The Harbor Defenses of New York was a United States Army Coast Artillery Corps harbor defense command. It coordinated the coast defenses of New York City from 1895 to 1950, beginning with the Endicott program, some of which were located in New Jersey. These included both coast artillery forts and underwater minefields. The command originated as an Artillery District(s) and became the Coast Defenses of Eastern New York and Coast Defenses of Southern New York in 1913. Circa 1915 the Coast Defenses of Sandy Hook separated from the latter command. In 1925 the commands were renamed as Harbor Defense Commands, and in 1935 the Harbor Defenses of Eastern New York was almost entirely disarmed, although possibly retaining the minefield capability. The New York and Sandy Hook commands and the Harbor Defenses of Long Island Sound were unified as the Harbor Defenses of New York on 9 May 1942.
History
Early forts in New York City
Colonial period
Giovanni da Verrazzano, an Italian working for France, is credited with being the first European to explore the New York City area, in 1524. He was closely followed the next year by a Spanish expedition led by the Portuguese explorer Estêvão Gomes. In 1542 the French established a fortified trading post known as Fort d'Anormée Berge (Fort of the Grand Scarp), in southern Manhattan on an island in a lake later called Collect Pond. It is unclear when it was disestablished. Dutch settlement of the area began with an expedition in 1609 by Henry Hudson, an Englishman working for the Dutch East India Company, for whom the Hudson River (called the North River in the Dutch period) and other places are named. Other Dutch-sponsored explorers soon followed him, with a blockhouse/trading post in Manhattan by 1612. In 1614 Fort Nassau, a factorij or fortified trading post, was established at what is now Albany, New York. This was the first permanent Dutch settlement in the area, by the New Netherland Company as part of the colony of the same name. This colony was established primarily to exploit the North American fur trade, and grew over the next forty years with fortified settlements from the South River (Delaware River) to what is now Rhode Island.
In 1621 the Dutch West India Company took over management of New Netherland and other Dutch possessions in the New World. In 1624, after floods showed that Fort Nassau was untenable, it was replaced with Fort Orange. Also in that year, Dutch settlement of what became New York City began with a colony on Noten Eylandt (Nut or Nutten Island, now Governors Island). The next year the colony moved to Manhattoes (now southern Manhattan) to establish New Amsterdam, which has been settled ever since, and built Fort Amsterdam to protect themselves. In 1653 the wall at what is now Wall Street was added for protection from potential English attack. In 1655 Peter Stuyvesant led an expedition that subjugated the New Sweden colony along the Delaware River, and in that same year a raid by Indian allies of the Swedes in the "Peach Tree War" caused significant damage and loss of life in New Amsterdam and the surrounding area. In 1664 an English expedition arrived in what is now New York Harbor and demanded the colony's surrender. Stuyvesant felt the colony could not defend itself, regretting that his prior requests for troops and defensive resources from the Dutch West India Company had not been met, and on 8 September he surrendered New Netherland to the English. The English renamed the city "New York" at this time and established the Province of New York from the former New Netherland, also establishing the Province of New Jersey the next year. The colony was named for its nominal ruler, James, Duke of York, who later became King James II of England. Fort Amsterdam was renamed Fort James in his honor. Lingering resentment over the takeover was a cause of the Second Anglo-Dutch War in 1665. This ended with the Treaty of Breda in 1667, which made the English takeover official. In 1673, during the Third Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch seized New York from the English, but the English regained the colony the following year via the Treaty of Westminster that ended that war.