THE JERSEY PRISON-SHIP

In 1780, the Jersey, originally a sixty-four gun ship (but, because unfit for service, was dismantled in 1776), was placed in the Wallabout, and used as a prison-ship till the close of the war, when she was left to decay on the spot where her victims had suffered. Her companions were the Stromboli, Hunter, and Scorpion, then used as hospitals. The latter was moored in the Hudson, toward Paulus’s Hook. The large number confined in the Jersey, sometimes more than a thousand at a time, and the terrible sufferings which occurred there, have made her name pre-eminent, and her history a synonym for prison-ships during the war. Her crew consisted of a captain, two mates, cook, steward, and a dozen sailors. She had also a guard of twelve old invalid marines, and about thirty soldiers, drafted from British and Hessian corps lying on Long Island. These were the jailers of the American captives, and were the instruments of great cruelty. Unwholesome food, foul air, filth, and despondency soon produced diseases of the most malignant nature. Dysentery, small-pox, and prison fever were the most prevalent, and, for want of good nurses and medical attendants, they died by scores on the Jersey and the hospital ships. The voice of human sympathy seldom reached the ears of the captives, and despair was the hand-maid of contagion. No systematic efforts for their relief were made, and, because of the contagious character of the diseases, no person ever visited the hulks to bestow a cheering smile or a word of consolation. All was funeral gloom, and hope never whispered its cheering promises there. When the crews of privateers were no longer considered prisoners of war by the British, the number of captives in confinement fearfully increased, and Congress had no adequate equivalents to exchange. Policy, always heartless, forbade the exchange of healthy British prisoners for emaciated Americans, and month after month the hapless captives suffered, and then died.

The name and character of each prisoner were registered when he first came on board. He was then placed in the hold, frequently with a thousand others, a large portion of them covered with filthy rags, often swarming with vermin. In messes of six they received their daily food every morning, which generally consisted of moldy biscuit filled with worms, damaged peas, condemned beef and pork, sour flour and meal, rancid butter, sometimes a little filthy suet, but never any vegetables, Their meat was boiled in a large copper kettle. Those who had a little money, and managed to avoid robbery by the British underlings, sometimes purchased bread, sugar, and other niceties, which an old woman used to bring alongside the hulk in a little boat. Every morning the prisoners brought up their bedding to be aired, and, after washing the decks, they were allowed to remain above till sunset, when they were ordered below with imprecations, and the savage cry, "Down, rebels, down!" The hatches were then closed, and in serried ranks they lay down to sleep, if possible, in the putrid air and stifling heat, amid the sighs of the acutely distressed and the groans of the dying. Each morning the harsh order came below, "Rebels, turn out your dead!" The dead were selected from the living, each sewed in his blanket, if he had one, and thus conveyed in a boat to the shore by his companions under a guard, and hastily buried.

Several times successful attempts at escape were made, and these drew the cords of captivity closer, until the name of "Hell" for the Jersey was a proper synonym. Various minute accounts of the sufferings of the prisoners have been published, the substance of which, with other interesting matter concerning the prisons and prison-ships at New York, may be found in Onderdonk’s Revolutionary Incidents, ii., 207-250 inclusive.

THE MONUMENT.

So shallow were the graves of the dead on the shores of the Wallabout, that while the ships were yet sending forth their victims, the action of the waves and the drifting of the loose sand often exposed the bones of those previously buried. Year after year this revolting exhibition might be seen, and yet no steps were taken to preserve the remains of the martyred patriots, until 1803 [Feb. 10, 1803.], when Samuel L. Mitchill presented a memorial to Congress, in behalf of the Tammany society of New York, soliciting a tomb for the Martyrs. This petition caused propositions for the erection of a great number of monuments, ordered by the Continental Congress to be reared in memory of various revolutionary worthies. The prayer of the petitioners was not granted, and no further legislative action was had. The Tammany Society resumed the consideration of the subject in the winter of 1807, appointed a committee, and on the thirteenth of April, 1808, the cornerstone of a vault for the remains was laid, with imposing ceremonies upon land presented for the purpose by John Jackson, Esq., situated on the southwestern verge of the Navy Yard, near the termination of Front Street, at Hudson Avenue, Brooklyn. Joseph D. Fay, Esq., delivered an eloquent address on the occasion. On the twenty-sixth of May, 1808, a grand funeral procession, formed of societies and citizens of New York and Brooklyn, marched to the finished vault, and there, in the presence of at least fifteen thousand persons, thirteen coffins, filled with remains taken from the shore of the Wallabout, were placed in it. Doctor Benjamin Dewitt delivered a pathetic funeral oration to the vast crowd, "while tears of sympathy bedimmed their eyes."

THE ANTE-CHAMBER.

A small wooden building was erected over the vault, as an ante-chamber, intended to be temporary. In front of it was placed a wooden fence, with thirteen posts, and upon the bars were painted the names of the original thirteen states. The ante-chamber yet (1852) remains, and some of the posts are yet there, but the original design has never been accomplished. Forty-four years have elapsed, and yet no enduring monument has been raised to the memory of those martyrs for freedom. Efforts toward that end are now in progress. A committee has been appointed in Brooklyn, and it is to be hoped that a worthy memorial will be speedily reared upon the spot.