Hart Island, New York

US Geological Suvey, Flushing NY 7.5 minute topo series, 1966 edition. Image cropped to show only Hart Island, Bronx. Click here to download the USGS map.

The Hart Island Project
“New York’s City Cemetery on Hart Island occupies 131 acres in the Long Island Sound on the eastern edge of the Bronx. Since 1869, prison labor has been used to bury unclaimed and unidentified New Yorkers in mass graves of 150 adults or 1000 infants. Until 2014, these graves were inaccessible to families of the buried.”

NY State’s Civil War ‘US Colored Troops’ Organized, Trained on Rikers & Hart Islands
“Before becoming major bases of operations in New York City Correction history, Rikers and Hart Islands served as military bases for New York State’s three regiments of African-American soldiers in the Civil War. These more than 4,000 Black servicemen formed New York’s 20th, 26th and 31st regiments of what was then called the United States Colored Troops (USCT).”

“Hart’s Island … contains the Reformatory Prison and the City Cemetery … The Reformatory Prison, operated by the municipal Department of Corrections, cares for approximately 1,200 prisoners transferred from the New York City Penitentiary on Riker’s Island in accordance with the department’s classification policy. The prisoners here include partially cured drug addicts, aged veterans, crippled and infirm men, and others who may benefit by the opportunity for exercise and light employment in the open air.”
Federal Writers’ Project. New York City Guide; A Comprehensive Guide to the Five Boroughs of the metropolis: Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Richmond. New York: Random House, 1939.