Place

Spinnaker Island

aerial shot of an island with a dock and a bridge to mainland. Buildings of a fort.
Aerial view of Fort Duvall on Spinnaker Island in 1944.

Boston Public Library

Quick Facts
Location:
Hingham Bay
OPEN TO PUBLIC:
No

Just beyond Point Allerton, sits one of the "Hog Islands" of the Boston Harbor. The almost ten-acre former island has been connected to the mainland via a causeway since the 1980s, when a private developer purchased the island and renamed it Spinnaker Island. Other former names of the island include "Hogg Island" and "Little Hog Island." This island is not to be confused with the Hog Island of East Boston.1 

Once a favorite camping site, the federal government acquired the island in 1917 for use as a military fortification. The Coast Defense Commander recommended that four 12-inch mortars be placed on the island in 1915.2 Construction of Fort Duvall, finished in 1925, though instead of the recommended 12-inch rifles, two 16-inch rifles had been installed. The military originally planned to place the larger guns in the outer harbor but decided to assign the 16-inch guns to Hog Island because of the high cost of operating the guns in the outer harbor. As a result of this change, bases for both the 12-inch and the 16-inch were installed on the island. 

Throughout the 1920s, and 1930s, only a caretaker lived on the island full time. Those who staffed the battery lived at Fort Revere at nearby Hull.3 After World War II, the island served as a radar and fire control center for a local NIKE missile site. The military facilities closed in the 1970s. Today, remnants of the former fort can still be seen among the 1980s condominiums.4 

Footnotes:

  1. Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, Cultural Landscape Report: Boston Harbor Islands National & State Park, Volume 1: Historical Overview, (Boston: National Park Service, 2017), 22. 

  2. Moses Foster Sweetser, King’s Handbook of Boston Harbor (Cambridge, MA: Moses King, 1883), 47; Coast Defense, "Fort Duvall," accessed April 14, 2023, https://coastdefense.com/fort_duvall.htm.  

  3. Coast Defense, "Fort Duvall;"  "Spinnaker Island, Once Called Hog Island," Boston Harbor Beacon, last modified September 7, 2015, accessed April 14, 2023.  

  4. Edward Snow, The Islands of Boston Harbor (Carlisle, MA: Commonwealth Editions, 2002), 167. 

Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area

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Last updated: November 22, 2023