United States or Cuba ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The day's work would be pleasantly broken up by frequent inquiries from the general manager's office. Every now and then a fellow-worker would take a moment from his duties to ask Wallabout Smith how his lawn was getting on. Sometimes he would be summoned to the telephone, only to learn that Central had called the wrong number. Lunch was a matter of a few minutes.
It was reported at the time, that the prisoners had fired their prison, which, if true, proves that they preferred death, even by fire, to the lingering sufferings of pestilence and starvation. In the month of February, 1778, the remaining prison ship was burnt, when the prisoners were removed from her to the ships then wintering in the Wallabout."
Who remembers the old places as they were? Who remembers the old citizens of that time? Among the former were Smith & Wood's, Coe Downing's, and other public houses at the ferry, the old Ferry itself, Love lane, the Heights as then, the Wallabout with the wooden bridge, and the road out beyond Fulton street to the old toll-gate.
We may, therefore, infer that about that number, 11,500, perished in the Prison ships. "A large transport called the Whitby, was the first prison ship anchored in the Wallabout. She was moored near Remsen's Mill about the 20th of October, 1776, and was then crowded with prisoners. Many landsmen were prisoners on board this vessel: she was said to be the most sickly of all the prison ships.
Found the area abundantly supplied with palmellae, Gemiasma rubra, verdans, and Protuberans lamella, even where there was no incrustation or green mould. Made very many examinations, always finding the plants and spores, giving up only when both of us were overcome with the heat. Observation 34. August, 1881. Visited the Wallabout; found it filled up with earth. August 17.
The experiment of living upon a basis of comradeship with one's children which we see so frequently recommended was not a success in the case of Wallabout Smith. "Although my boys are fond of me," he once told a reporter, "they usually regard my presence as a bore.
Remsen's dock, become filled with graves in the course of two months: and before the first of May, 1777, the ravine alluded to was itself occupied in the same way. "In the month of May, 1777, two large ships were anchored in the Wallabout, when the prisoners were transferred from the Whitby to them. These vessels were also very sickly from the causes before stated.
"How often did we afterwards lament that we had ever lived to see this hour? How often did we regret that we were not in our wretched prison ship again, or buried in the sand at the Wallabout!" There were twelve of the prisoners who left the Jersey with Ebenezer Fox.
Fame came rapidly after this. The college professors repeated what the former President said. The newspapers repeated what the college professors said. The playwrights repeated what the newspapers said. The pulpit repeated what the playwrights said. Interviewers descended upon Wallabout Smith.
Every day at least a dozen corpses were dragged out and pitched like dead dogs into the ditches and morasses beyond the city. Escapes, deaths, and exchange at last thinned the ranks. Hundreds left names and records on the walls." "In 1778 the hulks of decaying ships were moored in the Wallabout.
Word Of The Day