Hunter Island (also Hunters Island or Hunter's Island) is a peninsula and former island in the Bronx, New York City, United States. It is situated on the western end of Long Island Sound, along the sound's northwestern shore, and is part of Pelham Bay Park in the northeastern part of the Bronx. Hunter Island initially covered and was one of the Pelham Islands, the historical name for a group of islands in western Long Island Sound that once belonged to Thomas Pell. The island is connected to another former island, Twin Island, on the northeast. The area around Hunter Island was originally settled by the Siwanoy Native Americans. One of Pell's descendants, Joshua Pell, moved onto the island in 1743. It was subsequently owned by the Hunter and Henderson families, and the island was briefly named Henderson's Island after the latter. Henderson's Island was purchased by politician John Hunter in 1804. Hunter built a mansion on the island and his family resided on the island until 1865, when it was sold to former mayor Ambrose Kingsland. Hunter Island was owned by several other people before being incorporated into Pelham Bay Park in 1888. Subsequently, the island became a vacation destination. In the 1930s, New York City parks commissioner Robert Moses extended nearby Orchard Beach, to the south of the island, by connecting Hunter Island to the mainland. Hunter Island formerly contained Hunter Mansion, which Hunter had built for his family in 1811. It was located on the island's highest point and was destroyed in 1937 when Orchard Beach was expanded onto the island. A causeway connecting Hunter Island to the mainland still exists. Today the former island is part of a wildlife refuge, the Hunter Island Marine Zoology and Geology Sanctuary, which was established in 1967 on the northern shores of Hunter and Twin Islands. The sanctuary includes rock outcroppings and an intertidal marine ecosystem that is not found anywhere else in New York state. Hunter Island also contains the Kazimiroff Nature Trail and Orchard Beach Environmental Center, which was established in 1986 as a tribute to Bronx preservationist Theodore Kazimiroff. Geography Hunter Island is located within the northeastern part of Pelham Bay Park, which is itself located in the northeast Bronx, near New York City's northern border. The island's flora largely consists of tracts of old-growth forest that existed prior to the settlement of the New York City area,