USA > New York > Kings County > Williamsburgh > A history of the city of Brooklyn : including the old town and village of Brooklyn, the town of Bushwick, and the village and city of Williamsburgh > Part 34
USA > New York > Kings County > Bushwick > A history of the city of Brooklyn : including the old town and village of Brooklyn, the town of Bushwick, and the village and city of Williamsburgh > Part 34
USA > New York > Kings County > Brooklyn > A history of the city of Brooklyn : including the old town and village of Brooklyn, the town of Bushwick, and the village and city of Williamsburgh > Part 34
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2 Captain William Cunningham, an Irishman by birth, and a brute by nature, who, during the occupation of New York by the British, held the post of Provost- Marshal of the city. He subsequently suffered the same fate to which he had consigned so many victims-being hung for forgery in London, England, in 1791. In his dying confession, which appeared in the English papers in 1794, and which has always been
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333
HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.
Great, however, as were the sufferings of those incarcerated within the prisons of the city, they were exceeded, if possible, by those of the unfortunate naval prisoners who languished in the " prison- ships" of the "Walleboght." These were originally the transport- vessels in which the cattle and other supplies of the British army had been brought to America, in 1776, and which had been anchored in Gravesend Bay, and occupied by the prisoners taken in the Battle of Brooklyn. Upon the occupation of the city by the British forces, these soldiers were transferred to the prisons on shore, and the transports, anchored in the Hudson and East rivers, were devoted more especially to the marine prisoners, whose numbers were rapidly increasing, owing to the frequent capture of American privateers by the king's cruisers.
" A large transport, named the Whitby," says General JEREMIAH JOHNSON,1 " was the first prison-ship anchored in the Wallabout. She was moored near 'Remsen's mill,' about the twentieth of Oc- tober, 1776, and was then crowded with prisoners. Many landsmen were prisoners on board this vessel; she was said to be the most sickly of all the prison-ships. Bad provisions, bad water, and
held as authentic, he made the following statements in regard to his treatment of the American prisoners : "I shudder to think of the murders I have been accessary to, both with and without orders from Government, especially while in New York ; during which time there were more than two thousand prisoners starved in the different churches, by stopping their rations, which I sold. There were also two hundred and seventy-five American prisoners and obnoxious persons executed, out of all which num- ber there were only about one dozen public executions, which chiefly consisted of Brit- ish and Hessian deserters. The mode for private executions was thus conducted : a guard was dispatched from the Provost, about half-past twelve at night, to the Barrack street, and the neighborhood of the upper barracks, to order the people to shut their window-shutters, and put out their lights, forbidding them at the same time to pre- sume to look out of their windows and doors on pain of death, after which the unfor- tunate prisoners were conducted, gagged, just behind the upper barracks, and hung without ceremony, and there buried by the black pioneer of the Provost." Watson, in his Annals of New York, states that Cunningham hung five or six of a night, until the women of the neighborhood, distressed by the cries and pleadings of the prisoners for mercy, petitioned Howe to have the practice discontinued. Common fame charged Cunningham with selling, and even poisoning, the prisoners' food, exchanging good for bad provisions, and continuing to draw their rations after their death, or, as they worded it, " he fed the dead, and starved the living." It was not till the spring of 1783, towards the close of the war, that a monthly list of prisoners was printed in Rivington's Gazette.
1 Naval Magazine, 467, 469
--
334
HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.
scanted rations, were dealt to the prisoners. No medical men attended the sick, disease reigned unrelieved, and hundreds died from pestilence, or were starved, on board this floating prison.1 I saw the sand-beach, between the ravine? in the hill and Mr. Rem- sen's dock, become filled with graves in the course of two months ; and before the first of May, 1777, the ravine alluded to was itself occupied in the same way. In the month of May, 1777, two large ships were anchored in the Wallabout, when the prisoners were transferred from the Whitby to them; these vessels were also very sickly, from the causes before stated. Although many prisoners were sent on board of them, and none exchanged, death made room for all. On a Sunday afternoon, about the middle of October, 1777, one of the prison-ships was burnt ; the prisoners, except a few, who, it was said, were burnt in the vessel, were removed to the remaining ship. It was reported, at the time, that the prisoners had fired their prison, which, if true, proves that they preferred death, even by fire, to the lingering sufferings of pestilence and starvation. In the month of February, 1778, the remaining prison-ship was burnt at night, when the prisoners were removed from her to the ships then wintering in the Wallabout."
