The Forgotten Sailors' Cemetery

by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
Along a coast of Staten Island is the Seaman's Retreat Cemetery. It received the dead from the Seamen's Retreat which took in sick and disabled seamen starting in October 1831, and for 50 years afterward. Over 3,000 souls were buried on the land. It was obliterated in the 1960s, and for all intents and purposes no longer exists, except for some of the stories of the men laid to rest there.

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Marine Hospital c.1891

In 1882, the Marine Society bought the property, however the Seaman's Retreat continued to exist as a medical establishment until 1981, and despite being a historical landmark has been vandalized, as are so many abandoned sites.​

​In 1833, two years after the Seaman's Retreat was opened, Snug Harbor opened as a retirement home for merchant seamen. However those who died at Snug Harbor were buried in their own cemetery which was known as "Monkey Hill". It was used for burials from 1833 to 1975, and received over 7,000 mariners. During the 1980s the original gravestone were removed due to vandalism, and like the Seaman's Retreat Cemetery it is overgrown and neglected.

Review of the cemetery records of the Seamen's Retreat finds that many of the men buried there were in their twenties. Most died from disease especially tuberculosis, some from accidents and fractures and others, one could say were murdered.

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The trial for the death of Mooney, Robinson and Peterson c.1869

In March 1869, the Seamen's Retreat took in two men off the James Foster Jr. called a fever ship by the newspapers. Alfred Robinson and Thomas Peterson died soon after admittance, in what appeared to be a case of ill treatment on board the ship. They were described as having left Liverpool "strong and hearty" and were received so emaciated their skins were shriveled up like parchment. Their condition was complicated by typhus fever and scurvy.

At an inquest held into the sailors' deaths it was decided the deceased came to their death by brutal and inhuman treatment made upon them by the ship's carpenter, the boatswain and third mate Murphy.

A third sailor, James Mooney who died soon after arriving from the ship was found to have been brutalized as well. Dr. Moffatt who did the post mortem examination on Mooney found "the structure of the kidneys very much diseased which would not have occurred had not he deceased been in a very impoverished condition produced by hardship and insufficiency of suitable food".

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Ambulances on their way to Seamen's Retreat c.19th century

Dr. Feeney, house physician of the Seamen's Retreat testified that Mooney had told him that he had often been beaten by the third mate Murphy. Dr. Feeney said he believed that Mooney's immediate cause of death was "parenchymitis and nephritis of the kidneys and a remote cause via typhus fever." 

Not only did sailors die during the voyage, but three passengers as well.

Captain Armstrong of the James Foster Jr. testified that contrary to what the passengers and crew claimed, no one had been placed on a short allowance of provisions, and water was dealt out sparingly after some of the crew had bored holes in the tanks. Ironically amid the initial inquiry for the mistreatment of the men,  he died at his home in Brooklyn on March 16, 1869 from typhus fever. He was 36 years old.

Thomas H. Bryan, a seaman of the James Foster Jr. testified the following at the inquest:

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​He had frequently seen the third mate Murphy, the carpenter and boatswain beat Mooney unmercifully and that after he had received certain injuries, the doctor made him sit naked on the chain cables; the doctor was drunk nearly all the time; the latter part of the voyage, because he could not work, he was allowed no food, but we sailors used to give him some on the sly.

Seamen's Retreat c.1880

A case was opened against James Glynn, the carpenter; William Caruthers, the boatswain and Murphy the third mate of the James Foster Jr for murder on the high seas.

Some of the principal witnesses had been unable to appear in the DA's office since they were confined to their beds with fever at the Seamen's Retreat.

On April 19, 1869 Rev. Ogle the chaplain attached to the Seamen's Retreat died from typhoid fever contracted through contact with seamen from the James Foster Jr. Mr. Webster steward of the institution also caught the fever.

Another witness told of seeing several crew killed by mistreatment of the same men while they were under way. One time a sailor named Walsh was sick "he was taken out of the hospital and scrubbed with ice water, from the effects of which he died shortly after." A seaman named John Cooney jumped overboard in a fit of despair and no attempt was made to pick him up. Four men fell from the yardarm since they were unable to retain their hold on the post through sheer exhaustion.

The ship's doctor who appeared to be an alcoholic was Edward Monement.

The verdict of the jury was: "We find that Alfred Robinson and James Peterson came to their death by brutal and inhuman treatment inflicted upon them by the carpenter, boatswain and third mate of the ship James Foster Jr. while on her late voyage from Liverpool to this port. We find also that James Mooney came to his death from brutal and inhuman treatment inflicted upon him by the carpenter, boatswain, third mate and the surgeon of the James Foster Jr. on her late voyage from Liverpool to this port."

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The perimeter of Seamen's Retreat Cemetery is fenced off and the grounds are derelict and abandoned

In July 1869, the officers of the James Foster Jr of the Black Ball line were convicted of brutal and inhumane treatment of immigrants on board and the crew. They were sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for Glynn, 7 years for Caruthers and 5 years for Murphy to be served at the Kings County Penitentiary.

In December of 1869, it was noted that all the officers with the exception of the second mate and the surgeon Edward Monement, had died from typhoid fever and did not serve the sentences imposed on them five months before.

The James Foster Jr. continued to ply its trade as an immigrant transport ship, under the command of another captain.

Until the opening of the Seaman’s Retreat, the seamen’s tax funded a quarantine station that was first located on Bedloe’s Island (now Liberty Island), then relocated to Staten Island. The quarantine station on Staten Island would be moved onto a 4-acre, man-made island, Swinburne Island, following repeated attacks by angry mobs who feared potential diseases they believed would be brought by newly arrived immigrants. What precipitated the construction of Swinburne Island were several cholera pandemics that arrived on immigrant ships, such as the case of the James Foster Jr.​

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Forgotten graves from the Seamen's Retreat Cemetery were unearthed during a road construction c.1928

In 1928, Dix Street was being laid down when a steam shovel started to unearth what had been forgotten. The new street traversed property owned by Jacob Fine, but which it turned out was once part of the Seaman's Retreat Cemetery. Several coffins were tossed up and crumbled when exposed to the air. Skull, thigh and shin bones were dumped out.

Residents remembered that none had been buried there for 50 years. How many other areas of the cemetery actually existed beyond the recognized perimeter?​

​The National Institutes of Health began as a single room Laboratory of Hygiene for bacteriological investigation established by the Marine Hospital Service in 1887. From 1887 to 1891 the laboratory was located in the attic of the Marine Hospital on Staten Island, which had been the Seaman's Retreat. In 1940, they tested the effects of penicillin on four American seamen at the venereal disease research laboratory housed in the building. ​

The building today houses mental health services and treatments for chemical dependencies, according to the hospital’s website.

How many men laid to rest in the cemetery had stories like those of the James Foster Jr.? Were some of them experimented on? Were any of them hurried to an early grave, not by misadventure but by cruelty and sadism? Wherever the truth lies it keeps company with the bones of men long buried and forgotten.

List of Interments at Seamen's Retreat Cemetery

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