Jurisdictional Disputes
There have been a number of disputes regarding the jurisdictional status of Liberty Island.
An unusual clause in the 1664 colonial land grant that outlined the territory the proprietors of New Jersey would receive reads: "westward of Long Island, and Manhitas Island and bounded on the east part by the main sea, and part by Hudson's river" rather than at the river's midpoint, as was common in other colonial charters.
When the Province of New Jersey was separated from the Province of New York in 1674 it was argued that Staten Island belonged to the former. Then governor Edmund Andros directed that all islands in the bay that could be circumnavigated within 24 hours were part of New York. Captain Christopher Billopp sailed around it within the allotted time and was soon thereafter granted a manor at its southern tip. The border came to be understood as being along the shore of the of Hudson River, the Upper New York Bay, the Kill van Kull, and Arthur Kill.
In 1824 the City of New York attempted to assert a jurisdictional monopoly over the growing steam ferry service in New York Harbor in Gibbons v. Ogden. It was deemed by the court that interstate transport would be regulated by the federal government. This did not resolve the border issue. In 1830, New Jersey planned to bring suit, but the matter was resolved with a compact between the states ratified by US Congress in 1834 which set the boundary line between them as the midpoint of the shared waterways. This was later confirmed by the US Supreme Court in a 1908 case which also expounded on the compact.
In 1987, US Representative Frank J. Guarini and Gerald McCann, then Mayor of Jersey City, sued New York City, contending that New Jersey should have dominion over Liberty Island because it is on the New Jersey side of the state line. By default—since the court chose not to hear the case—the existing legal status was unchanged. Portions of the island that are above water are part of New York, while riparian rights to all of the submerged land surrounding the statue belong to New Jersey.
A 1997 United States Supreme Court decision involved such riparian rights around nearby Ellis Island. Being mostly constructed of artificial infill, New Jersey argued and the court agreed that the 1834 compact covered only the natural parts of the island, and not the portions added by infill. Thus it was agreed that the parts of the island made of filled land belonged to New Jersey while the original natural part belonged to New York. This proved impractical to administer and New Jersey and New York subsequently agreed to share jurisdiction of the entire island. This special situation only applies to Ellis Island and part of Shooter's Island. The court chose not to comment on the precedent in the unlikely event that Liberty Island would be expanded.
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