Liberty Island Liberty Island Liberty Island is a federally owned island in Upper New York Bay in the United States, best known as the location of the Statue of Liberty ("Liberty Enlightening the World"). The island is an exclave of the New York City borough of Manhattan, surrounded by the waters of Jersey City, New Jersey. Long known as Bedloe's Island, it was renamed by an act of the United States Congress in 1956. Liberty Island became part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument in 1937 through Presidential Proclamation 2250, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1966, it was listed
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