, from its early Indian inhabitants to the King of England to a series of private owners. A few years ago it was almost bought by Suffolk County and New York State for a public preserve.

Instead, the 435-acre island ended up as the family retreat and hunting domain of a multimillionaire financier, Louis Moore Bacon. He decided to complete a house on the island whose construction had been abandoned by a previous owner, a New York City businessman, when his wife died in 1918.

But otherwise Mr. Bacon appears committed to conservation of his densely wooded isle. He has agreed to restrictions preserving the island forever, and his foundation set aside $1.1 million for the Nature Conservancy to oversee the program and pay for the new job of Peconic Baykeeper to safeguard the surrounding area.

In the island's long and checkered history, King Charles I granted ownership to the Earl of Sterling in 1615. Later it was sold to the Wickham family, but was wrested from their control after the American Revolution because they had sided with the Tories.

After a series of owners used the island as a retreat and for hunting, German investors took over in 1979 through the Southold Development Corporation. Fearing that the island would be built up, Suffolk County tried to buy it for $9 million, and Governor Cuomo agreed to have the state share the cost.

But then another company, Robis Corporation, made a $16 million bid and promised to develop no more than 22 luxury houses on 33 acres, leaving the rest of the island pristine. County Executive Robert Gaffney provoked a political furor by endorsing the Robis plan, which many others attacked. The issue figured in the defeat of one county legislator in the next election.

When Southold Development fell into arrears, litigation abounded and Mr. Bacon emerged at the 11th hour to snap up the island for $12 million in bankruptcy court. Critics were skeptical of his intentions at first, but so far he appears to be true to his word.

Besides the Bacon family's guests, the only visitors allowed onto the island are Nature Conservancy workers and students from the New Suffolk School District.

Gardiner’s Island, NY: 400 Years of a Pirates, Virgin Growth Forests and Historic Buildings Part 1

Off the coast of New England lies a private island full of little known history. Gardiner’s Island has been owned by the Gardiner family for 400 years and is believed to the be nation’s largest privately owned island and oldest family estate. Also believed to be the last remaining estate that was directly given from the British Monarchy.

The island was settled by Lion Gardiner in 1639. Born in England in 1599, he and his wife Mary came to New England in 1635. Lion was a military engineer and was brought over to oversee the fortification of the new colonies. Considered a wise man, Lion was not only granted the island from the Crown but he respectfully purchased it from the Montauk Indian tribe. He built Gardiner Manor and made a choice to become a steward to the island, keeping as much of it intact as possible. His descendants still own the island to this day and continue to take pride in their family’s stewardship. The island is home to countless historic events during the Revolutionary War and War of 1812, pre-Columbian forests, the birth place of a first lady of the USA, the oldest structure in New York and reportedly pirate treasure.

In 1639 when Lion Gardiner first settled, he reportedly built a carpenter shed which still stands to this day. It is said to be the oldest wooden structure in New York. Not far from the shed lies one of the few remaining virgin growth forest on the Atlantic seaboard. The Gardiner family is incredibly proud at their ability to maintain the environmental integrity of the island and all of its diversity. The enormous size of these amazing trees can be seen in the construction of the island’s buildings including the infamous Windmill, which was built in 1795. It was reported during the construction that the trees used for the windmill were hand cut and hewn out of the forest. Some of the trees used were 4 feet in diameter. They used oak and mulberry to frame the windmill.

It was also reported that this windmill was one of the finest made of its time. The Gardiners made sure that the interior was well finished and refined. The huge wooden beam that provided the support for the windmill was cut by hand into a perfect octagon. This was not a common practice especially for the inside of a structure meant for production.

Stay tuned for our next blog about Gardiner Island where we go into the Island’s role in two major wars and discuss the hidden treasure that once was hidden in the great forests.

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Gardiner’s Island is rich with history that dates back to the colonial days of America. It all started in 1639, when the island was settled by Lion Gardiner from a grant by Charles I as the first colonial English settlement in present-day New York state. The island was originally in its own jurisdiction affiliated with neither New York nor New England. The island has been privately owned for over three hundred years by his descendants, and is the only real estate still intact as part of an original royal grant from the English Crown.

Lion Gardiner reportedly purchased the island in 1639 from the Montaukett Indians for “a large black dog, some powder and shot, and a few Dutch blankets.” The Indians called the island Manchonake, while the Gardiners initially called it Isle of Wight. The Montauketts gave Gardiner title at least in part because of his support for them in the Pequot War.

