151. STATEN ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY and HISTORIC RICHMOND TOWN
441 Clarke Avenue, Staten Island. Hours: W–Sun 1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. General information: www.historicrichmondtown.org or (718) 351-1611.
Historic Richmond Town is an old village and museum complex that allows visitors to roam through buildings and enjoy exhibits illustrating life from all periods of the city’s history, including the Civil War. Sprawling over 50 acres in the center of Staten Island, the museum features 30 different buildings. One of them is the Third County Courthouse, which served as the courthouse for Richmond County during the Civil War, long before Staten Island was incorporated into New York City. In July 1863, the unrest of the city’s draft riots spilled over into neighboring towns and a small military detachment from nearby Camp Sprague in New Dorp was called out to protect a black man who was imprisoned in the Richmond Town courthouse. Today the building has been restored to look as it did during that period.
Third County Courthouse.
Resting on the ground to the left of the Treasure House in Richmond Town sits an 1857 Dahlgren naval cannon used during the Civil War on the three-masted, steam-screw frigate USS Colorado. The Colorado saw action as the Union’s flagship for the blockade squadron that patrolled the Atlantic Coast from New York to New Orleans. This cannon was recovered from the sea in the area near Fort Lafayette; it must have been discarded when the ship was cut up for scrap in 1885. Other Civil War treasures in the Staten Island Historical Society’s collection include the papers of Brig. Gen. Alfred Napoleon Duffie, Lt. Col. William G. Ward, Capt. David Stothers, and the abolitionist Sydney Howard Gay. All these are located in the Society’s archives and available for research.
152. FORT RICHMOND, NOW CALLED BATTERY WEED, and FORTS TOMPKINS AND WADSWORTH
Hudson Road, Staten Island. Hours: W–Sun 10:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. General information: (718) 354-4500.
Battery Weed.
Battery Weed is now part of the Fort Wadsworth Military Reservation and is open to the public as a museum. It was built between 1849 and 1861 as Fort Richmond to guard the Narrows, the gateway to New York Harbor from the Atlantic Ocean. It is located strategically across from Fort Hamilton, which is on the Brooklyn side of the channel. Like Fort Totten, it was designed by Gen. Joseph G. Totten (1788–1864) and later named for Gen. Stephen Weed (1831–1863), who had been killed at the battle of Gettysburg. The fort is in the shape of a trapezoid, with three tiers of guns housed under open arches. During the Civil War, it boasted approximately 116 guns, making it the strongest fortification along the Atlantic coast.
Fort Tompkins was built between 1861 and 1870 and stands on the crest of the hill above Battery Weed. It was finished too late to see much Civil War activity, and was used primarily as a barracks for Battery Weed. Both Battery Weed and Fort Tompkins are good examples of the type of heavy granite masonry fortifications that were rendered useless by the new rifled cannon developed during the Civil War era. Fort Wadsworth, beneath the bridge at Bay Street and Wadsworth Avenue, has the distinction of being the oldest continually staffed military reservation in America, having first been used for military purposes in 1663. In 1865, it was renamed in honor of Brevet Maj. Gen. James Samuel Wadsworth (1807–1864), who had been killed during the battle of the Wilderness the previous year.
Fort Tompkins.
If you visit Staten Island via the Staten Island ferry, take time to visit the memorial erected in 1915 to the memory of Maj. Clarence T. Barrett. It is in Barrett Triangle, the park bounded by Hyatt Street, Bay Street, Stuyvesant Place, and Richmond Terrace. Barrett signed on with the 175th New York at the outbreak of the war and took part in the Union’s 1864 siege of Mobile and the final battles around Richmond that ended the war. The classical bronze figure of a warrior by artist Sherry Edmundson Fry stands on a pedestal decorated with traditional Greek figures and the motto “Loyal, Honest, Brave and True.”