Burton Island is a 253-acre park off the southwestern tip of St. Albans Point in Lake Champlain’s ‘Inland Sea’. The park is accessible only by boat, with the state’s passenger ferry making the 10-minute trip from Kamp Kill Kare State Park.

18th century maps refer to this as the “Isle of White.” Jesse Welden, an early St. Albans settler and agent for Ethan and Ira Allen, is attributed with clearing and farming the island. As recently as 1874, Lake Champlain navigation charts label it “Potter’s Island,” though C.C. Burton, a farmer on the mainland, was using the island for pasture by the 1840’s. Sidney Burton owned the island through the early 1900’s and leased it to tenant farmers who raised cows, pigs, sheep and chickens. Crops included beans and peas. Remnants of the island’s agricultural past such as fence lines and stone piles, rusted farm implements and the foundation of the old barn are still visible.