General Slocum Memorial

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General Slocum Memorial (New York City, New York)

Kathleen recommends this memorial to a horrible riverboat fire which killed over 1,000 people in 1904: “The next time you’re in NYC you may want to stop by the General Slocum memorial in Tompkins Square Park. After the Slocum fire the entire East Village neighborhood changed radically. Most of the hundreds of children who died in the fire were the children of local German immigrants, and the surviving families, stricken with grief, moved en masse either uptown to Germantown or left the city entirely.”

 

Elmira Civil War Prison Camp

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Elmira Civil War Prison Camp (Elmira, New York)

Lady Hourglass writes: “Saw that you mentioned Andersonville, and thought I would share the Yankee version. Twisted little muffin that I am, I have been on an American Civilwar prison camp kick and have been doing a little research into the topic. Elmira Prison Camp was 1/3rd the size of Andersonville, but had a higher mortality rate, 31% or more, and had none of the Confederacy/Andersonville’s excuses (ie. a lack of supply, rural environment, lack of trained staff)”

 

 

Alexander Hamilton Death Rock

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Alexander Hamilton Death Rock (Weehawken, New Jersey)

From Roadside America: “Near a picturesque cliff along the Hudson River, overlooking the island of Manhattan, Aaron Burr did battle with Alexander Hamilton. The date was July 12, 1804. The actual rock ‘on which rested the head of Alexander Hamilton’ after he was mortally wounded is the base of the monument. Turned out that while Hamilton was (as noted on the stone) a ‘Patriot, Soldier, Statesman, and Jurist,’ Burr was a guy from Newark with more pistol practice. Perched atop the Rock of Death is, appropriately, a bronze head of Alexander Hamilton.”

Mount Pleasant Cemetery

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Mount Pleasant Cemetery (Newark, New Jersey)

From Wikipedia: “Mount Pleasant Cemetery is a large Victorian-era cemetery in Newark’s North Ward. The cemetery houses the graves of some of Newark’s most eminent citizens. The cemetery is dominated by the marble mausoleum of John Fairfield Dryden, the founder of Prudential Financial. Other notable interees include Marcus Ward, governor of New Jersey; Seth Boyden, inventor of patent leather; and Mary Stillman, first wife of Thomas Edison. Mount Pleasant also contains graves of members of the Kinney, Ballantine, and Frelinghuysen families. The cemetery itself was opened and incorporated in 1844, but there are graves that date back to the mid-1600s, which were moved from older graveyards that were crowded out due to development.” Suggested by Kathleen.

 

Fort Robinson

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Fort Robinson (Crawford, Nebraska)

Fort Robinson is another of the many sad, sickening places in the Plains where Native Americans were fucked over royally. Here’s a nice description of the fort from Liz, who recommended it: “You may be interested in a mildly morbid place called Fort Robinson, which is 30 minutes west of my home town. This is the place where Dull Knife and his people escaped the US Cavalry, only to be re-captured and sent to Ft. Sill, and also where Crazy Horse was murdered.”
The land of the free, indeed…