Category:Fort Adams
This is a stub article. You are encouraged to add content and remove the stub notation {{Stub}} when you feel it has enough content to qualify as a full article.
Fort Adams (1793-1946) - Fort Adams was built on the site of an earlier Patriot and French fort from 1780. Rebuilt in 1798 with 17 guns by Major Louis Tousard, it was named for President John Adams and opened on 4 Jul 1799.
The current structure was built beginning in 1824 under the supervision of engineers, Lt. Andrew Talcott and Lt. Col. Joseph Totten. The Outer Redoubt was built in 1825.
Fort Adams is a massive work with structural walls constructed of local shale and Maine granite. Alexander McGregor, a Scots mason and Newport resident, oversaw the stonework, which is still relatively intact. At the time he was building the fort, Colonel Totten frequently advertised in the Newport Mercury for New England contractors to provide millions of common bricks.
Features of Fort Adams that are uncommon or unique in United States military architecture include galleries under the ditches, counterscarp galleries, underground listening galleries tunneled under the glacis, and extensive outer defenses including the redoubt and tenailles, massive earth-filled, masonry cribs designed to protect the outer face of the fort's crown work from battering by a besieger's artillery.
U.S. Civil War
During the U.S. Civil War Fort Adams was rearmed, with new Rodman guns, 10-inch pieces in the casemates and 15-inch guns in open batteries atop the southwest bastion of the crown work. Later, the army constructed permanent batteries for 10- and 15-inch Rodman guns on the island.
Eddicott Era
Endicott era batteries on the west side include
- Battery Belton (1907-1925)
- Battery Bankhead (1907-1913)
- Battery Reilly (1899-1917)
- Battery Talbot (1899-1917)
- Battery Edgerton (1898-1943)
- Battery Greene (1898-1943), which was renamed Battery Gilmore in 1940
- Unnamed battery from 1898 near Battery Bankhead
- Mobile 90mm guns were also here in WWII.
Location: Maps & Images
Lat: 47.6570 Long: -122.4182
Links:
Publications:
Visited: No