The original 1639 royal patent gave Gardiner the “right to possess the land forever” with the island being declared a proprietary colony with the Gardiners getting the title of Lord of the Manor and thus able to establish laws for the island.

After it was decided that the British rather than Dutch would rule Long Island and that it would be part of New York rather than Connecticut a new patent was issued to Gardiner’s son David Gardiner on October 5 1665 by Governor Richard Nicolls.

In 1688 when Govenor Donegan granted the patent formally establishing the East Hampton government, there was an attempt to annex it to East Hampton. However the Gardiners resisted and the governor reaffirmed its special status. The island’s special status was to continue until after the American Revolution when it was formally annexed to East Hampton.

Gardiner established a plantation on the island for growing corn, wheat, fruit, and tobacco, as well for raising livestock.

The alleged pirate Captain Kidd buried treasure on the island in June 1699. Kidd stopped while sailing to Boston to attempt to clear his name. With the permission of the proprietor Mrs. Gardiner he buried $30,000 in treasure in a ravine between Bostwick’s Point and the Manor House. For her troubles he gave her a piece of gold cloth (a piece of which is now at the East Hampton library) that was captured from a Moorish ship off Madagascar as well as a bag of sugar. Kidd warned that if it was not there when he returned he would kill the Gardiner. Kidd was to be tried in Boston and Gardiner was ordered by Governor Bellomont to deliver the treasure as evidence. The booty included gold dust, bars of silver, Spanish dollars, rubies, diamonds, candlesticks, porringers. Gardiner kept one of the diamonds which he gave his daughter. A plaque on the island marks the spot but it is on private property.

During the American Revolution the Gardiners sided with the colonists. However a fleet of 13 ships sailed into Cherry Harbor and began a process of foraging the island and its manor house at will and were to turn it into a private hunting preserve. Among the British guests were Henry Clinton and John André. At one point Major Andre and Gardiner son Nathaniel Gardiner, who was a surgeon for the New Hampshire Continental Infranty, exchanged toasts on the island. Gardiner would later be the American surgeon who attended to Andre when he was executed after being caught spying with Benedict Arnold.

Following the revolution, the island was formally brought under East Hampton town jurisdiction. During the War of 1812 a British fleet of seven ships of the line and several smaller frigates anchored in Cherry Harbor and conducted raids on American shipping Long Island Sound. Crews would come ashore for provisions which were purchased at market prices. During one of the British excursions, Americans captured some of the crew. The British came to arrest then Lord of the Manor John Lyon Gardiner. Gardiner, who was a delicate man, adopted the “green room defense” where he stayed in a bed with green curtains surrounded by medicine to make him look feeble. The British not wanting a sick man onboard let him be.

The British were to bury several personnel on the island. Some of the British fleet that burned Washington assembled in the harbor in 1814.

Gardiner’s supply boats were manned by slaves during the war and this made it easier for them to pass through British lines. Many of the Gardiner slaves were to live in the Freetown (East Hampton), just north of East Hampton (village), New York.

Owing to the high cost of upkeep, in 1937 the island was put up for sale but was bought at the last minute by a relative, Sarah Diodati Gardiner, for $400,000. Upon her death in 1953, the island passed in trust to her nephew Robert David Lion Gardiner, and his sister, Alexandra Gardiner Creel. Their aunt had also set aside a trust fund for upkeep of the island, but it was exhausted by the 1970s.

When Creel died, her rights passed to her daughter, Alexandra Creel Goelet. The two were to have a highly publicized dispute over ownership and direction of the island.

Gardiner accused Alexandra of wanting to sell and develop the island. She accused him of not paying his share of the estimated $2 million/year upkeep and taxes of the island. Gardiner said he would not oppose ownership by the government or a private conservancy group.

The case went to court in 1980 and Gardiner was initially barred from visiting the island but in 1992 courts rule he could visit the island (although the Goelets and Gardiner were not on the island at the same time).

Gardiner, who claimed the title “16th Lord of the Manor of Gardiner’s Island” and lived in East Hampton, married in 1961 but had no children, leaving him with no heir. In the 1990’s, Mr. Gardiner attempted to adopt a middle aged Mississippi businessman, George Gardiner Green, as his “son”. Green was said to have been a descendent of Lion Gardiner.

