History of Halifax City

by Thomas B. Akins

[89] Governors had a voice in all appointments at this time.

CHAPTER VIII.
FORTIFICATIONS AND DEFENCES OF THE TOWN—PUBLIC BUILDINGS, ETC.

From the year 1749 to '54 or '5, the defences of the town consisted of palisades or pickets placed upright, with block houses built of logs at convenient distances. This fence extended from where the Roman Catholic Cathedral now stands to the beach south of Fairbanks' wharf, and on the north along the line of Jacob Street to the harbor. These palisades were in existence in 1753, but were removed at a very early period, not being within the recollection of the oldest natives of the town living in the year 1825.

A large portion of the front of the present Citadel Hill was originally private property; a small redoubt stood near the summit with a flag staff and guard house, but no traces of any regular or permanent fortification appear until the commencement of the American Revolution. There were several block houses south of the town—at Point Pleasant, Fort Massey and other places. A line of block houses was built at a very early period of the settlement, extending from the head of the North West Arm to the Basin, as a defence against the Indians. The foundation of the centre block house was still to be seen in 1848 in the hollow below Philip Bayers' pasture. During Governor Lawrence's time, the Indians made an attack upon the saw mills at the head of the North West Arm, which stood near the site of the present mills, and murdered three men; their bodies were buried by the soldiers near one of the block houses, and were three times dug up by the Indians in defiance of the guard, for the purpose of securing the scalps. These block houses were built of square timber, with loop-holes for musketry,—they were of great thickness, and had parapets around the top and a platform at the base, with a well for the use of the guard.

In 1755, four batteries were erected along the beach—the centre one, called the middle or Governor's Battery, stood where the Queen's Wharf now is, being then directly in front of Government House; another where the Ordnance Yard was afterwards built, called the Five or Nine-gun Battery; the third was situated north of the present Fairbanks' wharf; and the fourth called the South or Grand Battery, still in existence at the Lumber Yard. They were composed of stone and gravel, supported by cross logs, covered with earth and planted with grass, having battlements in front and the two ends, elevated about twenty or twenty-five feet above the water. These fortifications were removed about the year 1783, and the grounds appropriated to their present purposes. The Ordnance Yard, then a swamp around the battery, and the King's Wharf, were both filled up and levelled by stone and rubbish removed from the five-acre lots of the peninsula which were beginning to be cleared about this time.

There were block houses along the beach, near the Dock Yard wall, built by Col. Spry about 1775. The drawings of the town, published about the year 1774 or '6, show a strong fortification on George's Island.[90] It was not until the commencement of the revolutionary war that regular works appear to have been constructed for the defence of the town and harbor. About the year 1778, the Citadel Hill appears to have been, for the first time, regularly fortified; the summit was then about eighty feet higher than at present; the works consisted of an octangular tower of wood of the block-house kind, having a parapet and small tower on top with port holes for cannon—the whole encompassed by a ditch and ramparts of earth and wood, with pickets placed close together, slanting outwards. Below this there were several outworks of the same description extending down the sides of the hill a considerable distance.

Fort Massey, George's Island and the East Battery exhibit the same kind of fortifications in the pictures of the town made about 1780. At the latter place there was a barrack, afterwards rebuilt by the Duke of Kent about 1800.

During the American Revolutionary War, Colonel Spry, the chief engineer, erected a battery and several small block houses near the old Dutch Church in Brunswick Street. Several fields on the north and east sides of the Citadel were then taken by government and equivalents given to the owners. There was another block house at the extremity of Brunswick Street, in the field adjoining the present Admiralty grounds; the first were demolished about 1783, and part of the land granted by the Crown as a parsonage lot for the minister of the Germans, but the latter remained many years after till it fell into decay.

The Lumber Yard, Ordnance Yard and King's Wharf were all commenced about the same time, (1784 or '5) but the present buildings were put up at a much later date. The north barracks were built soon after the settlement. The buildings known as the south barracks were erected under the directions of the Duke of Kent, as also the north barracks, destroyed by fire some years ago.