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Two
Ax Heads, A String of Beads and A Handful of Nails
The island played a critical role in the War of 1812, fighting off the British and saving New York from burning. Governors Island remained vital to the city's defense throughout every war in the 19th and 20th centuries. Castle Williams held as many as 1,000 Confederate soldiers during the Civil War; Fort Jay's dungeon held prisoners waiting to be executed. Later, the castle was a prison for AWOL soldiers (including Walt Disney and boxer Rocky Graziano), who kept up the surrounding golf course.
During
the 1863 draft riots, troops from Governors Island were sent to
guard the Sub-Treasury Building on Wall Street. Rioters decided
to seize the Army's ferries and take over the island's store of
ammunition and guns. Civilian workers had to line the island, poised
with guns, to turn the rioters back. Wilbur
Wright made the first airplane flight over American waters in September
1909, taking off from Governors Island and circling the Statue of
Liberty. Glenn Curtis landed on the island in 1910 to collect a
$10,000 prize from Joseph Pulitzer for completing a trip from Albany
to New York City. Throughout its years as an Army base, it was a quaint community with all of the amenities a small town affords (steam ferries transported soldiers and their families to and from Manhattan) and some that come only on an island situated so closely to the center of the world — New York City. <Click here to see a slideshow about Army brats> There were the spectacular views of the Manhattan skyline, the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island. Brooklyn looked a stone's throw away from the eastern side of the island — although many of the officers' young sons of who lived on base proved that it was not.
In 1966, the Army relocated its operations, turning the island and its views over to the U.S. Coast Guard to use as their northeastern headquarters. With as many as 4,000 people living there, Governors Island was the largest Coast Guard base in the world.
Four
years later, the Coast Guard closed the base, ending three centuries
of military use. President Bill Clinton offered to sell the island
to New York for $1 in 2000, if a plan could be developed that preserved
the unique historical environment of Governors Island. But despite
talk of a casino, television tower, public park, museum and a conference
center, plans for the transfer of the land from the federal government
to New York State never developed. In 2001, President George W.
Bush designated the island's northern 22 acres a national
monument.
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hen
the Dutch came to the New World, their ships sailed into New
York Harbor and past the three wooded islands that guarded the entrance.
After buying Manhattan Island from the Manahatas Indians in 1637,
they paid for the island sitting in the heart of the harbor with
two ax heads, a string of beads and a handful of nails. The new
settlers called it Nutten Island, after the hickory, oak and chestnut
trees that flourished there.
eginning
in 1710, the island was used as a quarantine station to house Protestant
settlers from the Palatinate region of Germany, with between 7,000
and 10,000 people living there at a time. John Peter Zenger, who
would later publish the New York Weekly and become the first American
to defend his freedom of speech, was one of those who made their
way into New York through Governors Island.
fter
a November 1783 peace agreement, the island was again American.
The memory and wounds of war still fresh, New York gave the island,
at no cost, to the federal government in 1800. The U.S. Army quickly
built batteries on the northern end of the island. Fort Jay, a star-shaped
fortification with low walls, was built in the 1790s and expanded
again between 1806 and 1809. By 1811, Castle Williams, which looks
a bit like a medieval castle with its high and exposed red sandstone
walls, was built. In 1812, the South Battery was built to protect
against an attack from Brooklyn. 