Upon Gardiner’s death in 2004 ownership totally passed to Alexandra. The Goelets have offered to place a conservation easement on the island in exchange for a promise from the town of East Hampton to not up-zone the island, change its assessment, or attempt to acquire it by condemnation. East Hampton has granted the easement through 2025. Thereafter the new owners could develop the island.

Shortly before Gardiner’s death he said: “We have always married into wealth. We’ve covered all our bets. We were on both sides of the Revolution, and both sides of the Civil War. The Gardiner family always came out on top.”

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Item of the Week: Inside the Gardiner’s Island Lighthouse

From the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection

This cross-section elevation drawing from 1856 shows the lighthouse that illuminated Gardiner’s Island. It stood just over two stories tall on a sandy beach of little Gardiner’s Point Island from December of 1854 until early 1894.

The primary structure was raised on stilts, with the beacon itself sitting 33 feet above the sea supported by a cylindrical brick tower. Lighthouses are intended to illuminate only the coast where the shoreline posed the greatest danger to ships and sailors, but many lighthouses have an attached dwelling meant to house those maintaining the light — the lighthouse keeper.

This drawing includes several rooms for the lighthouse keeper’s living quarters, as well as the oil room, tower, and the lamp. Other views of the Gardiner’s Island Lighthouse are at the National Archives and give further detail to the structure’s floor plan and measurements.

The lamp worked with a small Fresnel lens, which uses cuts in the glass surrounding a flame, breaking the light like a prism and creating a single focused beam rather than a scattered glow. The beam from a Fresnel lens reached farther than a standard lens, giving warning of the approaching shoreline earlier than a traditional lighthouse beacon.

A late-winter storm in 1894 brought the little lighthouse down, sweeping the sand out from under its stilts and causing a collapse in the dwelling portion. Following the storm, reports out of Brooklyn and Manhattan spread rumors of the lighthouse keeper’s “young son Frank” having died. Genealogies and census records suggest the newspapers were confused about both Frank’s identity and his fate: Josiah Miller (1832-1905), the keeper, had no sons.

Frank was probably Josiah’s cousin. The East Hampton Star reported that Frank survived the lighthouse’s collapse. He was alone in the building because Josiah refused to remain at the light overnight, given the well-known danger the foundation’s condition posed.

The lighthouse was never repaired, and Gardiner’s Point Island was used by the United States military for target practice during World War II.

Moriah Moore is a librarian and archivist in the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection.

Innersleeve Is Riding the Vinyl Wave

According to Billboard, 49.61 million vinyl albums were sold in 2023. That marked the 18th consecutive year of growth in the format. And as the appeal of vinyl record albums has continued to expand, Craig Wright, the owner of Innersleeve Records in Amagansett, is following suit by nearly doubling his store's size.

On the Wing: A Majestic Dump Dweller

If given the opportunity, a turkey vulture would eat you, your kids, and your little dog, too. Other bird species may be struggling, but the turkey vulture is doing just fine eating dead things. Yes, with increasing signs that the end is nigh, the turkey vulture is a strong candidate for Bird of 2024.

Mystery Festival Happens Next Weekend

The second annual East Hampton Village Hamptons Whodunit festival, which features mystery and crime authors, interactive simulated crime scenes, walking tours, panel discussions, and escape rooms, will be launched next Thursday and will continue through next weekend.

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“The End” Documentary About Gardiner’s Island to Premiere at HIFF

A film titled “The End,” is having its World Premiere at the 2022 Hamptons International Film Festival. This short documentary is about the Gardiner family and their domain, Gardiner’s Island. The film is written and directed by Emily Sundberg who also produced it along with Eric Arzoian.

Within this documentary are a host of folks who shed some light on the lore, fascination, and history of this Island. Gardiner’s Island was purchased in 1639 by Lion Gardiner from Montaukett chief Wyandanch. The island has been owned by the Gardiner family ever since. For full disclosure the author of this article is one of those folks interviewed in the film, but had no hand in writing the film, producing it, or filming it. Ms. Sundberg, the director, producer, and writer of “The End,” gave an exclusive interview to hamptons.com. She explained that the genesis of this film is from her youth when she spent some time at Devon Yacht Club. That summer she heard about the island. “Curiosity is one of my stronger characteristics for better or for worse, and even though I never went to Devon again, I remained enamored by the island — the idea of loneliness, the old money, the whispers of animals that only existed here.”

