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
History of the Long Island Rail Road in 1887 and reorganized it as the New York and Rockaway Beach Railway, but operated it separately until the LIRR leased it on July 1, 1904.The current Oyster Bay Branch was extended from Locust Valley to Oyster Bay in 1889.The New York Bay Extension Railroad opened as a branch from the South Side at Valley Stream northeast to Hempstead in 1893.The Wading River Branch opened from Port Jefferson east to Wading River in 1895. Corbin attempted to buy the East River Ferry Company, which by then operated lines from Long Island City to James Slip, East 7th Street (abandoned within