Fort Jay

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Fort Jay gate and moat

Aerial view of the fortifications

Fort Jay is a historical United States Army fort on Governors Island in New York City, once known as Fort Columbus. The oldest structure on the island, it was originally built to defend Upper New York Bay, but has served other purposes.

Construction of the walls and gate of the existing fort were completed in 1808 to replace a series of earthen forts built in 1776 and 1794. Barracks on the inside of the fort date back to 1834, first as officers housing, then family housing from the 1930s to 1996. The three 10" and one 15" Rodman cannons that are still in place date to the American Civil War period, around 1861, and had an accurate range of one mile.

The buildings inside the square shaped walls of the fort are surrounded by a five-pointed star shaped dry moat. The moat is in turn surrounded by a sloped grassy area or glacis, cleared of trees, that would provide no cover for any advancing enemy forces. In the twentieth century, this grass surrounding the fort was used as a golf course by the Army and U.S. Coast Guard until 1996.

The entrance gate was completed in 1801 and is crowned by a sandstone carving of the United States Department of War insignia.

[edit] History

The first earthen citadel was constructed on this site and eight cannons were mounted there for the defence of New York Harbor. The fort was abandoned by the Americans in 1776 when the British occupied New York. This army added to the existing fortifications until peace was signed in 1783. Eleven years later, the first plans for restoring the fort were discussed in Congress and in 1797, and appropriation of $30,117 was made for construction. Additional funding was granted by the government before the structure was completed in 1808.

Fort Jay was originally named for John Jay, one of the "founding fathers" of the United States, but the structure was renamed Fort Columbus at the completion of reconstruction in 1808 because Jay was unpopular at the time for helping to draft the peace treaty with Great Briton. The original name, Fort Jay, was restored in 1904.