“The End,” is a film with a pleasant flow and tempo. It interjects both newly shot footage and interviews along with archived photos and footage. Scenes were also filmed from a moving boat observing the wildlife of the island.

There are interviews with Karl Grossman, TJ Clemente, Raymond Hartjen, Richard Barons, and Hugh King. While making the film Ms. Sundberg said one of her biggest pleasures was, “Without question the subjects I met while making the film. They were all equal parts patient and passionate.”

The film fascinates by telling a story while peeling back some of the secrets of the Gardiner family and what is on the island one cannot see just from the shore or with binoculars. It teaches while it intrigues me. It does have a quiet dignified presentation quality as if one is standing on the very coast of Gardiner’s Island and is being told its story. This is Ms. Sundberg’s first film. When asked will there be others, Sundberg said, “This was my first film but it wasn’t Eric, Jack Mankiewicz (B-camera operator), Peter Peregrine (director of photography), Nick Nazmi (Camera operator) or Maple’s (Co-Director Maple Shipp). I learned a tremendous amount from them, especially Eric who was my creative partner on all levels. There will be many others.” It is one thing to make a movie it is another to view it with a live audience of strangers. When asked if might she be anxious to be in a theater with people watching it Ms. Sundberg surprisingly said, “ I’m not, I think everything happened how it was supposed to happen.”

She said she called it “The End,” because, “ It was the end of a dynasty on Gardiner’s Island, and the end of Long Island, and the end of a specific generation on Long Island. But it also was the end of an intensely important chapter of my life which I felt in every moment of the film. I learned a lot about isolation, secrets, and storytelling once this project was completed.” Emily Sundberg, who has a strong resemblance to a young Wynona Ryder, grew up in Centerport on Long Island. She didn’t study film, saying, “… but I always used cameras and journals to capture the world around me.” Her dad was a social studies teacher and 3rd generation New Yorker “who instilled New York history in our home.”

About inspirations, Sundberg said, “I am inspired by my subjects,” then added, “I’m inspired by Steve Jobs for making a great camera accessible to everyone pretty much, I’m (am also) inspired by Martin Scorsese and Nan Goldin and Edward Gorey and I’m inspired by Eric Arzoian for being patient with me.” To this, Eric Arzoian added via email, “I have nothing to add, (Emily has provided) perfect answers.”

The film is being shown at the 2022 Hamptons International Film Festival on both Thursday, October 13th and Saturday, October 15th in what is called, “The Shorts Program: The View From Long Island.” Tickets are available via hamptonsfilmfest.org

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ANNUAL EXHIBITION 2020

Fort tyler, gardiners point island, n.y.: “the ruins”, the story of fort tyler would be a comedy if it weren’t so tragic. the fort was completed by 1898, but only after the end of the spanish american war. fort tyler was never assigned armament or a garrison. in the ensuing decades, it became the haunt of boating sightseers, rumrunners and bootleggers. robert moses tried to make it a park in the 1920s. the war department made it a bombing target range in the mid-1930s. fdr subsequently declared it a bird preserve in 1938, but after world war ii it became a practice bombing target again. today, gardiners point island has reverted to bird preserve status; however, with perhaps longer memories than humans seem to have, nesting birds have never returned to “the ruins” in any great numbers..

“The Ruins” Original Footage by Curt Kessler

Edited with permission by Marisela La Grave and Pierce Rafferty for the HLFM ANNUAL EXHIBITION 2020

To learn more about strategic habitat conservation efforts by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, please visit: fws.gov

To learn more about the history of Mitchel Field, please visit: mitchelfield.weebly.com

Annual exhibition sponsored by:

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Fort Tyler, Gardiners Point Island, N.Y.

The historical section of the Fort Tyler exhibit benefited greatly from the images of sightseers touring the abandoned fort in the early 1900s that were provided by Bolling Smith, member of the Coast Defense Study Group. More than 20 years ago, the late Maj. Gen. George Ruhlen donated copies of his photographs of Fort Tyler to the HLFM. They were invaluable for this project. Paul Martin, an unofficial historian of Mitchel Field, Long Island, generously shared images of and information about that airfield and the B-10 bombers that used Fort Tyler as a bombing practice target in 1936.

The 21st century section of the Fort Tyler exhibit is almost entirely comprised of photographs taken by former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Curt Kessler. He also provided the video footage of Gardiners Point Island taken in 2013 after Superstorm Sandy. Special thanks go out to Curt. This section of the exhibit rests entirely on the foundation of his in-depth documentation of “The Ruins.”

