Stage Fort Park is a park at Stage Head in Gloucester, Massachusetts, part of the Essex National Heritage Area. It contains two beaches, a large playground, picnic benches, two baseball fields, a basketball court, a dog park and plenty of room for any weekend activities. The park includes Gloucester's Visitor and Welcome Center and Stage Fort, a reconstructed Civil War fort on a site fortified since 1635. [1] [2]
A seasonal restaurant in the park, The Cupboard of Gloucester, selling a wide variety of food and ice cream including fried clams and sandwiches.
The most prominent geological feature is a large rock, some sixty feet high and two hundred wide. It was said to be an ancient ritual stone used by Native Americans. [3]
Stage Head was named for a fishing "stage" dating back to the original settlement by the Dorchester Adventurers Company circa 1624. It was the most likely original site of Roger Conant's "Great House", which was moved to Salem circa 1628. The area was first fortified in 1635 with the Stage Fort and garrisoned intermittently from then until the Spanish–American War. The fort was reconstructed in 1930. [2] The works were also known variously as Fort Gloucester, Eastern Point Fort, Fort Conant, other names, and other variants of these names. [4] [5]
An 1862 painting by Fitz Henry Lane, Stage Fort across Gloucester Harbor , depicts the park area and the fort from further north in the harbor. The painting is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. [6]
Essex County is a county in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Massachusetts. As of the 2010 census, the total population was 743,159, making it the third-most populous county in the state. It is part of the Greater Boston area. The largest city in Essex County is Lynn. The county was named after the English county of Essex.
Gloucester is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. It sits on Cape Ann and is part of Massachusetts's North Shore. The population was 28,789 at the 2010 U.S. Census. An important center of the fishing industry and a popular summer destination, Gloucester consists of an urban core on the north side of the harbor and the outlying neighborhoods of Annisquam, Bay View, Lanesville, Folly Cove, Magnolia, Riverdale, East Gloucester, and West Gloucester.
Salem is a historic coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts located in the North Shore region. Continuous settlement by Europeans began in 1626 and Salem would become one of the most significant seaports in early American history.
Marblehead is a coastal New England town in Essex County, Massachusetts. Its population was 19,808 at the 2010 census.
Cape Ann is a rocky cape in northeastern Massachusetts, United States on the Atlantic Ocean. It is about 30 miles northeast of Boston and marks the northern limit of Massachusetts Bay. Cape Ann includes the city of Gloucester and the towns of Essex, Manchester-by-the-Sea and Rockport.
The North Shore is a region in the U.S. state of Massachusetts, loosely defined as the coastal area between Boston and New Hampshire. The region is made up both of a rocky coastline, dotted with marshes and wetlands, as well as several beaches and natural harbors. The North Shore is an important historical, cultural, and economic region of Massachusetts. It contains the cities of Salem, known worldwide as the site of the Salem Witch Trials; and Gloucester, site of Charles Olson's Maximus Poems, and of Sebastian Junger's 1997 creative nonfiction book The Perfect Storm and its 2000 film adaptation. Beverly was home to author John Updike until his death.
Ravenswood Park is a nature reserve in the western section of Gloucester, Massachusetts owned and managed by the Trustees of Reservations, which acquired the property in 1993. It can be accessed from Western Avenue, the road to Manchester through the Magnolia area. Ravenswood Park is frequented by cross-country skiers during the winter.
Roger Conant was an English colonist and drysalter credited for establishing the communities of Salem, Peabody, and Danvers, Massachusetts.
Route 127 is a 26.70-mile-long (42.97 km) north–south Massachusetts state route that runs from Beverly to Gloucester. Much of the northern part of the route is in Cape Ann. Route 127's southern terminus is at Route 1A and the southern terminus of Route 22 in Beverly and the northern terminus is at Route 128 in Gloucester.
Lovells Island, or Lovell's Island, is a 62-acre (250,000 m2) island in the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area, in Massachusetts. The island is across The Narrows from Georges Island and some 7 miles (11 km) offshore of downtown Boston. It is named after Captain William Lovell, who was an early settler of nearby Dorchester. The island is known as the site of several shipwrecks, including the 74-gun French warship Magnifique in 1782.
The Annisquam River is a tidal, salt-water estuary in Annisquam and Gloucester, Massachusetts, connecting Annisquam Harbor on the north to Gloucester Harbor on the south. The segment between Gloucester Harbor and the Newburyport/Rockport Line bridge is also known as the Blynman Canal.
Adventure is a gaff rigged knockabout schooner. She was built in Essex, Massachusetts, USA, and launched in 1926 to work the Grand Banks fishing grounds out of Gloucester. She is one of only two surviving knockabout fishing schooners – ships designed without bowsprits for the safety of her crew.
Wingaersheek Beach is a 0.6-mile (0.97 km) long beach located on the Annisquam River in West Gloucester, Massachusetts, United States.
Fort Lee is a historic American Revolutionary War fort in Salem, Massachusetts. The site, located at a high point next to Fort Avenue on Salem Neck, is a relatively rare fortification from that period whose remains are relatively unaltered. It is an irregular 5-pointed star fort. Although there is some documentary evidence that the Neck was fortified as early as the 17th century, the earthworks built in 1776 are the first clear evidence of the site's military use. Reportedly, the fort had a garrison of 3 officers and 100 artillerymen with 16 guns. The site, of which only overgrown earthworks and a stone magazine survive, was repaired in the 1790s, and rebuilt for the American Civil War. A state cultural resource document states that the fort has not been much modified since the Revolution, and has not been built over. It was garrisoned by the Massachusetts militia in the War of 1812, abandoned afterwards, and rebuilt with four 8-inch columbiads in the Civil War. An Army engineer drawing dated 1872 depicts the fort's five-pointed trace and the four Civil War gun positions. It was also garrisoned during the Spanish–American War.
Fort Pickering is a 17th-century historic fort site on Winter Island in Salem, Massachusetts. Fort Pickering operated as a strategic coastal defense and military barracks for Salem Harbor during a variety of periods, serving as a fortification from the Anglo-Dutch Wars through World War II. Construction of the original fort began in 1643 and it saw use as a military installation into the 20th century. Fort Miller in Marblehead also defended Salem's harbor from the 1630s through the American Civil War. Fort Pickering is a First System fortification named for Colonel Timothy Pickering, born in Salem, adjutant general of the Continental Army and secretary of war in 1795. Today, the remains of the fort are open to the public as part of the Winter Island Maritime Park, operated by the City of Salem.
The Misery Islands are an 87-acre (350,000 m2) nature reserve established in 1935 in Salem Sound close to the Salem Harbor in Salem, Massachusetts. It is managed by the Trustees of Reservations. The islands are a part of the city of Salem, although they are much closer to the city of Beverly, in whose aquatic territory they lie.
Great House in Cape Ann was a seventeenth century structure built by colonists in present-day Gloucester, Massachusetts. It was later disassembled and moved to Salem, Massachusetts, to be the Governor's house.
Fort Defiance was a fort that existed from 1794 to after 1865 on Fort Point in Gloucester, Massachusetts. The location protecting the inner harbor was also called Watch House Point.
Stage Fort across Gloucester Harbor is a mid 19th century painting by American artist Fitz Henry Lane. The painting is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York city.
Stage Fort was a fort that existed from 1635 to 1898 on Stage Head in what is now Stage Fort Park in Gloucester, Massachusetts.
Coordinates: 42°36′20″N70°40′41″W / 42.60556°N 70.67806°W
This Essex County, Massachusetts geography–related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |