Fort Adams

The story

Fort Adams occupies a thumb of land near the southwestern tip of Aquidneck Island in Newport, Rhode Island, guarding the East Passage into Newport Harbor and Narragansett Bay. The point had been used for harbor defense since colonial times, and the first fort to bear the name was dedicated on July 4, 1799, in honor of John Adams, then president. Designed by Major Louis de Tousard as part of the nation's first system of coastal forts, it was an irregular masonry star. Its first commander, Captain John Henry, later played a part in the events leading to the War of 1812. By 1811 it mounted seventeen heavy guns, and Rhode Island militia garrisoned it during that war, but the brick works were already decaying.

After the war the government rethought its coastal defenses, and Fort Adams was rebuilt on a much grander scale as part of what became the Third System. The design came from Simon Bernard, a French engineer who had served under Napoleon. Work began in 1824 under Lieutenant Andrew Talcott and ran in fits and starts until 1857; from 1825 to 1838 it was directed by Joseph Gilbert Totten, the leading American military engineer of the day, who went on to head the Army Corps of Engineers. Granite was shipped down from Maine. The result was a vast hollow pentagon of granite, roughly 1,200 by 1,000 feet, with two levels of casemates, an open gun gallery on top and a maze of tunnels cut through the rock, some running toward the water. Elaborate outer works on the landward side, including a tenaille and crownwork, were meant to break up an attack, and a detached redoubt was added during the Mexican-American War. It is often described as the most intricate fort ever built in the Western Hemisphere, matched in size in the United States only by Fort Monroe in Virginia and Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas.

The new fort received its first garrison in August 1841. It served through five wars, from the Mexican-American War to World War II, without ever firing a shot at an enemy. Its history still had tragedy: in December 1853 soldiers of its garrison, sent to California aboard the steamer SS San Francisco, died in large numbers when the ship was wrecked in a North Atlantic storm. Batteries added between 1896 and 1907 helped defend the bay alongside Fort Wetherill in Jamestown, and by World War II the fort's defenses covered the mouth of Long Island Sound too. Fort Adams ceased to be an Army post in 1950, passed to the Navy in 1953, and in 1965 became Rhode Island state property and a state park. When the National Register nomination was written in 1971, its author warned the fort could become a tragic case of "too late." The Fort Adams Trust, founded in 1994, reopened it to visitors in 1995.

The legend

Unlike many old forts, Fort Adams has no long ghost tradition. Neither Wikipedia nor the Fort Adams Trust mentions a haunting, and our sources contain no ghost story before television arrived in 2015. Its reputation rests almost entirely on two paranormal shows.

Ghost Hunters (Syfy) investigated in season 10, episode 8, "Fortress of Phantoms," aired on October 14, 2015. A member of the fort's staff told the TAPS team that people had been poked and jabbed, had rocks thrown at them, heard footsteps, saw apparitions and watched doors open and close. The episode pointed to three deaths in the fort's history, none from battle: in the nineteenth century, a quarrel between two soldiers that ended with one fatally beaten; in the 1920s, a soldier who, consumed by jealousy, fired on the wife he believed had betrayed him (she lived) before turning the gun on himself; and a corporal who pelted a friend with stones and was shot by him at close range. These events were presented on the show and have not been confirmed by other sources.

During the investigation the team logged shuffling steps in the old bakery and more steps along a corridor once used by the garrison, someone tugging at an investigator's jacket, a touch filmed down in the tunnels, raps and a faint whimper on their recordings, and a child's voice that seemed to say "you're not supposed to see me." The team's verdict was that the activity was real but harmless, leaving no reason to fear the place.

Kindred Spirits followed in season 5, episode 8, "Buried Alone," aired February 20, 2021, in which Amy Bruni, Adam Berry and medium Chip Coffey swept the fort for spirits of soldiers and crime victims and described one lonely spirit standing apart from the rest.

No skeptical study has looked at these claims. Visitors should understand that the "haunted" label here is a recent, TV-driven one, sitting on top of a genuinely impressive military history.

What remains today

The granite fort survives intact in form and is a National Historic Landmark within Fort Adams State Park. You enter through a large rusticated north gate that was once protected by a moat. Inside, a long, low granite range curves around a bastion; when the 1971 nomination was written, the brick barracks with cast-iron galleries along the south side stood mostly hollow from fire or collapsed roofs and floors. Parts of the underground works can be toured. The same nomination recorded, outside the walls, an austere Greek Revival granite guardhouse, later brick support buildings, old wharves and, to the south, the 1873 commander's residence. The 1971 nomination called it one of very few such forts in the country and second in size only to Fort Monroe.

Visiting

Fort Adams is open to the public. The surrounding state park is open from sunrise to sunset, with free parking for most daily visits, and the Fort Adams Trust offers a 90-minute guided tour of the ramparts and underground tunnels, as well as self-guided and group visits; check fortadams.org for seasons and prices. At last check, the official operator did not offer ghost tours. Stay with your guide underground and keep out of closed casemates, sealed tunnels and the ruined barracks. The southern area beyond the park, once officers' housing, was a naval housing development when the 1971 nomination was written; we have no current confirmation of its status, so do not assume it is open.

Sources

1. National Register nomination #70000014 (texte intégral) — U.S. National Park Service · Public record
2. National Register of Historic Places file (NRHP #70000014) — U.S. National Park Service · Public domain (U.S. government)
3. Wikimedia Commons category : Fort Adams (Rhode Island) — Wikimedia Commons
4. USGS 1:250000-scale Quadrangle for Providence, RI 1958 — U.S. Geological Survey, 1958 · Public domain (USGS)
5. USGS 1:62500-scale Quadrangle for Newport, RI 1889 — U.S. Geological Survey, 1889 · Public domain (USGS)
6. "Episode Recap: Fortress of Phantoms" — Syfy — Syfy
7. "History" — Fort Adams Trust (official) — Fort Adams Trust (official
8. "List of Ghost Hunters episodes" — Wikipedia — Wikipedia
9. Official website
10. "Visit" — Fort Adams Trust (official) — Fort Adams Trust (official
11. Wikipedia article — Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Text written by AI from the sources above and checked by a separate AI fact-check (how we work). Images: credits and licenses under each picture.