Outdoors Maryland; 1709; Colonel Lee's Birdhouse

Outdoors Maryland is made by NPT to serve all of our diverse communities and is made possible by the generous support of our members. Thank you. Coming up the guardian of the river monument to the man who made it. He was built for war in another age. Now it's the nature of history against the history of nature. Here inside Connally's birdhouse. Mixed. Outdoors Marilee's produced in cooperation with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Dno are inspired by nature guided by science. A leisurely drive north over the Francis Scott Key Bridge. For some

picturesque news. On the left. Baltimore skyline dominates the horizon. Nothing unusual. They are. But a glance to the right present something else. Something of a mystery. A six sided chunk a brownstone in the middle of the Patapsco River. A peculiar landmark. It's impossible to identify. Without taking a closer look. At. The island of rock turned out to be Fort Carroll abandoned army outpost infamous subject of a local legend. Built in the 1840s to defend Baltimore against enemy attack. It was so important to military minds of the time. That renowned Army engineer Colonel Robert E. Lee was ordered to Baltimore to build it. It was abandoned years ago and lies empty. The sleeping guardian of Baltimore's harbor. But there is renewed interest in the old force sparked by the discovery that the island is

occupied by nature a fact that has bird lovers historians developers and even the state wondering what will happen to a historic fort Carol. On this wide expanse of the Patapsco near the Key Bridge. The steam of heavy industry bends eastward in the river when. It's chilly from Maryland they met. Dave Brinker and Jim McCann both wildlife biologist with Maryland's Department of Natural Resources are here at Sollers flats near the mouth of the Patapsco River to count birds. Not just any birds. They're carefully observing an extraordinary gathering of species. The water bird colony they found thriving in the side of a Ford Carol. Daybreak. We're at Fort Carroll what some of

us like to call the home of industrial strength there and right here in Baltimore Harbor we have a growing paranoia that has most of the species of parents meager third nest in the state of Maryland. Now none of these are officially listed as threatened or endangered but there are these species are of conservation interest because they're on common. Which is why we track them. You start with great groups that we know you Brits look like. Last night I was going to well it's going to be like oh my god. Over the years Ford Carroll's been the subject of ideas ranging from the mildly unconventional to the supreme Lee eccentric. As entrepreneurs look for ways to use the abandoned fort. Now birders like Brinker and McCann to leave the colonies presens is a good reason to leave the court alone. To just give it over to the birds.

But others want to reclaim and protect for Carol's rich history and rare architecture. For Carol from the great mystery of bomber Harbor. Baltimore developer Bill Street for once to save the family ever since I first came the hallmark of Hanukkah come out and play the part without them and come around it or. Up or sitting come around there. It would tell you about the rats are. Bigger than dogs. And that. Ollie's but curious as to what it was. Then. Why it wasn't. In the news. One adventurous day I paddled out here with my daughter and explore and I was like wow man this is incredible. Totally cool. And clambered around in amongst the boys and I streamers imagination is fired by the Fords modern day potential he once leased it with an option to buy but later let it lapse for Streeter and any future owner.

The Ford presents a unique challenge. The problem you want to look at as a problem is nature trees and birds nesting in trees on an manmade island. It was of no use to man for one century in the Baltimore Sun columnist Dan Rodricks has followed the unusual story of Fort Carroll for years so they've kind of taken over they've kind of claimed it. I think they have squatters rights there and they have to be dealt with. And birds are not humans you know you can't say here's a voucher for rent subsidy go someplace else now. This is a delicate this is a very very interesting issue. What to do with the bird. It's a rarity in this part of the state. They nest on the island three months out. The year. From spring to early summer. They build nests on the wisteria saplings scrub brush and the poison ivy vines that in the spring smother the Forward's old parade ground the living lace of green. The island's trees can be

trimmed or cut during nesting season. They're protected like many of the birds here. By a collection of state and federal laws. They make the situation afford Carol unique. Unique because the very trees the colony nests and are growing through the historic forts brickwork threatening to break it supporting archways for historians and developers who want to save the fort. Developers like St. for the birds present a quandary adding a strange twist and a sense of urgency is the potential tree damage to the historic fort. But history shows that nothing's ever been easy for Ford Carol. From the start it earned a reputation as an oddity in Baltimore's early days a time when opportunity and geography lured a generation of entrepreneurs to life at the water's edge.

