Fort Standish was a fort built in 1863 for the
American Civil War on
Saquish
Saquish Beach, sometimes simply referred to as Saquish, is a beach and headland located at the end of the peninsula at the entrance to Plymouth Bay in Plymouth, Massachusetts. A small private settlement of summer cottages line the beach and headl ...
Head in
Plymouth
Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west.
Plymouth ...
,
Massachusetts.
[ It was named for ]Myles Standish
Myles Standish (c. 1584 – October 3, 1656) was an English military officer and colonizer. He was hired as military adviser for Plymouth Colony in present-day Massachusetts, United States by the Pilgrims. Standish accompanied the Pilgrims on ...
, military leader of the Plymouth Colony in the 1620s, and augmented the nearby Fort Andrew on Gurnet Point
Gurnet Point, also known as The Gurnet, is located at the end of the peninsula at the entrance to Plymouth Bay in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and is a headland and the small private settlement located on it. The Pilgrims who settled Plymouth in 1620 ...
. It was designed and constructed under the supervision of Major Charles E. Blunt of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The fort had five gun emplacements with five 8-inch smoothbore guns, along with a bombproof shelter, two magazine
A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combinatio ...
s, and a well. Outside the fort were a barracks, officers' quarters, and a mess hall
The mess (also called a mess deck aboard ships) is a designated area where military personnel socialize, eat and (in some cases) live. The term is also used to indicate the groups of military personnel who belong to separate messes, such as the o ...
.[ The military reservation was purchased by the federal government and declared inactive in 1870. Reportedly, the fort and/or the reservation were used in the Spanish–American War and World War I.][Roberts, p. 411] The land was sold in 1925 to a private buyer.
See also
* Seacoast defense in the United States
* List of coastal fortifications of the United States
The United States and the colonies that preceded it built numerous coastal defenses to defend major cities, ports and straits from the colonial era through World War II. Some listed were built by other nations and are now on United States territo ...
* List of military installations in Massachusetts
References
*
*
{{FmrMAForts
Standish
Standish
Plymouth, Massachusetts
History of Plymouth County, Massachusetts
Formerly Used Defense Sites in Massachusetts