Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1975. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
From the record
“Fort Sewall is a historic coastal fortification in Marblehead, Massachusetts. It is located at Gale's Head, the northeastern point of the main Marblehead peninsula, on a promontory that overlooks the entrance to Marblehead Harbor.”
Wikipedia article Fort Sewall, CC BY-SA 4.0.
one of 350 National Register listings in Essex County · listed in 1975 · category: Site · one of 2 National Historic Landmarks in Essex County.
National Register reference number.75001908- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
Fires near this property
24 since 2015
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 24 fires within 5 miles of Fort Sewall between
2015 and 2020, burning about 62 acres in total. None started naturally. None was recorded as arson.
Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted
here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
Reported cause
Fires
Recreation and ceremony
10
Smoking
5
Equipment and vehicle use
4
Debris and open burning
3
Railroad operations and maintenance
1
Misuse of fire by a minor
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 8,189 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Fort Sewall between 1800 and
1975: 3,221 Plantae, 2,215 Animalia, 1,147 Fungi, 924 Chromista, 484 Unrecorded, 136 Bacteria, 62 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A H HIGGINSON, A. A. Eaton, A. B. Hervey and others. Each is a
physical object with a catalogue
number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was
collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be
concluded from a species being absent.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
6 workings within 5 miles of Fort Sewall: 3 plants, 1 unknown, 1 producer, 1 past producer.
4 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Zirconium, Mercury, Silver, Gold, REE. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Marblehead, the town this property stands in, in 12 storm reports between 1998 and 2016: 6 thunderstorm wind, 4 lightning, 1 heavy rain, 1 flash flood.
No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
Numerous streets were closed due to flooding. Approximately 500 houses experienced some sort of flooding, 100 of these houses had to have the electricity cut off to prevent further problems related to basement flooding. Water levels in houses were reported to be between 4 and 9 feet deep. Six houses on Elmwood Road had at least 8 feet of water on the 1st floor. On Paradise Road between the 300 block and 1000 block, 90 percent of the businesses had water damage. Orchard, Bradley, and Elmwood Roads, Humphrey, Burrill, New Ocean, and Columbia Streets, Shepard and Atlantic Avenues, and Sculpin Way were still closed around 2pm because of flooding, several hours after rain had stopped. One elementary school was closed, while other schools in the area delayed opening because of the flooding. In Lynn, Chatham Street was closed due to flooding and approximately 180 homes experienced severe flooding in the basements. Seven city buildings sustained water damage, the worst being Harrington Elementary and Marshall Middle School with water coming in from below and through the roof.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
From the nomination file
2,339 words on record
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Description of the property
There is no detailed description of the original Fort Sewall. A 1744 description states that "the town battery ... is built upon a rock, naturally well fortified, and mounts twelve large guns." The fort's location was indeed a natural one. Its guns stood on an elevated position, providing an effective field of fire over the entrance to Marblehead Harbor. In 1811 Fort Sewall was described as "an enclosed work of masonry and sods, mounting eight heavy cannons, covered by a block house, a brick magazine and barracks for forty men and officers." At present, the Fort Sewall site is a public park. Located on the western side of the harbor, the site is roughly rectangular, with private dwellings fenced off from the park at its eastern end.
Access to the park is provided by Fort Sewall Road which reaches a dead end at the park's entrance. A path with numerous benches overlooking the harbor has been constructed around the perimeter of the site. fort's military function remain. A mound 15 feet high rises sharply at the northwest end of the fort. Probably a magazine, it is covered with earth and sod and has an entrance on its eastern side. Immediately to the south of this magazine is a long rectangular structure of brick, 60 feet by 20 feet, roofed with earth and sods. This structure was probably a prison and storage area and may have been the site of gun emplacements. Mat 8
Statement of significance
/ARCHITECT Fort Sewall (originally named Fort Head) is significant as an early coastal fort which served as an important military defense for over 300 hundred years. From the time of the establishment of its first fishing station (1629), Marblehead worried about attacks from the sea, especially from the French and the The town's fishing and trade was so successful that in 1660 the King's Agent reported in London that "Marblehead was the greatest town for fishing in New England." Its obvious prosperity brought pirates offshore and the upkeep of the 1644 breastwork became a constant necessity. In the three Canadian wars, Marblehead, an outstanding seaport, was expected to provide large numbers of ships and men. The Fort had to be on constant alert against French attack.
It also served to house French prisoners. As the tumult for independence grew, Marblehead patriots were among the most active and outspoken. Rumors spread that the Birtish might burn the rebellious seaport; to combat this possibility, the townspeople in 1775 and 1776 rebuilt the Fort and had their cannon in clear view (though often they had no powder). Marblehead ceded their old Fort to the new nation in 1794 and watched the entire headland become an important base. During the War of 1812, the Fort became prominent in coastal defense. It was during this war in 1814 that the Marblehead fort was renamed Fort Sewall in honor of Samuel Sewall, Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court who died in 1814 and who had been a resident of Marblehead.
On April 3, 1814 the Fort's guns protected the U.S.S. Constitution and permitted her to escape capture by the British frigates; thus the ship was saved to continue the fight and later to become a National Historic Landmark.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 75001908, 17 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
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