Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument

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Coordinates: 40°41′30″N 73°58′32″W / 40.6918°N 73.9756°W / 40.6918; -73.9756

Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument
Program of the Dedicatory Ceremonies of the Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument, November 14, 1908

The Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument in Fort Greene Park, in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, is a memorial to the more than 11,500 prisoners of war who died in captivity aboard eleven prison ships.[1] The remains of a small fraction of those who died on the ships are interned in a crypt beneath its base. The ships included the HMS Jersey, the Scorpion, the Hope, the Falmouth, the Stromboli, Hunter, and others.[2][3]

Their remains were first gathered and interred in 1808. In 1873, after urban growth hemmed in that site near the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the remains were moved and re-interred in a crypt beneath a small monument. Funds were raised for a larger monument and renowned architect Stanford White (1853–1906) of the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White designed it. Dedicated in 1908 and constructed of granite, its single Doric column 149 feet (45 m) in height sits over the crypt at the top of a 100-foot (30 m)-wide staircase. At the top is an eight-ton bronze brazier.

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[edit] Earlier memorial

Following the end of the American Revolutionary War in 1783, the remains of those who died on the prison ships were neglected, left to lie along the Brooklyn shore on Wallabout Bay, a rural area little visited by New Yorkers.[4] Officials of the local Dutch Reformed Church met with resistance from the property owner when they sought to remove the bones to their churchyard.[5] The movement to commemorate the dead only took off when political differences between Federalists and Republicans deepened in the last years of the eighteenth century and the Republicans took up the question of a memorial in response to the Federalist erection of a statue of George Washington in 1803.[6] The Tammany Society, which had grown into a Republican organization, with Republican Congressman Samuel L. Mitchill as their spokesman, asked the federal government to erect a monument just as Congress was considering memorials to the generals of the American Revolution, but had no success[7] They then turned their efforts to a grand ceremonial re-interment of the prisoners' remains, emphasizing less the construction of a monument than something more suited to the common man. Tammany formed the Wallabout Committee in January 1808. Their efforts took strength from renewed anti-British feeling stemming from such incidents as a sailor killed by gunshot from the British ship HMS Leander in 1806 and the British boarding of the USS Chesapeake in 1807. When New Yorkers divided over President Thomas Jefferson's Embargo Act of 1808, which injured New York's commercials interests and damaged all classes, merchants, sailors, and laborers, Tammany and the Republicans used their plans for a re-interment as part of their campaign to bolster anti-British sentiment. On April 13, 1808, they held a ceremony to lay the cornerstone of a planned vault and a grand ceremony of re-interment followed on May 26.[8]

A small square building stood above the 1808 vault with an eagle mounted at the point of the roof. In front were posts with the names of the thirteen original states. At the entrance through site the fence that surrounded the site an inscription said: "Portal to the tomb of 11,500 patriot prisoners, who died in dungeons and prison-ships, in and about the City of New York, during the Revolution."[9]

Later in the nineteenth century, the idea of erecting of a monument on the vault site attracted only occasional interest until 1873 when the remains were relocated from the increasingly urban area that had grown up around the vault to a new 25 by 11 foot brick vault in Fort Greene Park, then known as Washington Park, where they remain.[3][10]

[edit] Monument

One of the four Adolf Weinman eagles that stood at the base of the large column until 1966.

Funding for a larger monument came from all levels of government. The federal government contributed $100,000, New York State $25,000, and New York City $50,000, while private contributions provided another $25,000.[11][12] Renowned architect Stanford White (1853–1906) of the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White designed it. Constructed of granite, its single Doric column 149 feet (45 m) in height sits over the crypt at the top of a 100-foot (30 m)-wide staircase At the top is an eight ton bronze lantern.

The column carries this inscription: "1776 THE PRISON SHIP MARTYRS MONUMENT 1908". The grand staircase of 100 80-feet-wide granite steps rises in three stages. At the foot of the staircase, the entrance to the vault was covered by a slab of brown sandstone, now in storage,[13] that bears the names of the 1808 monument committee and builders and this inscription:[14]

In the name of the spirits of the departed free
sacred to the memory of that portion of American seamen, soldiers and citizens who perished in the cause of liberty & their country on board the prison ships of the British (during the Revolutionary War) at the Wall-about.
This is the corner stone of the vault which contains their relics.
Erected by the Tammany Society or Columbian Order of the City of New York.
The ground for which was bestowed by John Jackson Nassau Island,
season of blossoms
year of discovery, the 316th
of the institution the 19th
and of American Independence the 32nd
April the 6th, 1808.

The monument's column contained a staircase accessed by a bronze door.[14]

Four 3-foot-high open-winged 300-pound eagles stood at the corners of the 200-foot square terrace at the column's base, each on its own 2-foot pedestal in front of a 7-foot Doric column. They were designed by Adolf Weinman, who also designed the 6-ton brazier that sits upon the Monument's principal column.[15]

[edit] Dedication ceremony

The dedication ceremony in November 1908 included a parade with 15,000 participants, including military and National Guard units, veterans, and civic organizations, including representatives of Tammany Hall in their first parade since the Civil War. President-elect William Howard Taft, Secretary of War Luke E. Wright, New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes, New Jersey Governor Franklin Fort, and Delaware Governor Preston Lea watched along with approximately twenty thousand spectators as "the enormous flag draping the Prison Ship Martyr's Monument on the highest point of Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn, was allowed to slide slowly to the ground from its heighth [sic] of 198 feet in the air." Taft delivered the principal address. He set out in detail the treatment of American prisoners and of the dead he said: "They died because of the cruelty of their immediate custodians and the neglect of those who, in higher authority, were responsible for their detention." He carefully described British culpability:

I do not wish to be understood as charging that these conditions were due to the premeditations of the English commanders in chief or to the set purposes of anyone in authority having to do with the fate of the unfortunate men whose bravery and self-sacrifice this monument records. Such a charge would make the British commanders human monsters. The conditions were the result of neglect, not design.

