In 1775 Governor Jonathan Trumbull recommended the building of a fortification at the port of New London to protect the seat of the government of Connecticut. Built on a rocky point of land near the mouth of the Thames River on Long Island Sound, the fort was completed in 1777 and named for Governor Trumbull, who served from 1769 to 1784. In 1781 during the American Revolutionary War, the fort ...
Fort Tyler: 1898, Suffolk County, Gardiner's Island.
Transferred to the War Department in 1898 and converted into a small coastal defense positions on the tip of Gardiner's Island at the entrance to Gardiner's Bay.
Closed in the late 1920s.
Status of batteries in 1921 was: Battery Smith, 2 - 8" Disappearing, 2 - 5" Pedestal.
Fort Terry was a coastal fortification on Plum Island, a small Island just off Orient Point, New York. This strategic position afforded it a commanding view (and range) over the Atlantic entrance to the commercially vital Long Island Sound. According to the New York State Department of Military and Naval Affairs the Fort began operation in 1879, was expanded during the Spanish-American war, Wor...
Originally built as a fort to protect Long Island Sound and New York City during the Spanish-American War, it was in service until 1949 when it was then turned over to the AMNH. Most of the original buildings on this 17-acre island are overrun by bittersweet. A concrete 3-story observation tower, 3-room research building still remain.
Spanish military fortress, built between 1747 and 1774, bastion of defense of the port of Callao from the pirate and corsairs. It was the last defense wall during the independence of Peru. Designed by Luis Godín according to the plans of the Vaudan School that dominated the military art of the time. It possesses 70 thousand square meters of area, has pentagonal shape, 5 ramparts, walls, cord, r...
A Confederate POW cemetery was created here in 1863. The POWs were held in Fort Delaware. Earthwork fortifications were also built here for ten (15-inch and 10-inch) Rodman guns on wooden carriages and platforms. Finns Point Battery was first located here in 1872. Only two gun emplacements and five magazines in the mortar battery were completed before construction was halted. Two 1872 magazines...
Fort Rodman was the Army's officially name for the installation and it was completed on May 11, 1861. Brass and iron cannons were mounted to protect the Clark’s Cove and Acushnet River approaches to New Bedford. This installation was temporarily named Fort Taber, in honor of the city’s chief executive. As the granite fort was yet unnamed and appeared on government records simply as “the fort at...
Beginning in 1897, a new system of defenses was built outside the fort proper. A concrete battery was built into the hill under Walbach Tower, which was equiped with two 8-inch breach-loading rifles, Model 1888MII, serials 38, 43 (Watervliet Arsenal), on disappearing carriages, Model 1894, serials 23, 22 (Providence Steam Engine Co.), with hand-operated platform ammunition hoists. The battery w...
The earliest forts were built to protect the colonists. As Portsmouth Harbor's importance increased with its Revolutionary War shipbuilding industry and the establishment of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in 1800, additional fortification was needed.
At Jerry's Point there is evidence of earthwork fortification, circa 1842, and a stonework fort, circa 1873. Following the Spanish ...
The land for Fort Foster, located on the southwest tip of Gerrish Island in Kittery, Maine, was acquired by the federal government in 1872, making this fort the last of the "old" forts that were built in the Portsmouth area.
In 1899 construction was started on new concrete batteries to help protect the Naval Shipyard in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War. In 190...
Following the War of 1812, the United States Army Corps of Engineers proposed that a fort be built on Hog Island Ledge, in Casco Bay at the entrance to the harbor at Portland, Maine. Named for the colonial proprietor of Maine, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, it was constructed to support existing forts, including Fort Preble in South Portland and Fort Scammel built on nearby House Island in 1808. Congre...
Fort Popham is a coastal defense land battery at the mouth of the Kennebec River in Phippsburg, Maine. It is located in sight of the short-lived Popham Colony and, like the colony, named for George Popham, the colony's leader.
Construction of Fort Popham was authorized in 1857, but did not begin until 1862 when the Union became nervous about the Confederacy’s newest naval ship d...
Fortín San Juan de la Cruz (Fort Saint John of the Cross), better known as el Cañuelo, is located on Isla de Cabras, Puerto Rico. It is part of San Juan National Historic Site.
