One story says that British cartographers named this little patch of land in the Long Island Sound "Heart Island", due to its organ-like shape (it really bares almost no resemblance to a heart). Others suggest it was named for the Middle English word "Hart," which means "stag."
In one version of this story, the island was named when it was used as a game preserve. Another version states that it was named for the deer that migrated from the mainland during periods when ice covered that part of the sound. A passage in William Styron's novel, Lie Down in Darkness, describes the island as occupied by a lone deer shot by a hunter with a row boat.
In any case, the island's history is steeped in death. In its period as a Civil War prison camp, 235 prisoners died and were buried on the island (they were moved at a later date) and during the 1870 yellow fever epidemic, Hart Island hosted a major hospital facility.
Since then, it has also been home to a women's lunatic asylum, a tubercularium, and a corrections facility for delinquent boys, as well as a Nike missile base. Currently, the island is used as the New York Potter's Field (a place of burial for unknown individuals), which is the largest tax-funded cemetery in the world. It is also used to bury amputated body parts. According to the most recent census the island has no permanent living residents.