Remsen's dooryard,
was a place of graves; as were also the slope of the hill near the
house; the shore, from Mr. Remsen's barn along the mill-pond to
Rappelye's farm; and the sandy island between the flood-gates and the
mill-dam, while a few were buried on the shore on the east side of the
Wallabout.
"Thus did Death reign here, from 1776 (when the Whitby prison ship was
first moored in the Wallabout) until the peace. The whole Wallabout
was a sickly place during the war. The atmosphere seemed to be charged
with foul air: from the prison ships; and with the effluvia of dead
bodies washed out of their graves by the tides. * * * More than half
of the dead buried on the outer side of the mill-pond, were washed out
by the waves at high tide, during northeasterly winds.
"The bodies of the dead lay exposed along the beach, drying and
bleaching in the sun, and whitening the shores, till reached by the
power of a succeeding storm, as the agitated waves receded, the bones
receded with them into the deep, where they remain, unseen by man,
awaiting the resurrection morn, when, again joined to the spirits to
which they belong, they will meet their persecuting murderers at the
bar of the Supreme Judge of the quick and the dead.
"We have ourselves," General Johnson continues, "examined many of the
skulls lying on the shore. From the teeth they appeared to be the
remains of men in the prime of life.
Pages:
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270