Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument
Encyclopedia
The Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument in Fort Greene Park
Fort Greene Park
Fort Greene Park is a municipal park in Brooklyn, New York, comprising 30.2 acres .The park includes the high ground where the Continental Army built Fort Putnam during the American Revolutionary War. The site was chosen and the construction supervised by General Nathanael Greene...
, in the New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
borough
Borough (New York City)
New York City, one of the largest cities in the world, is composed of five boroughs. Each borough now has the same boundaries as the county it is in. County governments were dissolved when the city consolidated in 1898, along with all city, town, and village governments within each county...
of Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, is a memorial to the more than 11,500 prisoners of war who died in captivity
Prisoners in the American Revolutionary War
During the American Revolutionary War the management and treatment of prisoners of war was very different from the standards of modern warfare. Modern standards, as outlined in the Geneva Conventions, expect captives to be held and cared for by their captors...
, known as the prison ship
Prison ship
A prison ship, historically sometimes called a prison hulk, is a vessel used as a prison, often to hold convicts awaiting transportation to penal colonies. This practice was popular with the British government in the 18th and 19th centuries....
martyrs. The remains of a small fraction of all those who died on the ships are in a crypt
Crypt
In architecture, a crypt is a stone chamber or vault beneath the floor of a burial vault possibly containing sarcophagi, coffins or relics....
below its base.
It consists of a 100 feet (30.5 m)-wide granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
staircase and a central Doric column 149 feet (45.4 m) in height. At the top is an eight-ton urn. It was designed by renowned architect Stanford White
Stanford White
Stanford White was an American architect and partner in the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White, the frontrunner among Beaux-Arts firms. He designed a long series of houses for the rich and the very rich, and various public, institutional, and religious buildings, some of which can be found...
(1853–1906), and its design is similar to doric column monuments around the nation and the globe.
It is sometimes called the tallest freestanding Doric column in the world when it was built, but the Monument to the Great Fire of London
Monument to the Great Fire of London
The Monument to the Great Fire of London, more commonly known as The monument, is a 202 ft tall stone Roman Doric column in the City of London, England, near the northern end of London Bridge. It stands at the junction of Monument Street and Panda Bear Hill, 202 ft from where the Great...
in London, Great Britain was built in 1671-77 and is 202 feet (61.6 m) in height.
More American soldiers and sailors died of intentional neglect in these ships than died on all the battlefields of the American Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
, combined. One such ship was the HMS Jersey
HMS Jersey (1736)
HMS Jersey was a 60-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built to the 1733 proposals of the 1719 Establishment of dimensions at Plymouth Dockyard, and launched on 14 June 1736. She is perhaps most noted for her service as a prison ship during the American Revolutionary War.-Early...
.
Origin
Following the end of the American Revolutionary WarAmerican Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
in 1783, an immediate reaction to preserve revolutionary heroism through monumental notions had grown in America. In regards to the Prison Ship incidents it was nearly two decades later until active attempts to commemorate their efforts were arranged. The initial proposal spawned from Matthew Davis who wrote an essay in 1794 in the Columbian Gazetteer in which he signed “A Lover to His Country”. His efforts brought him to find support from The Tammany Society. The Tammany Society during this period, was composed of various intellectual artisans, shopkeepers, shoemakers, merchants, and few trade members, which consisted of both Federalist Party and Democratic-Republican Party supporters. The Tammany Society specialized in acknowledging and praising wartime efforts or patriotism throughout history by conducting ceremonial meetings. This effort by the Tammany Society to commemorate the prison ships fell short due to political conflicts of interest between the two Congressional Parties within the Society.
A series of interests to renew the idea of commemorating the fallen Martyrs who died on the Prison Ships during the Revolutionary War arose in the 1820s. Although little effort was gained another push for celebrating the memory of the deceased occurred in 1839. Benjamin Romaine, a former Tammany [sachem], bought the lot in Fort Greene Park (which is the current residing area for this monument). Romaine also provided a small amount of funding to organize committees for this process of preservation. This method also fell short after the death of Benjamin Romaine in 1844. However, his effort was not short-lived and gave enough influence to continue the commemoration. In 1873, the remaining bones of the fallen and other paraphernalia safely kept since the war, was moved to its current location. The monument's erection finally occurred in November 1908. In attendance for this prolonged, commemorative event was President-elect William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft was the 27th President of the United States and later the tenth Chief Justice of the United States...
and approximately twenty thousand spectators. Assistance for the construction of this monument came from Federal State funding, municipal funds, and smaller contributors, such as the Tammany Society.
History and Facts
The Antiquities Act of 1906Antiquities Act
The Antiquities Act of 1906, officially An Act for the Preservation of American Antiquities , is an act passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by Theodore Roosevelt on June 8, 1906, giving the President of the United States authority to, by executive order, restrict the use of...
was created by the office and assertion of Theodore Roosevelt. The Antiquities Act was originally created to allow the President to set aside for future generations federal land that held cultural or scientific interests for the United States. The significance from this Act of 1906 is that it was mainly geared towards National Monuments
National monument
A National monument is a monument constructed in order to commemorate something of national importance such as a war or the country's founding. The term may also refer to a specific monument status, such as a National Heritage Site, which most national monuments are by reason of their cultural...
in America. The Prison Ship Martyrs Monument was the first “non-National” monument to coincide under the regulations of the Antiquities Act. The Fort Greene Park area site where the monument was constructed was under direct ownership of the white house because of the regulations set by the Antiquities Act in 1906.
The current preservation and supervision of this monument belongs to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Regular funding is necessary to continue the upkeep of the monument. A budgetary study was conducted from March 6, 2006 to September 5, 2008 on electrical improvements and the cost estimated to about $341,000. The overall restoration cost for the monument from 2006 to 2008 was an estimated $5,100,000.
Recent history
A plaque was added in 1960, fifty two years later after the construction of the monument, in order to provoke a new world of public interest. The plaque is located opposite of the front label on the monument. Surrounding the monument stands an eight-tonne bronze urn and four 300-pound eagles. The text on the plaque reads:“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.”
The memorial found issues with public attraction beginning in the 1960s following the production of the memorial plaque. The monument sustained numerous attacks of vandalism, consisting of theft of the bronze eagles and a plaque dedicated by the King of Spain. The rebirth of the monument chronologically matched the agenda of New York; restoring the culture in the city and cleaning up large public areas. This launched the renovation of the Prison Ship Monument with a $3.5 million budget in 2004. 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.
In 2008, a centennial commemoration was held.
See also
- Prisoners in the American Revolutionary WarPrisoners in the American Revolutionary WarDuring the American Revolutionary War the management and treatment of prisoners of war was very different from the standards of modern warfare. Modern standards, as outlined in the Geneva Conventions, expect captives to be held and cared for by their captors...
- HMS JerseyHMS Jersey (1736)HMS Jersey was a 60-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built to the 1733 proposals of the 1719 Establishment of dimensions at Plymouth Dockyard, and launched on 14 June 1736. She is perhaps most noted for her service as a prison ship during the American Revolutionary War.-Early...
- British Prison HulksBritish prison hulksPrison hulks were decommissioned ships that authorities used as floating prisons in the 18th and 19th centuries. They were especially popular in England. The term "prison hulk" is not synonymous with the related term, convict ship...