Seven Things You Didn't Know About New York's Central Park-- Part 2: Fort Clinton and the Cannon

3.  The cannon at the War of 1812's Fort Clinton actually came from an American Revolution British ship.

Fort Clinton has views of Harlem Meer and the city's east side and served as a strategic overlook in the War of 1812.  It was named after the city's mayor at the time, DeWitt Clinton.  The fortification and its original remains were retained during the construction of Central Park.

A historic cannon and mortar can be found at the top that actually predate the War of 1812.  They came from the HMS Hussar, a British ship from the American Revolution that sank in the East River in 1778, and were later donated anonymously to the park in 1865.

This Revolutionary War cannon was placed in various sites around the park until placed at Fort Clinton in 1905.  When the staff of the Conservancy  cleaned the cannon in 2013, they found it was still loaded with cannonball and powder, all of which have since been removed.

I have already written about this.  Click on the Fort Clinton label below.

No Big Bangs Here.  --Brock-Perry

A History of HMS Hussars in the Royal Navy-- Part 2

5TH HMS HUSSAR--  28-gun, 6th Rate launched in 1784 and wrecked on 27 December 1796 in a strong storm that drove her ashore about 15 miles west of Ile de Batz.

6TH HMS HUSSAR--  14-gun sloop, originally the French privateer Hussard.  Captured 1798 and sold 1800.

7TH HMS HUSSAR--  38-gun, 5th Rate, launched in 1789 and wrecked 8 February 1804, by grounding on reef near Ile de Sein.  Crew burned the ship and escaped.

8TH HMS HUSSAR--  This was was around during the War of 1812, but I could find no mention of it being in the North America region.  It was a 46-gun 5th Rate, launched in 1807 and destroyed as a target ship in 1861.

9TH HMS HUSSAR--  a torpedo gunboat in service 1894-1920.

10TH HMS HUSSAR--  Minesweeper launched in 1934 and accidentally sunk of Normandy by the RAF in 1944.  This looks like an interesting story that I will have to look into for my World War II blog. Tattooed On Your Soul.

--Brock-Perry

HMS Hussar-- Part 3: Blown "Straight Back to Hell"

In 1876, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers determined to take care of the dangerous Hell's Gate passage by blowing "the worst features of Hell's Gate straight back to hell with 25 tons of dynamite."  The Hussar's remains, if there are any, are believed to be beneath the landfill of the Bronx.

On January 16, 2013, preservationists with the Central Park Conservancy discovered gunpowder, wadding and a cannonball in one of the two recovered cannons.  The bomb disposal unit removed about 1.8 pounds of active black powder and disposed of it.

"We silenced British cannon fire in 1776 and we don't want to hear it again in Central Park," according to a New York Police Department statement.

--Brock-Perry

HMS Hussar, Revolutionary War Ship-- Part 2: Victim of Hell's Gate

The HMS Hussar served in the American Revolution, mostly carrying dispatches along the American coast.  By the middle of 1779, the British position in New York City was growing increasingly precarious.  When Admiral Sir George Brydges Rogers took his  twenty ships-of-the-line south in November, it was decided that the Army payroll should be moved to anchorage at Gardineri Bay on eastern Long Island.

On 23 November 1780, against his pilot's judgement, Captain Charles Pole decided to sail the Hussar on the East River through the treacherous waters of Hell's Gate between Manhattan Island and Long Island.

The ship was swept onto Pot Rock and began sinking.  Unable to run his ship aground, Pole's ship sank on 29 meters of water.  Though the British denied it, rumors abounded that it was carrying between $2 to $4 million in gold which caused many salvage attempts despite the extreme difficulty of the wreck site which continued over the next 150 years.

--Brock-Perry

HMS Hussar, Revolutionary War Ship-- Part 1: What Does Armed En Flute Mean?

From Wikipedia.

Although this ship did not fight in the War of 1812, nor did the two recovered cannons from the Hussar.  However, the cannons are now at a War of 1812 fort, Fort Clinton.

The HMS Hussar was commissioned in August 1763 and was 124 feet long, 33.10 foot beam, 200 crew and mounted 28 cannons with 24 9-pdrs. and 4 3-pdrs.  It was rated as a 6th rate frigate and of the Mermaid-Class.

It served off North America from 1768 to 1771 and went into ordinary in 1771.  It was repaired and refitted from 1774 to 1777 and recommissioned in 1777.

It captured the Spanish ship-of-the-line Nuestra Senora del Buen Confeso though armed en flute on 20 November 1779.  I had to look up armed en flute as it didn't make since that a 6th rate frigate mounting just 28 cannons, could take a ship-of-the-line.  Armed en flute means a warship being used in transport with a reduced armament.  At the time the Spanish government had just 26 12-pdrs.

Never Knew Armed En Flute.  --Brock-Perry

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

Central Park's Fort Clinton's Cannons-- Part 2: Carrying Gold?

The guns were removed from Fort Clinton and taken to a warehouse on Randalls Island.  They were brought back because of the War of 1812 Bicentennial commemoration and because of the reconstruction of Fort Clinton and Nutter's Battery Overlooks.

It was originally thought that the guns protected the city during an expected British attack during the War of 1812, but that wasn't true.

The guns date back to 240 years to the British ship HMS Hussar, a 28-gun frigate commissioned in 1763.  It ran aground in New York's treacherous East River in the 1780 and sank.  Rumors abounded that the ship had been carrying gold to pay the British Army and as a result, many salvage efforts were made.  None was ever found, but many artifacts were recovered.

--Brock-Perry

Central Park's Fort Clinton's Cannons-- Part 1: Bringing the Guns Back

From the March 23, 2014, New York Times "Big Guns Will Return to Watch Over Park" by Sam Roberts.

I did some research on the two cannons which were reinstalled there.

A photo accompanied the article show the preservation of the two cannons.  One is classified as a cannon, the other one as either a carronade or mortar.

For most of the 20th century, two 18th century cannons were located at the Fort Cklinton site ij New York's Central Park.  They had been recovered from a British frigate that had mysteriously sunk off Hell's Gate in the East River.  The ship had reportedly also been carrying gold.

These cannons survived the Revolutionary War, War of 1812 and a fire at the nearby Conservatory Gardens.  New York's financial crisis  in the 1970s resulted in the cannons becoming victims of vandalism and neglect.

--Brock-Perry