Last updated: September 5, 2024
Place
Fort Strong - Camp Wightman
Boston Public Library
Quick Facts
Location:
Long Island
Significance:
Part of Boston Harbor Defense System
OPEN TO PUBLIC:
No
From its prominent position near the center of the harbor, Fort Strong protected Long Island and Boston Harbor for nearly a century.
Although the federal government established Long Island Head Light in 1819, military use of Long Island began during the American Civil War. The government acquired the Long Island House hotel and its surrounding land for a new training encampment known as Camp Wightman, named after contemporary Mayor of Boston Joseph Wightman. Camp Wightman’s first occupants were the largely Irish-American soldiers of the 9th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment. The "Fighting Ninth" stayed on Long Island from May to the end of June 1861, when they departed for the front lines in Virginia.
With the US Army in need of extra manpower, Congress passed the Enrollment Act of 1863, establishing a military draft. Once home to the tight-knit Irish volunteers of the 9th Massachusetts, Long Island now received a loose cross-section of Boston’s working class. From 1863 to 1865, Camp Wightman housed over 1,000 conscripted soldiers. Much less motivated than their volunteer counterparts, and harder for the military authorities to control, these conscripts occasionally tried to escape Long Island and swim to the mainland. In addition to these troops, Camp Wightman also hosted several companies of heavy artillery throughout the course of the war.
After the Civil War, Camp Wightman was replaced with a more permanent installation. The US Army constructed Fort Strong, authorized by an act of Congress in 1867. In 1871, Fort Strong’s defenses were improved with the addition of a new battery of 28 heavy guns. Despite this considerable upgrade, the state of the Harbor Island forts was less than adequate, as the federal government’s Endicott Board found in the 1880s. Fort Strong continued to degrade until the federal government began to seriously improve its defenses in 1899. These plans necessitated the relocation of Long Island Light, which was moved west so as not to be hit by gunfire from the Fort’s newly-constructed batteries of six and twelve-inch coastal guns.
During World War I, soldiers of the 55th Artillery Regiment garrisoned Fort Strong, but the installation’s use during the war was minimal. From 1922 and throughout the interwar years, Fort Strong ceased operation. Reactivated at the start of World War II, Fort Strong mostly served as a control and maintenance hub for the minefields in the northern waters of Boston Harbor.
Following World War II, the US Army declared Fort Strong a "surplus property," but the US military’s use of Long Island continued. During the early years of the Cold War, the island housed silos for the new MIM-3 Nike Ajax surface-to-air missile. This program, however, did not last beyond the 1950s, as new advancements in air defense technology soon rendered the Nike-Ajax obsolete. Thus ended the century-long military presence on Long Island.
Today, public access to Long Island is restricted. Much of Fort Strong has been lost to time, though some gun emplacements still stand, along with the decommissioned missile silos.
Contributed by: Raphael Pierson-Sante, SCA Historic Preservation Corps Crew Member
Sources
Snow, Edward Rowe, The Islands of Boston Harbor: Their History and Romance, 1626-1935, The Andover Press, 1935.
Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, Cultural Landscape Report: Boston Harbor Islands National & State Park, Volume 1: Historical Overview (Boston: National Park Service, 2017)