Great Oyster 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 states. The oyster beds would remain a major source of food for nearly three centuries.
Land reclamation, started by the 1870s, particularly by the
Lehigh Valley Railroad and
Central Railroad of New Jersey, eventually obliterated the beds, engulfed one island and brought the shoreline much closer to the others.
Bedloe's Island After the surrender of
Fort Amsterdam by the Dutch to the British in 1664, the English governor
Richard Nicolls granted the island to Captain Robert Needham. It was sold to Isaac Bedloe on December 23, 1667. The island was retained by his estate until 1732 when it was sold for five shillings to New York merchants Adolphe Philipse and Henry Lane. During their ownership, the island was temporarily commandeered by the city of New York to establish a
smallpox quarantine station. In 1746,
Archibald Kennedy (later 11th Earl of Cassilis) purchased the island and a summer residence was established, along with construction of a lighthouse. Seven years later, the island is described in an advertisement (in which "Bedlow's" had become "Bedloe's", along with an alternate name of "Love Island") as being available for rental: In 1756, Kennedy allowed the island to again be used as a smallpox quarantine station, and on February 18, 1758, the Corporation of the City of New York bought the island for £1,000 for use as a
pest house. When the British troops occupied New York Harbor in the lead-up to the
American Revolutionary War, the island was to be used for housing for
Tory refugees, with docked next to it, but on April 2, 1776, the buildings constructed on the island for their use were burned to the ground. The fort is considered part of the
second system of U.S. fortifications. Following the
War of 1812, the
star-shaped fortification was named
Fort Wood after Lt. Col
Eleazer Derby Wood who was killed in the
Siege of Fort Erie in 1814, a major American defensive victory against British troops near the war's end. The granite
fortification followed an 11-pointed
star fort layout, mounting 24 guns. A larger fort mounting 77 guns was proposed under the
third system of US fortifications but was not built. By the time it was chosen for the Statue of Liberty in the 1880s, the fort was outmoded and obsolete, disused and its substantial stone walls were then used as the distinctive base for the
Statue of Liberty given by the
Third French Republic for the American 1876 centenary celebrations. It had become a part of the base for the Statue of Liberty after the island was first seen by
Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, the statue's sculptor. The National Park Service (which had been created in 1916) took over operations of the island in two stages: in 1933, and the remainder in 1937.
Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World The statue, entitled
Liberty Enlightening the World, was a gift from the people of France to mark the
American Centennial. It was agreed that the Congress would authorize the acceptance of the statue by the President of the United States, and that the War Department would facilitate its construction and presentation. The construction of the statue was completed in France in July 1884. The cornerstone was laid on August 5, 1884, and after some funding delays, construction of the pedestal was finished on April 22, 1886. The statue arrived in New York Harbor on June 17, 1885, on board the French frigate
Isère, was stored for eleven months in crates waiting for its pedestal to be finished, and was then reassembled in four months. On October 28, 1886, the Statue of Liberty was inaugurated by
President Grover Cleveland. The name Liberty Island was made official by Congress in 1956. == Museums ==