THE SEARCH FOR A LATE COLONIAL THROUGH INDUSTRIAL AGE CEMETERY ON RAINSFORD ISLAND, BOSTON HARBOR, MASSACHUSETTS

Rainsford Island is a small island situated in the southern portion of Boston Harbor. From the 1737 to 1920, Rainsford Island was home to a quarantine facility for vessels and people entering Boston. The facility included a hospital that also served as a Veterans' Home following the War of 1812 and the Civil War. This facility sat on a bedrock erosional remnant of the southern drumlin, approximately 7 m above sea level. To the south of the Hospital is an 11-acre plain that was likely used as a burying ground for the Hospital. Historic records indicate that upward of 1100 souls may have been interned on the Island and that all or a portion of the remains were reinterned to neighboring Long Island in the 1920's. Presently, the Island is owned by the City of Boston and managed jointly by the City and the Boston Harbor Island National Park Area and is closed to the public.

During the summer of 2008, we conducted a reconnaissance-level survey consisting of 3 high-resolution 500 MHz ground penetrating radar lines. The survey revealed the presence of anthropogenic disturbances consistent in size, depth orientation and pattern typical of graves on the southern portion of the Island. During January and February, 2009 the team will return to the Island to conduct a detailed ground penetrating radar survey coupled with real-time kinematic GPS to delineate the boundaries of the cemetery and elucidate the relationship between the cemetery site and the evidence for overwash and erosion of the surrounding coastlines. This survey will include 100 MHz data to determine the stratigraphic sequence of the Island, 500 MHz data to identify burial sites and their relationship to the Island's stratigraphy and 800 MHz data in an attempt to determine if the area has been disturbed since the cemetery was abandoned in the 1920s. With the assistance of digital terrain models derived from RTK-GPS data, we will relate the vertical positions of all features with present and projected past sea levels.

Ultimately, the team will link the results of this study with those carried out by other researchers at UMass-Boston on the evolution of the Island to develop a conservation plan for the cultural resources of the Island. The plan will include the location of sites and their relationship to coastal hazard zones and predicted sea-level rise.