History

Penikese Island Historical Overview

At only 75 acres, Penikese Island is one of the smallest of the Elizabeth Islands, but boasts perhaps the most interesting history of all. The first known non-natives to visit Penikese were the crew of English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold in 1602.

From 1873 - 1875, Penikese was the location of the forerunner to Woods Hole’s Marine Biological Laboratory. From 1905 - 1922, Penikese was the home of New England’s only leper colony. Today, the school helps care for 14 leper graves in a cemetery overlooking Buzzards Bay. Since the 1930’s, Penikese Island has been a wildlife sanctuary, a protected home for endangered sea birds.

George Cadwalader founded Penikese in 1973. Cadwalader envisioned Penikese to be an alternative to juvenile jail and a program based on choice and natural consequences (rather than coercion) in a family-sized, self-sufficient, and interdependent community. The founding staff and students lived on a coastal freighter moored in Cuttyhunk Harbor while they built the school’s original saltbox house by hand. Much of it was constructed from shipwrecked timbers and driftwood scavenged from the shores of Penikese and neighboring islands.

To learn more about Penikese’s history, please read the documents provided below:
Native American History
The Anderson School of Natural History
The Penikese Island Leper Colony
School Beginnings
The Penikese Wildlife Sanctuary