The Prison Ship Martyrs Memorial provides chilling testimony that America’s independence was won by patriots at the cost of horrific human suffering.
The 150-foot-tall Doric columns in Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn, New York, stand over the footprints of a colonial garrison during the American Revolutionary War.
The monument commemorates the hellish conditions aboard a British prison ship on the East River during the American Revolution, where an estimated 11,500 American soldiers, sailors, and privateers perished.
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Many of these patriots are buried in the crypts beneath the monument—many of whom only God knows their identities.
“This is sacred ground,” Eddie Desmond, a Brooklyn native and self-described patriot, previously told Fox News Digital. “This is America’s original Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.”
Sebastian Ruiz is the New York City park ranger at Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn, home to the Prison Ship Martyrs Memorial. It commemorates the approximately 11,500 Americans who lost their lives in horrific conditions on British prison ships on the East River during the American Revolution. (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)
New York City Park Ranger Sebastian Ruiz told Fox News Digital, “This park is special. It’s one of the first parks in Brooklyn and has a rich history.”
More Americans died on prison ships during the American Revolution than in battle.
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An estimated 6,800 people were killed in combat during the six-year conflict, according to the American Battlefield Trust.
“This is holy ground.”
“Prisoners roasted in the heat, drank salt water supplied from the ship’s side, starved and quarreled with vermin, lice, impending madness, dehydration and infectious diseases,” the trust wrote, describing conditions on the prison ship. .
“It is estimated that at least six people are killed every day on a prison ship.”
The Prison Ship Martyrs Memorial in Brooklyn commemorates those who died in the Revolutionary War and was dedicated in 1908 in a ceremony officiated by President William Howard Taft. (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)
They could escape their misery if they gave up their American independence and declared allegiance to the British Crown.
According to popular legend, no one accepted the offer.
The martyrs on the prison ship, skinny and disease-ridden, were either thrown into the sea or buried in shallow graves. There are no ceremonies or tributes to commemorate their sacrifice.
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“Noted historian David McCullough once said that this tomb is as important as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery,” an inscription inside the park’s small visitor center reads.
The Prison Ship Martyrs Memorial was dedicated in 1908 in a ceremony officiated by President William Howard Taft.
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia opened in 1921.
Circa 1775: At the end of the American Revolution, 11,000 patriotic prisoners died on prison ships, including the majestic HMS Jersey anchored in an American port. (MPI/Getty Images)
Thousands of allies from countries including France, the Netherlands and Spain also perished on the British prison ship, which floated north of Wolot Bay Park.
It is likely that these foreign fighters for the cause of American independence are also buried in the crypts beneath the Prison Ship Martyrs Memorial.
“This is a bigger story than an American story. Sometimes we forget that this is an international story,” Purdue University history professor Cole Jones said in an interview with Fox News Digital last year.
“Prisoners roasted in the heat…starved and struggled with vermin, lice, impending madness, dehydration and infectious diseases.”
Jones, who grew up in New York, wrote the 2019 book “Captives of Liberty: Prisoners of War and the Politics of Revenge in the American Revolution.”
He added, “The struggle for American independence was a world war, fought on every ocean and on every continent.”
The Prison Ship Martyrs Museum has a small visitor center. The exhibit includes a roll call of the thousands of patriots who died on British prison ships during the American Revolution. (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)
During the American Revolution, approximately 16 British ships held prisoners on the East River.
The most notorious of these was HMS Jersey, a large warship converted into a prison.
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Alexander Coffin Jr., an 18-year-old American patriot who was a prisoner on the HMS Jersey, wrote: “I soon discovered the humanity in the hearts of the British officers responsible for human suffering. All the sparks were gone.
“Nothing happened except abuse and insults.”
“Noted historian David McCullough said the tomb is as important as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery.”
The remains of the martyrs on the prison ship were exposed by erosion in poorly dug graves.
Others washed up on Brooklyn beaches in the years after the war.
The bodies, mostly bones, were dutifully collected by grateful local residents of the newly independent United States.
During the American Revolutionary War, allies from many different nations died on British prison ships off the coast of Brooklyn. In 1976, King Juan Carlos I of Spain dedicated a monument to the Spanish prison ship martyrs during the celebration of the United States’ Bicentennial. (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)
They were first buried in 1808 in a grave on what is now Hudson Avenue near Wallett’s Bay, according to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.
In 1801, the bay became the site of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which later expanded into an industrial powerhouse.
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During the American Revolution, many Americans built many of the most powerful warships in U.S. naval history where British ships suffered.
The USS Missouri, which Japan signed the instrument of surrender and ended World War II, was built at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
The former shipyard is now an industrial park.
View from the bow of the USS Missouri as the main battery (16-inch gun) fires on enemy targets near North Korea. The USS Missouri is famous for hosting Japan’s surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay in 1945, which ended World War II. , right around here. (Photo: © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)
The site of the Prison Ship Martyrs’ Memorial was known as Fort Putnam during the American Revolution and was built under the direction of General Nathaniel Greene.
It was renamed in his honor during the War of 1812.
In the 1840s, American poet Walt Whitman, then a newspaper editor, helped drum up support to turn the fort into a park.
“Most of us cannot imagine the pain that those buried here must have experienced.”
Famous landscape architects Franklin Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux designed it, complete with a crypt to house the remains of the martyrs.
The New York City Parks Department noted that in 1873, “22 boxes were buried in the tomb, containing only a small portion of the total number of remains.”
Columns of American eagles line the four corners of the base of the Prison Ship Martyrs Memorial in Brooklyn, New York. The monument was designed by the renowned architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White and sculptor Adolph Alexander Weinman. (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)
“By the end of the 19th century, diverse interests, including federal, city and state governments, private groups and donors, began a movement to erect a permanent memorial to the prison ship’s martyrs.”
The monument was designed by the renowned architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White and sculptor Adolph Alexander Weinman and dedicated in 1908.
It was restored in 2008 to celebrate the centenary of honoring the heroes of the United States and its allies who fought for independence.
It originally had an eternal flame and is now illuminated by electric lights at night.
“The Prison Ship Memorial is a horrific reminder of the war,” Greg Young, co-host and producer of The Bowery Boys podcast, which chronicles New York City history, told Fox Digital News.
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“Most of us cannot imagine the pain that those buried here must have experienced.”
There is a brass lantern at the top of the monument column. It originally had an eternal flame and is now illuminated by electric lights at night.
Fort Greene Park is used like any other park in the city. On a recent day, New Yorkers skateboarded, practiced boxing and yoga, read and ate lunch in the verdant expanse beneath the pillars.
The Prison Ship Martyrs Memorial in Brooklyn was dedicated on November 14, 1908, in a ceremony attended by President William Howard Taft. (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)
They may or may not realize that there are so many unknown patriots lying at their feet.
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“The prisoners held on these ships were critical to the effort to win American independence,” said Jones, the Purdue University professor.
“Their pain and sacrifice deserve to be remembered.”
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