Wallabout Bay Wallabout Bay is small body of water in Upper New York Bay along the northwest shore of the New York City borough of Brooklyn , between the present Williamsburg and Manhattan bridges , opposite Corlear ' s Hook on Manhattan to the west , across the East River . Wallabout Bay now abuts the site of the Brooklyn Navy Yard . The name comes from the Dutch " Waal bocht " , which means " Walloon s ' bay " , named for Belgian immigrants . The neighborhood of Wallabout is adjacent to the bay . History . The Wallabout became the first spot on Long Island settled by Europeans when several families of French - speaking Walloons opted to purchase land there in the early 1630s , having arrived in New Netherland in the previous decade from Holland . Settlement of the area began in the mid - 1630s when Joris Jansen Rapelje exchanged trade goods with the Canarsee Indians for some of land at Wallabout Bay , but Rapelje , like other early Wallabout settlers , waited at least a decade before relocating full - time to the area , until conflicts with the tribes had been resolved . Most historical accounts put Rapelje ' s house as the first house built at Wallabout Bay . His daughter Sarah was the first child born of European parentage in New Netherland , and Rapelje later served as a Brooklyn magistrate as well as a member of the Council of Twelve Men . Rapelje ' s son - in - law Hans Hansen Bergen owned a large tract adjoining Rapelje ' s . Nearby were tobacco plantations belonging to Jan and Peter Montfort , Peter Caesar Alberto , and other farmers . Starting in 1637 , the Wallabout served as the landing site of the first ferry across the East River from lower Manhattan . Cornelis Dircksen , the lone ferryman , farmed plots on both sides — near to where the Brooklyn Bridge now spans — to best employ his time on either bank of the river . A feudal system of land tenure was suspended in 1638 , and the small settlement became a colony of freeholders : after a ten - year period of paying the Dutch East India Company a tenth of their yield , colonists would own their farmland . ( " Bruijk " means " to use " and " leen " means " loan " in Dutch . ) The humble " Bruykleen Colonie " expanded out from the Wallabout to become the city of Brooklyn . The area was the site where the infamous British prison ships moored during the American Revolutionary War ( most infamous of which was the HMS " Jersey " ) , from about 1776 - 1783 . Over 10 , 000 soldiers and sailors died due to deliberate neglect on these rotting hulks , more American deaths than from every battle of the war combined . Though their corpses were buried on the eroding shore in shallow graves , or often simply thrown overboard , local women collected remains when they became exposed or washed onshore and many more were discovered with the development of the area and expansion of piers . The nearby Prison Ship Martyrs ' Monument in Fort Greene Park houses remains of the prisoners and overlooks the site of their torment and death . The bay eventually became the site of the Brooklyn Navy Yard . Parts of the bay were filled in to expand the yard . In the late 19th century , fill created a small island , as depicted in the Taylor Map of New York , and later fill joined it to the mainland . Gabriel Furman , in his " Notes Geographical and Historical , relating to the Town of Brooklyn , in Kings County on Long - Island " ( 1824 ) , traces the name from the Dutch " Waal bocht " or " bay ( or bight ) of the Walloons " , referring to the original French - speaking settlers of the local area . Another theory ascribes it to the River Waal , an arm of the Rhine , an important inland waterway in the Netherlands , long referred to as " inner harbor " which would speak to the geographic position of the bay .