Long Island Genealogy

1123 Words5 Pages

(1)Most people don’t know much about where most of the patriot prisoners in the Revolutionary war were held. During the Revolutionary war, the prisoners on the prison ships suffered through some of the most horrible conditions you could make someone suffer through in a prison. (2)During the American Revolution many of the prisons on land were over filled with prisoners. The British even used decrepit buildings they didn’t use like colleagues and city halls but once those were full they came up with the idea to use retired or decommissioned ships as prisons, but even those got full and crowded. One of the most famous of the prison ships were the HMS Jersey, which was in Wallabout Bay. “ To American patriots the Jersey became a symbol of British …show more content…

According to the History Channel, “By the late 19th century, the first monument built to honor those who died on prison ships-on Hudson Avenue in the Brooklyn neighborhood known as Vinegar Hill-had fallen into disrepair, and plans were made to build a new memorial in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Park, a new public space designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. Funds were raised by the end of the century, and the architectural firm of McKim, Meade and White were commissioned to design the monument itself”In 1908, President William Howard Taft dedicated the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument, an obelisk standing some 150 feet high at the center of Fort Greene Park, on the former site of the Revolutionary War-era Fort Putnam. Beneath the monument was a crypt with 20 coffins containing bone fragments from the thousands who died on the Jersey and other prison …show more content…

In the book the main prison ship was called the Good Intent, and in my research I had never found a prison ship called the Good Intent in Hudson River. For the most part Sophia’s War is historically accurate with a few details changed about the name of the prison ship and were the prison ship was. What I learned in my research could probably enhance how