Fort Independence

A section of the perimeter walkway around Fort Independence

Fort Independence is a granite fortification on Castle Island. The base structure of the fortress is a regular pentagon. An aerial view of Fort Independence shows a star-like shape resulting from the protruding diamond-shaped bastions at each of the five corners. Such a design improved the defendability of near-wall spots all around the fort. A simple pentagon structure would have left “blind spots” difficult to be reached by direct fire from the top of the pentagon ring wall. The picture here shows one of the base-pentagon walls and two walls of the corner bastion that points in northwest direction toward the city center of Boston.

An interpretive board in the nearby Thomas J. Butler Memorial Park displays an aerial photography of the bastion-enhanced fortress and provides the following summary:

Fort Independence at Castle Island is one of the oldest fortified sites of British origin in the U.S. In 1634, Boston's original founders built the first small fort at the site known as the “The Castle”. The prominent location adjacent to the main shipping channel was strategically important to control access to Boston Harbor and protect the growing city. Through 1851, the fort underwent eight iterations of reconstruction and modernization.

Today, Castle Island is connected with the mainland of South Boston. In his article with the title “The story of Castle Island” (Aug. 13, 2016) Sagar Jauhari presents a Boston Harbor map of 1776 showing that Castle Island was an actual island located east of the Dorchester Heighs peninsula. The island and the fort became part of the peninsula when, from 1890 until 1920, the marshes in-between were filled to create green space and promenades.

Walls, walls, walls: Fort Independence

A section of the perimeter walkway around Fort Independence