Ellis Island the region. The oyster beds remained a major source of food for nearly three centuries. Landfilling to build the railyards of the Lehigh Valley Railroad and the Central Railroad of New Jersey eventually obliterated the oyster beds, engulfed one island, and brought the shoreline much closer to the others. During the colonial period, Little Oyster Island was known as Dyre's, then Bucking Island. In the 1760s, after some pirates were hanged from one of the island's scrubby trees, it became known as Gibbet Island. It was acquired by Samuel Ellis, a colonial New Yorker and merchant possibly from Wales, around
Daufuskie Island spawning season of oysters. On this island the oysters grow in clusters rather than individually. The natives of this island valued the natural abundance oyster present on the island. Massive mounds of shucked oyster shells found on the island stand as testament to the extensive use of oysters on the island by the native. Native Americans used the meat of the oysters as food and used shells to fashion tools, fertilizers, and tabby. The oyster industry hit Daufuskie island in the 1880s when an Italian immigrant named Luigi Paolo Maggioni leased oyster beds and opened a raw shuck oyster house