Memorial Monument in Brooklyn
The RevWar/Colonial History/General Washington ping list
Posted on 03/11/2012 7:05:35 AM PDT by Pharmboy
Brooklyn civic groups are leading a charge to discover the exact burial place of over 200 Revolutionary War soldiers killed at the dawn of the United States and dumped near the Gowanus Canal.
“These are the men who allowed America to come into existence — it’s a question that needs to be resolved,” said Marlene Donnelly, a member of the Friends and Residents of Greater Gowanus,... “The Battle of Gettysburg has an entire field put aside to remember it — and this one, we just don’t remember,”...
The grave concern is that development in and around the putrid canal, a Superfund site in the midst of a federal $500 million decade-long clean-up, could steamroll history that has already been buried too long. “We want them to tread with caution,” urged Eymund Diegel, a member of Proteus Gowanus, another activist group...
snip...
The rebels lost the battle, but the Marylanders, a regiment of 400, fended off the British long enough to enable General George Washington and his troops to retreat — and fight another day.
Two hundred fifty six men didn’t make it out of the bloody battle alive, and to this day, their exact burial site remains a mystery.
“We have to do a thorough search of British military records.”
Since the Americans lost the battle, the British buried the bodies, and probably didn’t take much care with the enemy dead.
“If we found the Maryland 400 it would be truly astounding,” said Lynn Rakos, of the Professional Archeologists of New York City. “The area would become a national historic landmark.”
Experts say the waterway itself — long rumored to be a Mafia burial ground — is probably not the final resting place for the Marylanders. Back in the 18th century, the man-made canal was just a modest creek.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
And because of space, I had to cut the last sentence of the article that noted that the EPA said that talk of an historical area here is "just speculative." The EPA should be speculative.
Memorial Monument in Brooklyn
The RevWar/Colonial History/General Washington ping list
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The Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument in Brooklyn's Fort Greene Park (PDF File):
http://www.fortgreenepark.org/pages/ASP_0307_PrisonShips.pdf
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"Fort Greene Park is located in Brooklyn, New York, on a hill overlooking Wallabout Bay and downtown Brooklyn. It is both a popular neighborhood park and a historically significant site. The thirty acre park is home to tennis courts and playgrounds, and is host to events such as concerts, poetry readings, and other civic gatherings. It is also the site of a Revolutionary War fort and a monument to Revolutionary War prisoners, who were held by the British in unbearable conditions aboard prison ships in Wallabout Bay. Today, a monument stands in the park commemorating these Prison Ship Martyrs.
The park is named for Revolutionary War General Nathaniel Greene (1742-1786) who oversaw the construction of Fort Putnam at the summit of the park in 1776. During the battle of Brooklyn, Fort Putnam defended General Washington's retreat across the East River to safety before being left to the British. Once again, in 1812, patriotic citizen volunteers fortified the top of the hill in anticipation of a British attack, digging trenches and laying out barriers. The attack never came, but the fortification was named for General Greene.
In 1814, regular ferry service connected the village of Brooklyn to the City of New York. The connection led to extensive development, and Brooklyn was incorporated as a city in 1834. Brooklyn continued to grow by leaps and bounds as immigrants streamed into the city. By 1846, Walt Whitman, the celebrated poet and then editor of The Brooklyn Daily Eagle was writing almost daily urging for a park in Brooklyn. The park would be a "lung" to provide the densely populated city with free circulation of air and where the people could spend a few grateful hours in the enjoyment of wholesome rest. As a result, Washington Park on the site of Fort Greene was established as Brooklyn's first park in 1847.
In 1864, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, who had achieved fame for their design for Central Park, were engaged to prepare a design for the park. Their design approach called for a park with a "somewhat rural character", consisting of "a series of shady walks that will have an outlook of open grassy spaces at intervals." A vine covered arbor was placed at the top of the park to take advantage of the cool breezes of the summit. A military salute ground was located in front of the Arbor, and two cannons were placed at the corners that overlooked the East River. Flowering Chestnut trees were planted around the perimeter of the park, and the site was graded and pathways constructed.
The park's master plan also included a monument to the prison ship martyrs. The Revolutionary War prisoners who died aboard the wretched prison ships were buried in shallow graves on the shore of Wallabout Bay. As time passed, their remains were uncovered or washed out to sea. Their bones were collected by Brooklynites and ceremoniously buried in a vault on Hudson Street, near the Brooklyn Navy Yard. By the 1860's, this vault was in a state of disrepair, and Olmsted and Vaux's plan created a final burial place and monument for the Martyrs.
As Brooklyn continued its growth into the twentieth century, the park was long overdue for a renovation. The effort to raise funds to create a permanent monument to the Prison Ships Martyrs was finally successful, and the leading Architectural Firm of McKim, Meade and White won a competition for the design of the new monument. Their design for the Prison Ships Martyrs' Monument called for a huge doric column crowned with a bronze urn in a square plaza atop the hill. The urn would be lit as an "eternal flame" to the memory of the martyrs. Also proposed for the plaza were two 190 foot long pergolas to replace Olmsted and Vaux's popular seating areas. Their new monument was unveiled in a grand ceremony in 1908.
