Fort Townsend History
Fort Townsend Wharf c.1880
From Fort to State Park
Built in the mid-1850s, Fort Townsend originally served as an Army outpost for the Puget Sound region. Today, the fort has been transformed into a state park. Take a stroll on the History Trail, walk the beach where the Sarni landed with reindeer, or sit quietly at the Cemetery Site, and imagine what life was like at the fort…
1861: Fort Townsend is deactivated and put into caretaker status. Troops are sent to other garrisons and later to the Civil War.
1865: Pay for a Private after the Civil War is reduced from $16/month to $13/month.
1874: Fort is reactivated with many new buildings being built (officers' quarters, administration building, hospital, schoolhouse and chapel, laundry, bakery, recreation & reading room, steam pump house).
1880: The fort has 27 major buildings. General of the Army William T. Sherman visits the fort.
Fort Townsend Soldiers
Schematic of buildings, water and sewer systems
Soldiers At Rest
Twenty-eight soldiers are recorded to have died while in service at the Fort. Eighteen were buried here at the Fort Townsend cemetery and nine at the American Camp cemetery on San Juan Island who were later reburied at Fort Townsend. The resting place of one of the soldiers, Private McNichol, was not recorded.
In the late 1890s, all of the soldiers were reburied at the Presidio in San Francisco, California, but Private McNichol does not appear on the Presidio records… perhaps a clerical error or perhaps he still lies here before you. View or download the Soldiers at Rest Cemetary Brochure here.
San Francisco Presidio
Fort Townsend Civil War Reenactment
Cemetery Site