HISTORY OF BROOKLYN. 365

citizens in every part of the Union, and in various ways strove to arouse a national interest in the sacred trust which had been confided to their care. * In this they were eminently successful, and THE NATION, aroused by their appeal, touched by the memories which clustered around those martyr graves amid the sand-hills of the Wallabout, and shamed, it may be, by a consciousness of its own too great neglect, turned at last, with a quickened impulse of generous affection, towards the work of providing for those honored remains a place of final deposit.

Indeed, so unexpected was the zeal manifested by the public, and so effective were the individual exertions made in behalf of this object, that the committee were induced, at a much earlier period than they had originally contemplated, to commence the building of the vault. On Wednesday, April 13, 1808, the corner-stone was laid. The imposing military and civic procession which took place on that occasion formed at the old ferry (now Fulton ferry, Brooklyn), under the directions of Major Aycrigg, Grand Marshal of the day, and marched through Main, Sands, Bridge, York, and Jackson streets, to the vault, on Jackson street, adjoining the Navy-yard.

Arriving at the latter place, the artillery wore posted on an adjacent hill: the other parts of the procession took appropriate positions, and Benjamin Romaine, Esq., Grand Sachem of Tammany, assisted by the Wallabout Committee and the master-builders, laid the comer-stone of the vault, upon which was the following inscription:

“In the name of the Spirits of the Departed Free—Sacred to the Memory of that portion of American Seamen, Soldiers, and Citizens who Perished on board the Prison-ships of the British at the Wallabout during the Revolution.”

“This is the comer-stone of the vault erected by the Tammany Society, or Columbian Order, which contains their remains. The ground for which was bestowed by John Jackson.—Nassau Island, season of blossoms. Year of the discovery the 316th, of the institution the 19th, and of American Independence the 32d, April 6, 1808.”1

1 Jacob Vandervoort, John Jackson, Burdett Striker, Issachar Cozzens, Robert Townmud, jr., Benjamin Watson, Samuel Cowdrey, Wallabout Committee. David & William Campbell, builders.