Fort Wolcott

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Fort Wolcott
Goat Island, Rhode Island
Fort Wolcott is located in Rhode Island
Fort Wolcott
Fort Wolcott
Coordinates41°29′07″N 71°19′41″W / 41.4852°N 71.3280°W / 41.4852; -71.3280
Site information
Controlled by Kingdom of England
 Kingdom of Great Britain
 United States
Site history
Builtc. 1702
In use1702-1960s
EventsAttacks on HMS St John and HMS Liberty

Fort Wolcott was a fortification on the small Goat Island in Newport Harbor of Narragansett Bay less than 1 mile west of the city of Newport, Rhode Island. The attacks on HMS St John and HMS Liberty occurred near the fort.

Fort Anne

An earthen Fort Anne, built on Goat Island in 1702 or 1703 during the

War of Spanish Succession, taking the name of Anne, Queen of Great Britain
. The fort with 12 guns lasted until 1724.

Fort George

Fort George plaque on Goat Island

In 1730, the fort returned to service under a new name, Fort George after King George II of Great Britain.[1] In 1738, defenders of Rhode Island built a stone fortification on the site with perhaps fifty guns.

In 1764, residents of Newport, Rhode Island, took over Fort George and fired shots at St John with a crew that allegedly stole from local merchants.[2] In another early act of rebellion against British rule, Rhode Islanders in 1769 burned the British customs ship Liberty when it drifted to the north end of Goat Island.

Fort Liberty

With the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775, the fort was renamed as Fort Liberty. In 1776, American patriots armed Fort Liberty with 25 guns and built various breastworks to defend the City of Newport. In December 1776 the British army occupied Newport without resistance and renamed the fort "Fort George." The British left Newport in November 1779. The French army under Count de Rochambeau occupied Newport in 1780 and used the fort as part of their defenses until their departure in 1781.

Fort Washington

In 1784, Rhode Islanders repaired the fort, renamed it Fort Washington after General

West Point
, New York can claim a longer continuous presence of the US Armed Forces.)

Fort Wolcott

The Army rebuilt the fort again in 1798 as part of the first system of Seacoast defense in the United States and renamed it Fort Wolcott, commemorating the services of the late Oliver Wolcott, a general of the Connecticut militia, a member of the Continental Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

The Army assigned Captain

Secretary of War William Eustis on 19 December 1809 (American State Papers, Volume 016, page 245.) records 12 guns mounted within Fort Wolcott and 18 more guns mounted on the flank batteries to the north and south of the fort. The Secretary of War's report on fortifications for December 1811 describes Fort Wolcott as "a small enclosed work, with open batteries, extending from two opposite flanks, of stone, earth, sods, &c. mounting thirty-eight heavy guns... The barracks are of bricks and wood, for one company...".[3]

By the time of the

sally-port
, ditch, furnace, and bomb-proof brick barracks. Armament included five long-range 32-pounder guns.

President

Newport Harbor Lighthouse
was built at the north end of Goat Island.

Decommissioning

The Army transferred the garrison from Fort Wolcott on 22 May 1836 to fight in the

First Seminole War. This left Rhode Island without an active coast defense fort until the opening of the new Fort Adams
in 1841.

The United States Government built the present Goat Island Lighthouse at the northern tip of this island in 1842 to replace the old lighthouse which had been moved to Prudence Island.

Goat Island hosted the training ship squadron of United States Naval Academy during the American Civil War. The War Department still stationed an ordnance sergeant at the fort to maintain its artillery pieces as late as the 1870s.

Naval activities

In 1869, the

Naval Torpedo Station on the site of the former Fort Wolcott. This naval facility greatly expanded during the succeeding century, and the Navy Torpedo Factory on Goat Island produced many torpedoes for the Navy through World War I and World War II. The Navy nevertheless closed the torpedo station in 1951 and created Naval Undersea Warfare Center
at the nearby Newport Navy base.

United States Coast Guard

In addition to the Goat Island lighthouse, the

decommissioned on 3 April 1998. The tradition of having a Coast Guard cutter stationed at Goat Island resumed when the Marine Protector-class patrol boat USCGC Tiger Shark was commissioned on 16 July 2005.[1] Tiger Shark was based at Goat Island until about 2013 when its berth was moved to Pier 2 at the Naval Station Newport
.

Privatization

In the 1960s, the federal government sold the majority of Goat Island to a private developer, Globe Manufacturing. The developer demolished most buildings from the old fortifications. Over the next several decades, Globe constructed a hotel and condominiums and converted the only former navy building remaining on the island into a marina.

See also

References

  1. ^
    US Navy. 27 December 2004. Archived from the original
    on 30 June 2009. Retrieved 13 August 2019.
  2. ISBN 9780805070668
    .
  3. ^ Wade, p. 243

External links
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