Fort Tompkins (Staten Island)
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Fort Tompkins
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Southeast corner of the fort in 2016
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| Location | Fort Wadsworth, New York City |
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| Coordinates | 40°36′00″N 74°3′40″W / 40.60000°N 74.06111°WCoordinates: 40°36′00″N 74°3′40″W / 40.60000°N 74.06111°W |
| Area | 3 acres (1.2 ha) |
| Built | 1847-1861 |
| Architectural style | Third System of US fortifications |
| NRHP Reference # | 74001300 |
| Added to NRHP | July 30, 1974 |
Fort Tompkins is a fort on Staten Island in New York City, within what is now Fort Wadsworth at the Narrows. Fort Tompkins (and its predecessor of the same name) guarded the landward approaches to other forts in the area from 1808 through circa 1898. The current fort was built 1847-1861, and was operational as a fort until superseded by new defenses circa 1898. It is now part of the Gateway National Recreation Area. It is the last remaining of four forts in New York State named .
The first use of the land for military purposes was as the site of a blockhouse built by Dutch settler David Pieterszen de Vries in 1636 on Signal Hill (now the site of Fort Tompkins), which was burned in an Indian raid of the Peach Tree War in 1655. The site is said to have been continuously garrisoned since another blockhouse was built in 1663, which survived at least through 1808. During the American Revolution the area became known as the Patriot redoubt Flagstaff Fort; captured by the British in 1776, it remained in British hands and was expanded until the war's end in 1783.
The area became the responsibility of New York State in 1806, at which time four forts were built on the site with state resources, being ready for service in 1808 though incomplete. These included the red sandstone Forts Richmond (on the site now called Battery Weed) and Tompkins, on the sites of the current forts but of different design, along with Forts Morton and Hudson, with positions for a total of 164 guns in the four forts. Fort Tompkins at that time included a red sandstone enclosure containing the 1663 blockhouse. Although these forts were contemporary with the federal government's second system of seacoast fortifications, they were not part of the federal program. Federal rebuilding of Forts Richmond and Tompkins did not begin until 1847. Fort Richmond was named for Richmond County, in which Staten Island is located, while Fort Tompkins was named for Daniel D. Tompkins, governor of New York State in the War of 1812. New York City was not attacked in that war, so the first Fort Tompkins did not see action, although it was improved and the area fortified with up to 900 cannon during that war.
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Wikipedia