René Edward De Russy

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René Edward de Russy

René Edward De Russy was born in Haiti on February 22, 1789, and in 1791 the De Russy family moved to Old Point Comfort, Virginia.^[1] At the age of 18, De Russy enrolled into the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York on March 20, 1807, and graduated on June 10, 1812. After West Point, De Russy worked as the assistant engineer for New York State’s defenses and helped to build Fort Montgomery, Rouses Point on the United States-Canada border. In the late 1810s he became the Superintending Engineer of the defenses of New York Harbor. However, after that he was sent south to build forts along the Gulf of Mexico, from 1821 to 1825. In 1825 he returned to New York where he continued to build the Harbor’s defenses, specifically Fort Hamilton. The Brooklyn Eagle reported that De Russy was the “engineer under whose direction Fort Hamilton was built, the corner stone of which was laid on June 11, 1825, and which was first garrisoned by troops on November 1, 1831.” During this stay in New York De Russy inspected the construction of the New Utrecht Reformed Church in and built his home, which the Brooklyn Eagle referred to as “The Lookout” because it overlooked the harbor, situated as it was on the very top of the hill that became Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, New York.

On July 1, 1833 he became Superintendent of the United States Military Academy, in which he supervised for five years. Thereafter, he was sent south again to build forts in Virginia and Delaware. Because of his extensive career, De Russy became a member of the Atlantic Coast Defense Board from 1849 until 1854, when he was sent to San Francisco, where he built military forts and aptly became member of the Pacific Coast Defense Board. In 1857 he was sent back to the Atlantic Coast but returned to San Francisco in 1861; “he died while on active duty at San Francisco on November 23, 1865, aged 75 years, the oldest graduate of the Military Academy on active duty.” While in the military he rose to the rank of Brigadier General and invented the barbette depressing gun carriage. He is buried at the United States Military Academy Post Cemetery.