Talk:Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument

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The main contractor for the Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument was PJ Carlin and the subcontractor who supplied the granite and erected it was John Hynes who had stoneyards at 3rd Ave and 3rd St. and Union and Bond streets in Brooklyn. There is a souvenir journal in existence as well as the ceremonial program. This monument will be 100 years old in 2008 and there are some efforts to refurbish the monument and surrounding area for the centennial.Ahynes432 01:10, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

November 15th, 2008. The rededication, and relighting, of the Monument!
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2008 RAIN OR SHINE Full Day of Free Spectacular Activities in Fort Greene Park 10:00 AM - Sign up sheets will be made available for advance reservations for the limited space events. Location: the Visitor's Center. 11:00 AM - NYC Department of Parks and Recreation unveiling of the Monument eagles. Noon – 3:45 PM - Visitors Center: Family Roots Project: Explore your family’s roots, free genealogical workshops and assistance with individual searches conducted by professionals from the African Atlantic Genealogical Society; entertainment stage: Jazz by Jeff Newell’s New Trad and Wade Barnes’ Brooklyn Four plus One, Brooklyn High School of the Arts band, performers from Irondale Theater; * Guided bus tours of the Brooklyn Navy Yard; Revolutionary war re-enactors; activities for families – meet Mr. Walt Whitman; Ranger-led tours of the park; *a horse and buggy will be available for family fun and to provide transport for people in need of help to reach the Monument Plaza. 3:15 PM - Fife and drum led procession and parade of flags from South Oxford Park to Fort Greene Park Monument Plaza for the beginning of the formal tribute. 3:30 – 3:45 PM - Monument stairs: Flag-posting ceremony 4:15 PM - Formal commemoration: U.S. National Anthem sung by Tony Award winner Cady Huffman; keynote address by Dr. Edwin G. Burrows, the 1999 Pulitzer Prize winner and author of recently released “Forgotten Patriots: The Untold Story of American Prisoners During the Revolutionary War;” 21- gun salute; wreath-laying; color guards; solemn military pageantry and much much more! 5:00 PM - Re-lighting the Eternal Flame of the Prison Ship Martyrs for the first time since 1921, and the long-overdue return of the park's bronze eagles after four-decades. 5:30 – 7:30 PM - Reception and Benefit for the Fort Greene Park Conservancy at Brooklyn Technical High School. Starts immediately following the re-dedication of the Monument and the re-lighting of the eternal flame. Located in the fabulous Art Deco lobby of the high school. Food provided by the chef/owner of the restaurant Eletteria, Akhtar Nawab, former sous-chef for Tom Coliccio at Craft. Entertainment will be provided by noted cabaret singer, Victoria England. Enter at the main entrance at 29 South Elliot Place. Note: there is a requested $25 donation per person for this event, paid in advance. To make a donation and reservation via PayPal, follow the instructions in the box below. For questions, call Ruth Goldstein at 718-596-0899.
 * Limited space events

Crypt for 11,500 or a crypt for far fewer?
The wording of the opening sentence suggests that the crypt is for 11,500... I know the Memorial is to the 11,500+ who died on the ships, but are there really 11,500 interred in the crypt? A page in the NYC Parks web site ( http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/FortGreenePark/highlights/13308, retrieved July 6, 2011) says that only a small portion of all the remains are interred in the crypt. "The remains of the prisoners were moved to the site in 1873 into the newly created 25 by 11 foot brick vault. Twenty-two boxes, containing a mere fraction of total volume of remains, were interred in the vault." I have seen pdf's of articles from the New York Times dating around 1900 that refer to interments occurring after 1873, but haven't seen anything that suggests that all 11,500+ martyrs are in the crypt.

Is it safe to reword the opening sentence to reflect that it is a crypt, and that the site is a memorial to the 11,500+ who died on the ships? Frank Lynch (talk) 02:07, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Bmclaughlin9 revisions on Jan 16 2012
Wow, such a flood of revisions. We all need to focus on this set, and make sure they're legit. Some are phenomenally nit-picky (the insertion of 'interred', the replacement of "beneath" for "below," for example).

But those slight changes are nothing compared to the wholesale changes represented in this comparison:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Prison_Ship_Martyrs%27_Monument&action=historysubmit&diff=471738413&oldid=471596951

Is there a venue to complain that the extent of these changes are simply too much? These require a lot of people to weigh in.


 * You didn't sign your comment.


 * I got rid of a lot of very bad writing. I read a source (Cray) that was already cited and not well used. I cited it repeatedly with page citations that had not been included previously.


 * I moved material around because the sequence of info didn't make sense.


 * This is the place to complain. Some are just word choices which are, by definition, nit-picky. Phenomenally is in the eye of the beholder.


 * There are still plenty of problems. There is no full description of the monument. Instead details appear in the narrative only where they surface under recent history, like the eagles and interior staircase. That will require material to be shuffled around.


 * There's more descriptive detail that I haven't included here


 * I hope to visit and take photos next week, weather permitting. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 21:05, 17 January 2012 (UTC)


 * "A" crypt instead of "The" crypt? Really? You bothered to make that change? On top of everything else, you need to change the article? Frank Lynch (talk) 03:48, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Antiquities Act
The paragraph about the Monument and the Antiquities Act has several sources, but they've been challenged. It's clear that the park and monument are *not* federal sites. Should this paragraph be deleted? Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 22:47, 17 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I find that this Monument does not appear on the list of monuments covered by the Antiquities Act here, so I am deleting the paragraph that attempts to link the Monument to the Antiquities Act. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 00:50, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20131230232257/http://nytelecom.vo.llnwd.net/o15/agencies/lpc/arch_reports/172.pdf to http://nytelecom.vo.llnwd.net/o15/agencies/lpc/arch_reports/172.pdf

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Numbers of deaths
The number 18,000 comes from this calculation in Edwin G Burrow's article in the Long Island History Journal:
 * ....Altogether, something like 30,000 Americans were confined in New York at one time or another during the Revolutionary War.
 * How many of those 30,000 perished will never be known for certain, though the available evidence suggests that the overall mortality rate hovered between 60 and 70 percent. (Of the 2700 men taken captive at Fort Washington in November 1776, 1100 died over the winter and another 900 on the way home after they were let go – an effective mortality rate of almost 75 percent.)

In Burrow's article, that is the only support for a figure as high as 70%, and it is arrived at by adding in those who died after release and on their way home to the 40% who died in the prison camp. Civil war prison camp fatalities were around 35%, he says, and one would assume deaths in the hulks were at least as bad (the percentage of deaths on transatlantic slave ships seems to have been lower, at around 12%: ). The figure on the monument - 11,500 - is closer to 40% of the 30,000 who were held on the hulks "at one time or another". But as this number (30,000) includes those who were released at some time or another, and without knowing how many that was, it's difficult to make a proper estimate of deaths in captivity. It would be helpful to see some better historical evidence for the numbers quoted. Thomas Peardew (talk) 16:12, 4 July 2019 (UTC)