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         The JERSEY was a British sea vessel, originally a sixty-four gun ship, dismantled (with its masts removed), and placed in the 'Wallabout,' a sheltered bay on the Long Island shore. This floating three storey structure had a cabin area under the quarter-deck for the British officers and guards and a tent on top the quarter-deck for shade in hot weather for the sailor on guard. Apart from these features and a flag-staff for signals that stood in the center of the main deck and a barricade ten foot high on the quarter-deck, the ship was stripped. This allowed for a large number of men to be held as prisoners upon her. The Jersey was moored in the Wallabout in 1780 and used as a prison there until the end of the war. There were sometimes more than a thousand men at a time crowded into her decks, and the terrible sufferings that they endured made her name notorious.

"Interior of the Old Jersey Prison Ship" by Felix O. C. Darley
Library of Congress, Washington, DC

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