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Home , Fort Greene Park, HMS Jersey (1736), King Jagiello Monument, Wallabout Bay

Revolutionary Martyrs

The Martyrs’ Monument in ’s Fort Greene honors the forgotten victims of the —the more than 11,500 Americans held captive on British prison ships who died of disease, starvation, violence and neglect.

BY SHARONMcDONNELL

PHOTO BY CLINTON IRVING JONES. IMAGES PROVIDED BY ABBY WEISSMAN AND THE CONSERVANCY

American Spirit • March/April 2007 43 Standing almost 150 feet tall at the summit of Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn, N.Y., and flanked by a granite staircase 100 feet wide, the Prison Ship Martyrs’ “Turn out your dead!” Monument overlooks , the site where more than 11,500 American British guards yelled each prisoners of war were held captive in unspeakable conditions and died on 16 morning, since the deaths British prison ships between 1776 and The Jersey was nicknamed “Hell” by its inhabitants. 1783. According to government esti- were so frequent. Bodies were mates, more than twice as many tant defenses built on high land in Americans died on the prison ships than Brooklyn to protect from the buried in shallow graves in all the battles of the Revolutionary British. It was one of several defenses War. The story of the “prison ship mar- supervised by Colonel Rufus Putnam. along the shore. tyrs,” as they are called, represent one of “If New York was the key to the con-

the most tragic chapters in our nation’s tinent, then Long Island was the key to General early history—yet one of its least known. New York, and the key to the defense of Long Island was Brooklyn Heights,” says ‘Turn Out Your Dead!’ David McCullough in his book 1776 In 1776, Fort Greene Park was the site (Simon & Schuster, 2005). Despite Brooklyn (also called the Battle of Long were so frequent. Bodies were buried in lamp could not be kept burning, by Sof Fort Putnam, one of the most impor- fierce battles waged during the Battle of Island) under the leadership of Major shallow graves along the shore. reason of which the boys were not missed General Nathanael Greene on August Robert Sheffield of Stonington, till they had been dead 10 days.” 27, 1776, the greatly outnumbered Conn., one of 350 men jammed in a Of the 16 prison ships, the Jersey, which lost. Shortly there- small compartment below deck aboard a was nicknamed “Hell” by its inhabitants, after, the British took control of New prison ship, escaped in 1778, telling the was the most notorious. A prisoner on the York City and Long Island and occupied Connecticut Gazette: Jersey, who said the deaths were about 10 them until the war ended. “Their sickly countenances and ghastly per day, recalled, “At the time I was on The British needed space to imprison looks were truly horrible. Some swearing board, there were about 1,100 prisoners, captured seamen and soldiers, as well as and blaspheming; some crying, praying, no berths to lie in, or benches to sit on; civilians suspected of Revolutionary and wringing their hands, and stalking many were without clothes. Dysentery, sympathies, but the churches, the old about like ghosts; others delirious, raving, fever, pleurisy, and despair prevailed. The City Hall and Columbia College (then and storming; some groaning and scantiness and bad quality of provisions, named King’s College) weren’t enough. dying—all panting for breath; some dead the brutality of the guards, and the sick A fire had destroyed many New York and corrupting—air so foul at times that a pining for comforts they could not obtain, buildings earlier in the year, so the British turned to ships to detain their prisoners. Most prison ships were anchored in Wallabout Bay on the shore of the future , directly across the from ’s . The ships held American prisoners from all over—including seamen impris- oned in Charleston, S.C., after the British occupation in 1780, St. Augustine, Fla., and Halifax, Nova Scotia. They were all eventually transferred to prison ships in New York. Known to their once-inhabitants as floating horrors, infamous for cattle-like conditions, merciless treatment by British guards and rampant disease, death was a common occurrence on the prison ships.

THE GRANGER COLLECTION, NEW YORK “Turn out your dead!” British guards Despite fierce battles waged during the Battle of Brooklyn (also called the ), the greatly A 19th-century color engraving illustrates the interior of the HMS Jersey, a prison ship anchored off Brooklyn during the British occupation of New York. yelled each morning, since the deaths outnumbered Continental Army lost. The British occupied and Long Island until the war ended.

