Salem’s Abandoned Revolutionary Forts: a Bicentennial View

Every time I go up to the treasure trove that is the Phillips Library it’s a significant commitment of time so I try to order up a variety of items so I can accomplish whatever mission I’m on but also treat myself. Its collections are so diverse that you can always find something new and exciting but you have to spend some time in the catalog before you even get there. Fortunately, there are very good finding aids, for which I will always be grateful to the librarians who craft them. Last week I was after materials relating to Salem’s Tercentenary in 1926 but I also wanted to look at sources for the Revolution: I’m giving a talk on Salem’s early revolutionary role later this semester so am on the hunt for anything that can add a few anecdotes. It was actually thrilling to look at one small paper-bound journal constituting the records of Salem’s Committee of Correspondence for 1775-1776 and quite another experience to look at some photos of our city’s long-abandoned forts, Fort Pickering and Fort Lee, taken during the Bicentennial 200 years later. I have never been able to figure out what the City’s policy is towards these installations beyond benign neglect: Fort Lee is all grown over and Fort Pickering has these strange plaques dedicated to the US Army’s Special Forces which have nothing to do with its history or that of Salem. There have been myriad studies and reports: with funding from the Massachusetts Historical Commission, the City commissioned an excellent study in 2003 that used to be online but now I can’t find it, and Essex Heritage sponsored another comprehensive study which was published in 2023. Maybe this recent report will inspire some action! The photographs below were all taken by a man named Alfred K. Shroeder for the Council on Abandoned Military Posts, New England Chapter, and he captures both the sites and the ceremony, nearly fifty years ago.

Apparently The Council on Abandoned Military Posts is now CAMP: the Council on America’s Military Past. Below: Several perspectives on the Bicentennial commemorations at Fort Pickering:

Winter Island has a long military history and was home not only to Fort Pickering but also Coast Guard Air Station Salem from 1935 to 1970, which became an air-rescue station in the last year of World War II. The property then passed to the City of Salem. The first picture below shows the doors of the station’s hangar and the barracks—in much better condition in 1976 than now—and then aerial views of Fort Pickering and the adjacent Winter Island structures from different perspectives. Finally, there are some steps to Fort Lee, just off the island on Salem Neck, and an aerial view of its groundworks.

Phillips Library PHA 107: Photographs of abandoned military posts in Salem, Mass., 1976.

Putting in another plug/link for the recent historical narrative & resource study on Forts Pickering and Lee by Frederick C. Detwiller as it should be your first stop if you want to learn more about these forts!