366 HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.

The completion of this ceremony was followed by national salutes from the Marine Corps and the Artillery, and solemn music by the bands. Then, before the procession and some two thousand citizens gathered in a circle around the door of the Vault, JOSEPH D. FAY, Esq., a member of Tammany, pronounced a brilliant and eloquent oration over “the tomb of the Patriots.” At the conclusion of his address, the procession returned to the place of rendezvous at the ferry, where they formed a circle around the Liberty-pole,1 near the market, gave three cheers, and dispersed to their homes.

Upon the completion of the vault, the remains were removed thereto on the 26th day of May following, with a civic and military pageant unprecedented for splendor and impressiveness, and which was witnessed, as then estimated, by upwards of thirty thousand persons? At the head of this procession rode a trumpeter, mounted on a black horse, and dressed in black relieved with red, wearing a helmet ornamented with flowing black and red feathers, and bearing in his right hand a trumpet, from which was suspended a black silk flag, edged with red and black crape, bearing the following motto, in letters of gold:

MORTALS AVAUNT!
11,500
SPIRITS OF THE MARTYRED BRAVE
APPROACH THE TOMB OF HONOUR, OF GLORY,
OF VIRTUOUS PATRIOTISM!

He was followed by the Chief Herald, in full military dress, and

1 This Liberty-pole stood at the foot of Fulton street, Brooklyn, near the old market, which finally came to be regarded as a nuisance, and was torn down one night, In 1814, by a party of young men. The site of the market is now marked by the flag-staff which stands in the middle of Fulton street, near the Ferry-house.

2 A full account of these ceremonies to given in a now rare volume, entitled, “An Account of the Interment of the Remains of 11,500 American Seamen, Soldiers, and Citizens, who fell victims to the cruelties of the British, on board their prison-ships at the Wallabout, during the American Revolution, with a description of the grand and solemn funeral procession, which took place on the 26th May, 1808, and an oration delivered at the Tomb of the Patriots by Benjamin DeWitt, M. D., a member of the Tammany Society, or Columbian Order; compiled by the Wallabout Committee. New York: Printed by Frank, White & Co. 1808: 96 pages, 12mo.” A very elegant edition, limited to one hundred and fifteen copies, was issued from the “Bradstreet Press,” New York, in 1865, with notes and historical appendix, by the author of this history.