Cite as: 523 U. S. 767 (1998)
Stevens, J., dissenting
formed the governmental function of recording the births and deaths on Ellis Island, and that the families of those decedents and newborn infants thought that those events occurred in New York.
IV
There is evidence that hundreds of marriages were performed on Ellis Island from 1892 to 1907. The exact number is uncertain, but it is undisputed that they were solemnized under New York law.5 Moreover, after a 1907 amendment to New York's domestic relations law, Ellis Island residents obtained their marriage licenses at City Hall in New York City. Fiorello La Guardia, who served as an interpreter on the Island between 1907 and 1910, escorted couples to Manhattan so that they could get married. Presumably similar trips were made by engaged couples throughout the balance of the relevant period.6 There is no evidence of any Ellis Island resident being married under New Jersey law.
5 Although only a few marriage licenses are in the record, they are all New York licenses.
While there is some dispute over where these marriages occurred on the Island, it is fair to conclude, as the Court does, that these marriages were typically performed in the Great Hall of the Main Building, which was located on the original Island. Thus, they were performed in New York. The Court discounts the significance of this evidence because it does not necessarily constitute prescriptive activity on the filled portion of the Island. But if we assume, as the record plainly indicates, that everyone then believed that the entire Island was located in the same State, these marriages provide further confirmation of the proposition that everyone on the Island believed that that State was New York.
6 One Ellis Island employee, who worked on the Island during the early part of the century, remembered as follows: " 'Very often brides came over to marry here, and of course we had to act as witnesses. I have no count, but I'm sure I must have helped at hundreds and hundreds of weddings of all nationalities and all types. The weddings were numberless, until they dropped the policy of marrying them at the Island and brought them to City Hall in New York.' " E. Corsi, In the Shadow of Liberty 87 (1969) (hereinafter Corsi).
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