Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument

Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument
The monument in January 2024
LocationFort Greene Park
Brooklyn
Coordinates40°41′30″N 73°58′32″W / 40.6918°N 73.9756°W / 40.6918; -73.9756
Height149 feet (45 meters)
DedicatedNovember 14, 1908; 115 years ago (November 14, 1908)
Restored1974, 2008
ArchitectStanford White
SculptorAdolf Weinman
Governing bodyNew York City Department of Parks and Recreation

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

Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument (2013)
Adolf Weinman's brazier at the top
Program for the dedication ceremonies, November 14, 1908

The Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument is a war memorial at Fort Greene Park, in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It commemorates more than 11,500 American prisoners of war who died in captivity aboard sixteen British prison ships during the American Revolutionary War.[1] The remains of a small fraction of those who died on the ships are interred in a crypt beneath its base. The sixteen ships included HMS Jersey, HMS Scorpion, Good Hope, Falmouth, Stromboli and Hunter.[2][3]

Their remains were first gathered and interred in 1808. In 1867 landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, designers of Central Park and Prospect Park, were engaged to prepare a new design for Washington Park as well as a new crypt for the remains of the prison ship martyrs.[4] In 1873, after development near the Brooklyn Navy Yard uncovered the remains, they were moved and re-interred in a crypt beneath a small monument. Funds were raised for a larger monument, which was designed by noted architect Stanford White. Constructed of granite, its single Doric column 149 feet (45 m) in height sits over the crypt at the top of a 100-foot-wide (30 m) 33-step staircase. At the top of the column is an eight-ton bronze brazier, a funeral urn, by sculptor Adolph Weinman. President-elect William Howard Taft delivered the principal address when the monument was dedicated in 1908.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference nyt1995 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cray, "Commemorating the Prison Ship Dead", pp. 568–9.
  3. ^ Wilson, James Grant. The memorial History of the City of New-York, From its First Settlement to the Year 1892, vol. IV New York:New-York History Company, 1893, pp. 8–9. Accessed: January 22, 2012
  4. ^ "Fort Greene Park: Prison Ship Martyrs Monument: History" on the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation website