Thompson Island is an island in the Boston Harbor, about 1 mile offshore from downtown Boston, Massachusetts. The island is managed by the Thompson Island Outward Bound Education Center, a non-profit education organization. The island is open to visitors on Saturdays and Sundays from Memorial Day through Labor Day; otherwise access is by arrangement only. Thompson Island is one of the largest, most accessible and ecologically diverse islands in the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area. The island has a size of , and the highest point is a drumlin that reaches a height of 78 feet above sea level. The rest of the island comprises low rolling hills and a salt marsh. The island has a mixed vegetation, including hardwood tree stands, remnant pear and apple orchards, ornamental trees and shrubs, and salt marsh grasses. The island has open meadows, forests, marine wetlands, sumac groves, and a variety of other geological features as well. Amenities include a formal school campus complete with classrooms, dormitories, dining hall, auditoriums, gymnasium, lab space, outdoor challenge courses, and climbing towers. At low tide, a sandbar connects it to Squaw Rock on the Squantum peninsula, allowing land travel between the two. History Native American and colonial settlement Many Native American objects have been found on the island suggesting that the island was inhabited for many centuries prior to European contact. In September of 1621 Pilgrim Miles Standish was the first recorded person to visit the island while exploring the area, and he named it "Island Trevoyre" after his Mayflower shipmate, William Trevore. Standish believed that the island was uninhabited at that time. In 1626, four years before the Puritans arrived, David Thompson began living on the island where he had been conducting a trading post to trade with the Neponset Indians. Thompson, the namesake of the island, was a Scot who had been superintending the settlement of Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Captain John Mason near Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Thompson may have lived near the south end of Thompson Island where the foundation of a Puritan era house was discovered in 1889, although some believe this house may have dated to later in the seventeenth century by the size of the bricks. In 1628 David Thompson disappeared possibly as the result of drowning or foul play, and the town of Dorchester acquired the island. Thompson's son eventually regained title several years later after obtaining affidavits