Fort Mansfield, Rhode Island: The Napatree Point Fort That Failed Its Own Test

01A Fort on the Edge of Watch Hill

Napatree Point is a thin, curved spit of sand at the far southwestern corner of Rhode Island, reaching toward Fishers Island Sound. The U.S. government bought about 60 acres of it in 1898. Work on the three batteries began that year and finished in 1900, and the post was first garrisoned in 1901.

The Army named it in General Orders No. 43, dated 4 April 1900, for Joseph K.F. Mansfield. Mansfield was a Mexican War veteran and Inspector General of the Army who died of wounds from the Battle of Antietam on 18 September 1862.

Fort Mansfield belonged to the Endicott Period, the wave of coastal fortification building in the late nineteenth century. It was part of the Harbor Defense of Long Island Sound. One account describes it as first a sub-post of Fort Trumbull in New London, becoming an independent post once it was fully manned in 1902. That detail rests on a single source, and another page names a different parent post, so treat it as unsettled.

02Guns, Names and a Garrison of Uncertain Size

Three batteries guarded the point. According to the Varnum Continentals Museum, Battery Wooster held two 8-inch M1888 disappearing guns, named for General David Wooster. Battery Connell mounted two 5-inch M1900 pedestal guns, named for James Connell, who was killed in the Philippine–American War. Wikipedia adds that Battery Crawford was named for Emmet Crawford, killed in 1886 while pursuing Geronimo.

How many people lived here is harder to pin down. One local history page puts the 1902 high point at 228 soldiers and 18 buildings. Varnum also gives about 228 soldiers when the fort was completed. The Watch Hill Conservancy says "up to 100 soldiers" in its heyday. FortWiki lists 27 buildings, including a permanent 100-man barracks, a temporary 30-man barracks, three sets of officers' quarters, two sets of NCO quarters, a guard house, an administration building and a six-bed hospital. The 228 figure may be the full garrison and the 100 the permanent barracks capacity. No source reconciles the two.

03The Fort That Never Had a Town

There was never a civilian settlement here. Fort Mansfield stood in Washington County, at roughly 41.306° N, 71.884° W, on ground only 6 feet above the sea. There was no post office, no civilian population and no commercial industry. The only business of this Washington County site was coastal defense.

That makes it a different kind of ghost town. Nobody lost a livelihood when it closed, and no main street emptied. A government installation was built, manned for a short time, judged obsolete and cleared away. The Rhode Island Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission lists it as part of the Watch Hill Historic District, with a built date of 1898, a historic function of defense and a current function of vacant.

04What Happened to Fort Mansfield?

The trouble came in July 1907, during joint Army and Navy war games. The exercise exposed what became known as a "dead angle" in the fort's field of fire. An attacking fleet could approach along a line that Battery Wooster's 8-inch guns could not cover. Colonel Charles Parkhurst's memorandum of August 1907, quoted by the seewesterly history page, puts the mock battle on 22 July. In it, Parkhurst wrote that he believed he "could capture Fort Mansfield with a fleet of coal barges equipped with 6 inch guns."

The games were also a spectacle. Local spectators reportedly lined their cars along the beach road to watch, and the searchlights at night drew crowds of their own.

After 1907 the post declined. The Ferguson Museum says it was abandoned in stages and that all armament was gone by 1917. Varnum says the guns were pulled that year for possible use overseas in World War I. Published operating dates vary: 1901–1926 on Wikipedia, 1898–1928 on FortWiki. These probably reflect the difference between active service, the end of federal ownership and the demolition of the buildings.

05Sold, Stripped and Left to the Sea

The government sold the land in 1926. According to Varnum, a developer proposed more than 670 cottages on the point, which drew local opposition. In 1928 the property went to a private syndicate that wanted to preserve Watch Hill's character. The Watch Hill Conservancy, citing a 2014 Westerly Sun article, says the syndicate was made up of Watch Hill developers. It defaulted in 1931, and Washington Trust Company foreclosed.

The government structures were demolished in the winter of 1928–29, leaving only the three concrete gun emplacements. Few ghost towns end so cleanly. The abandoned Fort Mansfield site was not left to rot. It was taken down on purpose.

06What Remains of Fort Mansfield Today

Napatree Point is now a protected conservation area of about 86 acres, held by the Watch Hill Conservancy and the Watch Hill Fire District, and it is also a public beach. Batteries Wooster and Crawford survive, though overgrown. Battery Connell has been lost to erosion, which has pushed the beach back roughly 200 feet since the fort was built.

The Ferguson Museum overlaid the fort's 1914 site plan on modern imagery. The former row of military buildings would now sit under water. The sea has taken more of the fort than the Army ever removed, and what the dunes still hold are a pair of concrete batteries that never fired in anger.