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
Charles Island island were hunted by the Department of Environment Protection (now the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection) in February 2011 to protect the nesting birds. The waters around the island have bluefish, snapper blues, sand sharks, and horseshoe crabs. The waters west of the island have been a site for oyster farming since 2013, in an area of approximately . Charles Island Charles Island is a 14-acre (57,000 m²) island located roughly 0.5 mile (1 km) off the coast of Milford, Connecticut, in Long Island Sound centered at . Charles Island is accessible from shore via a tombolo (locally referred