Take the Old Stone House, for instance. Situated in Washington Park in Park Slope, the two-story house is, as the name suggests, made of stone, and played a significant role in the battle.<\/p>\n
British forces won the battle but the Americans, led by General George Washington<\/a>, won the war.<\/p>\n Father Anthony Andreassi, C.O.<\/a>, administrative vicar for the Oratory Church of St. Boniface<\/a> in Brooklyn Heights, holds a doctorate in history from Georgetown University and led The Tablet on a tour of four sites connected to the Battle of Brooklyn.<\/p>\n OLD STONE HOUSE<\/p>\n Our first stop was the Old Stone House.<\/p>\n British soldiers occupied the house, which had walls that were two-feet-thick. The British turned it into an artillery position from which they fired on the Continental Army.<\/p>\n \u201cThe patriots were incredibly outnumbered,\u201d Father Andreassi said. \u201cWhen the British ships arrived in New York, that was the largest flotilla of ships the world had ever seen up to that point.\u201d<\/p>\n According to the New York City Parks Department, which oversees the Old Stone House, a group of American soldiers known as the Maryland 400 \u2014 many of whom are believed to have been Catholic \u2014 put up a fierce fight, even wresting control of the house twice during the battle before ultimately falling to the British.<\/p>\n The house survived the war. However, in the late 19th Century, after street grading rose the level of Fourth and Fifth avenues (the avenues on either side of what is now Washington Park) only the second floor of the house remained above ground.<\/p>\n The Parks Department obtained the house in1926 and in 1934, the city completed construction of a replica of the house using some of the original stones.<\/p>\n The Old Stone House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In tribute to the bravery of the Maryland 400, a Maryland flag hangs from the front of the house.<\/p>\n PRISON SHIP MARTYRS MONUMENT<\/p>\n Joggers running through Fort Greene Park might not be aware of it, but the towering structure standing atop the park\u2019s tallest hill is a burial ground.<\/p>\n American patriots who died in British custody are interred in a crypt beneath the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument, a 149-foot-tall tower.<\/p>\n There is a tragic story behind the monument.<\/p>\n During the American Revolution, the British kept captured Americans on 20 ships floating in the waterway between the present-day Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges.<\/p>\n The conditions were \u201cunspeakably horrible,\u201d said Father Andreasi, who explained that 11,500 prisoners of war died in captivity.<\/p>\n Prisoners lived in cramped cells with sealed portholes and poor ventilation. \u201cThere was no light. The men, and some women, were forced to eat vermin-infested food,\u201d Father Andreassi said.<\/p>\n One ship, the HMS Jersey, was built to hold 400 sailors and often had 1,400 prisoners on board.<\/p>\n There was a way to win one\u2019s freedom, but most prisoners of war refused to take that route. \u201cYou could get off these ships very easily if you said you were loyal to the crown,\u201d Father Andreassi said.<\/p>\n The British threw the remains of deceased prisoners overboard or buried them in mass graves along the shoreline.<\/p>\n In 1808, the remains of some of the deceased were recovered and were re-interred in an area of what is now the Brooklyn Navy Yard.<\/p>\n The remains were undisturbed for decades. But the prison ship martyrs were not forgotten.<\/p>\n In 1873, the remains were moved again and placed to a 25-foot by 11-foot brick vault in what is now Fort Greene Park and over the next several years, a campaign was launched to create a monument to the Prison Ship Martyrs.<\/p>\n It took several years, but on Nov. 14, 1908, the monument, which boasts a 149-foot-tall Doric column topped by a giant bronze lantern, was officially dedicated.<\/p>\n President-elect William Howard Taft presided over the ceremony which was attended by 15,000 people.<\/p>\n \u201cIn a sense, it\u2019s a cemetery,\u201d Father Andreassi said.<\/p>\n BROOKLYN HEIGHTS PROMENADE<\/p>\n Our next stop was the Brooklyn Heights Promenade in Brooklyn Heights, which juts out over the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and offers a view of the harbor, the waterway that served as a lifeline for General Washington when he ordered a strategic retreat that saved the lives of thousands of his soldiers.<\/p>\n Brooklyn at the time was composed of a series of six towns that had been settled by the Dutch \u2014 Brooklyn, Bushwick, Flatbush, Flatlands, Gravesend, and New Utrecht \u2014 and the entire population numbered roughly 3,600, Father Andressi explained.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the time of the Revolution, most of the people who lived in Brooklyn were loyalists and were also Dutch speaking,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Washington, who was the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, watched the battle unfold through spy glasses (a type of telescope) from what is now the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Court Street.<\/p>\n He knew he was facing overwhelming odds, so he ordered his troops out of Brooklyn. \u201cWhat happens is that Washington secretly evacuates 9,000 soldiers across the river to Manhattan \u2014 quietly. It was bad weather. There was a lot of fog, a lot of mist. The British didn\u2019t know what was happening,\u201d Father Andreassi explained.<\/p>\n By the time General William Howe, the commander-in-chief of British forces, reached Brooklyn Heights with his troops, the Continental Army had fled.<\/p>\n \u201cWe lost the Battle of Brooklyn; we absolutely did,\u201d he said. \u201cHowever, you might say that Washington saved his troops for another day. And that really was the genius of Battle of Brooklyn.\u201d<\/p>\n GREEN-WOOD CEMETERY<\/p>\n The final stop on our tour was Green-Wood Cemetery, a 478-acre final resting place for hundreds of thousands of people. Located in Greenwood Heights, the cemetery was designated as a national historic landmark by the U.S. Department of the Interior in 2006.<\/p>\n According to the cemetery\u2019s website, 60 Revolutionary War soldiers are buried there.<\/p>\n The cemetery opened in 1840, decades after the American Revolution, but it sits on land where much of the fiercest fighting took place during the Battle of Brooklyn.<\/p>\n We stood with Father Andreassi on a hilltop known as Battle Hill, the highest natural point in Brooklyn, which is the reason it was sought after by both the British and the provided Continental Army. It provided the opportunity to secure the high ground \u2014 a vantage point from which to fire upon enemy troops.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Prison-Ship-Martyrs-Monument-from-distance.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Green-Wood-Battle-Path.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/map.jpg\")
<\/p>\n