Largest Stone Fort in America and 1619 Point Comfort Site
20 Bernard Rd, Hampton, VA 23651
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free admission to Casemate Museum and Fort Monroe National Monument. Donations appreciated.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved roads through historic post; some uneven cobblestone sections
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1834 · National Monument · Largest Stone Fort in America · 1619 First Africans Arrival Site · Civil War Contraband Camp · Jefferson Davis Imprisonment Site · National Historic Landmark
Fort Monroe sits at Old Point Comfort on the Hampton, Virginia peninsula at the entrance to Hampton Roads. The site has been continuously occupied as a defensive position since the early seventeenth century. In August 1619, the English privateer White Lion brought approximately twenty enslaved Africans to Point Comfort and traded them for provisions, the first documented arrival of enslaved Africans in English North America. The 400-year anniversary in 2019 anchored a national commemoration of this history.
The present stone fort was constructed between 1819 and 1834. It is the largest stone fortification ever built in the United States and one of the most extensive surviving Third System fortifications. The moat-encircled design was intended to protect Hampton Roads, the navigable waterway connecting the Chesapeake Bay to the James River.
Edgar Allan Poe enlisted in the U.S. Army under the name Edgar A. Perry and served at Fort Monroe in 1828-29, eventually rising to sergeant major of artillery. He left the army to pursue writing. Poe scholars have suggested that the coastal landscape of Old Point Comfort influenced poems including Annabel Lee.
Fort Monroe remained in Union hands throughout the Civil War, serving as a base for the federal blockade of Confederate ports. General Benjamin Butler's 1861 declaration of escaped enslaved people as contraband of war began at Fort Monroe; thousands of people self-emancipated by reaching the fort. From 1865 to 1867, Jefferson Davis was held in the fort's casemates after the fall of the Confederacy. His cell is preserved in the Casemate Museum.
The Army decommissioned Fort Monroe in September 2011. President Barack Obama designated portions of the property a National Monument that November. The National Park Service now manages the site in partnership with the Fort Monroe Authority and the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Sources
The U.S. Army published a substantive feature on Fort Monroe's haunting reports in 2009, an unusual departure from the typical institutional reticence on the subject. The article documents named figures whose biographies place them at the fort: Edgar Allan Poe (1828-29 service), Abraham Lincoln (multiple wartime visits), Ulysses S. Grant (Civil War visits), and Jefferson Davis (1865-67 imprisonment).
The White Lady is the most-cited apparitional figure, associated with the officers' quarters and the moat walks. Reports describe a young woman in nineteenth-century dress moving along the parapet and disappearing near specific window bays.
A particularly striking account from the Army.mil feature involves a young child visiting the Casemate Museum who pointed at the displayed portrait of Edgar Allan Poe and identified him as the man who had appeared in his closet. The story has been retold in subsequent press features and in the Colonial Ghosts and tin-can-living blog accounts of the site.
The National Park Service does not promote paranormal tourism but acknowledges the long tradition of resident accounts at the post. Visitors should treat Fort Monroe primarily as one of the most important historic sites in the United States and approach the haunting tradition as one element of a far larger and more consequential story.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Tour 24 rooms inside the brick casemates of America's largest stone fort, including the cell where Confederate President Jefferson Davis was imprisoned from 1865 to 1867, exhibits on Edgar Allan Poe's 1828-29 service as a sergeant major of artillery, and material on Point Comfort as the 1619 arrival site of the first documented enslaved Africans in English North America.
Walk the moat-encircled stone fort, the historic post grounds, and the Old Point Comfort waterfront. Interpretive signage covers four centuries of history from 1619 forward.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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