The Prison Ship Martyrs Monument

Somehow, in all my various NYC wanderings, I'd managed to miss the Fort Greene neighborhood, with its ivy-clung brownstones and gothic churches. While making amends for this oversight, I was attracted to the strange obelisk capping the crest of Fort Greene Park. Currently it is veiled in restorative scaffolding and its base fenced off, which meant I failed to get close enough for a peek at any potential historical marker that would explain its purpose. Instead I had to wait until I returned home for some cursory internet research to find out what it was all about.

During the Revolutionary War, the British seized New York in the wake of the Battle of Long Island. They quickly rounded up anyone who refused to swear allegiance to the Crown of England or join the King's Navy, and imprisoned them on derelict ships anchored in Wallabout Bay (located between the Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges of today). The most notorious of these prison ships was the Old Jersey, rechristened "Hell" by its unfortunate inhabitants. Between 1776 and 1783, disease, starvation, and neglect led to the death of over eleven thousand of these soldiers, sailors, women, and children. The corpses were buried in shallow graves in the bay or merely dumped overboard. In the following years, bleached bones regularly washed up onto the Brooklyn shore and were respectfully collected.

The land which is now Fort Greene Park was transformed from the site of an old fort into Brooklyn's first park in 1847, thanks in part to the vocal efforts of the editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle - a fellow by the name of Walt Whitman. Tammany Society funded a monument for the dead in the 1880s near what is now the Brooklyn Navy Yard waterfront. In 1867 Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux (of Central Park fame) were commissioned to spruce up the thirty acres of park. A granite crypt was built to hold the remains of the prison ship martyrs.

The 148-foot Doric column which now towers above the plaza on the hill was designed by the architectural firm of McKim, Meade, and White in 1908. A staircase, now closed to the public, led to the observation deck which housed a lighted urn which could be seen for miles around. The urn was created by Adolph Alexander Weinman, as were four bronze eagles which were later removed in the wake of repeated vandalism. The eagles are expected to be returned following the current renovation.

The memorial's motto - "They Shall Not Be Forgotten."

On a side note, before being renamed after Nathanael Greene following the War of 1812, the fort which topped the hill was known as Fort Putnam, build by and named after Colonial Rufus Putnam, nephew of General Israel "Don't fire 'til you see the whites of their eyes" Putnam. Who just happens to occupy a branch on my family tree.