This fort was originally built in wood in 1610. Due to its location at the entrance of the San Juan bay, and in front of the Fort San Felipe del Morro, across the bay, it provided a strategic point to cre...
Fort Casey was built about 1908. Over the next several years, the fortifications were supplemented by newer batteries with guns on disappearing carriages, which could be raised out of their protective emplacements so that the guns were exposed only long enough to fire. In addition, more advanced rapid-fire gun batteries were added. The fort's batteries became obsolete almost as soon as they wer...
Fort Flagler was built along with Fort Casey and Fort Worden to form a "triangle of fire" to protect the entrance to Puget Sound at Admiralty Inlet, and gun batteries in each of these forts face Puget Sound. Situated on the western side of Puget Sound, Fort Flagler's batteries face eastward. In addition to the gun emplacements, the fort has historical barracks and officers' quarters, ...
Construction on Fort Worden began in 1897 and continued in one form or another until the fort was closed in 1953. Construction work on the initial fortifications above Point Wilson were delayed until July 1897. The property was privately owned and the government had to clear title to the land through condemnation proceedings. The Army Corps of Engineers took charge of building the construction ...
Fort Ward is a former Union Army installation now located in the city of Alexandria in the U.S. state of Virginia. It was the fifth largest fort built to defend Washington, D.C. in the American Civil War. It is currently well-preserved with 90-95% of its earthen walls intact.
The fort is now a part of the City of Alexandria's 45-acre (18-ha) Fort Ward Mueseum and Historic Site a...
The Fort Zachary Taylor State Historic Site, better known simply as Fort Taylor, (or Fort Zach to locals), is a Florida State Park and National Historic Landmark centered on a Civil War-era fort located near the southern tip of Key West, Florida.
The Castillo de San Marcos is a Spanish built fort located in the city of St. Augustine, Florida. It was known as Fort Marion from 1821 until 1942, and Fort St. Mark from 1763 until 1784 while under British control.
The city of St. Augustine was founded in 1565. Over the next one hundred years, the city was defended by nine wooden forts. Following the 1668 attack of the English ...
Fort Barrancas (1839) or Fort San Carlos de Barrancas (from 1787) is the name of a historic United States military fort in the Warrington area of Pensacola, Florida.
The hill-top fort, connected to a sea-level water battery, overlooks Pensacola Bay, from what is now Naval Air Station Pensacola. Because the hill-top fort was rebuilt of brick, becoming Fort Barrancas, the older, w...
Parson's Lodge is a mini Gibraltar - a narrow limestone dorsal, running North-South, laced with a labyrinth of underground tunnels and surmounted by a seemingly impregnable battery, which has witnessed the development of coast artillery over the last three centuries.
Rising 120' sheer above the sea, Parson's Lodge, is a most prominent of a series of batteries which surround Gibr...
This is set on a steep hill overlooking the sea, the 4 guns (2 in 1941, 1 in 1942, 4th post-war) in a line stepped one above the other. A defended barracks and stores was set in a hollow behind the hill, giving underground tunnel access to the fire control tower and all four gun positions.
The guns had been sealed in their emplacements with concrete so all one could see from the...
Built in 1898 into the dunes on the north end of Wassaw, it was part of the Endicott system of coastal forts. Today, erosion has removed the dunes, and high tides now are working against the remains of the fort—a huge, slumping block of poured concrete, oyster tabby, and North Georgia granite—which probably won't see a second 100 years. Constructed by civilians supervised by U.S. Army Corps of ...
Designed by the engineer Montaigu, the Castle of San Felipe was built in 1731-44 over the remains of a previous fortress. The new castle combined the fidelity of the technical teachings of Vauban with a clever adaptation to the landscape. Laid out in the shape of an arrowhead, it directed a double line of fire towards the sea on two levels, with a great facade of fortifications pointing towards...
Fort Oranje was built after the Treaty of Paris in 1816 to protect the Dutch colony's burgeoning salt trade. It was used as the residence of the island's governor until 1836, when it briefly became a prison. A lighthouse was then constructed as salt production and subsequently seaborne traffic to the island increased. Now the fort serves as the office for the harbourmaster.
