Liberty Island states. The oyster beds would remain a major source of food for nearly three centuries. Landfilling, started by the 1870s, particularly by the Lehigh Valley Railroad and Central Railroad of New Jersey, eventually obliterated the beds, engulfed one island and brought the shoreline much closer to the others. After the surrender of Fort Amsterdam by the Dutch to the British in 1664, the English governor Richard Nicolls granted the island to Captain Robert Needham. It was sold to Isaac Bedloe on December 23, 1667. The island was retained by his estate until 1732 when it was sold for five shillings
McKean Island the British Capt. Henry Barber, of the ship "Arthur", while en route from Botany Bay, New South Wales to the northwest coast of America. Sighting the uninhabited island on 28 May, Captain Barber named it "Drummond's Island", plotting it at 3°40'S, 176°51'W. The "Albany Sentinel" reported that the "small sandy island...is very low and cannot be seen from the deck of a vessel more than five or six miles". It was later renamed 'Arthur Island' and appeared as such in charts of that time. Its coordinates were given as 3°30'S, 176°0'W. The island was reported and visited by a number