" Better the greedy wave should swallow all, Better to meet the death-conducting ball, Better to sleep on ocean's oozy bed, At once destroyed and numbered with the dead, Than thus to perish in the face of day, Where twice ten thousand deaths one death delay."
In 1779, the "Prince of Wales" and the " Good Hope"" were used
1 A prisoner (see the Trumbull Papers, p. 76) thus speaks of the WHITBY, in 1776 : "Our present situation is most wretched; more than two hundred and fifty prisoners, some sick, and without the least assistance from physician, drug, or medicine, and fed on two-thirds allowance of salt provisions, and crowded promiscuously, without regard - to color, person, or office, in the small room of a ship, between decks, and allowed to walk the main deck only from sunrise to sunset. Only two at a time permitted to come on deck to do what nature requires, and sometimes denied even that, and use " tubs and buckets between decks, to the great offence of every delicate, cleanly person, and prejudice of all our healths."
2 Where Little street now is.
3 We find the " GOOD HOPE" first mentioned in October, 1778. She then lay in the North River, and in January, "79, was designated, with the "PRINCE OF WALES," as the depot for prisoners of privateers arriving in New York. In August, "79, forty-seven American prisoners were returned, under flag, to New London, who were taken out of
335
HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.
as prison-ships. The latter vessel being destroyed by fire in March, 1780, her place in the Wallabout was supplied, shortly after, by the " Stromboli,"1 "Scorpion,"" and "Hunter," all nominally hospital-
the "Good Hope," and "it must (for once) be acknowledged, are all very well and healthy-only one hundred and fifty left." About this time, also, she was dismantled, and her sails, spars, etc., advertised to be sold. In September, '79, there were many sick on board. The New Hampshire Gazette, of November 2d, "79, says that, at one o'clock on the previous morning, nine captains, and two privates, effected their escape from this vessel, then lying in the North River. They confined the mate, disarmed the sentinels, and hoisted out the boat, which was on deck, and took with them nine stand of arms and ammunition. They had scarce got clear before an alarm was given, which brought upon them a fire from these vessels, which, however, did not harm them. The escaped men spoke in the highest terms of the commander of the prison-ship, Captain Nelson, who used the prisoners with a great deal of hu- manity. Rivington's Gazette, of March 8, '80, thus chronicles the destruction of this vessel : "Last Sunday afternoon, the 'Good Hope' prison-ship, lying in the Wallebocht Bay, was entirely consumed, after having been wilfully set on fire by a Connecticut man, named Woodbury, who confessed the fact. He, with others of the incendiaries, are removed to the Provost. The prisoners let each other down from the port-holes and decks into the water." The English Commissary, Sproat, writ- ing to the American Commissary, Skinner, in February, 1781, says of this vessel : " Carpenters ran a bulkhead across the prison-ship Good Hope; the officers berthed abaft and the men before this partition. Two excellent large stoves were erected, one for the officers, another for the men. The hospital-ship was equipped in the same man- ner, and every sick or wounded person had a cradle, bedding, surgeons. In this com- fortable situation did the prisoners remain till March 5, 1780, when they wilfully burned the best prison-ship in the world (!) The perpetrators were not hanged, but ordered to the Provost. The ship lay in the Wallabocht, near a number of transports, whose people were so alert in snatching the prisoners from the flames, that but two out of some hundreds were missing. They were put in the nearest ship, the Woodlands, where they remained a short time, till the ships Stromboli and Scorpion were got ready."
1 The STROMBOLI was originally a fire-ship, and, like the Scorpion, was present at the siege of Quebec, in 1759. She came out here at the commencement of the Revolution, in company with the Jersey, in Commodore Hotham's fleet. She was commanded, when a prison-ship, from August 21st to December 10th, 1780, by Jeremiah Downer, and never had less than one hundred and fifty prisoners, and oftener over two hundred, on board. She was advertised for sale, December 6th, 1780 (in which advertisement she was still mentioned as a fire-ship), but no purchaser appeared.
