Fort Monroe and the Need for Parkland in Hampton Roads
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Fort Monroe and the Need for Parkland in Hampton Roads Bracing for Change The Parks of Hampton Roads - The Principal Five Cities Around the Harbor Chesapeake Bay Newport News Hampton James River Fort Monroe on Old Point Comfort Hampton Roads A t l a n t i c O c e a n Portsmouth Norfolk W. Branch Elizabeth River E. Branch Elizabeth River Virginia Beach 0 2.5 5 Miles Legend B a c k Public Park Shoreline B a y Measured Shoreline Parkland Waterbody This map created for The Trust for Public Land's Center for City Park Excellence. Bracing for Change Fort Monroe and the Need for Parkland in Hampton Roads The Trust for Public Land Center for City Park Excellence October 2008 Bracing for Change Fort Monroe and the Need for Parkland in Hampton Roads Written by Peter Harnik and Coleen Gentles Map by Christian Smith © 2008 The Trust for Public Land. All rights reserved. Center for City Park Excellence The Trust for Public Land 660 Pennsylvania Ave. S.E., Suite 401 Washington, D.C. 20003 202.543.7552 tpl.org/ccpe Produced under contract with Fort Monroe National Park Foundation, Inc. P.O. Box 097 Fort Monroe, VA 23651 cfmnp.org Cover photo: At 570 acres, Fort Monroe is an active military base slated for closure in 2011. With a deficit of parkland in the Hampton Roads area, Fort Monroe could add numerous recreational opportunities for locals and visitors alike. Photo: © 2008 Fort Monroe National Park Foundation, Inc. itting upon Old Point Comfort, a spit of land fort), a lighthouse in continuous use since 1802, S at the confluence of Virginia’s James River the historic Chamberlin Hotel (now a retirement and Chesapeake Bay, is the extraordinary military community), a restored gazebo, a two-mile paved complex of Fort Monroe. The invariable reaction promenade along the bay, a deep-water marina, of first-time visitors to the site is a gasp: is this a fishing pier, Walker Field airfield, wetlands, 21st-century America or 12th-century Europe? and Dog Beach. In addition, the army runs the Arguably the most historic of all U.S. military Casemate Museum, located within the walls of strongholds, Fort Monroe and its predecessor the fort, which portrays the history of the pen- installations have formed for 400 years the key insula and Fort Monroe. The museum, which link of the defense of the Hampton Roads area as opened in 1951, highlights the Civil War period well as Chesapeake Bay and Washington, D.C. and includes views of the prison cell that held And with the base scheduled for decommission- Confederate President Jefferson Davis. ing, a profound debate is now swirling on the fate With the army vacating Fort Monroe, what of its 570 acres for the next four centuries and should happen to this unique site? Should it beyond. become a park? Should it be redeveloped into Geographically, Old Point Comfort is located housing? Should it be retained in public owner- in almost the bull’s-eye center of the sprawling, ship? Should it be broken up for several different nine-city, six-county Hampton Roads metropoli- uses? tan area. Legally, it is located within the city limits The closing of Fort Monroe presents the of Hampton. Attached to the city on the north by region with the opportunity to gain hundreds a sandbar, the peninsula’s other borders consist of priceless acres of waterfront parkland. How- of Mill Creek to the west, Hampton Roads to the ever, there is no regional consensus on whether south, and Chesapeake Bay to the east. From the parkland is what the area needs. In order to add ramparts of the base, the cities of Norfolk and some hard data to the debate, the Fort Monroe Portsmouth can be made out in the far distance. National Park Foundation has contracted with Nearby to the west, Interstate 64—the Hampton The Trust for Public Land’s Center for City Park Roads Bridge-Tunnel—dives under the waters to Excellence to undertake a study of parkland in allow the passage of huge navy vessels, container the five major cities of the Hampton Roads area. ships, and colliers moving to and from the nearby How well do the cities of Hampton, Newport bases and port facilities. News, Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Virginia Beach The 570 acres of Fort Monroe compose presently fare in regard to park provisions for an active military post. There are many unique their residents, workers, and visitors? Does the features on Old Point Comfort, including 181 region need more parkland? historic buildings (both inside and outside the 1 city of Norfolk and to blockade the Confederate Brief History of Fort Monroe seaboard from Virginia to South Carolina, and the Old Point Comfort was first visited in 1607 by launching by General George B. McClellan of the English colonists who then settled nearby in Peninsula Campaign to seize Richmond. Also, the Jamestown. The