Oak Island is a 57hectare privately owned island in Lunenburg County on the south shore of Nova Scotia, Canada. The tree-covered island is one of about 360 small islands in Mahone Bay and rises to a maximum of 11metres above sea level. The island is located 200metres from shore and connected to the mainland by a causeway and gate. The island is best known for various theories about possible buried treasure or historical artifacts, and the associated exploration.Oak IslandThe nearest community is the rural community of Western Shore which faces the island, while the nearest town is Chester. The earliest European residents of the area were French fishermen who, by the 1750s, had built a few houses on the future site of Chester. Following the Expulsion of the Acadians during the Seven Years' War, the British government of Nova Scotia enacted a series of measures to encourage settlement of the area by the European-descended New Englanders. Land was made available to settlers in 1759 through the Shorham grant. Chester was officially founded that same year.A large part of Oak Island was granted to the Monro, Lynch, Seacombe and Young families around the same time as the establishment of Chester. The first major group of settlers arrived in the Chester area from Massachusetts in 1761. The following year, Oak Island was officially surveyed and divided into 32 four-acre lots. In the early days of British settlement, the Island was known locally as "Smith's Island," after an early settler of the area named Edward Smith. Cartographer Joseph Frederick Wallet DesBarres renamed the Island "Gloucester Isle" in 1778. Shortly thereafter, the locally used name "Oak Island" was officially adopted for the Island. Early residents included Edward Smith in the 1760s and Anthony Vaughn Sr. in the early 1770s. In 1784, the government made additional land grants, this time to former soldiers, which included parts of Oak Island.
