Fort Foster was built beginning in 1897 as part of efforts to strengthen coastal defenses after the Spanish-American War, and in 1900 it was named for Major Gen. John G. Foster, a New Hampshire war hero who graduated fourth in his West Point class in 1846, was wounded and twice promoted for bravery during the War with Mexico, served at Fort Sumter in 1861 and in other Civil War battles, rose to major general in the Union Army, was associated by legend with the defiant reply, "If you want Washington, come and get it," and later worked as an expert in underwater demolition, experimenting with submersibles in the Piscataqua River and serving with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Washington D.C. Nearby stood the Pocahontas Hotel, a grand resort built on land purchased by Samuel Jennison in 1885, where visitors arrived by ferry or trolley until Fort Foster's training guns disrupted the quiet and damaged windows, prompting lawsuits arguing that the U.S. government should buy the resort property because military activity had driven away guests; the hotel was torn down in 1920, and during the Second World War much of the property was acquired for the fort's expansion. The original Endicott Period fortification mounted three 10-inch guns with an eight-mile range and two rapid-firing 3-inch guns, while during the Second World War it held two mounted and shielded 90mm guns, mobile 37mm and 40mm guns, 50-caliber machine guns, and a 60-inch searchlight on rails to guard Portsmouth Harbor. Its wartime mission was to protect the harbor's underwater minefield from sabotage and from enemy minesweepers or torpedo boats, in coordination with Fort Starks, Constitution, and Dearborn in New Hampshire. Fort Foster was first manned by a detachment of the U.S. Army's 124th Company of the Coast Artillery, and during the Second World War about 100 men of the 22nd Coast Artillery Regiment helped defend the coastline and Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, where submarines were built, while a roughly 500-foot pier installed in 1942 accommodated supply ships. Off the existing pier, the Wood Island Life Saving Station was completed in early 1908 for the U.S. Life Saving Service, whose surfmen used wooden rowboats to rescue mariners in distress under the leadership of a keeper; in 1915 President Woodrow Wilson merged that agency with the Revenue Cutter Service to create the modern Coast Guard. During the Second World War, Wood Island served the U.S. Navy as an observation post watching for German U-boats, and the wooden cribs that anchored anti-submarine nets across the harbor still remain. After the war the station returned to the Coast Guard until operations moved to New Castle, New Hampshire, in 1948; Wood Island passed to the Town of Kittery in 1973, lay unused for decades, and was saved from demolition in 2009 when the Wood Island Life Saving Station Association formed to restore it for public use. Fort Foster itself closed as a military facility in the years after the Second World War, was used for a time as a U.S. Navy recreation area, and in 1961 was turned over to Kittery for public use after citizens urged its preservation as a park, where about 90 acres now offer recreation and views of Maine's coast.