He discussed the treatment of prisoners of war throughout history and praised the recent Hague Convention on the rights of prisoners of war and the recent Sino-Japanese War in which "both parties exceeded, in the tenderness and the care which they gave to the prisoners of the other, the requirements of the Hague Convention."[16]

[edit] Later history

The staircase and elevator that had been installed inside the large column in 1937 were both removed in 1949.[1][13]

A plaque was added in 1960 located across from the front label on the monument. The plaque reads:[17]

In memory of the 11,500 patriotic American sailors and soldiers who endured untold suffering and died on the prison British ships anchored in Wallabout Bay during the Revolutionary War 1776- 1782. Their remains lie buried in the crypt at the base of this monument which was dedicated on November 14, 1908. This plaque was afforded by The Society of Old Brooklynites on June 1, 1960. Farelly Crane M.D. President.

After being vandalized repeatedly, the four eagles were removed for repairs in 1966 and restored when $251,000 was spent to repair the monument about 1974,[15] part of a larger $780,000 restoration of Fort Greene Park.[18] They have not been returned to the Monument. Two of them are on display at the Central Park Arsenal, the administrative headquarters of the New York City Parks Department.[13]

In 1976, King Juan Carlos of Spain dedicated a plaque honoring 700 Spaniards who died on the prison ships.[1]

In 1995, an examination of the vault reported it held bone fragments in 20 slate boxes, each two feet by two feet by seven feet.[1]

The city launched the renovation of the Prison Ship Monument with a $3.5 million budget in 2004.[19][dead link] Currently surrounding the monument are secured exhibits explaining the history of the Prison Ships, the Battle of Brooklyn and a list of the 8,000 known martyrs.[20] In 2008, a centennial commemoration was held.[21][dead link]

New York City Department of Parks and Recreation is responsible for the preservation and supervision of the monument. A budgetary study was conducted from March 6, 2006, to September 5, 2008, on electrical improvements and the cost estimated at $341,000. The overall restoration cost for the monument from 2006 to 2008 was estimated at $5,100,000.[22]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d New York Times: Douglas Martin, "Resurrecting Patriots, and Their Park; Shrine to Revolution's Martyrs Is Part of Fort Greene Renewal," September 23, 1995, accessed January 17, 2012
  2. ^ Cray, "Commemorating the Prison Ship Dead," 568-9
  3. ^ a b James Grant Wilson, The memorial History of the City of New-York, From its First Settlement to the Year 1892, vol. IV (New-York History Company, 1893), 8-9, available online, accessed January 22, 2012
  4. ^ Robert E. Cray, Jr., "Commemorating the Prison Ship Dead: Revolutionary Memory and the Politics of Sepulture in the Early Republic, 1776-1808," Third series, vol. 56, no. 3, (July 1999), 573
  5. ^ Cray, "Commemorating the Prison Ship Dead," 574
  6. ^ Cray, "Commemorating the Prison Ship Dead," 575-8
  7. ^ Cray, "Commemorating the Prison Ship Dead," 578-9
  8. ^ Cray, "Commemorating the Prison Ship Dead," 584-5
  9. ^ J. R. McCulloch, A Dictionary, Geographical, Statistical, and Historical of the Countries, Places, and Principal Natural Objects in the World (NY: Harper & Brothers, 1852), vol. 1, 474, available online, accessed January 17, 2012
  10. ^ Cray, "Commemorating the Prison Ship Dead," 588
  11. ^ Cray, "Commemorating the Prison Ship Dead," 589
  12. ^ "Gleanings from American Art Centers," Brush and Pencil, vol. 12, no. 4 (July 1903), 291-2
  13. ^ a b c City of New York Parks and Recreation: Fort Greene Park: Prison Ship Martyrs Monument, accessed January 21, 2012
  14. ^ a b New York Art Commission, Catalogue of the Works of Art Belonging to the City of New York (1920), Vol. II, 27-8, available online, accessed January 17, 2012
  15. ^ a b New York Times: David Gordon, "Fort Greene Park to Get Lost Eagles," March 10, 1974, accessed January 17, 2012
  16. ^ New York Times: "Taft and Hughes at Martyrs' Shaft," November 15, 1908, accessed January 17, 2012
  17. ^ Sharon McDonnell, "Revolutionary Martyrs’" American Spirit: Daughters of the American Revolution, March/April 2007, 43-46
  18. ^ New York Times: "Restoration of Fort Greene Park to Begin," June 10, 1973, accessed January 17, 2012
  19. ^ http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_about/parks_divisions/capital/pd_proj_month_oct_04.html
  20. ^ McDonnell, Sharon. "Revolutionary Martyrs." American Spirit: Daughters of the American Revolution. March/April 2007. 43-46
  21. ^ http://psmmonument.com/
  22. ^ New York City Department of Parks and Recreation: "Fort Greene Park: Capital Projects", accessed January 16, 2012

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