Wallabout Bay

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Wallabout Bay is small body of water in Upper New York Bay along the northwest shore of the New York City borough of Brooklyn, between the present Williamsburg and Manhattan bridges, opposite Corlears Hook on Manhattan to the west, across the East River.

[edit] History

The area was the site where the horrific British prison ships were moored during the American Revolutionary War (most infamous of which was the HMS Jersey), from about 1776-1783. Over 10,000 soldiers and sailors died due to deliberate neglect on these rotting hulks - more American deaths than resulted from every battle of the war, combined. Though the corpses were buried on the eroding shore in shallow graves, or often just thrown overboard, local women collected remains when they became exposed or washed onshore. The nearby Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument in Fort Greene Park houses remains of the prisoners and overlooks the site of their torment and death.

The bay eventually became the site for the famous Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Gabriel Furman, in his Notes Geographical and Historical, relating to the Town of Brooklyn, in Kings County on Long-Island (1824), traces the name from the Dutch "Walloon boght" or "bay (or bight) of the Walloons", referring to the French-speaking settlers of the local area.