Support just keeps on growing!

In the last week we have received two major expressions of support for the development of Marylander Park. First, the Red Hook Veterans of Foreign Wars Post has stated its support for locating the graves and commemorating some of America’s first war dead. See their letter at the Robertson website as part of our proposal. Second, the Brooklyn delegation of the NYS Assembly has sent a support letter to Governor Cuomo asking him to work on the project. There are nineteen members of the delegation. To put this is perspective, Kings County (Brooklyn) is the third most populous county in the nation, after Los Angeles (which includes the entire city of four million), and Cook, in Illinois, which is Chicago plus many of its suburbs. This is also on the website at: http://gaz.jrshelby.com/md-mass-grave.htm. More is expected soon!

Standard

Art Exhibition on Prison Ship Martyrs

There is a series of sketches being displayed at St. Francis College (Remsen between Court and Clinton in Bklyn Heights) that concentrates on impressions of the Battle of Brooklyn, the Prison Ship Martyrs in Wallabout Bay (Bklyn Navy Yard) and some civil war motifs inspired by the Grand Army Plaza’s arch. Members of the Society of Old Brooklynites and the Brooklyn Preservation Council augmented the artist’s talk by explaining how the Marylanders had kept the escapte route open to the Americans by relentlessly enaging the British in a vicious battle for the Old Stone House. The works are by Howard Skrill. A re-enactor recommended by Kim Maier of the Old Stone House read an essay on the artist’s impressions of the prison ship martyrs’ treatments and deaths. The art display is open to all, through end of March.

Standard

In an otherwise positive article in the Metro section of the Sunday, January 20 New York Times, featuring the Old Stone House, Kimberley Maier, Director of the house, referring to the Marylander Burial site at Eighth Street and Third Avenue, says “there is no primary source to confirm it.”

This is disingenuous at best. She is familiar with the evidence and chooses to disbelieve and ignore it because she considers efforts to commemorate the Marylanders where they were buried competitive with the house, rather than complementary, which they are. What “primary evidence” does she think there should be? British burial records for enemy dead?
New York State has had a different opinion for a very long time. Two state signs at the Joseph Rawley American Legion post on Ninth Street between Third and Fourth Avenues, one from 1952 and another installed in 2002, state that the Marylanders are buried there.
The evidence that the Marylanders were buried in the area is strong. Dr. Nicholas Ryan, a Brooklyn Heights physician, said in 1956 that in the 1890s his father, a building contractor, found “the bones of some thirty bodies in regular, or military order,” in the course of digging cellars for three apartment buildings near the site, at the southeast corner of Seventh Street and Third Avenue.
Henry Wildhack, Jr. wrote a letter to Borough Historian James Kelly on February 9, 1957, to the effect that in 1905, his father bought the property at 429 and 431 Third Avenue, in the middle of the block between Seventh and Eighth Streets, for a coal yard, and the Marylanders’ burial trenches were then still visible. He drew a site sketch which shows them running diagonally toward the southeast.
In fact, as a child he and his friends, whom he named, “used to dig around the marked spot (on a site plan) frequently, and it was nothing new for us to find bones and various shapes and pieces of metal (sic).” This letter, discovered by the writer in 2013, is available at the Brooklyn Historical Society, and is primary source evidence..
It is in fact remarkable that remains of the Marylanders survived into the twentieth century when development began in the 1850s with the opening of Third Avenue.
This evidence convinces objective observers that the Marylanders were buried there and that the site should be investigated and that these heroes who saved the Revolution by sacrificing their lives to cover the retreat of the Continental Army towards its successful withdrawal from Brooklyn Ferry (now Fulton Ferry Landing) deserve to be honored. The Times agreed in 2012 and published an article in the Metro section on these efforts on August 26 when then governor Martin O’Malley of Maryland visited the Rawley Post. A site in the area just east of the Rawley Post is available for archaeological search and commemoration as a community and ecological park.

Standard

Election Fallout

This year’s election had significant impact for our efforts, both positive and possibly negative. Our friend Jo Anne Simon has been elected to the state Assembly (the site is in her district), and Jesse Hamilton will be the new site state Senator on January 1. Jesse’s seat was vacant due to Eric Adams becoming Borough President on 1/1/14, while Jo Anne’s was inactive due to the pending departure of Joan Millman. This will be very helpful since action may depend on the state legislature.
Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, who led the effort from Annapolis, was term limited, and the new incumbent will be Republican Larry Hogan. While Republicans have historically been interested in military affairs and Revolution commemoration, we will have to begin work on developing a relationship with him. He takes office in January.

Standard

Battle Pass and the Porte Road. I have altered my Battle Pass paper because of Bill Parry’s research which indicates that Prospect Park construction in 1866 was on the Long Meadow rather than the East Drive at Battle Pass, meaning the “mingled balls and bones” reported found in the Park Commissioners’ Annual Report for that year “where once the tide of battle surged” in 1776 was along what had been the Porte Road. This is consistent with our year 2000 archaeological survey by electrical resistivity which indicated the existence of burial trenches under the Long Meadow where the Porte Road had been.

Standard

Battle Week

Went to the Rawley American Legion post Sunday afternoon for the annual Marylander observance. We read the names of the known dead and missing. Very moving and saw many old and new friends. Kim Maier, who organized the event for the Old Stone House, was very gracious. Saturday is the Prison Ship Martyrs event in Fort Greene Park sponsored by the Society of Old Brooklynites, of which I am one, at 10 AM. The keynoter will be Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, and Boro President Eric Adams will add a few words. There will be musical and dance events also. I may comment on the history of the martyrs, the site’s forts, martyr commemoration and the column we now have. Sunday is a re-enactment of the battle at Green-Wood Cemetery from 10AM to 2PM followed by a ceremony on Battle Hill at 2PM.

Standard

Welcome!

Welcome to the new blog about the Battle of Brooklyn (Long Island), its commemoration, and the efforts of the Brooklyn Preservation Council and others to commemorate it, and especially the Maryland Heroes, and the development of a memorial park for them between Eighth and Ninth Streets and Fourth and Fifth Avenues.

We will announce news, answer questions and solicit research information.  The one thing we ask is that those who are not sympathetic to this effort post their comments elsewhere.

As before, much of our info is posted at http://gaz.jrshelby.com/md-mass-grave.htm.

Standard