I have a passion for history, historic places and old homes, I became an environmental consultant several years ago based on my knowledge of buildings and experience with structure and extensive mechanical aptitude. Basically I was a Private Building Inspector, kind of a detective of sorts, generally hired by an individual or corporation interested in purchasing a piece of property.
Occasionally older homes would come up for inspection, when ever I had the opportunity to go out and do a complete Environmental and Construction Inspection Survey on one, I was in my glory. Though usually I ended up with old factories and warehouses, dangerous sites that required protective equipment and extensive sampling and laboratory analysis to identify hazardous materials and develop risk assessment and documentation.
It required in some cases hours of tedious document searching in the local libraries and county record's offices to track and record uses and ownership, as well as physically inspecting the actual site. Some jobs lasted months as the factories in Western New York downsized or just closed up, leaving an environmental mess behind.
I preferred inspecting places that had a more human history, like schools and homes but once in a while truly frightening places came up for inspection, like long abandoned buildings, schools, prisons, and hospitals, the worst places were the mental institutions. Places of extreme human suffering and death seemed to hold onto the essence of the fears, anxiety and in some cases horrifying insanity.
It was late October and work usually slacked off as winter approached, this year was going to be exceptionally slow. I had nothing on my schedule until March, so I spent the day visiting with past clients in hopes of drumming up a little business with out a lot of success and headed for home.
I was just getting to the door when the phone rang, I fumbled with my keys and franticly tried to unlock the door before the answering machine picked up. But as the key slid into the slot I noticed that the phone rang 4 times, then again. Strange, it normally picked up on the 3rd ring. I picked it up on the 6th ring and said "hello".
A woman's very sexy whispery voice answered she had a proper quality to her speech, almost an English accent, she introduced herself as Sarah Ingals, from a small town upstate, along the St. Laurence seaway. We discussed my services and scheduling availability before she went into describing the job she wanted done. This job was a dream job! The property was actually located in the Thousand Island area and was in fact a 10 acre island that had just come up for public sale.
We agreed on a three week time frame and on my fee, which I was surprised when she seemed anxious to accept the price, even though I explained it was an estimate based on the worst case scenario. She went on to offer me an extra thousand, up front if I could get started ASAP, tomorrow if at all possible.
My schedule is mine to determine and as I had nothing really to do for the next month or more I agreed I'd meet her at around 4pm the next day, she gave me an address to what I assumed was her office, and politely said goodbye and hung up.
I spent most of the evening preparing my equipment and my van, an older conversion van that served as transportation, site office and my home away from home. I kept it stocked and ready for extended out of town jobs like this so it didn't take long. I did a little research on the internet as to where I could stay, where the records offices and library were locally, and where to rent a boat to get out to the island. There wasn't much there to find on that part of New York, but I had been out that way several times in the past so I wasn't too concerned. Though renting a boat or hiring some one to take me out to the island might present a problem.
I couldn't sleep and tomorrow being Friday I decided to take off tonight and get started on the research before I met with Sarah at 4pm. It was a fairly long ride that always made me wonder about the validity of the comments some of my environmentalist associates often made regarding over population and man's expansion into the "shrinking wilderness", New York is huge! With miles of nothingness between cities like Buffalo and Rochester. There was even less the further north you drove.
I arrived in the area about 4 in the morning and parked at the local library, the highway had taken its toll on me so I climbed into the back of my van and took a short nap, waking up at about 9am when the librarian parked her car near my van. I cleaned my self up, shaved and put on a fresh shirt, and my jacket.
Hoping I didn't look as if I had slept in a van. I went in and spoke to the librarian, an attractive older lady, who directed me to the reference section, where the information I'd asked for was kept. She went back to her work as I began searching through the old record books and taking notes. After several hours I had compiled quite an interesting history of "Brig Isle" it had first been occupied by a British naval officer by the name of Brigs, who had built a large home there before the revolutionary war. During the war the island was used as an British armory and prison for locally captured colonial soldiers and sailors, taken by the British .
Clearly the island gained its name naturally, being owned by the Brigs family and having been used as a "brig" or prison seemed to me to be the perfect name. The English had maintained possession of the island and continued to hold prisoners there until well after the war of 1812 .
In 1815 it was deeded back to the Brigs family who occupied the island for generations until 1956 when the last member, a reclusive woman by the name of Sarah Ingal Brigs, who was found dead by local fishermen. This caught my eye immediately.
What a curious coincidence I thought, that I would get a call from some one with nearly the same name as the last known resident owner. They couldn't be related could they? Sarah had told me on the phone, there were no surviving family members, it had to a coincidence and nothing more, surely she would have known if she was related to the previous owners, the information was too easily available.
