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 Fort Norfolk 1844

Fort Norfolk History - 1849

John D Sloat, Commandant Navy Yard Gosport wrote Commander Thomas. A Dornin, Assistant Inspector of Ordnance at the Gosport Navy Yard on May 4. 1849. Commander Dornin was ordered to critically examine the building being used for the Powder Magazine and to produce a report. He was ordered to “form an opinion of its fitness for the purpose for which it is now used, by its location, in point of security, it's condition and its accessibility by water. Upon all these points it I desire your opinion, as well as upon others, advantageous or not, as the case may be.

Should the result of your examination be such as to and induce a recommendation of some other site, please designate the one you regard as the most favorable having in view the purpose of obtaining it for the purpose.”

Commander Thomas A Dornin submitted his report on May 11, 1849. He reported that the Magazine’s two foot high foundation was made of soft brick that was “fast mouldering away & is only pierced here & there with small air holes “ There was no way to get under the building to repair it. Also “Much loose powder leaking from the barrels finds its way through the planks and seams of the floor, and is deposited up on the ground beneath, to which fire might easily be communicated through the afore mentioned air holes, either, accidentally or maliciously.”

He reported that the sides of the building and the windows were in a state of decay and the roof leaked. The building was only one room that was filled to the roof with powder barrels. “All the upper tiers of these barrels are so much affected by the heat through the roof, that they have shrunk, the hoops loosened & the powder in quantities leaks out and passes down on the floor & threw it upon the ground under the building.” The overstocked room also contained tanks with powder in them, False fires, Port fires, Blue lights, Rockets and fixed ammunitions for small arms. There was not enough space to safely move the items, issue, or store items from ships.

The building was at a bad location where ships can not access the magazine at low tide. “The tides are not allowing the boats to come up within landing distance, and they never can at low tide without extending the bridge out at least twelve hundred yards, which would be an expensive operation.” Also next to the Magazine was a small wooden building used as a depository for common primers, fuses, percussion caps, & shells, among the latter are sixty six boxes of Stessens shells all loaded.

“All these buildings are in immediate danger night and day from the recklessness of youths who make a habit of resorting to the vicinity of these establishments, firing at, & through them, leaping the very walls, and destroying what they can lay their hands on, & only recently they set fire to the woods adjacent to this establishment very much endangering it, & exciting great alarm to the inhabitants of this vicinity.”

All of this put $100,000 of government property and the Naval Hospital in jeopardy. “To illustrate more strongly the danger of an explosion, I have only to mention that you have yourself been compelled on several very recent occasions to dispatch men from this yard down to the magazine to extinguish fires threatening the very gates of the building.”

He identified one potential site for a new Magazine at Carters Creek, which about six hundred yards from the hospital grounds.

He stated “In conclusion I must add that I think the very best position for our magazine would be that at Fort “Norfolk”. But as I understand that the War Department has transferred that whole establishment to the municipal authorities of the City for purposes of a Sanitory character in the event of the cholera reaching here; & as I also find that both the councils & the leading citizens strongly object to our having it as a Powder Depot. Therefore it is, that I confined myself to the descriptions of what I thought the next best site, which is that at Carters Creek.”

John D Sloat, Commandant Navy Yard Gosport wrote Comm Joseph Smith, Chief of the Burrow of Yards & Docks on May 12, 1849: “The dilapidated state and the exposed and inconvenient situation of the Powder Magazine at this station has been a source of great anxiety to me ever since I have been in command of the station, and I have several times called the attention of the Chief of the Bureau of “Ordinance and Hydrography” and “Yards & Docks” to the subject verbally. From recent occurrences my solicitude as well as that of the inhabitants of the neighborhood has been in accord to such an extent that I consider it my duty for the interest of the government, as well as the to relieve myself from responsibility to lay the state of the establishment before the bureau in order that such action may be taken by them, as may seem the best.

The Bureau are aware that there is not any residence for the keeper of the Magazine belonging to the establishment he resides half a mile distant, and is I am informed a man entirely useless either for protection or any other purpose as he has not been out out of his bed for several years.” He also sent Commander Dornin’s report.

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Source of Information

W. P. S. Sanger, "Plan of Fort Norfolk, March 1844", National Archives, College Park, MD - Cartographic (RDSC), Record Group 71: Records of the Bureau of Yards and Docks, 1784 - 1963, Series: Bureau of Yards and Docks Plans of Navy Facilities, 1815 - 1966, 557-3-1.

John D Sloat, "John D Sloat to Thomas A Dornin", 4 May 1849, National Archives, Record Group 71 Bureau of Yards and Docks, Letters Recieved from Commandants of Navy Yards -- Norfolk, Sept 16 1848 - June 29 1850 Box No. 155, Entry 5.

Thomas A Dornin, "Thomas A Dornin to John D Sloat ", May 11, 1849, National Archives, Record Group 71 Bureau of Yards and Docks, Letters Recieved from Commandants of Navy Yards -- Norfolk, Sept 16 1848 - June 29 1850 Box No. 155, Entry 5.

John D Sloat, "John D Sloat to Joseph Smith", May 12, 1849, National Archives, Record Group 71 Bureau of Yards and Docks, Letters Recieved from Commandants of Navy Yards -- Norfolk, Sept 16 1848 - June 29 1850 Box No. 155, Entry 5.