Thanks also to Marisela LaGrave for her editing work on Curt Kessler’s video of Gardiners Point Island, 2013. Southold Town Historian Amy Folk was of great help, as was Jon Fuller of Groton Long Point.

The following institutions provided additional images: Coast Defense Study Group, East Hampton Library, National Archives and Records Administration, and The National Museum of the United States Airforce.

Thank you all. We couldn’t have done it without you!

Pierce Rafferty, Director, Henry L. Ferguson Museum

ANNUAL EXHIBITION 2023

Untitled F.I. Sketchbook 2005

THE SKETCHBOOKS OF CHARLIE FERGUSON

In the full sweep of Fishers Island’s history, there is no artist more synonymous, more closely associated with Fishers Island than Charles B. “Charlie” Ferguson. The main show features images from two of Charlie's sketchbooks which functioned as illustrated diaries that were filled with daily activities, nature observations, personal notes, and lots of art—drawings, sketches, and watercolors—in various states of completion.

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History: Buried Pirate Treasure on Gardiner’s Island

By Lon Cohen Published: July 09 2020

A gold cloth was bestowed on Mrs. Gardiner by Captain Kidd after he buried hid goods on her family’s island.

William Kidd, privateer, pirate. 18th century portrait by Sir James Thornhill. Photo: Public domain.

Before he was hanged for piracy in London in 1701, Captain William Kidd made a stopover on Gardiner’s Island in 1699 to bury some of his treasure, a legendary pirate tale if ever there was one.

Read: Crazy Facts About Gardiner’s Island

Although Captain Kidd’s reputation as a pirate might have been concocted for political purposes - he claims he was a privateer working in service to England - he knew enough to store his possibly ill-begotten gains in a secret place, with permission of the Gardiner’s of course. Once Captain Kidd was captured, the island’s owner, John Gardiner, was ordered to deliver the chest and its contents.

Gardiner got two souvenirs from this pirate adventure. One was a gold cloth given to Mrs. Gardiner by Captain Kidd for the use of the island as a hiding spot and another was a diamond that Mr. Gardiner kept and passed on to his daughter.

Photo: East Hampton Library. For educational use only.

The gold cloth is now in the collection of the East Hampton library. The library describes it as being composed of silk, cotton and metallic gold and silver thread.

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OpEd: Gardiners Island’s Rocky Future

What is the long-term future for Gardiners Island—the historically and environmentally important 6-mile- by 3-mile-long island sitting between the twin forks of eastern Long Island?

The island has been owned by the Gardiner family since 1639 when Lion Gardiner was rumored to have purchased it from the Montaukett Indian chief Wyandanch for, as writes Marilyn Weigold in her book Peconic Bay: Four Centuries of History on Long Island’s North and South Forks, “a big black dog, rum, and a couple of blankets.”

It’s among the largest privately owned islands in the U.S. and was the first English settlement in what’s now New York State. There are historical buildings. It’s home to hundreds of bird species, lagoons and freshwater ponds, and 1,000-acre Bostwick Forest, the largest stand of white oak in the Northeast. 

The island’s sole owner now is Alexandra Creel Goelet. She is an ardent environmentalist with a master’s degree from the Yale School of Forestry. Her husband, Robert Goelet, who died in 2019, was a history enthusiast, president of the New-York Historical Society, and a strong environmentalist, too, and was president of the New York Zoological Society and American Museum of Natural History. His family has been enormously wealthy, as owners of considerable real estate in Manhattan.

I initially went to Gardiners Island in 1971 on assignment for the Long Island Press to report on a large campout of Boy Scouts. I then interviewed Robert David Lion Gardiner, Ms. Goelet’s uncle, who described himself as the “16th Lord of the Manor.” The next year for the Press I covered Gardiner’s run for the U.S. House of Representatives on the Conservative Party ticket. He did that as a protest to the effort by Otis Pike, Democratic incumbent in the 1st Congressional District, to make Gardiners Island a national monument under the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Pike said: “If anyone can show me how we can preserve open space and trees and pure air and clean water in America without government action, I’ll be happy to recommend it.” 

In his campaign, Gardiner accused Pike of being a “socialist” in his move. (Later in his life, Gardiner would say he was not opposed to ownership of the island by the government or a private conservation group. He died in 2004.)