2 The SCORPION was originally a sloop-of-war of four guns, and appears in the list of the navy as early as 1756. She was in the fleet, under Admiral Saunders, at the reduc- tion of Quebec, in 1759 ; came out here again at the commencement of the Revolu- tionary War, and formed one of Sir George Collier's fleet, which destroyed the towns of Fairfield, Norwalk, and Greenwich, Conn., in 1779. In 1780, she became a prison- hulk, and was anchored in the North River. Philip Freneau, who, with some three hundred others, was confined in her, has preserved, in poetry, an interesting and vivid picture of the sufferings of himself and fellow-prisoners :
" Thou, Scorpion, fatal to thy crowded throng, Dire theme of horror and Plutonian song,
336
HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.
ships.' Many other old hulks-the "Old Jersey," the "John,"" the "Falmouth,"" the "Chatham," the " Kitty," the "Frederick,"‘ the "Glasgow," the "Woodlands," the "Scheldt," and the "Clyde," were also converted into prison-ships.
Of all these, the "OLD JERSEY," or the " HELL," as she was called, from the large number confined in her-often more than a thousand at a time-and the terrible sufferings which they there endured, has
Requir'st my lay-thy sultry decks I know, And all the torments that exist below ! The briny waves that Hudson's bosom fills Drain'd through her bottom in a thousand rills ; Rotten and old, replete with sighs and groans, Scarce on the waters she sustain'd her bones ; Here, doomed to toil, or founder in the tide, At the moist pumps incessantly we plied ; Here doomed to starve, like famish'd dogs, we tore The scant allowance that our tyrants bore."
In December, 1780, her hull was advertised for sale by the naval storekeeper at New York, but was not purchased.
1 The HUNTER was originally a sloop-of-war. She was advertised for sale in Decem- ber, 1780, but found no purchaser. Captain Dring (see his Narrative, p. 71) thinks she was mainly used as a store-ship and medical depot.
2 Alexander Coffin, who was a prisoner in the JOHN, says (Hist. Martyrs, 32) that the treatment of the prisoners there "was much worse than on board the Jersey. We were subjected to every insult, every injury, and every abuse that the fertile genius of the British officers could invent and inflict. For more than a month, we were obliged to eat our scanty allowance, bad as it was, without cooking, as no fire was allowed."
3 "I am now a prisoner on board the FALMOUTH, in New York, a place the most dreadful ; we are confined so that we have not room even to lie down all at once to sleep. It is the most horrible, cursed hole, that can be thought of. I was sick and longed for some small-beer, while I lay unpitied at death's door with a putrid fever, and, though I had money, I was not permitted to send for it. I offered repeatedly a hard dollar for a pint. The wretch who went forward and backwark would not oblige me. I am just able to creep about. Four prisoners have escaped from this ship. One having, as by accident, thrown his hat overboard, begged leave to go after it in a small boat, which lay alongside. A sentinel, with only his side-arms on, got into the boat. Having reached the hat, they secured the sentinel and made for the Jersey shore, though several armed boats pursued, and shot was fired from the shipping." -- Conn. Gazette, May 25, '80.
4 Sherburne, who was a patient on the FREDERICK hospital-ship, in January, 1783, says that it " was very much crowded ; so that two men were obliged to lie in one bunk." He and his bunk-mate were " obliged, occasionally, to lay athwart each other, for want of room," and the former finally died, stretched across Sherburne. He says " I have seen seven dead men drawn out and piled together on the lower hatchway, who had died in one night on board the Frederick."
5 Andros (p. 12) says : " When I first became an inmate of this abode of suffering, despair, and death, there were about four hundred prisoners on board, but in a short
61
THE "OLD JERSEY" PRISON-SHIP
(Used, by permission, from DAWSON's edition of DRING'S "Old Jersey Captive ")
Page 337.
EXTERIOR VIEW OF THE "OLD JERSEY."
1. The Flag-staff, which was seldom used, and only for signals.
2. A canvas awning or tent, used by the guards in warm weather.
3. The Quarter-deck, with its barricade about ten feet high, with a door and loop- holes on each side.
4. The Ship's Officers' Cabin, under the Quarter-deck.
5. Accommodation-ladder, on the starboard side, for the use of the ship's officers.
6. The Steerage, occupied by the sailors belonging to the ship.
7. The Cook-room for the ship's crew and guards.
8. The Sutler's room, where articles were sold to the prisoners, and delivered to them through an opening in the bulkhead.