Which is where the story of Ford Carroll begins tomorrow was a historian living in Baltimore Baltimore supports a lot of people talk about the fact that someone from the far inland but. What they found out early in the going was that they were 400 miles closer to the markets of the West out in the heartland. Then the rest of the port cities in America you had to go under 50 miles up the bay to get here. But that was a lot easier than trying to fit things over there so it became a very attractive sort of inland port. The city is starting to turn into a prototype of the modern city. The country was was dynamic it was energetic it was inventive and was also dangerous. Dangerous because the enemy maybe found Baltimore a tempting target. Just as the British did when they sailed up the Patapsco during the War of 1812. Forced Baltimore was this is

the kind of thing could happen in America. You know what the Founding Fathers got together. Was a big argument about how to protect the country from these giant European powers. And they talked about putting fortifications along the shoreline and somebody advocating his rule was 18 21 that there was just flat out there. They could certainly put a fortification out there that would control the whole channel. And since it was already a fairly shallow area they could they could put it out there without breaking the bank trying to develop a big time mystery for cation. Brigade Colonel Robert E. Lee the same Robert E. Lee who later led the Confederate army against the union was ordered to build the fort first and foremost a military engineer. Lee was happy to get the assignment after his return from the Mexican War.

When Robert E. Lee came to town. In 1848 he was really in mid career and if you were to look at picture him at that time. It's not the Robert E. Lee that we know he was always a I guess you'd call him a straight arrow. He was very principled very very put together guy never had a temerity West Point you know which was unheard of. They came to live with his whole family for a good time in his life because he spent a lot of time as well measure as an officer away from his family. But he came in 1840 with this film and I don't wait Madison Street. And right there in downtown Baltimore. And he had got friends and family in the city so it was a good time for him. Lee's orders were simple but the job wasn't easy he was to construct a fort in the middle of the Patapsco River to replace Fort McHenry considered obsolete. And prevent a repeat of the 1812 British mom barred Mina Baltimore must've been quite a scene because it's very indicative of the country at the time they had steam available to

them. And that's made all the difference in the world. Because it gave an opportunity to anybody before. They. Got a pile driver and they took out a special kind of the saw that cut stone. And. It must have been. Quite a scene out there banging away trying to put a foundation first of all that would sink into the flats and then gradually build this very heavy superstructure on top of it. And not long after he had been working on this thing. Pretty much I think the foundation finished it put a wooden platform on top of it. The stone foundation so that they could actually put the rest of this fourth on top of it. The design called for a three story six sided stone and brick fort with an area of about three and a half acres in water 12 to 15 feet. Each side was two hundred forty nine feet long internally fortified with poured

cement the walls were lined with granite minded Port Deposit Maryland and were fitted with shuttered ports for three hundred fifty cannon aimed to sink ships attacking from any direction. The main fort had dining rooms barracks quarters and powder and ammunition magazines. Other improvements included a carpentry and blacksmith shop a freshwater Well a caretaker's house and an oil storage building. Modeled after South Carolina's Fort Sumpter Fort Carroll's firepower would have been massive If it had ever been finished. But there were serious problems with it from the beginning. They were banging away out there for about four years putting putting this this fortification into the works and I think it became our human every year like it always is with Congress. Well it's funny they want to spend it making this work because it took longer than they wanted it to. It was more trouble than they wanted it just as Congress cut off funding for the ford.

There were more problems. First Lee was reassigned as commandant of the United States Military Academy at West Point and then engineers found that fort Carroll's heavy stone foundation was sinking into the Patapsco those muddy bottom all of forts were works of progress all of Delhi's coast and they all had enormous amounts of problems but looks like Fort Carol Lee of course last surviving side of the Declaration of Independence was holding court. Baltimore up until the 1830s. This particular Fort she did most of the Strong came in in 1862 during the civil. You're still unfinished but fully manned. The Fords flooded during Terentia will reign. There was little doubt. With Lee now gone congressional support for finishing the Ford lost and advancements in heavy weaponry making Ford Carol vulnerable and virtually obsolete construction on its stock. It was never finished. Never saw action. Never fired a shot.

Instead it began an odd existence as a curiosity. Even within the military which could never find a productive official use for Ford Carol. There were some efforts a keeper man the lighthouse to warn ships away from the navigation hazards of Soller splats fort itself. At one point soldiers dismantled one of its tiers and dumped the giant granite blocks into the Patapsco to make room for modern cannon. It later served as a base for servicing mines in Baltimore Harbor during the Spanish-American War was a temporary holding station for foreign seamen and was a Coast Guard pistol range during World War Two. The Army salvage much of the Ford's iron equipment to help with the war effort. The Army tried to sell Ford Carolyn 1023 but there were no takers until 1958 when Baltimore attorney Benjamin Eisenberg paid $10000 for the 4S. Eisenberg had big plans including a full restoration of the fort with a public park a marina a restaurant and a casino.

It never panned out though and his plans were abandoned. Best of. All. So with some crackpot ideas to do something with the police because it's it's out there. You see it when you cross the keep bridge you see you're coming to BWI the flight path. I wonder what the world really is. It's appealing to you to do something with it but nobody has yet been able to figure out exactly what. Bill Streeter is still drawn to the ford by its past its shadowy twists and turns and the promise of something more. This is poison ivy over here but this is right here this is the yeah I was that her piece of work with these granite spiral stairs.

