Eastern Point Fort (Gloucester, Massachusetts)

Gloucester · Massachusetts · American Civil War

Quick BriefConfederate commerce raider attacks on Gloucester fishing vessels in June 1863 prompted the construction of Eastern Point Fort, a new earthwork battery positioned to defend the harbor entrance. Garrisoned from 1863–1867 and manned by Massachusetts militia companies, this previously unsurveyed Civil War fort mounted between seven and ten guns and was the only new fortification built on the North Shore of Massachusetts Bay during the Civil War.

Civil WarCoastal defense

History & Significance

Eastern Point Fort was built in 1863 in response to Confederate naval threats against Gloucester's prosperous fishing industry. US Army engineers determined that existing defenses at Stage Fort and Fort Defiance could not effectively engage enemy vessels entering the harbor, necessitating a new fort positioned at the peninsula's eastern terminus.

Designed by Major Charles E. Blunt, Eastern Point was a masonry-free earthwork with provisions for up to seven guns, though January 1865 records show ten cannon actually on hand—three rifled 32-pounders, four smoothbore 32-pounders, and three rifled 24-pounders—distributed between open gun positions and a bombproof shelter with landward-facing embrasures. The garrison consisted of the 2nd and 11th Unattached Companies of Massachusetts militia in 1864. Distinguished as the only Civil War fort on the North Shore not built atop earlier fortifications, Eastern Point was abandoned following the war in 1867 and its buildings demolished, though earthworks and military structures remain visible on private property today.