Fort Williams

From the 1750s, Portland Harbor held economic importance as the closest American harbor to Europe and strategic importance as a protected anchorage for the navy. In 1873, as part of an upgrade of the harbor defenses, construction began on a battery at Portland Head to replace outmoded granite forts in the inner harbor. The site ultimately contained six modern batteries mounting twelve guns and became headquarters for the harbor defenses. Although the original battery was never completed, work began in 1891 on a larger, state-of-the-art fortification, along with four other seacoast forts: Fort Preble in South Portland, Fort Levett on Cushing Island, Fort McKinley on Great Diamond Island, and Fort Lyon on Cow Island. On April 13, 1899, the post at Portland Head was designated Fort Williams in honor of Bvt. Maj. Gen. Seth Williams, a native of Augusta, Maine, and a veteran of the Mexican and Civil wars. The fort was manned during the Spanish-American War and World Wars I and II, and it also served as a recruiting, training, and administrative center for the Army Reserve during the Korean War. In 1891, construction of a casemate in Ship Cove, about halfway between Cape Cottage and Portland Head Light, drew attention when nearly the entire crew of twenty men left their jobs over nine-hour workdays and pay of $1.75 a day, after which a new crew was hired. The casemate was being excavated from solid ledge on the far side of the cove, hidden on the northerly slope of a high bluff beyond the reach of enemy gunfire, and was intended to house apparatus for exploding torpedoes placed at multiple points, with a signal officer in a protected observatory directing the operator below when a hostile vessel was over a torpedo. Plans also called for about a dozen ten- and twelve-inch breech-loading rifled disappearing guns on Portland Head, concealed until raised to fire and then dropped back out of sight, with similar cannon to be placed on the outer sides of the islands.

Cape Elizabeth, Maine · United States