Take a twenty-minute car ride on I-95 to the coast of Stony Creek, CT, a fifteen-minute ferry, and you can arrive at Horse Island. Horse Island was purchased and donated to the Peabody Museum in 1971. In conjunction with the Yale Coastal Field Station in Guilford, CT, it's maintained as an ecological laboratory and wildlife preserve.
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| Shoreline of Horse Island |
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| Map of Thimble Islands |
Addison E. Verrill—first curator of the Peabody's Invertebrate Zoology Collections—spent many summers on the Thimble Islands. In his biography (written by his son, George Verrill), the islands were a summer home and an escape from his summer allergies. Verrill eventually purchased Outer Island, just south of Horse Island, in 1889.
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| Excerpt from Verrill's biography by George E. Verrill |
Today, Outer Island is a research and education center open to the public. Like Horse Island, its diversity of shoreline habitats—rocky intertidal zones, marsh, and beach—make it an important environment of research.
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| Outer Island visible from the shore of Horse Island. |
Though the islands were his summer home, Verrill was never completely removed from his scientific work. He was very involved in gardening and landscaping on the island, which required selecting for saltwater spray-resistant plants and trees.
All in all, Horse Island and Outer Island both remain important areas for marine ecosystem research and education, as well as for its historical ties to individuals like Verrill at the Peabody. Below are some additional sights of our visit.
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| Ferns and swamp maples inland |
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| Stony Creek granite |
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| Glacial erratic (boulder carried by glacial ice several thousand years ago) |
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| Bladderwrack algae (Fucus) along the shore |
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