Ellis Island

Ellis Island served as the entry point for millions of immigrants to the United States.Situated in upper New York Bay, the island has had various names, including Gibbet Island, recalling its history as an execution site where pirates were hanged as late as the 1850s. The present name comes from Samuel Ellis, a butcher who owned it in the 1780s. New York City ceded ownership to the state in 1794, which transferred it to the federal government in 1800. The city, however, retained jurisdiction for legal and tax purposes.

Enlarged to some twenty‐seven acres, Ellis Island opened as an immigration facility on 1 January 1892. Some 446,000 immigrants arrived that year. With the twelve million who followed came overcrowding, deterioration, and public‐health problems. Ellis Island also housed a hospital for immigrants detained for medical reasons. For those denied entry, Ellis became an “Island of Tears.” During World War II it was an enemy‐alien detention facility. The immigration center briefly reopened after the war, but closed permanently in 1954 and was declared surplus property in 1955. It reopened in 1965 as a museum of immigration history administered by the National Park Service as part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument.

Ellis Island lies between New York and New Jersey, and the two states long quarreled over it. In 1834, Congress approved a compact that granted New York jurisdiction over Ellis Island but gave New Jersey the submerged land west of the island. New Jersey revived its claim in the 1960s, arguing that its underwater land had subsequently been drained and made part of the island proper. Upholding this claim in 1998, the U.S. Supreme Court divided Ellis Island between the two states.
See also National Park System.

Bibliography

Thomas Monroe Pitkin , Keepers of the State: A History of Ellis Island, 1975.
Barbara Benton , Ellis Island, A Pictorial History, 1985.

Leo Hershkowitz