Wallabout Bay
| Wallabout Bay | ||
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 Brooklyn 1766 with Wallabout Bay at the top right |
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| Waters | East River | |
| Land mass | long Island | |
| Geographical location | 40 ° 42 ′ 16 ″ N , 73 ° 58 ′ 28 ″ W | |
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| width | approx. 400 m | |
| depth | approx. 700 m | |
The Wall About Bay is a bay of the East River in York New District Brooklyn . It is best known as the location of the New York Naval Shipyard .
Settlement and use
Wallabout Bay was first settled by European immigrants around 1630 , when Walloon settlers in the colony of Nieuw Nederland settled here. Joris Jansen Rapelje had acquired the area from the Lenni Lenape in exchange for trade goods. After the cession to the English crown in the Peace of Breda , the area passed to the English crown in 1667, which was finally confirmed in the Peace of Westminster 1674.
The bay was used during the American War of Independence (1775–1783) by the British as a prison for prisoners of war who were locked up in prison ships here. Over 10,000 prisoners are said to have been held here, and dead prisoners were thrown overboard.
After the United States acquired the area in 1801, ships for the United States Navy were built here from 1806 . During the drainage and development of the area, several bodies of the prisoners of war were unearthed, in their honor the Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument was erected in nearby Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn . The drainage created an island in the bay; after the shipyard was closed in 1966, the channel between the island and the mainland was filled in. The facilities on the island were still used for the construction of civil ships, the rest of the area was expanded into an industrial area providing work for several thousand people.