Fort Gibson: Oyster Banks to Batteries

The earliest fort on this site was built in 1794 after Great Britain’s navy had been seizing American merchant ships and forcing their sailors into service on British vessels, leading Congress to decide that the nation’s most important harbors should be defended in case war broke out between Great Britain and the United States. Charles Vincent, a French engineer, was hired to construct defenses in New York Harbor and chose tiny Oyster Island, as Ellis Island was then called, known for its oyster banks, shad fishing, and a battery of eight cannons. Tensions rose again when a British frigate fired on the U.S.S. Chesapeake in 1807, prompting President Thomas Jefferson to further improve the nation’s defenses and rebuild many early forts. Colonel Jonathan Williams, a grandnephew of Benjamin Franklin, oversaw construction of the brick and stone fort completed only months before the outbreak of the War of 1812. During that war, British prisoners were housed on Ellis Island, but the fort was never attacked. In 1814, the fort was named for Colonel James Gibson, a thirty-three-year-old officer killed at the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812.

New York, New York · United States