Fort Amsterdam (subsequently named Fort James, Fort Willem Hendrick, Fort James (again), Fort William, Fort Anne and Fort George) was a fort on the southern tip of Manhattan that was the administrative headquarters for the Dutch and then British rule of New York from 1625 until being torn down in 1790 after the American Revolution.
The fort was to change hands eight times in various battles including the Battle of Long Island in the American Revolution when volleys were exchanged between the fort and British emplacements on Governor's Island.
The construction of the fort marked the official founding date of New York City as recognized by the Seal of New York City. In October 1683 what would become the first session of the New York legislature convened at the fort.
Guns at the fort formed the original battery that is today called Battery Park (New York). The fort's site is now occupied by the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, which currently houses the George Gustav Heye Center, part of the National Museum of the American Indian.
Famous quotes containing the words fort and/or amsterdam:
“So here they are, the dog-faced soldiers, the regulars, the fifty-cents-a-day professionals riding the outposts of the nation, from Fort Reno to Fort Apache, from Sheridan to Stark. They were all the same. Men in dirty-shirt blue and only a cold page in the history books to mark their passing. But wherever they rode and whatever they fought for, that place became the United States.”
—Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)
“The Jew is neither a newcomer nor an alien in this country or on this continent; his Americanism is as original and ancient as that of any race or people with the exception of the American Indian and other aborigines. He came in the caravels of Columbus, and he knocked at the gates of New Amsterdam only thirty-five years after the Pilgrim Fathers stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock.”
—Oscar Solomon Straus (1850–1926)