About
City Island is a small community at the edge of New York City located just beyond Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx and surrounded by the waters of western Long Island Sound and Eastchester Bay. With Execution Light to the northeast and Stepping Stones Lighthouse to the south, City Island has a rich nautical history, much of it preserved by the Historical Society and Nautical Museum. The island, variously called Minnewit, Mulberry, or Great Minnefords Island, was part of the 50,000-acre tract that Thomas Pell (1613–1669) purchased in 1654 from the Lenape Indians, who frequented the island to fish and hunt. In 1685 Sir John Pell, Thomas Pell’s heir, sold Great Minnefords Island to John Smith of Bruckland (Brooklyn), and from 1700 to 1761, the island changed hands several times. In 1761 Benjamin Palmer purchased the island for a syndicate whose intention was to transform it into a commercial center that would rival Manhattan. The island was renamed New City Island in honor of this development project, and a ferry was established to the mainland in 1763. The project was abandoned during the Revolutionary War, when the British occupied the island; it was revived in the 1790s but ultimately failed to materialize.
