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Fort Fremont

fort in South Carolina

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 5, 2026
Entity authorityQ5471184
Source-derived summary

Fort Fremont (sometimes misspelled 'Freemont') was a military installation on Saint Helena Island, Beaufort County, South Carolina. The fort and battery is historically significant as an example of late nineteenth and early twentieth century military architecture and as one of two surviving coastal fortifications in the United States intact from the Spanish–American War era.

Construction

The construction of additional coastal batteries was authorized by Congress under the $50 million Harbor Fortification Defense Act of 1898 due to the Spanish–American War. Fort Fremont was built by the Corps of Engineers on condemned private property, with construction starting in 1899. The Corps of Engineers hired labor from the Beaufort area to build the military complex.

Details

The fort was named after John C. Fremont, the first presidential candidate of the Republican Party in 1856. Later, Fremont was a Civil War general.

The complex at Fort Fremont consisted of almost 170 acres (69 ha) of land with numerous outbuildings, including an Administration building, guard house, barracks, hospital, stable, mess hall, bakery, commissary, post exchange, lavatory, and water tower. The garrison's single artillery company operated three 10-inch disappearing guns and two 4.7-inch rapid fire guns. Much of the bastions and the concrete emplacements for the guns remain today.

Editorial summary

“Fort Fremont” enters the record as fort in South Carolina. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Fort, Fremont and fort can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA valuable geographic starting point for tracing changing names, boundaries, uses and administrative responsibility. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1898, 1899, 1856—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Fort, Fremont and fort.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Fort Fremont” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Fort, Fremont and fort provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5471184. Authority coordinates are 32.305, -80.643. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1898, 1899 and 1856.

Critical limits

A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Fort Fremont”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Fort Fremont primary sources, Fort Fremont archive and Fort research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Fort Fremont”?
  2. What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
  3. Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Fort Fremont” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.