fishers island

Fishers Island is a small island, approximately 9 mi (14 km) long and 1 mi (1.6 km) wide, in Suffolk County in the U.S. state of New York. It is located at the eastern end of Long Island Sound, 5 mi (8 km) off the southeastern coast of Connecticut across Fisher Island Sound. It is approximately 11 mi (18 km) from the tip of Long Island and approximately 7 mi (12 km) southeast of New London, Connecticut, from which it is accessible by ferry. The island is noted as a private playground for old money summer residents of the island's exclusive estates. It's more notable residents include former Governor Thomas Kane of New Jersey, CIA Director Porter Goss, filmmaker Albert Maysles, former Whitney Museum director Tom Armstrong, and the heirs to IBM and Dupont. It has a year-round population of between 200 and 300 people, most of whom reside in the hamlet of Fishers Island on the western end of the island. The eastern two-thirds of the island is scattered with large summer estates accessible by a single private road. The population of the island rises to over 2000 during the peak summer weekends. The island has one oyster farm, two golf courses, two gas stations, a small air strip, several public beaches, and one restaurant, The Pequot. The island was called "Munnawtawkit" by the Pequots. In 1614 it was discovered by Adrian Block, who named it Visher's Island. In 1640, the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony granted the island to John Winthrop, Jr., who lived only one winter on the island. After being named governor of the Connecticut Colony, Winthrop used the island to raise horses and goats. The island remained a property of the Winthrop family for 218 years until it was sold to Rober R. Fox in 1863. In 1889 it was sold to Edmund and Walton Ferguson. It was the subject of a border dispute between New York and Connecticut until 1879 when a joint commission decided that the island was part of New York. Despite this decision, in many ways the island remains psychographically tied more to Connecticut than to New York even today: Its ZIP Code, for example, is 06390 (Connecticut zip codes begin with "0" while all other places in New York State besides Fishers Island have zip codes starting with "1") and the island is the only point in Suffolk County to which telephone calls placed from the greater New York City area are classified as long distance and not "regional," even though the island's area code is the same as that of eastern Long Island (631).

Fishers Island

See also