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Biles Island. Even the name sounds wretched. It sounds like a fictional place from a Dashiell Hammett novel; a metaphor for living at rock bottom. But the place is real and, for a brief period during the Great Depression, my grandparents (Crosby) lived there.
Biles Island was named after William Biles who bought the island from the Lenapes in 1680 for 10 pounds. But the living conditions there – especially during the depression – are probably better compared to “bile”, a synonym of melancholy (sadness and depression).
Biles Island is located in Pennsylvania, just south of Trenton, NJ, on the Delaware River. The northern tip of the island is just a few hundred feet south Riverview Cemetery in Trenton. A topographical map (right) shows the island’s highest elevation is a little more than 20 feet and much of the island is lower than that. For people familiar with Trenton, NJ, Rotary Island has the same elevation as Biles and is frequently awash after moderate rains. There is a big difference between Biles and Rotary islands though and that is the smell. Biles is located in the tidal portion of the Delaware. The smell of low tide along the Delaware can be stifling. Along with the odoriferous unpleasantries, there is usually higher humidity and many more insects. (As if things weren’t bad enough.) The next thought is, in what kind of dwelling did they live? It certainly would not have been a house – considering what a little rain would do to the island. Was it a shack or maybe a tent? I don’t know which, but the word hovel comes to mind.
Biles Island was also a place of loss for my grandparents. On October 1, 1931 their daughter Florence Anna Crosby died from influenza; she was three months old. The feeling of despair must have been immense, because this was the second of their children to die young. A son, Daniel Crosby, also died in infancy. At that point in her life my grandmother had experienced the death of two of her five children. She wouldn’t know it at the time, but her remaining children Genevieve, Roy and Henry (Harry) lived through adulthood, as did the six other children born after Florence (Mary, Maurice, Adelbert, Albert, Laura & Shirley).
The family lived on Biles Island at least three months, but the full duration of their stay is not known. I do know that the 1930 census shows the family living on Nottingham Way in Hamilton. Between July 1, 1931 (Florence’s birth) and her death (Oct 1, 1931) the family lived on the island. The next known address for the family was on Cedar Lane in Hamilton, when my father was born (at home) in January 1936.
While writing this post, I kept singing some lines from The Beatles: “I’ve got to admit it’s getting better.
A little better all the time ” with John Lennon’s response: “It can’t get no worse.” The Biles Island period was a low for my grandparents — Its hard to imagine things being worse! I’m sure my grandparents would be proud to see how far their progeny have come.