This is the old my ass. Well this was a little tripod that held up a bell. Then of course the light was on the roof. These are the problem. Routes are just digging right into the masonry. The summer is that here was the. This was a parade ground all open in those pictures from when Eisenberg had it was nicely mowed grass. And he had a. Fake cannon that there in all this is simply stuff that grew up when the place was abandoned. These were all cannons for every point of time.

Now the soldiers who were manning their POWs. Would have to be able to do their business from time to time. And one of the great. Inventions of for Carol is the title the train that has a kind of a hook at the entrance so that you can swim in and out in only at high tide the water would come up over the you know the bump in the tunnel and come into this trench here and you know guys would do their thing and water would come and flush it out twice a day and you'd have this nice sweet. I. Don't know them but I think they have a twist in the hallway so

that I know to protect the gum pattern so that it would be very difficult for me. And I guess they had the slits for ventilation. This workman what its future could be. It's a great place for imagination and it's a great place to enjoy the bay. And I marvel at the feat of engineering and that and craftsmanship and that and enjoy this kind of coming together of nature and Rankine. Nature nearly as rare is the history it occupies. There isn't a colony like it around for more than a hundred miles. Its presence is signaled by the constant squawking of a thousand birds flying feeding roosting

to Brinker and McCann walking through the cavernous gateway into the Forward's tangle of spring foliage just like the last world. Dave Brinker. When I went over and there were a few there's a predator we can on the island shows. There's a Colonial Defense you know everybody is going to say we want to drive this perceived threat away. And the best way they can do that is swooping down on you and trying to. Scare you off. These birds have a unique nesting behavior where they create their own little cities that biologists call colonies. And because they nest in these dense concentrations they are trying to avoid predators. And they look for predator free environment in Maryland that's usually an island. And as far as they're concerned this whole fort is simply an island that's kind of the vegetation structure. That they can build nests. And more importantly it has little or no predators out here.

Whenever he's in their head you're going. To have a classic like oh my home that. A couple of chicks. That. They don't need any particular species of tree or they just need something that's got enough complexity and branches so that you know they can cram a lot of mass into a small space. Once the chicks had the adults you know I have to make feeding trips and they bring their small fish and. Regurgitate food for the chicks and it takes them about a month to six weeks to get the chicks to the point where they're ready to flags and go out on their own you know. The island here itself is probably occupied for about two and a half months in the summer because not everybody starts raising their young at the same time in their

history year started over next to the base of the Key Bridge by the toll facility. In that there was a wet shrubby area there that black on white herrings colonise. And that counting grew and got to a point of being about 100 150 pairs. And other species started coming in. First we had a couple snowy roads and then we added a great great and has more species came in at some point a dynamic there changed for whatever reason. This social group that made up that how you realized that Carol was here what Carol had been had you know water breaking news. Point. And in one spring they moved en masse they vacated what we called the Key Bridge that came out here and now we've been here for about five years and. We now have just about every species of having a great nest in Maryland. The bulk of Maryland's nesting herons and Hugh Grants are down in Somerset County in Worcester

County. So you're going almost to the far reaches of Maryland to find anything like what we have right here in the foothills. These birds feed relatively high on the food chain they're eating the fish that ate the smaller fish that ate the plankton. And that makes some good bio indicators of the health of our environment. You came to Baltimore Harbor when my father was young and worked with Beth Steel You can have these He's nesting here the harbor was a lot dirtier the food chain was a lot more corrupt than it is now with all the efforts to clean up the environment clean up the harbor. We had better water quality and we used to we had better forage fish and so the birds can survive during his living here and it's a good indication of fact these birds are bio indicators. That's why we track them. Moving into Baltimore Harbor is a good thing for the state. As for Taro's a legion of birds continues to lay claim to the island its

presence invites a final question. Will it be history or nature. It reclaims this place in St.. My big concern right now is. Fear and a way to preserve the structure it's just. A gorgeous piece of craftsmanship. With the trees growing out of the roof. The Roots eventually will break the structure of the axes and once that happens then the whole thing will tumble down. For Dave Brinker the choice is a simple one. If a development proposal to change the character of Fort Carroll now these birds are going to have a difficult time finding another site to nest up in this part of the. North of the Bay Bridge you don't have a lot of small predator free islands with trees and shrubs around. So it is very essential for these birds if we want to make the choice to keep them here.

If we decide that they're not valuable. And we put something else out here they're going to go somewhere else. They'll go to Delaware or they go to Southern Maryland but they probably won't end up in this part of the bay. Drop into our website at W W W dog MP t dog o r g to send us your comments and suggestions. From mountains to Marsh learn more about Maryland's diverse natural beauty on

our website. DNR inspired by nature guided by science. Outdoors Maryland is made by NPT to serve all of our diverse communities and is made possible by the generous support of our members. Thank you.