SH Archive Photo Needed: Liberty Island prior to 1885, without the Statue of Liberty

[KD Archive]

On June 17, 1885, the French steamer Isère, arrived in New York with the crates holding the disassembled Statue of Liberty on board. New Yorkers displayed their new-found enthusiasm for the statue. Two hundred thousand people lined the docks and hundreds of boats put to sea to welcome the ship.

Liberty Island​

Liberty Island is a federally owned island in Upper New York Bay in the United States. Its most notable feature is Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World). The island is an exclave of the New York City borough of Manhattan, surrounded by the waters of Jersey City, New Jersey.

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Liberty island was known under various names.

• 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. Landfilling, 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: in 1753, 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.​
  • To be Let. Bedloe's Island, alias Love Island, together with the dwelling-house and lighthouse being finely situated for a tavern, where all kinds of garden stuff, poultry, etc., may be easily raised for the shipping outward bound, and from where any quantity of pickled oysters may be transported ; it abounds with English rabbits." ​
• Liberty Island: has this name after an act of the United States Congress in 1956​

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KD: I wanted to see what this Liberty Island looked like prior to the alleged erection of the Statue of Liberty. The Statue was brought from France in June of 1885. As we all know, there were hundreds of thousands of photographs made prior to this date. Yet, I miserably failed to find a single photograph of the island proceeding this date.

Could use some assistance, if you have time... do we have anything prior to this?

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Additionally, where did Brown's Island go?

Source​

Note: This OP was recovered from the Wayback Archive.

Note: Archived Sh.org replies to this OP: Photo Needed: Liberty Island prior to 1885, without the Statue of Liberty

 

[Jsallard]

Dear KD (RIP),

I took a look at old maps on the David Rumsey collection, and well on a 1840 map of county of New York, we can see something interesting :
Map of 1840

Well at the time liberty island was Bedlow's island :

Apparently, there was a fort (Starfort?) judging by the shape. The wiki goes as follows :

''On February 15, 1800, the New York State Legislature ceded the island to the federal government, for the construction of a defensive fort to be built there (along with Governors Island and Ellis Island). Construction of a fort on the island in the shape of an 11-point star began in 1806 and was completed in 1811, protecting New York from British invasion in the upcoming conflict.[36] 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 with mounting 24 guns.[37][38] A larger fort mounting 77 guns was proposed under the third system of US fortifications but was not built.''Liberty Island - Wikipedia

So they built a fort for the 1812 war ?

Also, if we go back in time again (1782), the island was not the oyster island judging by the map, but Kennedy's island :

So wikipedia is messed up ? Map of 1782

Another jump in time, let's go to 1690,

I don't understand a thing, the map is in dutch i think ? But still it's from 1690 - Map of 1690
On the map, the cities are like this :

But this time, on Manhattan, there's a star fort :

I'm not even sure what to think, i just put this here so people can restart the subject, and add your ideas.

Sorry if it's far from an in-depth analysis, but it's something I guess -\(o_o)/-

Jsallard