Legacy: Memorials To the Dead

The bones of the prison ship dead are no longer exposed, and the memory of the those who died in the floating prisons on Wallabout Bay is forever enshrined at the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument in Brooklyn's Fort Greene Park.

It took a while to get there, however. It wasn't until 1808 that the bones of many of the prison ship dead were given a proper burial near the Navy Yard in Brooklyn by the Tammany Society of New York. In 1873 the bones were re-interred in Fort Greene Park. The current monument was erected in 1908 by the Society of Old Brooklynites. Now, the Brooklyn group is planning to erect an eternal flame -- actually, a stainless steel sculpture in the shape of a flame that would be gilded, like the flame of the Statue of Liberty -- atop the column.