1900: The Brave and Brawny Black Cats of the Brooklyn Navy Yard » HMS Jersey Ship
After New York fell to the British during the Revolutionary War, many Continental soldiers who had been taken prisoner were transferred to ships anchored in Wallabout Bay, like the HMS Jersey, depicted here. The over-crowding and squalid conditions on these ships led to about 11,000 deaths — many bodies were thrown overboard or buried in mass graves near Remsen’s Mill and in the mud flats along the bay. Dead bodies were often washed out of these graves by the tides.
Interior of HMS Jersey prison ship, American Revolution, Wallabout Bay, Brooklyn
