Association for Erecting a Monument to the 11,500 Martyrs of the British Prison Ships bylaws and minutes

During the Revolutionary War, roughly 11,500 Americans from all thirteen colonies died in British prison ships anchored in the East River near Brooklyn. In 1808, the remains of the prison ship martyrs were buried in a tomb on Jackson Street near the Brooklyn Navy Yard. In the ensuing decades, several local private and municipal organizations campaigned for the establishment of a permanent monument in Brooklyn to honor the prison ship martyrs. The Brooklyn-based Association for Erecting a Monument to the 11,500 Martyrs of the British Prison Ships, organized circa 1852, was one such organization. Members of the Association included such prominent Brooklyn residents as Alden J. Spooner, Henry C. Murphy, Jesse C. Smith, and H.B. Duryea. Efforts of the Association and similar organizations led to the building of a crypt in Brooklyn's Washington Park (later Fort Greene Park), to which the martyrs' remains were relocated in 1873. A permanent monument, known as the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument, was constructed at the site of the crypt in 1908.