Ceremony will honor America’s first POWs
The Society of Old Brooklynites will mark the 246th anniversary of the Battle of Brooklyn and honor the Prison Ship Martyrs with a ceremony in Fort Greene Park at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 27.
This is the 114th memorial tribute to America’s first POWs. Entombed in a large crypt 40 feet below the 149-foot monument on the park’s hilltop are the remains of approximately 11,500 brave patriots from the American Revolution.
The towering monument and burial site, which is on sacred land, memorializes these victims who were held in dungeon-like spaces aboard decrepit British prison ships in Brooklyn’s Wallabout Bay. Having suffered under inhuman and horrific conditions, when they died they were cast overboard or placed in shallow, sand-covered graves.