Fort Nichols was a fort that existed in 1775 in

Amesbury, Massachusetts Amesbury is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, located on the left bank of the Merrimack River near its mouth, upstream from Salisbury and across the river from Newburyport and West Newbury. The population was 17,366 at the 2020 ...

during the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

. It was also known as Fort Merrimac during its existence. Two possible locations for the fort exist. One is a location named Salisbury Point on modern topographic maps, where

Interstate 95 Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from U.S. Route 1, US Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Miami, Florida, to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between M ...

crosses the

Merrimack River The Merrimack River (or Merrimac River, an occasional earlier spelling) is a river in the northeastern United States. It rises at the confluence of the Pemigewasset and Winnipesaukee rivers in Franklin, New Hampshire, flows southward into Mas ...

; this is the location of the coordinates given. Another possibility is the mouth of the Merrimack at Salisbury Beach in

Salisbury Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath. Salisbury is in the southeast of Wil ...

. One source (Heitman) states that the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

Fort at Salisbury Point The Fort at Salisbury Point was a fort in use from 1863 to 1865 in Salisbury, Massachusetts, during the American Civil War. It was also called the Fort at Salisbury Beach.Manuel 2020, pp. 73–74 It was a nine-gun earthwork located at the mouth ...

was built at the same location as Fort Nichols, which is given as "at Salisbury Point, opposite Newburyport". (dead link 27 June 2020) The Civil War fort was sometimes referred to as Fort Nichols by local civilians.

References

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Nichols Nichols may refer to: People *Nichols (surname) *Nichol, a surname Places Canada * Nichols Islands, Nunavut United States * Nichols, California, an unincorporated community * Nichols Canyon, Los Angeles, California * Nichols, Connecticut * Nic ...

Buildings and structures in Amesbury, Massachusetts Demolished buildings and structures in Massachusetts

See also

References