site has the momentous distinc- famous naval encounter between the ironclad ships tion of being the spot upon which, in 1619, the first USS Monitor and CSS Virginia (USS Merrimack) took Africans destined for the British continental North place a few miles from the fort off Sewell’s Point. American colonies landed—the vanguard of an After the war, Fort Monroe served for two years as estimated 10–12 million Africans forcibly brought the imprisonment site of Confederate President to the colonies and, later, the United States. Jefferson Davis. Two years after the initial landing, a fort, But Fort Monroe’s most extraordinary con- named Algernon, was constructed at the point, tribution to American history involved words, not lasting only until it burned to the ground in 1612. bullets. In May 1861, three escaped slaves, Frank A second fort was destroyed by a hurricane in 1667. Baker, Sheppard Mallory, and James Townsend, In 1728, a third fort, Fort George, was constructed fled to Fort Monroe seeking sanctuary with the but it, too, was destroyed by a hurricane in 1749. Union troops. War had already been declared, but After the numerous naval incursions by Great it would be more than 18 months before President Britain during the War of 1812—culminating in the Lincoln would issue the Emancipation Proclama- burning of the nation’s capital—it became obvious tion. Technically, the onerous and virtually airtight that a massive structure was needed to protect the Fugitive Slave Act was still the controlling law of main Hampton Roads shipping channel, the inland the land and the Northern army was required to rivers, and Chesapeake Bay. Designed by Simon return any escapee to his or her master. After some Bernard, Fort Monroe was begun in 1819 and completed in 1834. With a seven-sided shape, walls of stone, ramparts over a mile in circumference, completely surrounded by a water-filled moat, and bristling with huge artillery guns, Fort Monroe was given the nickname “Gibraltar of the Chesapeake.” It remains the largest fort ever built in the United States. In fact, during the American Civil War, Fort Monroe was one of only a very few strongholds in the South, aside from the immediate outskirts of Washington, D.C., that never fell to the Confeder- ates. (Because of the impregnable fort, Virginia not only abandoned the city of Hampton but even burned it to the ground to prevent it from being used by the North.) Among notable military events that occurred at Fort Monroe were the command Coleen Gentles Overlooking Chesapeake Bay, Fort Monroe was the fourth by President Abraham Lincoln to capture the fort built on Old Point Comfort and remains the largest fort ever built in the United States. 2 Table 1: Parkland as Percent of City Size, Hampton Roads Cities City Size Acres of Parkland Park Acres as Percent Average, Cities of Above or (acres) of City Size Similar Population Density* Below Average? Hampton 33,280 2,074 6.2% 8.8% Below Newport News 43,520 3,693 8.5% 8.8% Below Norfolk 34,560 590 1.7% 9.9% Below Portsmouth 21,120 388 1.8% 9.9% Below Virginia Beach 158,903 23,738 14.9% 8.8% Above * based on a national study of 60 major cities by the Center for City Park Excellence consideration and research, Major General Benja- Parkland in the Cities min Butler, who was also a lawyer, announced his of Hampton Roads decision. Breaking new legal ground, he declared that any slave escaping to Fort Monroe would not The five main cities of the Hampton Roads area be returned but would be kept as “contraband of encompass 291,383 acres of land and water and are 1 war.” As word of the novel legal decision spread, home to 1.1 million people. Its Native American thousands of slaves found their way to Fort Mon- history goes back thousands of years, and it played roe, which soon became known as “Freedom’s For- a formative role in the establishment of the Ameri- tress.” By the end of the war, thousands of “con- can colonies and the United States, as memorial- traband” were living around the fort and among ized through the historic triangle of Jamestown, the ashes of the city of Hampton. The spot of the Williamsburg, and Yorktown, all of which have first landing of slaves became, after more than 200 been preserved. But it is far from a relic. Today years, the spot of their first emancipation. (Later, Hampton Roads is the nation’s 34th-largest metro thanks to the efforts of General Samuel Chapman area, a bustling metropolis with 12 major military Armstrong and the American Missionary Society, bases, 13 colleges and universities, a 65-million- fledgling efforts to educate the freed slaves resulted ton-per-year coal-shipping industry (the largest in in the creation of the Hampton Normal and the world) and the third-largest port in the United Industrial Institute, today’s Hampton University.) States when import and export tonnages are Fort Monroe continued as an active military combined.