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
Fowley Island the causeway to the island on the eel grass that once filled the water bed. The reduction in eel grass over the last century means that such a crossing is no longer possible. Fishermen would have taken a horse and cart across the causeway to Fowley Island and stored oysters in large ponds that they had dug there before taking them back for sale. The Ordnance Survey map of 1898 shows two such oyster beds on Fowley Island, activity which has resulted in the island's distinctive present shape. The effort required to create a causeway of this size shows the