Cloak Island – Lake Champlain Islands

Cloak Island is a small island in Grand Isle County, Vermont. Cloak Island is located off the south-east coast of Isle LaMotte, Vermont at latitude: 44°50’7.15″, longitude: -73°19’45.48″. It is near Reynolds Point and The Head on Isle LaMotte. It is about 7 1/2 acres in area.

History:

There is an interesting legend about how the island got its name. As the story goes, in the 1770’s when Eleanor Fisk, of nearby Isle LaMotte got tired of her husband’s abuse, she hitched up her team of horses and set out across frozen Lake Champlain towards Alburgh, but was never seen again. Later, her red cloak was found along the bushes and rocks of the island, which would forever be known as Cloak Island. 

 

Another variation of the story tells that after Eleanor Fisk went missing, concerned neighbors suspected she had drowned, but wanted proof. They gathered at the lake and dropped her red cloak into the water. According to an old Yankee superstition: to find the missing body of a drowning victim, you must drop a cloak belonging to the missing victim into the water, and it would come to rest over the body. The cloak eventually found its way over to the small island and got tangled on the beach, thus giving Isle LaMotte’s tiny neighbor it’s new name – Cloak Island.

 

Eleanor’s body was never found, and some say her ghost still walks the shores of Cloak Island. A fitting, spooky end to this sad story from America’s colonial era, but hardly the only such ghost story from the area.