Jersey
Martyrs
Monument Links
I have gathered these links to various sites concerning the
Martyrs'
Monument or Prisoners of War in the Revolutionary War.
Recent News
- Centennial Celebration of the Prison Ships Martyrs
Monument – a project currently planned for Nov. 14-Nov. 16th
2008! Visit www.fortgreenepark.org
for the latest news about the celebration as well as news about the restoration
of the monument.
- Naval
History Magazine (Jan. 2006) (free registration required)
printed an article, "The
Horrors of Those Hulks" about the Prison Ships. (Citation
from Merlin Dorfman)
- VFW
Magazine (Veterans of Foreign Wars) printed one of the
photographs
from this website in an article about monuments to war dead, in an May
2002 article raised in relation to the WTC monument. (Image
4098-0010
was used)
- The Monument's Re-dedication in 1997, an
article from the Newark
(NJ)
Star-Ledger, http://www.longislandgenealogy.com/prisonnote.html.
- May
29, 2005: The
New York
Times reports (archived
article by Jake Mooney) that two of the bronze eagles
originally at
the base of the doric column will be returned: "As part of a compromise
agreement, two of the original statues will be back in the park, along
with two new reproductions. The other two originals will stay at the
[Central Park] Arsenal, just in case."
Short Descriptions
- "The Wretched Prison Ships" By George
DeWan, at LI
History.com
("Long Island: Our Story" with stories from New York Newsday)
http://www.lihistory.com/4/hs425a.htm.
A well-written description of the history of the prison ships,
illustrated with
photographs of the monument and with historical images.
- Related: "Inside New York
City's 'Loathsome Dungeons'" http://www.lihistory.com/4/hs425b.htm,
also at LI History.com (stories from New York Newsday)
Long Descriptions
- "Martyrdom of thirteen thousand American Patriots
aboard
the monstrous
Jersey and other British prison ships in New York Harbor" by Hamilton
Fish
(originally published 1976) http://www.longislandgenealogy.com/prison.html,
with links for additional sources and books. Also, concerning the
re-dedication
of the monument in 1997, an article from the Newark (NJ)
Star-Ledger, http://www.longislandgenealogy.com/prisonnote.html.
(Long Island Genealogy is a good site if you're interested in this kind
of thing. http://www.longislandgenealogy.com/index.html)
- "Prison Ships" (Links to excerpts from
Henry R. Stiles's A
History of the City of Brooklyn (3 vols; Brooklyn: published
by
subscription, 1867, 1868 and 1870), maintained by
[email protected]) http://www.panix.com/~cassidy/MartyrIndex.html
Stiles edited one of the longest antiquarian pieces on the Prison Ships
in terms
of memorializing. The volumes are available on CD-ROM from http://www.heritagebooks.com/,
or as a paperback reprint set from http://www.higginsonbooks.com/
(Incidentally, Cassidy mistakenly notes that "many of families living
in Brookyn [sic] from 1800's would have seen" the pillar -- it's much
later, from 1907, but his point about the oldness of the park is well
taken; it was dedicated originally as Washington Park.)
- "British
Prisons and Prison Ships"
in Benson J. Lossing's Pictorial
Field Book of the Revolution (1850), vol. 2, supplement IV,
transcribed by Bill Carr and hosted at Rootsweb. Illustrated.
Special Treatments
- African-Americans: James Forten, a
freed slave and
patriot soldier,
found himself on the infamous New Jersey. A more scholarly
description of
him is online at PBS.org part of the Africans in America
documentary: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2p53.html
(Although some authorities note that one in six soldiers in the
Continental Army
at the end of the Revolution were African and African-American, many
more joined
the British as Loyalists, for the promise of freedom.)
- Literary: Philip Freneau, "Poet of the
Revolution" was
imprisoned on a prison ship and wrote about it in "The Prison Ship." A
draft of the manuscript is held at the Department of Special
Collections,
Rutgers University ("The American Revolution: Manuscript Resources"
online at http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rulib/spcol/revwar.htm)
The US Information Agency "Outline of American Literature," with
description of Freneau in context http://www.usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/oal/lit2.htm
- Irish: "Brutal Treatment on Board
British Prison Ships
Killed
11,500 Revolutionary War Patriots" By James Mullin, December 19, 1998 http://www.webcom.com/famine/mullin_revolution.htm
(Article from a site maintained by the Irish Famine/Genocide Committee.
Setting
aside the author's broader agenda of incriminating British policies in
the last
two centuries, an interesting take on the Prison Ships holding more
than
"Americans.")
- Children: Amerikids - HMS Jersey http://amerikids.com/hmsjer.htm
(Amerikids is series of "first person interactive
stories." This story [not online] is entitled "James and the
Sea-Chest,"
and concerns James Forten, a freed slave, on the infamous New Jersey.)
- POW
Experience and Monuments: Melanie
Bussel,
"America’s
First POWs" an article at the American Ex-Prisoners
of War
Service Foundation. (Site normally requires frames)
Bibliographies
Fort Greene, Brooklyn and New York Links
Film Makers' Works in Progress
"The American
Revolution ...An Evolution
of A Cultural History is a thirteen part, half-hour series being
developed by
Antonio A. Montanari, Jr." http://www.sagazine.com/progress.htm.
Montanari videotaped the interior of the tomb, in preparation for his
documentary.
© 1999-2000, 2005, 2006,
2008 Paul W. Romaine
Genealogy and history pages hosted on Rootsweb.
Jersey
Martyrs
Monument Links
was used) 
Fort Greene, Brooklyn and New York Links