With Gardiner’s death, Mr. and Mrs. Goelet got ownership of the island. In 2005, a 20-year conservation easement covering more than 95% of the island was arranged with the Town of East Hampton.

However, Lee Koppelman, executive director of the Long Island Regional Planning Board and long the Suffolk County Planning Department director, in a 2001 article in The New York Times, said: “The overriding concern is for the long-term future.” Koppelman recommended that the “development rights” for the island be purchased by government—the basis of the Suffolk County Farmland Preservation Program which Koppelman was involved in creating. It pays farmers the difference between what their land is worth developed and if kept in agriculture. In return, the title to the property is restricted to agricultural use in perpetuity. 

Ms. Goelet, however, responded saying she and her husband had “willingly” supported preservation of the island and, “My children [a son and daughter] intend to carry on this tradition.” 

Gardiners Island has not had a financially seamless history. In the Depression of the 1930s, a mortgage Jonathan Gardiner held on the island was not paid and foreclosure was imminent. “With the sale pending,” the Long Island Historical Journal has related, there were proposals to have Gardiners Island become a site for a casino, hotel, and race track. Just before the scheduled auction, Sarah Diodati Gardiner “came to the rescue,” it noted, and acquired the island. She had no children and died in 1953. Her will provided for her niece Alexandra Creel (who died in 1990 and was the mother of Alexandra Creel Goelet), and nephew, Robert David Lion Gardiner, owning the island under a trust.   

Even for the very wealthy, over the long term there are financial ups and downs. With a development rights purchase, the Goelets and their descendants would retain full ownership and full control of the island. 

As of this year, 2023, the easement expires in two years. With a development rights purchase there would be, in effect, a permanent conservation easement for Gardiners Island. That way, there would be a legal guarantee that what Koppelman called “perhaps the most important offshore island on the entire Atlantic seashore from Maine to Florida” would be saved for all time.

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Gardiners Island

The Ruins: 41 08’29” N / 72 08’46” W

Gardiners Bay is approximately 10 miles long and 8 miles wide, and sits between the two forks at the eastern end of Long Island. It is bounded on its eastern end, where it connects to Block Island Sound by Gardiners Island, a small island 6 miles long and 3 miles wide. Gardiners Bay is part of the Peconic Bay Estuary, which is rich in shellfish and crustaceans. Blue claw crab, oysters, hard shell clams, scallops and conch are abundant throughout the area, making this piece of water a fisherman’s paradise as the abundance of food attracts myriad bottom dwellers and gamefish.

One of the many hotspots that surround Gardiners is located at its northern tip. It is known as the Ruins and is separated from Gardiners Island by a mile long rip line that at one time was a road to get to and from an old fort located at the northernmost end. Once the fort was abandoned, Uncle Sam designated the area for military target practice, which is why the old road is now a rip line.

Speaking with Ken Morse over at Tight Lines Tackle in Sag Harbor, the rip line consists mainly of broken up old rubble from the blasting that is lying in 3 to 20 feet of water. Ken emphasizes that this spot is a fly fisherman’s and top water angler’s dream thanks to the abundance of bass and blues that frequent this area.

There are some bottom dwellers here but if you are thinking about anchoring in this area think again. There’s plenty of live ammo just waiting for an excuse to make some noise and setting an anchor among the steel tubes may be the last thing you ever do. Ken says a true navigation map is a must as all the danger zones are clearly marked on the charts. Drifting over the rip line is fine and poses no danger.

Ken also mentioned there are plenty of other options within sight of The Ruins. For fluke, Ken suggests fishing the deep water, preferably between 70 and 100 feet, as that is where the squid are during the day, and where you find big fluke on the squid. The area around the Gong Buoy north of the Ruins holds good numbers of fluke during July and August. The key here is to mark bait close to the bottom and fish over the schools of baitfish.

Ken says if it’s big porgies and sea bass that turn you on, head for the rocky lairs in 60 to 80 feet of water southeast of The Ruins. Once again, a quality navigation chart (Capt. Segulls, Navionics) will point out the rocky areas. As for tides, Ken feels that the outgoing produces better than incoming regardless of the species, but then there are exceptions, according to Ken.

As you can see, Gardiners Bay can be an interesting and productive area to fish. For further details on the numerous hotspots that surround the island and all your tackle and bait needs, head over to Tight Lines Bait & Tackle in Sag Harbor where Ken is happy to provide you with the latest info.

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