Charles Island has fascinated many generations of Milford residents and visitors to the area.  Legends of Captain Kidd’s treasure, hearsay of a once thriving resort, and the remnants of a religious retreat house imbue them with dreams of riches and a curiosity about the past.  Like the sparse and storm-shattered remains of the structures that once graced the island, only bits and pieces of its history survive.  Reliable information about Charles Island is strewn about here and there and the historical landscape is littered with misinformation, speculations and fictions.

     In this work, the author has re-constructed the island’s history from a wide variety of sources including maps from the 17^th to 19^th centuries, town records, newspaper accounts & advertisements, 19^th century journals, personal recollections from visitors to the resort that thrived there, photographs from its days as a religious retreat, etc.  Combined they offer a unique view of the island and a perspective that until now has been lost with time.

     The major periods in the island's history are covered including:

• The days of the Sachem Ansantawae

• Its likely discovery by Adriaen Block in 1614 (including a copy of his original hand-drawn map)

• The origins of the persistent Captain Kidd legend that has a basis in historical fact - Kidd is known to have visited Milford and to have buried part of his treasure along Long Island Sound

• The first home built on the island in 1835 by John Harris

• The large resort, known as Charles Island House and later as Ansantawae House in the 1850s and 1860s with steamboat service from New Haven and Bridgeport.  Several illustrations from this period (including advertisements, first hand accounts of visitors, one of the steamboats that serviced the island and the guest register from 1856) embellish this period in its history.

• Its use as a base of operations for a fish fertilizer company, causing considerable controversy among Milford residents and two legal actions

• A religious retreat in the 1930s run by the Dominican fathers, a venture that got off to a sad start when six workmen from the retreat were drowned when returning from the island

• Its "almost" uses - over the years, Charles Island was considered for use as a summer home for a major yacht club, an amusement park, a submarine-chaser base during World War I, a reformatory and a nuclear power plant

• Its use as a backdrop in a surprising number of fictional stories including two written by one of the owners of the island.  Several of these stories are reprinted in this book - the first time they have appeared in print in over a hundred years.

     The history of Charles Island is fascinating and has been, for the most part, forgotten.  An Historical Account of Charles Island brings back to life the rich history of this island's past using carefully researched text and nearly four dozen color, sepia and black & white images of woodcuts, maps, manuscripts, advertisements, portraits and photographs.  This work is carefully documented and contains a complete list of references.

To order, please send Check or Money Order to:

Michael C. Dooling

P. O. Box 1047

Middlebury, CT  06762

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