happening in the early years of settlement on the
Maine coast. Travel was by water, a readily available food source
was in the water, and the water provided a natural barrier to what
was wanted in or kept out. Cushing
would change hands many times, eventually in the 1660s James Andrews
built a fort there. When Indians attacked the islands, as they
frequently did in the 1670s, settlers from nearby islands would go
to Andrews' fort. (There was a war with the Indians throughout much
of New England at this time.) The fort must have been substantial
since hundreds of soldiers were stationed there 100 years later.
Parts of the fort remained at the time of the Civil War. Little
evidence remains of life in these early settlements. Some of the
most physical evidence of life on Casco Bay islands are the
fortifications built to defend Portland from potential offshore
threats. One of these fortifications, though not the largest, most
famous or most used, is Fort Gorges.
It is located on the ledges at the
southern end of Little Diamond Island, once known as Hog Island. Ted
and Audrey Rand moved out to Little Diamond Island from South
Portland in 1954. They bought and fixed up an old Coast Guard buoy
station, had five kids and for many years were the only year round
residents. For years they ran a small store and the landing with its
gas pumps and supplies. Audrey said recently that "things have
changed a lot on the island over recent years." There are "more year
round residents, and more cottages, but the fort is the way it's
always been." Few people go there and the granite holds steady
against the sea. It is not an island, nor on an island, but more
like a massive granite outcropping on ledges between Peaks Island
and Portland. The fort was named
after Sir Ferdinando Gorges (1566-1646) an Englishman, colonial
proprietor of Maine and early booster for settlement in Maine. Born
in the west country of England, he found himself in his 20s in a
position to warn Queen Elizabeth of a threatened overthrow of her
regime. For doing so he was made a navy commander, the connection
between the two roles is not clear. However, it worked out for him,
for in this post he was knighted for bravery in the battle against
the Spanish Armada. The Crown in gratitude made him governor of
Plymouth, England in 1604, the jumping off port for voyages to the
New World. His interest in the New
World was initiated by an Indian birch bark canoe, which had been
brought to England by another man from a voyage to the Fox Islands,
Vinalhaven and North Haven. In 1605, Captain George Weymouth
returned to Plymouth, England from a voyage to Monhegan and the
islands of Muscongus Bay. Weymouth brought five Indians kidnapped
from the Maine coast. These Indians were presented to the governor
of Plymouth, Sir Ferdinando Gorges. He brought the Indians into his
home as honored guests, learned their language and anything they
could teach him about the New World. He would send three of them
back, one of them went to the islands of Muscongus Bay and taught
the English he had learned to the Wawenock chief, Samoset. Samoset
would later help the settlers of the Plymouth Colony survive their
difficult winter of 1621. Gorges'
interest in the New World remained strong. Between the age of 30 and
70 he sent many expeditions which included his sons and nephews,
with the hope of colonizing Maine. He backed the Sagahadoc Colony of
1607-08. While merchant ships came to Maine to establish fishing
communities with varying degrees of success, behind the scene in
England there was squabbling and infighting over charters, land
grants and commercial rights among those in leading positions. In a
new charter of 1620, for the first time the area was referred to as
New England. Gorges, through various grants and arrangements, held
in 1629, all land east of the Piscataqua River, which became the
province of Maine. His grant passed to his heirs. His grandson
Ferdinand Gorges would later sell to Massachusetts, all rights to
Maine for 1,250 pounds, which was less per acre than the Indians got
when they sold Manhattan Island.
It was after the War of 1812 that
the Army Corps of Engineers proposed a new fort on Hog Island ledge.
The two story, six-sided fort has a parade ground in the center. One
the unusual military features is that it was built at water level so
that cannon balls fired from it would skip across the water and hit
enemy ships. It was to support Fort Preble and Fort Scammel to the
south and protect the northeast approaches to the harbor. Basically
a massive gun emplacement, construction began in 1858. When the
Civil War started in 1861, there was pressure to finish the fort.
There were 26 guns mounted in 1864 before the fort was completed in
1865. These 26 smooth-bore muzzle-loading 10 inch Rodman guns were
mounted on the first level of the fort. The Rodman guns fired a
125-pound projectile three miles.
The fort would be in almost
continuous change and upgrading. Rapid advances in naval power made
it virtually obsolete by the 1860s. It was built of granite and
brick in three levels above the ledges and surrounded by water at
high water. The first level contained the casements for the 10-inch
Rodman guns. Iron shutters protected the guns and flues vented
powder smoke. Powder was stored in the northeast and northwest
corners. Officers' apartments, store rooms, and bakery were located
at the north end. Officers' apartments were finished with wood lath
and plaster, wood floors, doors and windows. The floors and ceilings
of the powder magazine were finished with wood and concealed nails
to avoid fatal sparks. The second
level also had 28 embrasures for 10-inch Rodman guns with powder
magazines also in the northeast and northwest corners. The third
level was built for twenty-nine 10-inch guns, but was rebuilt by
1876 to mount eleven 15-inch Rodman guns.
The gun casements of the first and
second levels would have had doors, windows and stove to serve as
quarters for the 500 enlisted men required to man all of the guns.
Unlike today, then congress geared funding more to an immediate
specific need and might cut funds unexpectedly. Arming was never
completed and the fort was never permanently garrisoned.
In 1896 a 300-pound rifled Parrot
gun was brought to the third level where it remains unmounted. The
other guns were scrapped after 1898. More recently, in the 1930s the
Coast Guard installed an aid-to-navigation beacon in the fort which
shown out through one of the gun embrasures. In the 1940s steel
cable for submarine mines and submarine moorings were stored at the
fort. The General Services Administration declared the fort surplus
in 1946. The City of Portland acquired Fort Gorges in 1960 as an
historic site. It can be reached today by private boat. Rotted or
missing floors make some areas inaccessible or hazardous, but parts
of the fort can be visited. |