Fort Edgecomb, built in 1808–1809, is a two-story

octagon In geometry, an octagon () is an eight-sided polygon or 8-gon. A '' regular octagon'' has Schläfli symbol and can also be constructed as a quasiregular truncated square, t, which alternates two types of edges. A truncated octagon, t is a ...

al wooden

blockhouse A blockhouse is a small fortification, usually consisting of one or more rooms with loopholes, allowing its defenders to fire in various directions. It is usually an isolated fort in the form of a single building, serving as a defensive stro ...

with restored fortifications located on Davis Island in the town of Edgecomb, Lincoln County,

Maine Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...

, United States. It is the centerpiece of the Fort Edgecomb State Historic Site. It was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1969, with its boundaries increased to create a

historic district A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains historic building, older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal p ...

in 1991.

Description

Fort Edgecomb is located on Davis Island, a

peninsula A peninsula is a landform that extends from a mainland and is only connected to land on one side. Peninsulas exist on each continent. The largest peninsula in the world is the Arabian Peninsula. Etymology The word ''peninsula'' derives , . T ...

jutting into the Sheepscot River across from the village of Wiscasset. Davis Island is separated from the mainland by a short neck, and Fort Edgecomb is located at the island's southern end. Fort Edgecomb's most prominent feature is an octagonal blockhouse, whose second floor is larger than its first, measuring compared to . The ground floor walls have loopholes through which

musket A musket is a muzzle-loaded long gun that appeared as a smoothbore weapon in the early 16th century, at first as a heavier variant of the arquebus, capable of penetrating plate armour. By the mid-16th century, this type of musket gradually dis ...

s could be fired, while the upper level had portholes for firing

cannon A cannon is a large-caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder during th ...

s. A third-floor attic leads up into a watchtower. Although the blockhouse is the most visible feature, the fort's main armament was a water battery to defend the river. This battery originally had five cannons, including a 50-pounder

columbiad The columbiad was a large-caliber, smoothbore, muzzle-loading cannon able to fire heavy projectiles at both high and low trajectory, trajectories. This feature enabled the columbiad to fire solid Round shot, shot or Shell (projectile), shell to ...

and four 18-pounder smoothbore cannons. Each cannon was in its own

bastion A bastion is a structure projecting outward from the curtain wall of a fortification, most commonly angular in shape and positioned at the corners of the fort. The fully developed bastion consists of two faces and two flanks, with fire from the ...

, with the bastions arranged in three tiers. The blockhouse also contained two

carronade A carronade is a short, smoothbore, cast-iron cannon which was used by the Royal Navy. It was first produced by the Carron Company, an ironworks in Falkirk, Scotland, and was used from the last quarter of the 18th century to the mid-19th cen ...

s, which were a relatively short cannon of large bore.

History

Fort Edgecomb was built as part of the second system of US fortifications, guarding the then-important port of Wiscasset, then one of the largest shipbuilding centers in

New England New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...

. A war scare with the British over US trade with France during the Napoleonic Wars sparked the building of these forts, along with

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (, 1743July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the United States Declaration of Indepe ...

Embargo Act of 1807 The Embargo Act of 1807 was a general trade embargo on all foreign nations that was enacted by the United States Congress. Much broader than the ineffectual 1806 Non-importation Act, it represented an escalation of attempts to persuade Br ...

, which closed US ports and vessels to foreign trade. US engineer

Moses Porter Moses Porter (20 March 1756 – 14 April 1822) was a general in the United States Army during the War of 1812. His career lasted for over 40 years and he is one of the few officers who served in both the American Revolution and the War of 1812. B ...

, later commander of the Regiment of Light Artillery, supervised the fort's construction. Although Fort Edgecomb was built for defense, its first use (as with most of Maine's second system forts) was to enforce the embargo. This embargo was unpopular with Maine's merchants, and it is said that one of two times Fort Edgecomb's cannon were fired was in salute at

James Madison James Madison (June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison was popularly acclaimed as the ...

's inauguration on 4 March 1809 (or, less tactfully, to celebrate his lifting of Jefferson's embargo). The cannons were fired once more on 14 February 1815, when word was received of peace with the British. During the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States United States declaration of war on the Uni ...

, the post saw considerable activity, holding British prisoners of war, many of them brought to Wiscasset by American

privateer A privateer is a private person or vessel which engages in commerce raiding under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign o ...

s. In 1814, the fortress became an important base in defending against a possible British attack on mid-coast Maine. It remained manned until 1818, and was reactivated during the Civil War. The Friends of Fort Edgecomb celebrated its

bicentennial __NOTOC__ A bicentennial or bicentenary is the two-hundredth anniversary of a part, or the celebrations thereof. It may refer to: Europe * French Revolution bicentennial, commemorating the 200th anniversary of 14 July 1789 uprising, celebrated ...

on 13 June 2009, on the grounds of the fort.

References

External links

Fort Edgecomb State Historic Site
Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry
Edgecomb Historical Society / Friends of Fort Edgecomb official site

Fort Edgecomb at FortWiki.com

Description

History

See also

References

External links

Further reading