Jonathan Carman was born in 1748. He served in the Revolutionary War with Colonel Van Schaick's First Regiment of the New York Continental Line.  He was captured by the British at the Battle of Long Island, and was held prisoner in the Prison Ships at the Wallabout.  These ships were actually the rotten hulls of ships no longer in use and were deplorable in all aspects from their lack of sanitary facilities to the rats which ran freely through the ship.  During an attempt to escape, he was shot and killed and buried in a shallow grave nearby on the shore.  In later years the his remains, along with others of similar circumstance, were gathered up and placed in a vault as a monument in the old Brooklyn Navy Yard. Later again permanent memorial was built at Fort Greene, Brooklyn, New York which is his final resting place.

His great-nephew, also named Jonathan Carman, would die in the Civil War at the Battle of Chattanooga.

07/02/2006