While the park has changed much over the years, its historic value remains undiluted. Currently, restoration efforts are underway to bring the park to a state of good repair, for the preservation of history and for the enjoyment of future generations."
From
THE BATTLE FOR NEW YORK:
The City at the Heart of the American Revolution
by Barnet Schecter
The Battle For New York Walking Tour:
http://www.thebattlefornewyork.com/walking_tour.php
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The Battle For New York Home page:
http://www.thebattlefornewyork.com/home.php
From the NYC Parks dept website...
Mcgowan’s Pass, Central Park
McGowan’s Pass, part of the escarpment that crosses Manhattan around 106th Street, consists of two rock outcrops located on either side of Kingsbridge Road. The Pass takes its name from a popular local tavern owned by the McGowan family during the late 17th and early 18th centuries.
After his early Revolutionary War defeat at the Battle of Brooklyn (1776), General George Washington (1732-1799) moved most of his troops north of McGowan’s Pass, leaving only a small contingent to the south. Hoping to trap the Continentals, on the morning of September 15, 1776, British troops landed from dozens of transport ships anchored in Kips Bay (near present-day 34th Street). Washington, headquartered at the Morris Mansion on West 160th Street and Edgecombe Avenue, charged southward through McGowan’s Pass, directing his men to counter the invading force.
Rallying a small force of soldiers, Washington ordered them to march westward across Manhattan Island, then north on Bloomingdale Road into Harlem Heights. A small band of Maryland militiamen (near present-day 92nd Street and 5th Avenue) kept the British from advancing westward. As in the Battle of Brooklyn, the Marylanders held the line against superior forces, securing the American retreat. The British Army wisely built a small fortification over the pass to control the flow of troops in and out of the city. Seven years later, at the war’s successful conclusion, colonial soldiers under the command of General Henry Knox (1750-1806) marched back through the pass and down Manhattan Island to liberate the city.
During the War of 1812 (1812-1814), McGown’s Pass was a lookout point for the Americans who anticipated a British invasion. When the British bombarded Stonington, Connecticut in August 1814, the American command began to fear that the British might attack from the north, and a massive mobilization attempt by civilians contributed to the building of a chain of fortifications on the high bluffs of Upper Manhattan and Central Park. Several structures were built. Connecting all of these fortifications were four-foot high defensive walls (breastworks) made of earth, but the British never invaded.
Although the original plan for Central Park terminated at 106th Street, the northernmost section was purchased in 1863, and remnants of these earthwork fortifications remained. The designers of the park, Calvert Vaux (1824-1895) and Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903), decided to leave the structures and earthworks as they stood. In 1990, the Central Park Conservancy, while preserving the north end of the park, worked with archaeologists to identify the breastworks that had eroded over time. The remains of McGowan’s Pass stand as a reminder of the role that New York City played in the early history of the American Republic.
http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/historical_signs/hs_historical_sign.php?id=12377
Thanks much for your informative additions! Three huzzahs! for you...
You’re welcome, FRiend. Thank YOU for these terrific American history threads.
excellent picture
bookmark
The Patriots could not get to them until after the war, and that was 7 years later when there were—evidently—no signs of the mass grave. The Brits occupied all of NYC for the entire war, including Brooklyn, which did not actually become part of NYC until 1898, I believe.
“Experts say the waterway itself — long rumored to be a Mafia burial ground — is probably not the final resting place for the Marylanders.”
Never know what you’re going to find when you start digging up Brooklyn. The authorities may be thinking it’s sometimes best to let sleeping dogs lie, and don’t want to dig around too much looking for revolutionary heroes if a bunch of mob murders surface which will have to be investigated. The overwhelming majority of mob hits never have been solved or prosecuted, and once bodies start getting digged up they’re hard to avoid.
BTW, thanks for the original story and the subsequent posts — love this American history/mystery stuff.
And one more thing: the article says that the Battle of Brooklyn was the first major battle of the war. That's true only if you discount Bunker Hill, which I cannot. It was the largest (largest number of soldiers...around 28,000 from both sides, mostly Brits and Hessians) battle of the war...that stood for all time.
I have a few family members that were or currently are in the NYPD. One, a detective in Brooklyn in the 1930s, told me back in the 1960s that the Gowanus Canal was where the cops in the neighboring precincts would throw the guns and knives they took off the perps.
Well of course it should be a landmark. The US would not exist had it not been for the heroism of these men.
Pretty sure that it was in my old backyard on 8th Street. You should have seen the way my father’s roses bloomed 11 months out of the year, not to mention the size of his tomatoes and cucumbers. They might have been a few houses up the block for us. I heard stories that they found bones when the apartment houses were built, but I don’t know how true that is.
Hi again, fellow Brooklynite...yes...and I remember you mentioning this on a post a few years ago. A grave for 250 would be fairly large, and no reason to think that it did not touch your backyard on 8th St.
Ping!
Maryland PING!
Screw the EPA. We must honor our military heroes.
Thanks for posting this.
And thanks for the ping TSR.
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