A small, well-constructed stone building sits on Chantry Island about 520 feet southwest of the lighthouse. The door, single window, and roof are long gone, although pieces of wood framing still remain in the window and door openings. A board remnant in the top of the door opening is partially burned. The four walls that remain are solidly built of mortared dressed limestone blocks and natural lake stones and cobbles, and are 18 to 20 inches thick. In form, the building resembles the lightkeeper’s house, with stone gable ends built into the end walls. Just left of the door opening near ground level, an irregularly shaped hole, roughly 6 inches square, goes all the way through the wall. Inside, sockets built into the walls once held a grid of poles running across the room.  Some of the poles are still present, both in place and collapsed. Along with the remnants of poles is other wooden debris. Some of the debris looks fairly recent and contains modern twist-shank galvanized nails: these items may have resulted from children’s “fort-” building activity in the old building, in recent decades. Nearby on the ground, a collar for 6-inch stovepipe and possible stovepipe fragments were observed.

Various theories as to the building’s purpose have been put forward, such as storage for supplies off-loaded at the groyne (protective pier) at the south end of the island, or perhaps storage for flammable whale oil or kerosene for the lighthouse. Thornton Douglass (pers. comm. 2002) remembers exploring the building as a child in the 1930s: “It was full of empty kerosene cans the last time I was inside. Therefore we always referred to it as ‘The Kerosene Shed’.” He also supposes it may have been used to smoke fish or cure tobacco.

Another idea is that it may have been an icehouse for summer storage of ice, but the south-facing window and interior grid of poles argue against that. Other uses of the building that have been suggested are a chicken house or a small dairy building (early lightkeepers brought a cow out to the island in the warmer months). It is quite possible that the building’s use changed over time: for example, it may have started out as a smokehouse and ended up as a storage space as needs shifted.

Follow the links at the right to explore Chantry Island’s unidentified building.