House Island is a small island on the outskirts of Manchester Harbor in Manchester-by-the-Sea

Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts

Manchester-by-the-Sea is a town on Cape Ann, in Essex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. As of the 2000 census, the town population was 5,228.-History:...

, Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

House Island is uninhabited; sources of the name are unconfirmed. The island has steep rocky sides and dense vegetation away inland from the steep cliffs that surround it. The island is covered in poison ivy

Poison ivy

Toxicodendron radicans, better known as poison ivy , is a poisonous North American plant that is well known for its production of urushiol, a clear liquid compound found within the sap of the plant that causes an itching rash in most people who touch it...

 and is not recommended for visitation. The steep cliffs of the island allow passing ships and lobstermen

Lobster fishing

Lobster fishing, sometimes called lobstering, is the commercial or recreational harvesting of marine lobsters, spiny lobsters or crayfish.-Lobster tools and technology:...

to come within as little as 20 feet (6.1 m) of the shoreline without running aground.