Castle Island

Castle Island in Boston Harbor is one of the oldest continuously fortified sites in the United States. English colonists settled in Boston in 1630 and the first fortifications were built on the island in 1634.

There have been eight forts on Castle Island, with various names. The current fort, built between 1833 and 1851, is Fort Independence. The photo above shows a scale model on display inside the fort, now part of the Massachusetts state park system.

We toured Castle Island and Fort Independence today. Below is the view of Boston from the top of the fort:

And below is the view from the other side of the fort, looking out over Boston Harbor. The largest island is Spectacle Island.

One of the interesting displays at Fort Independence is a large collection of flags. Below is the only official United States flag to have more than 13 stripes. It had 15 stars and 15 stripes, recognizing two additions to the original Thirteen Colonies: Vermont (the 14th state) and Kentucky (the 15th state). After this flag, stars continued to be added for new states but the number of stripes reverted to 13.

The flag with 15 stars and 15 stripes was known as the "Star-Spangled Banner." It was the flag in use at the time of the War of 1812. This is the version of the United States flag that flew over Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbor during the British bombardment on the night of September 13-14, 1814, and inspired Francis Scott Key to write what is now our national anthem.

None of the various forts on Castle Island saw hostile action except for a minor incident early in the American Revolution when it was still in British hands. When the British evacuated Boston in March 1776, they "destroyed the island's fortifications which were repaired shortly thereafter by troops under Lt. Colonel Paul Revere."

Over on my other blog, I recently wrote about the Battle of Bennington in 1777. Interestingly, "Paul Revere and his troops brought some 400 British prisoners of war from the Battle of Bennington to imprisonment on Castle Island."

The quotes in the two preceding paragraphs are from the brochure for Castle Island and Fort Independence published by the Castle Island Association which we picked up on our tour today.

Castle Island was an island for most of its history, but it was connected to the mainland in 1928. Much of current day Boston is built on land that was created by filling in surrounding tidal areas. Activity continues today to maintain land and water geography as desired by humans. Below is a dredging operation that was taking place next to Castle Island:

Logan Airport is directly across the water from Castle Island, and it is also partially built on landfill. Below is a photo of Logan Airport from the top of the fort, with a plane coming in for a landing. Planes were taking off and landing all the time.

The obelisk in the photo above, also visible in the scale model at the top of this post, commemorates Donald McKay, who designed and built the fastest clipper ships in the world in the mid 1800s. The names of his ships are engraved on the monument.