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land an expeditionary force of New Jersey officials on Ellis Island. New Jersey wants the island even though New York contends it is within its own territorial limits and will fight for it to the last lawyer. The three federal government employees on the island yesterday put up no resistance. In fact, it took about fifteen minutes to find them. There were no casualties, although Mayor Bernard J. Berry of Jersey City got separated from the main party and for a while was listed as “lost.”

Once found, Mayor Berry suggested that they plant a New Jersey flag in the ground, but no one in the raiding party had thought to bring one. After some discussion about going back to the office to get one, they decided to let that go, since by the time they could return some New Yorkers might have heard about their foray, and the middle-aged officials did not think a rumble would aid their purpose.

What was their purpose? Boundary disputes between states were settled by the Supreme Court even in the early years of the Republic, when invasions by militias did happen. What, then, were the New Jerseyans up to, and why were they up to it at this point in time?

The purpose of the “raid” was publicity—as evidenced by the excerpt above, in which the nature and degree of detail suggest the presence of the reporter. The purpose of the publicity was to create greater awareness of New Jersey’s claim to Ellis Island, since the famous immigration portal had always been known as Ellis Island, New York. And the reason for doing so at this moment was that, just more than a year earlier, the federal government had closed the island.

In response to the closure, New York prepared a proposal to use some of the island’s now abandoned buildings to house the homeless and treat alcoholics, and to use the remaining buildings as part of the Department of Corrections—not a place to take the family. New Jersey proposed using the island and its structures for an ethnic museum and park. Since the federal government owned the land, it could lease it for either project. But New Jersey’s proposal would stand a far better chance politically if the land it sought to lease was in New Jersey, which is what Mayor Berry and his troops in gray flannel suits maintained.

Bernard J. Berry (1913-1963) (photo credit 41.1)

Nor were they the first to do so. Disputes over the boundary of Ellis Island dated back to 1893, just after the island was put into service as an immigration station. In that initial challenge, it was not New Jersey that brought suit but a defense attorney for an immigrant charged with committing perjury in the statements he made when being processed at the new facility. The case was assigned to the federal court for the Southern District of New York, but the defendant’s attorney wanted his client to be tried in the federal court in New Jersey.

The defense attorney based his argument on the unique boundary lines that divide that segment of the two states. The division is marked by two simultaneous boundary lines. Nowhere else in the country has such a boundary ever been implemented. But nowhere else was there such a valuable harbor, particularly at the time the boundary was negotiated in the early years of the Republic. One of the boundary lines is where the water meets the mainland, thus giving all of the Hudson River and Upper New York Bay—and the islands in those waters—to New York. The other boundary line is under the water along the middle of the channel. This second boundary enabled New Jersey to build a structure on its land, extend it over the water and secure it in the ground under the water—in other words, to build piers.

Dual New York-New Jersey borders

When the federal government decided to use Ellis Island for an immigration portal, the facility it planned required that the island be enlarged, which was done with landfill. Because the added acreage was built up from land on the New Jersey side of the underwater border, the argument could be made that the newly added land belonged to New Jersey.

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