Wallabout Bay

Wallabout Bay

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 Corlear's Hook on Manhattan to the west, across the East River. It is now the site of the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

History

The Wallabout became the first spot on Long Island settled by Europeans in May 1624, when several families of French-speaking Walloons opted to build homes there, having come across on the Dutch ship "New Netherland".

Starting in 1637, the Wallabout served as the landing site of the first ferry across the East River from lower Manhattan. Cornelis Dircksen, the lone ferryman, farmed plots on both sides -- near to where the Brooklyn Bridge now spans -- to best employ his time on either bank of the river.

A feudal system of land tenure was suspended in 1638, and the small settlement became a colony of freeholders: after a ten-year period of paying the Dutch East India Company a tenth of their yield, colonists would own their farmland. ("Bruijk" means "to use" and "leen" means "loan" in Dutch.) The humble "Bruykleen Colonie" expanded out from the Wallabout to become the city of Brooklyn.

The area was the site where the infamous British prison ships moored during the American Revolutionary War (most horrific 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 from every battle of the war combined. Though their corpses were buried on the eroding shore in shallow graves, or often simply thrown overboard, local women collected remains when they became exposed or washed onshore and many more were discovered with the development of the area and expansion of piers. 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 of the famous Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Gabriel Furman, in his [http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libraryscience/30/ "Notes Geographical and Historical, relating to the Town of Brooklyn, in Kings County on Long-Island"] (1824), traces the name from the Dutch "Waal bocht" or "bay (or bight) of the Walloons", referring to the original French-speaking settlers of the local area.


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем сделать НИР

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Wallabout Bay — …   Useful english dictionary

  • Wallabout — 40°42′15.7″N 73°58′28″O / 40.704361, 73.97444 …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Prisoners in the American Revolutionary War — During the American Revolutionary War (1775 1783) the management and treatment of prisoners of war (POW) was very different from the standards of modern warfare. Modern standards, as outlined in the Geneva Conventions, expect captives to be held… …   Wikipedia

  • Prison ship — The forbidding form of the beached convict ship HMS Discovery at Deptford. Launched as a 10 gun sloop at Rotherhithe in 1789, the ship served as a convict hulk from 1818 until scrapped in February 1834.[1] …   Wikipedia

  • Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument — Coordinates: 40°41′30″N 73°58′32″W / 40.6918°N 73.9756°W / 40.6918; 73.9756 …   Wikipedia

  • HMS Jersey (1736) — HMS Jersey was a 60 gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built to the 1733 proposals of the 1719 Establishment of dimensions at Plymouth Dockyard, and launched on 14 June 1736. She is perhaps most noted for her service as a prison… …   Wikipedia

  • History of Brooklyn — Currier and Ives print of Brooklyn, 1879. The history of Brooklyn, a present day borough of New York City, spans more than 350 years. The settlement began in the 17th century as the small Dutch founded town of Breuckelen on the East River shore… …   Wikipedia

  • American Revolutionary War — Infobox Military Conflict conflict=American Revolutionary War caption=Clockwise from top left: Battle of Bunker Hill, Death of Montgomery at Quebec, Battle of Cowpens, Moonlight Battle date=1775–1783 place=Eastern Seabord, Central Canada, Hudson… …   Wikipedia

  • Clark H. Woodward — Clark Howell Woodward RADM Clark H. Woodward in 1919 Nickname Woody …   Wikipedia

  • Port of New York and New Jersey — The Port of New York and New Jersey comprises the waterways in the estuary of the New York Newark metropolitan area with a port district encompassing an approximate area within a 25 mile (40 km) radius of the Statue of Liberty National… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”