A constructional history of Fort Jefferson, 1846-1874

Manucy, Albert

The present compilation was made in order to provide detailed information about construction of the great fortification in the Dry Tortugas Islands. The Army records kept at Fort Jefferson were taken to Key West and stored about 1910. Not all survived, but apparently most of the Engineer Office papers came through. Later, it appears, the cache was sent to the National Archives, where it is now joined with the group of related records that had been maintained in the Washington offices of the Army. Researchers in the Fort Jefferson records at Key West were carried on in 1934-1936 by workers on a special project. Comprehensive reports were written for each year studied (1844-1867, 1874, 1899-1906). The reports dealt with all major construction, but the project terminated before study of some of the less active years (1869-1873) could be done. The author, and supervisor of the Key West research, hoped to develop the reports mentioned above into a history of the fort. However, the project ended before the proposed history could be completed beyond 1860. Fortunately, it was later possible to arm the interpreters at Fort Jefferson with “A Handbook for Fort Jefferson History” (1942), which summarized interesting historical data from the research reports. This is a more voluminous text since the “Handbook” is not sufficiently detailed for constructional history.