Mysterious Green Island?

Does Green Island hold a long lost secret?  A forgotten lighthouse lost in obscurity, overgrown with vegetation and now a state owned bird sanctuary.  In the 1820’s the island was known as Strontium Island because of the crystallized Celestine or Strontium discovered in the cliffs along the eastern side of the island, by Major James Delafield.   Delafield was an agent of the International Boundary Commission as established by the Treaty of Ghent.  In 1851 the U.S. Government purchased the island from Alfred Pierpont Edwards.  A frame lighthouse was completed by November of 1855.  The light was destroyed in a New Year’s Eve fire in 1863.  The lighthouse keeper Colonel Charles F. Drake and his family were the only residents of the island escaped with barely their lives; a storm of freezing rain ravaged the island the very night of the fire. The family dragged a feather bed into the privy and huddled beneath it  until a rescue party reached them. Rescuers moved the family to Put-in –Bay where they gradually recovered from their ordeal.  Colonel Drake’s hands and face were severely burned in the attempt to save his family.  In Harry Ross’s book Enchanting Islands of Lake Erie, he writes about the islands role in the Manhattan project.  Many local residents disregard the premise.  In 1990 Green Island was placed on the National Register of Historic Places by the National Park service.

Part two will be featured next month