Ellis Island public and the museum partially re-opened on October 28, 2013, after major renovations. Originally much of the west shore of Upper New York Bay consisted of large tidal flats which hosted vast oyster banks, a major source of food for the Lenape population who lived in the area prior to the arrival of Dutch settlers. There were several islands which were not completely submerged at high tide. Three of them (later to be known as Liberty Island, Black Tom Island and Ellis Island) were given the name Oyster Islands by the settlers of New Netherland, the first European colony in
Fowley Island metres to the north east of Fowley Island. The causeway was depicted on a chart of 1848 but was absent in an earlier 1826 map, suggesting that it was constructed between those dates. In the Ordnance Survey map of 1866 it is labelled 'Westwood's Road'. The causeway is believed to have been created to support oyster farming, though the first historical record of this dates from only 1885 when the Fowley Island Oyster Company began. Although the causeway does not reach Fowley Island, and no historical maps show it doing so, it may still have been possible to walk from