44 Daughters of the American Revolution American Spirit • March/April 2007 45 altogether furnished the cruelest scene of commander General William Howe. Support grew to honor the ship naval, who perished in the noisome horror ever beheld.” “You may call us rebels, and say that we prisoners with a permanent and more prison ships anchored in the Wallabout Another Jersey prisoner, Captain deserve no better treatment. But, remem- meaningful monument, but it still took a Bay during the Revolutionary War”—as Thomas Dring, a 25-year-old from ber, my Lord, that supposing us rebels, we century. Poet , editor of well as city, state and federal officials, Newport, R.I., survived—though sur- still have feelings as keen and sensible as The Brooklyn Daily Eagle—the biggest daily Congress finally approved funds to rounded by men suffering from small- Loyalists, and will, if forced to it, most newspaper in Brooklyn, which was then build the Prison Ships Martyrs’ pox—by inoculating himself with a pin. assuredly retaliate upon those upon an independent city—wrote almost daily Memorial, and the architectural firm “On looking about me, I soon found a whom we look as the unjust invaders of in 1846 about how Brooklyn needed a McKim, Mead and White won a 1905 man in the proper stage of the disease, our rights, liberties and properties.” public park as a “lung” where its dense competition to design it. and desired him to favor me with some of Prisoners could be released if they population could relax and breathe fresh Dedicated in 1908 in a ceremony the matter for the purpose ... The only renounced the Revolutionary cause and air. Inspired by the Society of Old attended by newly elected President instrument which I could procure, for pledged loyalty to King George III. Some Brooklynites, he also rallied support in his William Howard Taft, the monument the purpose of inoculation, was a com- bribed their way to freedom; others were pages to build a monument to the prison was the last public work designed by mon pin ... exchanged for British prisoners. It’s ship martyrs. Stanford White. Featuring an eight-ton The next morning I found that the unknown how many escaped the ships The grandson of a militiaman in the bronze urn and four 300-pound bronze wound had begun to fester; a sure symp- this way. After the war ended in 1783, the Revolutionary War, Whitman heard eagles, the monument was the world’s tom that the application had taken effect.” remaining prisoners were freed, and the many stories about the war throughout tallest freestanding Doric column. A A poem penned by J.M. Scott refer- prison ships abandoned. his childhood. Patriotic heroes permeate plaza, flanked at each corner by the ences both the Jersey and the Scorpion: his poems: weeps for crowning granite shafts and guarded by The Memorial Gains Allies his dead and his defeat at the Battle of two cannons, covered the tomb beneath Let the dark Scorpion’s bulk narrate Long after the war was over, bones and Brooklyn in the Leaves of Grass poem, “The it. Sculptor Alexander Weinman, The dismal tale of English hate skulls from ship prisoners kept washing Sleepers,” and the prison ship martyrs best known for his statue of “Civic Her horrid scenes let Jersey tell up on the shores of Brooklyn. Some were appear in “Song of Myself”: Fame” that tops the Municipal Building And mock the shadows where demons dwell. General George Washington com- collected and stored in a vault funded by in Manhattan, designed the monu- There shrieks of pain, and the dying groan, plained about the prison ships in a the Tammany Society near the Navy Yard What sobers the Brooklyn boy as he looks ment’s two eagles. Unheeded fall on ears of stone. January 13, 1777, letter to British in 1806. down the shores of the Wallabout and remembers the prison ships. A Neglected Monument In the century since it was built, the Whitman and other supporters of the Prison Ship Martyrs’ Memorial has public park soon got their wish. The City often been as neglected as the history it of Brooklyn commissioned Frederick commemorates. In the 1930s, the mon- Law Olmsted and , fresh ument fell into disrepair due to lack of from their success designing Manhattan’s funding and community interest. , to design several in However, the monument may finally 1864, one of which was the 30-acre win the attention it so sorely deserves: a Washington Park, now known as Fort restoration funded by the New York Greene Park. The remains of the prison City Parks and Recreation Department ship martyrs were temporarily laid to rest is under way and expected to be com- in nearby , but were trans- pleted in fall 2007, and a rededication is ferred to a brick crypt in Fort Greene anticipated in 2008. Park in 1873. “It’s the largest single crypt of In 1900, workers digging a cellar Revolutionary War veterans in the for the Brooklyn Navy Yard found at United States,” says Margaret Skinner, least a dozen skeletons of ship prison- Regent of Fort Greene Chapter, ers, a story that made front-page news Brooklyn, N.Y. “This should be a national in T he Brooklyn Daily Eagle. The story shrine, like Valley Forge in Pennsylvania noted the bones would be placed “with or the Andersonville Civil War Prison those of other Revolutionary martyrs” Camp in Georgia.” in the crypt. Bending to the campaign from the Renewing the Interest Society of Old Brooklynites and the Members of the Daughters of the DAR—whose Fort Greene Chapter American Revolution attending their was formed in 1896 in Brooklyn to 1939 Continental Congress passed a res- erect a “suitable memorial to the mem- olution approving the memorial and Fort A vintage postcard from the collection of the Fort Greene Park Conservancy shows Fort Greene Park and the old Prison Ship Martyrs’ Monument. ory of martyrs, civilian, military and Greene Park as a national shrine. “The

