[1]. From Mr. Crimmins’ recent book, Irish-American Historical Miscellany. (New York, 1905.)

The horrors of the Jersey prison ship have often been told. The Jersey and other hulks, used by the British, were anchored near the Wallabout, Brooklyn, N. Y. Many thousands of prisoners perished on these ships by cruelty and disease. The conduct of their captors was inhumane and dastardly. It is not surprising, therefore, that the mortality was so great.

William Burke, a prisoner aboard the Jersey, at one time, has left a record in which he states that he was confined on the ship fourteen months, and that he saw, among other cruelties, many American prisoners put to death by the bayonet. This cruel treatment was never relaxed by the English or Scots, but sometimes the more humane Hessians evinced pity for the unfortunate sufferers. Burke says:

“During that period, among other cruelties which were committed, I have known many of the American prisoners put to death by the bayonet: in particular, I well recollect, that it was the custom on board the ship for but one prisoner at a time to be admitted on deck at night, besides the guards or sentinels. One night, while the prisoners were many of them assembled at the grate at the hatchway, for the purpose of obtaining fresh air, and waiting their turn to go on deck, one of the sentinels thrust his bayonet down among them, and in the morning twenty-five of them were found wounded, and stuck in the head, and dead of the wounds they had thus received. I further recollect that this was the case several mornings, when sometimes five, sometimes six, and sometimes eight or ten, were found dead by the same means.”

It is estimated that over eleven thousand prisoners perished, from all causes, aboard these ships during the Revolution. The dead would be carried ashore and carelessly buried in the sand, their bodies, in many cases, to be uncovered by returning tides. For many years after, the bones of these martyrs were visible along the shore.

About 1801, John Jackson sold to the United States, through Francis Childs, a middleman, forty acres of the Wallabout for $40,000. About this time large numbers of Irish refugees arrived and located in New York and Brooklyn. They bought some land of Jackson at, or near, the Wallabout, the settlement being named “Vinegar Hill.”

During the summer of 1805, a Mr. Aycrigg, shocked at the exposed remains of the prison-ship victims, made a contract with an Irishman residing at Wallabout, to “collect all the human bones as far as may be without digging,” and deliver the same to him. This was done, and these bones were a portion of those interred in the vault patriotically erected by Tammany.

Among the patriots imprisoned aboard the Jersey were a great many Irish. In 1888, the Society of Old Brooklynites published a pamphlet dealing with the Jersey, and giving the names of several thousand persons who had been confined therein, many of whom perished. A copy of this pamphlet is in the possession of the New York Historical Society. From that authoritative source we have compiled the following list of patriots, bearing Irish names, who were confined on the Jersey:

Many other Irish names could be added, but sufficient have been given to establish the fact that a large number of the sons of Erin were among those who suffered the rigors of the Jersey prison ship.