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whose ancestor assented to it and whose first permission has never been withdrawn by his descendants.”
    In response, on April 27, 1808, the sheriff of New York County and a group of selected New Yorkers visited Ellis Island to appraise its value, eventually settling on the figure of $10,000, which astounded Colonel Williams. What the appraisers found on Ellis Island gives us some idea why it may have interested Samuel Ellis as an investor.
    It is found to be one of the most lucrative situations for shad fishing by set netts [ sic ] within some distance of this place, yielding annually from 450 to 500 dollars to the occupant from this single circumstance. The Oyster banks being in its vicinity affords an income in the loan of boats, rakes, etc. . . . besides this a considerable advantage results to the occupant from a tavern in the only possible place of communication for people engaged there, between the oyster banks and this city.
    Despite Colonel Williams’s reluctance, the government agreed to pay the money to clear up the confusion, and the state then transferred the deed to the federal government. The nation would soon be at war with England, yet when the War of 1812 ended, not a shot had been fired in anger from any of the forts of New York Harbor.
    N ATURE BLESSED N EW Y ORK ’ S island empire in many ways, especially with its four-mile-wide harbor sheltered from the rough Atlantic waters. The sand banks that line the Lower Bay south of Coney Island to Sandy Hook act as a natural breakwater, while the Narrows, a twomile-long bottleneck passageway between Staten Island and Brooklyn, protects the placid harbor from stormy seas and ocean waves. Standing at the Battery, staring at the expansive harbor, one cannot help but be soothed by its calm waters.
    Having such a natural port was only part of the equation. Although New York had been a major port for the young Republic, the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 secured the city’s position as the country’s dominant commercial outpost. A chain was now formed from the Atlantic Ocean, through the harbor, up the Hudson River, west across the new canal, into the Great Lakes, to the American heartland.
    New York City was to become the commercial fulcrum of the new nation, connecting the booming Midwest with the markets of Europe and beyond. In the thirty-five years after the opening of the canal, Manhattan’s population went from 123,000 to 813,000. During that same period, 60 percent of all imports and one-third of all exports passed through the Port of New York.
    New York imported woolen and cotton clothing from the factories of England, and expensive silk, lace, ribbons, gloves, and hats for upscale female shoppers. Sugar, coffee, and tea also came through the port. Much as New York monopolized the import of these goods, it also led the way in another kind of European import: immigrants.
    Between 1820 and 1860, 3.7 million immigrants entered through the portal of New York Harbor—some 70 percent of all immigrants to the United States during this time. Those ships streaming up the Narrows into New York Harbor, packed with immigrants, would keep coming throughout the nineteenth century, but to those newcomers Ellis Island meant nothing.
    For the next few decades, Ellis Island would exist in relative obscurity, used by the army and the navy mostly as a munitions depot. Destined to be little more than a footnote in the city’s history, the island did have a front row seat for the unfolding drama that took place across the harbor on the island of Manhattan. It stood watch as a small city began evolving into an urban colossus.
    For immigrants coming to New York in the second half of the nineteenth century, the words on their lips were not Ellis Island, but Castle Garden. Chapter 2

Castle Garden
The present management of this very important department [Castle Garden] is a scandal and reproach to civilization. —Governor Grover Cleveland, 1883
Castle Garden is one of the