Central Park's Fort Clinton's Cannons-- Part 3: Not From War of 1812, But Fort Is

Originally thought to have been part of the city's defenses in the War of 1812, the cannons had actually been on the bottom of the East River in the HMS Hussar for 80 years before they were anonymously donated to Central Park in 1865.  They were originally displayed at the Arsenal, now the Parks Department headquarters on Fifth Avenue and later they were moved to the museum at Mount Saint Vincent convent at 105th Street.  The museum burned in 1881, but the cannons survived..  Their whereabouts for the next twenty years are unknown.

They re-emerged in 1905 when the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society persuaded the Parks department to install them, at the site of Fort Clinton.  They were displayed on a granite base (with a plaque wrongly saying they were War of 1812 cannons) until the 1960s and 1970s.

This is when New York City's budgetary problems caused them to be neglected and they became targets of vandalism.  The Central Park Conservancy retrieved them in 1996.  Last January, during restoration, it was discovered that the mortar/carronade had a cannonball with live powder in it.  The police bomb squad was summoned to disarm it.

Fort Clinton is within sight of where the HMS Hussar sank.

--Brock-Perry