Fort Popham Memorial

About this property

Fort Popham is a Civil War-era coastal defense fortification at the mouth of the Kennebec River in Phippsburg, Maine. It is located in sight of the short-lived Popham Colony and, like the colony, named for George Popham, the colony's leader. The site is preserved as Fort Popham State Historic Site. During the American Revolution a minor fortification stood on this site; in 1808 the federal government built a small battery to accommodate guns on field carriages on this location as part of the Second System of fortifications that guarded the coast. These forts and batteries were built shortly after the passage of Thomas Jefferson's Embargo Act of 1807, which prohibited all exports from the US as an attempt to exert pressure on Britain and France, which had been taking actions against US shipping. The first use of some of these forts was to enforce the embargo. The embargo was deeply unpopular in New England and had severe economic effects there; the embargo was repealed in March 1809, but the situation with Britain ultimately led to the War of 1812. It was felt that these forts were built as much to enforce the embargo as to defend the country, and they were derisively known as "embargo forts". The battery is mentioned in the Secretary of War's reports on fortifications for December 1808 and December 1811. It was called the "Battery on Hunnewell's Point" or the "Georgetown Battery" (at the time Georgetown included Phippsburg). In 1811 it was described as "An enclosed work, with a battery of six heavy guns mounted, a small magazine, and wooden barracks for 40". The battery remained manned until 1815 and saw minor action during the War of 1812. After the war four of the guns were relocated to a new battery at Cox's Head, north of Fort Popham on the west bank of the Kennebec. This was a brick fort with barracks for 105 men. Construction of Fort Popham was authorized in 1857 as part of the Third System of fortifications but did not begin until 1861. The fort was built from granite blocks quarried on nearby Fox and Dix Islands. It had a 30-foot (9 m)-high wall facing the mouth of the Kennebec River and was built in a crescent shape, measuring approximately 500 feet (150 m) in circumference. During the closing months of the American Civil War, from October 1864 to July 1865, the fort was garrisoned by the 7th Unassigned Company of Maine Infantry. The 7th Company was commanded by Captain Augustin Thompson, who is best known as the inventor of Moxie soda. Fort Popham was originally designed to mount 42 heavy guns, a mix of 10-inch and 15-inch Rodman guns, but construction was halted in 1869 with only two of the planned three tiers completed. In the late 19th century, Fort Popham's armament consisted of 36 Rodman guns and some 300-pounder (10-inch) and smaller Parrott rifles. One of the Rodman guns was donated to the town of Bowdoinham to remember its soldiers who died in the Civil War. The cannon is still there. A 100-pounder (6.4-inch) Parrott rifle sits near the fort grounds; it was listed as being at the fort in 1903. The back side of Fort Popham was built with a low moated curtain containing a central gate and 20 musket ports.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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