9. The Upper-deck and Spar-deck, where the prisoners were occasionally allowed to walk.
10. The Gangway ladder, on the larboard side, for the prisoners.
11. The Derrick, on the starboard side, for taking in water, etc., etc.
12. The Galley, or Great Copper, under the forecastle, where the provisions were cooked for the prisoners.
13. The Gun-room, occupied by those prisoners who were officers.
14, 15. Hatch ways leading below, where the prisoners were confined.
17, 18. Between-decks, where the prisoners were confined at night.
19. The Bowsprit.
20. Chain cables, by which the ship was moored.
337
HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.
won a terrible pre-eminence in the sad history of the prison-ships, of which, indeed, her name has become the synonym. She was originally a fourth-rate sixty-gun ship of the British navy, was built in 1736, and achieved a long and honorable career ;1 but, in 1776, being unfit for further active service, was ordered to New York, as a hospital-ship. In this capacity she remained, in the East River, nearly opposite " Fly Market," until the winter of 1779-80, when she was converted into a prison-ship. For this purpose she was stripped of all her spars, except the bowsprit, a derrick for taking in supplies, and the flagstaff at her stern ; her rudder was unhung, and her figure- head removed to decorate some other vessel. Her portholes were closed and securely fastened, and their places supplied by two tiers of small holes, each about twenty inches square, and guarded by two strong bars of iron, crossing at right angles, cut through her sides, for the admission of air. These, however, while they " admitted the light by day, and served as breathing-holes at night," by no means furnished that free circulation of air between the decks, which was so imperatively necessary to the health and comfort of the prisoners.
Thus stripped of every thing which constitutes the pride and beauty of a ship, this old hulk, whose unsightly exterior seemed almost to foreshadow the scenes of misery, despair, and death which reigned within, was removed to the solitary and unfrequented Wallabout, where she was moored with chain-cables, nearly opposite the mouth of Remsen's mill-race, and about twenty rods from the shore.
The appearance of the OLD JERSEY, as she lay in the Wallabocht, is thus graphically described by Captain Dring.' Leaving New York, together with one hundred and thirty prisoners, brought in
time they amounted to twelve hundred." This was in 1781. Dring says (p. 69) : "During my confinement, in the summer of 1782, the average number of prisoners on board the Jersey was about one thousand." Alexander Coffin (Hist. of Martyrs, p. 29, 32) states that during his first captivity on the Jersey, in 1782, he found about one thousand one hundred American prisoners ; and on his second imprisonment, in Feb- ruary, 1783, he found "more prisoners than he left, though but very few of my former fellow-prisoners. Some of them had got away, but the greater part had paid the debt of nature."
1 The complete history of the JERSEY has been given by H. B. Dawson, in his edition of Dring's Prison-ship Recollections, pp. 196-198; and by Charles I. Bushnell, in his notes to Adventures of Christopher Hawkins, pp. 202-214.
2 Dring's Narrative, p. 26.
22
338
HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.
by the British ship Belisarius, he proceeded to the place of their imprisonment, under the charge of the notorious David Sproat, Commissary of Prisoners. "We at length doubled a point," he says, " and came in view of the Wallabout, where lay before us the black hulk of the OLD JERSEY, with her satellites, the three hospital- ships, to which Sproat pointed in an exulting manner, and said, 'There, rebels, there is the cage for you' * * As he spoke, my eye was instantly turned from the dreaded hulk ; but a single glance had shown us a multitude of human beings moving upon her upper deck. It was then nearly sunset, and before we were alongside, every man, except the sentinels on the gangway, had disappeared. Previous to their being sent below, some of the prisoners, seeing us approaching, waved their hats, as if they would say, approach us not; and we soon found fearful reason for the warning." While waiting along- side for orders, some of the prisoners, whose features they could not see, on account of the increasing darkness, addressed them through the air-holes which we have described. After some questions as to whence they came, and concerning their capture, one of the prison- ers remarked "that it was a lamentable thing to see so many young men, in full strength, with the flush of health upon their counte- nances, about to enter that infernal place of abode. 'Death,' he said, 'had no relish for such skeleton carcases as we are ; but he will now have a feast upon you fresh comers.'" The new-comers were registered and sent below ; but the intolerable heat and foul air rendered sleep impossible ; and, when they sought the air-holes, in order to gain one breath of exterior air, they found them occupied by others, who seemed to be justified, by the law of self-preservation, in keeping possession, and who could not be induced, by any amount of persuasion, to relinquish their places even for a moment. Disap- pointed in this, and shocked by the curses and imprecations of those who were lying upon the crowded deck, and whom they had dis- turbed in passing over them, they were obliged to sit down in this stifling and nauseous atmosphere, which almost deprived them of sense and even of life, and wait for the coming morning. But dawn brought to their eyes only the vision of "a crowd of strange and unknown forms, with the lines of death and famine upon their faces " -. a " pale and meagre throng," who, at eight o'clock, were
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PLAN OF THE UPPER DECK, BETWEEN DECKS.
