New Jersey v. New York New Jersey v. New York New Jersey v. New York, 523 U.S. 767 (1998), was a United States Supreme Court case in which it was determined that roughly 90% of Ellis Island was part of New Jersey rather than New York. An interstate compact had been signed between New York and New Jersey in 1834, prior to Ellis Island becoming a major immigration center. This compact granted New York the rights to all islands in the water channel separating the two states including both Ellis Island and Liberty Island, but granting New Jersey the rights to half of the water
Liberty Island for ferry service to and from the island. At the time of European colonization of the Hudson River estuary in the mid-17th century, much of the west side of Upper New York Bay contained large tidal flats which hosted vast oyster beds, a major source of food for the Lenape native people who lived there at the time. Several islands were not completely submerged at high tide. Three of them (later known as Bedloe's/Love/Liberty, Ellis, and Black Tom) were given the name Oyster Islands ("oester eilanden") by the Dutch settlers of New Netherland, the first European colony in the Mid-Atlantic