Fort Gibson: Uncovering the Past

In 1812, Fort Gibson’s exterior wall was five and a half feet thick and sixteen feet high. The remains now visible are the lower half of that wall, and they continue seven feet into the ground, buried by the massive amounts of landfill used to expand Ellis Island. The outer fort wall was supported by stone buttresses backed by mounded earth and a second wall, and the remains of the second wall’s buttresses can still be seen behind the first. Within the walls were barracks for soldiers and officers, a hot-shot furnace used to heat iron shot for cannon fire to set targets ablaze, and storage buildings including a powder magazine. The uncovered section of the walls represents approximately twenty-five percent of the entire Fort Gibson battery.

New York, New York · United States