1. The Hatchway-ladder, leading to the lower deck, railed round on three sides.
2. The Steward's room, from which the prisoners received their daily allowance through an opening in the partition.
3. The Gun-room, occupied by those prisoners who were officers.
4. Door of the Gun-room.
5, 6, 7, 8. The arrangement of the prisoners' chests and boxes, which were ranged along, about ten feet from the sides of the ship, leaving a vacant space, where the messes assembled.
9, 10. The middle of the deck, where many of the prisoners' hammocks were hung at night, but always taken down in the morning. to afford room for walking.
11. Bunks on the larboard side of the deck, for the reception of the sick.
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1. Cabin.
2. Steerage.
3. Cook-room.
4. Sutler's room
5, 6. Gangways.
7. The Booms.
8. The Galley.
9, 10. The Cook's quarters.
11. The Gangway-ladder.
12. The Officers' Ladder.
13. Working-party.
14. The Barricade.
000. Store-Rooms.
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339
HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.
permitted to go upon deck, "to view for a few moments the morning sun, and then to descend again, to pass another day of misery and wretchedness."
" On every side, dire objects met the sight, And pallid forms, and murders of the night."
Dring gives the following minute description of the interior accommodations of the "Jersey" : "The quarter-deck covered about one-fourth part of the upper deck from the stern, and the forecastle extended from the stern about one-eighth part the length of the upper deck. Sentinels were stationed at the gangways on each side of the upper deck, leading from the quarter-deck to the forecastle. These gangways were about five feet wide, and here the prisoners were al- lowed to pass and repass. The intermediate space from the bulk- head of the quarter-deck to the forecastle was filled with long spars or booms, and called the spar-deck. The temporary covering afforded by the spar-deck was of the greatest benefit to the prisoners, as it served to shield us from the rain and the scorching rays of the sun. The spar-deck was also the only place where we were allowed to walk, and was therefore continually crowded through the day by those of the prisoners who were upon deck. Owing to the great number of the prisoners, and the small space afforded us by the spar-deck, it was our custom to walk in platoons, each facing the same way, and turning at the same time. The derrick, for taking in wood, water, etc., stood on the starboard side of the spar-deck. On the larboard side of the ship was placed the accommodation ladder, leading from the gangway to the water. At the head of this ladder a sentinel was also stationed. The head of the accommodation ladder was near the door of the barricade, which extended across the front of the quarter-deck, and projected a few feet beyond the sides of the ship. The barricade was about ten feet high, and was pierced with loop-holes for musketry, in order that the prisoners might be fired on from behind it, if occasion should require. The regular crew of the ship consisted of a captain, two mates, a steward, a cook, and about twelve sailors. The crew of the ship had no communication whatever with the prisoners. No prisoner was ever permitted to pass through the barricade door, except when it was required that the messes should be examined and regulated; in which case, each
340
HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.
man had to pass through, and go down between decks, and there re- main until the examination was completed. * * On the two decks below, where we were confined at night, our chests, boxes, and bags were arranged in two lines along the deck, about ten feet distant from the two sides of the ship; thus leaving as wide a space unencum- bered in the middle part of each deck, fore and aft, as our crowded situation would admit. Between these tiers of chests, etc., and the sides of the ship, was the place where the different messes assem- bled ; and some of the messes were also separated from their neigh- bors by a temporary partition of chests, etc. Some individuals of the different messes usually slept on the chests, in order to preserve their contents from being plundered during the night."
At night, the spaces in the middle of the deck were much encum- bered with hammocks, but these were always removed in the morn- ing. The extreme after-part of the ship, between decks, which was called "the gun-room," was appropriated by the captive officers to their own use; while the lowest deck was assigned to the French and Spanish prisoners, who were treated with even more cruelty, if possible, than the Americans.1
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