Stumbling upon a Fascinating Old Fort on the Maine Coast

It was a beautiful summer day when my wife and I were ambling up the coast of New Hampshire and Maine when we came across a sign for historic Fort McClary, which I had never heard of. Turned out that the place had a Civil War history, which of course meant I would have to stop and look the place over.

Located at mouth of the Piscataqua River, near Kittery Point in Maine, dating back to the late 17th century when the site held primitive defensive works, the fort eventually erected on the grounds was named for Andrew McClary, who was a New Hampshire native killed at the battle of Bunker Hill.

After a number of expansions, including the erection of a blockhouse, the fort hosted the Maine Coast Guard and later the Maine State Guard. Although the fort saw little action during the Civil War, it did boast an unusual member of it’s garrison: Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, a native of Maine, who was a private in the Maine State Guard. On more than once occasion the high-placed private reported for duty at the fort during an alarm.

After a period of declining attention to the fort, it was finally decommissioned in 1918. Today the fort is open to the public as part of the Fort McClary State Historic Site and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.