After the Battle of Brooklyn in 1776 — the first major battle of the American Revolution — nearly 12,000 men and women of diverse nationalities were captured by the British in the aftermath of the Continental Army's retreat. Detained on prison ships in Wallabout Bay, these patriots were subjected to dire conditions, succumbing to disease, fatigue, and malnourishment.  

As captives on the Prison Ships perished, their bodies thrown into the East River and left to the tide, residents of the village of Brooklyn buried the remains of their neighbors, friends, and family in shallow graves along the shore near what would become the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Though the bodies were eventually transferred to a tomb on the property of a local farmer, widespread sentiment persisted amongst the villagers to find a proper, public resting place more appropriately commemorating a spectacular tribute to American Independence. In 1846, then-editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle Walt Whitman began to advocate for the creation of a public park and crypt for the Martyrs on the grounds of old Fort Greene. 

In 1847, the City of Brooklyn designated Washington Park as Brooklyn's first official park. Twenty years later, the famed architectural team of Olmsted and Vaux was commissioned to prepare a plan for the grounds. Both the landscape we see today and a crypt built into the ancient hillside were included in the plan designed to highlight the site's natural topography and vistas.

Though Olmsted and Vaux had always intended for a formal monument to the Prison Ship Martyrs to be constructed in Washington Park, lack of funding interrupted its realization. In 1908, the architects McKim, Mead, and White completed the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument — a 149 foot Doric column crowned with a 20 foot bronze urn — as well as a plaza and stairs leading up to it for the recently renamed Fort Greene Park, thus completing the vision of a space appropriately commemorating Brooklyn's contribution to the American odyssey.