North Battery - Battery Wharf

Adjacent to the North End, the Battery Wharf and Copp’s Hill area was Boston’s first neighborhood and shaped the early fortunes of the city of Boston MA. The area prospered with shipping and shipbuilding, with much of America’s early trade being routed through its warehouses. In 1646 a shoreline battery was built on Merry’s Point by General John Leverett. The battery, which became known as North Battery, provided protection for the mouth of the Charles River and covered the harbor. This site was under the command of Captain John Ruddock, a selectman, and Justice of the Peace of the 1770s until his death in 1772. North Battery remained fortified with men and arms until the end of the American Revolution.

North Battery and later Battery Wharf proved strategically well situated for troop departures in wartime. On June 17,1775 more than half the British soldiers who assaulted the patriot redoubt on Breed’s Hill in Charlestown departed from the wharf at North Battery. British Major General William Howe’s 500 troops were the first to board boats here, provided and rowed by the Royal Navy. Later in the day General Sir Henry Clinton and 700 reserves embarked from here as well, joining the bloody, daylong encounter that came to be called the Battle of Bunker Hill.

It was rebuilt in 1706 and again in 1744. By 1895 North Battery Wharf was removed and Battery Wharf rebuilt with a seawall under part of the wharf. The seawall still remains under the present Battery Wharf.

The Battery Wharf Museum is free, open 8am-9pm everyday and has exhibits called The Battery Wharf Story, The Shipbuilding and Live Oak Connection, Industry on the Waterfront, Birthplace of the Coast Guard, Trains and Ferries, and Off to War. The last link explains more on the museum.

-Source Links-

https://medium.com/@batterywharfhotel1/the-history-of-battery-wharf-on-boston-harbor-a288c3488b77

https://www.americanantiquarian.org/Inventories/Revere/northbattery.pdf

https://aknextphase.com/battery-wharfs-maritime-pocket-museum/