46 Daughters of the American Revolution American Spirit • March/April 2007 47 A 1911 postcard from the collection of the Fort Greene Park Conservancy “The Battle of features a close-up shot of the old monument. Brooklyn was our Battle of Brooklyn was our first first major battle major battle after declaring our after declaring independence. Bunker Hill gets independence ... lots of attention, and during the Bicentennial Philadelphia got Someone said, most of the attention, but ‘What they wrote in Brooklyn gets neglected,” Skinner says. “Someone said, ‘what they ink in Philadelphia, wrote in ink in Philadelphia they they wrote in blood wrote in blood in Brooklyn.’” in Brooklyn.’” However, it remains an uphill battle getting the memorial declared a National Historic Site. noted that the prisoners didn’t die “Nothing was done because World at the site itself. War II started, and nothing since,” During the 1960s and 1970s, it Skinner adds. “Someone has to seemed that nobody cared that the fight for it. It needs a will to make Prison Ship Martyrs’ Monument it a national shrine. Money is not the issue—the work on it has was on the verge of extinction. New York was in the throes of a been done.” Skinner wrote to the U.S. Department of the fiscal crisis—the famous headline “Ford to City: Drop Dead” Interior to seek a national designation, but got a letter back that ran front-page in the New York Daily News on October 30, 1975—and crime rates soared, especially in poorer neighbor- hoods like Fort Greene. Vandals often attacked the monument and stole the bronze eagles, which have since been recovered and put in storage for safety. Two now grace the Parks Department headquarters on . An elevator and stairs to the top were removed in 1948, and a plaque honoring the prison martyrs—presented by the King of Spain, who attended a Bicentennial celebration—was stolen. As New York rebounded in the late 1990s and Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, landmarked city Historic Districts filled with 19th-century brownstones that surround Fort Greene Park, became desirable places to live, the Parks Department announced a $3.5 million renovation of the Prison Ship Martyrs’ Memorial in 2004. Today, the monument and granite staircase are being cleaned, the eagles and bronze urn are being replaced (two with replicas), and lighting and landscaping are being improved. In May 2006, the Fort Greene Park Visitor Center opened next to the monument, where exhibits explain the history of the prison ships and the Battle of Brooklyn and list the names of the 8,000 known prison ship martyrs. The list of prisoners, copied from records in the British War Department in 1888 by the Society of Old Brooklynites, can also be found on a Web site maintained by U.S. Merchant Marine veterans (www.usmm.net/revdead.html). The site is on track to be rededicated next year, thus beginning the latest chapter in the prison ship martyrs’ history. To learn more about the Fort Green Park Conservancy, call (718) 222–1461 or visit www.fortgreenepark.org.

Sharon McDonnell profiled American astronomer Maria Mitchell for the July/August 2006 issue of American Spirit.

48 Daughters of the American Revolution