Putnam’s Pub has been the cornerstone of the Clinton Hill/Fort Green neighborhood since it open in July of 2011. We offer elevated American comfort food and an extensive beverage program which includes a 24-tap craft beer system with a lineup of some of the world’s best-known imports together with the ever increasing quality of the local Brooklyn and greater New York craft beer industry. An impressive whisky and bourbon selection and a seasonal cocktail menu rounds out the award-winning beverage program, far exceeding the expectations of causal pub goers.
Putnam’s is steeped in local history. Adopting the name from Fort Putnam, present day Clinton Hill/ Fort Green. Fort Putnam was a Patriot Revolutionary War Fort named after Colonel Rufus Putnam. It was established in the spring of 1776 during the Revolutionary War as a star shaped fort with five guns, the fort was surrounded by wide ditches and abatises and garrisoned by up to 5 companies. It was captured by the British in 1776 during the Battle of Long Island (27-29 Aug) and returned to American control when the British departed New York and abandoned it as a fortification in 1783, at the end of the war.
Fort Putnam was one of the main objectives of the British in the Battle of Long Island. They outflanked the American defenses including the Forts at Brooklyn and overpowered the American troops. George Washington was able to evacuate the remaining Patriot troops across the river to Manhattan, saving the Continental Army. The British remained in control of Brooklyn and Manhattan until they evacuated the city in 1783. The British erected a square-shaped fort on the site in 1782 but it was re-established as Fort Greene on the same site during the War of 1812.
Now the site of Fort Greene Park, it contains a large central monument to the Revolutionary War Patriot prison ship martyrs. The British had held thousands of captured Patriots on prison ships anchored in the East River. Over 11,500 Patriot men and women died aboard these ships. Their bodies were hastily buried along the shore and later buried in a tomb on Jackson St. in Brooklyn. With the establishment of Fort Greene Park in 1850, a monument and a crypt for the remains of the prison ship martyrs was built and their remains were transferred. Putnam’s Pub is dedicated to the memory of those brave souls who fought bravely and died in the name of justice and freedom form tyranny.
