Fort Amsterdam

Fort Amsterdam is a fort on the southern tip of Manhattan that is no longer standing today. Its construction, which began in 1620, marks the official founding date of New York City.

Fort Amsterdam was the administrative headquarters of the Dutch when they founded Manhattan, but changed hands eight times through various battles, and changed name to Fort James, then Fort Willem Hendrick, back to Fort James, then to Fort William, Fort Anne and Fort George.

The Americans took over Fort Amsterdam on Evacuation Day, in 1783. In 1790 they demolished it. However, realising they need a fort to protect Manhattan, they built a new one at Castle Clinton, just before the War of 1812. The site of Fort Amsterdam is today the Alexander Hamilton US Custom House.

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Thanks for reading this page. My name is Timothy Tye. My hobby is to research information about places, and share the information with people on this website. I started this website on 5 January 2003, and since then, have written about over 20,000 places, mostly in Malaysia and Singapore.

Please use the information on this page as guidance only. While I try my best to provide you information that is as accurate as I can get it to be, I do apologize for any errors. Also, as I might not be able to update some information on time, some of these pages may contain outdated information.