Late in the day on July 19, 1723, the bodies of 26 executed men were brought by boat from Newport, Rhode Island over to a narrow strip of land called Goat Island, barely 1,500 feet from the town’s shoreline. Hanged for being pirates, the men were all buried near the north end of the island, not far from where the Goat Island Lighthouse stands today. Their burial marked just one of a series of events that, over the years, have made little Goat Island a figure in many chapters of American histo...