In Search of Charles Island in Milford on October 9

Charles Island has fascinated many generations of Milford residents and visitors to the area.  Legends of Captain Kidd’s treasure, hearsay of a once thriving resort, and the remnants of a religious retreat house imbue them with dreams of riches and a curiosity about the past.  Like the sparse and storm-shattered remains of the structures that once graced the island, only bits and pieces of its history survive. Reliable information about the Charles Island is strewn about here and there and the historical landscape is littered with misinformation, speculations and fictions.

On Tuesday, October 9 at 7:00 p.m. Michael Dooling, author of An Historical Account of Charles Island, will speak at the Milford Library. Dooling re-constructed the island’s history from a wide variety of sources including 17^thcentury maps, town records, news accounts & advertisements, 19^thcentury journals, personal recollections from visitors to the resort that thrived there, photographs from its days as a religious retreat, etc. Combined they offer a unique view of the island and a perspective that until now has been lost with time.

Dooling’s interest in Charles Island began when he first visited there in 1969 and was reinforced twenty-five years ago when he acquired a pamphlet from the Aquinas Retreat House located on the island in the 1930s. Over the years, he clipped numerous newspaper articles about Charles Island and accumulated other published references. His book was published in 2006 and is now out-of-print. He has written several other books including Milford Lost & Found; a true-crime work titled Clueless in New England about three unsolved disappearances; and a biography titled Seaworthy Timber: The Life and Times of New England Sea Captain Aaron H. Wood.

Michael Dooling is currently the Archivist at the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury and former News Librarian and historical writer for the Republican-Americannewspaper, where he was an award-winning columnist. He has had a lifelong interest in history, collects antiquarian books, and has written dozens of historical articles over the past 20 years.