Fort Tompkins

Fort Tompkins is a fort on Staten Island in New York City, within what is now Fort Wadsworth at the Narrows. Fort Tompkins guarded the landward approaches to other forts in the area from 1808 through circa 1898. The current fort was built 1847-1861, and was operational as a fort until superseded by new defenses circa 1898. It is now part of the Gateway National Recreation Area. It is the last remaining of four forts in New York State named Fort Tompkins.
The first use of the land for military purposes was as the site of a blockhouse built by Dutch settler David Pieterszen de Vries in 1636 on Signal Hill , which was burned in an Indian raid of the Peach Tree War in 1655. The site is said to have been continuously garrisoned since another blockhouse was built in 1663, which survived at least through 1808. During the American Revolution the area became known as the Patriot redoubt Flagstaff Fort; captured by the British in 1776, it remained in British hands and was expanded until the war's end in 1783.

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