Governors Island was a military base during the revolutionary war.
Now it’s not the right answer, of course, but if you don’t know the relevant facts, I think it’s a good answer.
If you know that Alexander Hamilton was Secretary of the Treasury, and if you know he’s buried at Trinity Church, and if you know that Trinity Church is located in the heart of NYC (at the intersection of Broadway and Wall Street, no less), then you automatically know the island in the clue is Manhattan.
It was just icing on the cake as far as I was concerned
Huh. I knew Governors Island was a military post well past the Revolution, but not up to 1996! The things you can learn randomly…
That was my (obviously wrong) guess. Close enough to the city to easily transport a corpse, place of prominence, etc.
Again, wrong, but not like I guessed Honolulu.
Well, gee, if you know the answer, then you know the answer. Ipso facto QED.
But if you don’t, you have to logic it out, and make an educated guess.
Manhattan seems too obvious. A LOT of people are buried on Manhattan Island. Nothing remarkable about that.
Haha! That is exactly how I too know about New Caledonia.
Which would also be wrong for not even being an island. Honolulu, my home, is a city on the island of Oahu.
I suppose in retrospect one way you could logic it out–and this may have been part of what the writers were going for–would be “Treasury secretary → finance → Wall Street → Manhattan.” I admit, however, to being thrown by “this island,” as my mind then started going to places known by the name “X Island” like, well, Governors or Rikers or Staten or Long, or places more separated from their mainland, like Martha’s Vineyard or Nantucket. I’ve noticed before that it’s one of the Jeopardy writers’ pet topics/quirks that Manhattan is technically an island, but this fact slipped my mind.
On the topic of all of us having our strong categories vs. weak ones, Lord knows I’m practically yelling at my TV when there’s a nice pristine “‘A’ in Physics” or “Classical Composers” or “Before & After” category just ripe to be selected, and the contestants keep going for “Contemporary TV Shows,” or, well “Monarchs,” or one of those annoying categories where Oprah Winfrey reads clues about her book club selections or something.
I used to live in Manhattan, for 20 years. I knew Hamilton was the first, I thought of Long Island and Ellis Island, rejected them right away, settled on Governor’s. Manhattan never occured to me. Anyone who knows anything knows Manhattan is an island, but who ever says, for example, "I am going on vacation, I am going to Manhattan Island? No one, that is who. And BTW, why is “island” spelled with an “s”?
When Amy Schneider first appeared, I commented to my husband, “Her voice is so low, if you close your eyes, you’d think a man is speaking.” He replied, “You realize she’s trans, don’t you? And out.”
Seriously? People are questioning why Manhattan is considered an island?
I once spent an entire afternoon lying on the floor with an atlas, trying to find Taratupa.
That is correct, Watson. Well done! 
Coincidence or… .something else?
I have no trouble with Manhattan being an island, as long as Long ISLAND is also considered an island, which it isn’t.
That is a misunderstanding of the the SC ruling. It determined that is was connected enough to be a judicial bay for maritime state boundary purposes.
Second paragraph geography section.
Brian
There are a number of facts about the history of our nation that every American should know. “Where is Alexander Hamilton buried?” is not one of them. Kudos to those who got it, but this was definitely not a gimme clue.
15 years ago I would have agreed with you, but after the raging success of Hamilton on Broadway and it’s dissemination to the masses via Disney+, I really think it’s much more common knowledge - there’s specific mention of Hamilton’s burial spot (“She’s buried in Trinity Church near you.” - after a big deal is made about the Hamilton’s “moving uptown” in Manhattan).
I wasn’t, but since you bring it up, it’s kind of always bothered me that certain pieces of land that are just barely separated from the immediately adjacent mainland by a tiny little narrow strip of water are called “islands.” I feel the same way about Mt. Desert “Island” in Maine. The first time I went there, I said “wait a minute, how is this an island? I don’t remember crossing a body of water to get here.” Turns out the road there does at one point go over a bridge over a roughly 50 foot stretch of water. I think referring to Manhattan in a clue as “this island” kind of makes it a trick question. If someone says “name an island,” I start thinking Australia, Greenland, Bermuda, Hawaii, Saint Helena, etc.
Yeah, I mean, when there’s a triple stumper that I know, and the contestants are standing there dumbfounded, not ringing in, I sometimes find myself exclaiming, “come on, I can’t believe none of you know this!” Just to take one example from the most recent game, the clue about where Sofia Vergara is from. But I’m not going to come on here and post “OMG, can you believe those contestants blew that clue? I mean, come on, “her native country” is a dead giveaway! If you know that Sofia Vergara is from Colombia, it’s a piece of cake! Where else could it be?”
I’ve never seen Hamilton, but now that I know this, I would say this is probably the reason the writers would think that this is something people would know or could think of–the popularity of Hamilton.
Yeah, there are a lot of clues that I get, which many people don’t. But usually I recognize that the clue is in a somewhat niche area, and I only know it because I happen to be interested in that area. For example, I’m a big fan of the Universal horror movies of the 30s and 40s. For that reason, I would easily recognize someone like Lionel Atwill. But I realize that most people would have no idea who he was, and I wouldn’t scorn anyone who didn’t recognize him.
There are some things that every educated person should know. There are other things that are only known by specialists in a particular field. In between there is a broad swath of things that you might or might not know, depending on your interests. It can sometimes be challenging to remember that the stuff you know isn’t necessarily stuff that everyone knows.