Fort Knox (Maine)

Local memory of the humiliation of Maine at the hands of the British during the American Revolution and again during the War of 1812 contributed to subsequent anti-British feeling in Eastern Maine. The Penobscot Expedition of 1779 aimed to force the British from New Ireland (Maine), but ended in a debacle. The Americans lost 43 ships and suffered approximately 500 casualties in the worst naval defeat for the United States prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Then in autumn 1814, during the War of 1812, a British naval force and soldiers sailed up the Penobscot and defeated an outnumbered American force in the Battle of Hampden. The British followed their victory by looting both Hampden and Bangor. The American defeat contributed to the post-war movement for Maine's statehood, which occurred in 1820, as Massachusetts had failed to protect the region.

The Aroostook War of 1838-1839 revived anti-British feeling and concern over the vulnerability of the region to another attack like that of 1814. Also, the Penobscot valley and Bangor were major sources of shipbuilding lumber. The response was the inclusion of the Penobscot in the Third System of coastal fortifications, and the construction of Fort Knox, a large, expensive, granite fort at the mouth of the Penobscot River.

Construction began in 1844 and continued until all masonry fort funding was withdrawn in 1869, with the fort mostly complete except for the emplacements on the "roof" or barbette level.[6][7] Funding from Congress was intermittent, and the fort's design was never fully completed despite an expenditure of $1,000,000. Granite was quarried five miles (8 km) upriver from Mount Waldo in Frankfort.[8] The fort's overall design was by Joseph G. Totten, the foremost fortification engineer of the Army Corps of Engineers in his day. Notable engineer officers supervising construction included Isaac Ingalls Stevens and Thomas L. Casey.[7]

Besides the main fort with 64 guns, Fort Knox had two open water batteries facing the river, each equipped with a shot furnace to heat cannonballs sufficiently that they could ignite wooden ships if the ball lodged in the vessel. These furnaces became obsolete with the adoption of ironclad warships.[8]

Fort Knox never saw battle, though it was manned during times of war. During the American Civil War volunteers from Maine, mostly recruits in training before assignment to active duty, manned the fort. Thomas Lincoln Casey supervised work on the fort, including adapting the batteries to use the recently invented Rodman cannon, and oversaw its completion.

A regiment from Connecticut manned Fort Knox during the Spanish–American War. A plaque at the fort describes the laying of a controlled minefield in the river during this war, which Congress appropriated $3,200 for shortly after its outbreak.[9]

The garrison was reduced to one man, the "Keeper of the Fort" or caretaker with the rank of ordnance sergeant, at the end of the war. The keeper attended to the condition and maintenance of the fort, and reported to Fort Preble in South Portland. In 1900 the fort received a permanent "torpedo storehouse" for storing naval mines (which were called torpedoes at the time) that is now the Visitor's Center.[10]

In 1923, the federal government declared the fort excess property and put its 125-acre (51 ha) grounds up for sale. The state of Maine bought it for $2,121. It has been administered as a Maine state historic site since 1943.[3]

A work crew from the Ellsworth camp of the Civilian Conservation Corps, Co. 193 was deployed to transform the fort into a tourist destination. The November 1936 issue of Brann News, the camp newspaper lists work accomplished: "picnic area, reforestation, road construction, drainage in fort itself, Spring development, table and bench combinations, fireplaces, reconstruction of the retaining wall on the river side of the fort, repairing masonry work, in the interior of the fort."

Fort Knox was featured as one of the haunted locations on the paranormal TV series Most Terrifying Places in America in an episode titled "Cursed Towns" that aired on the Travel Channel in 2018.[12]

The Travel Channel's television show Destination Fear filmed at the abandoned fort for the third episode of their third season (2021).[13][14]

• Wade, Arthur P. (2011). Artillerists and Engineers: The Beginnings of American Seacoast Fortifications, 1794–1815. CDSG Press. ISBN 978-0-9748167-2-2.
• Weaver II, John R. (2018). A Legacy in Brick and Stone: American Coastal Defense Forts of the Third System, 1816-1867, 2nd Ed. McLean, VA: Redoubt Press. pp. 83–88. ISBN 978-1-7323916-1-1.