Elkton Armory is a historic National Guard armory located at Elkton, Cecil County, Maryland. It was constructed in 1915 and is a two-story brick structure with full basement faced with light gray granite, with a narrower one-story drill hall attached. Its design imitates a castle, with corner towers flanking two-story curtain walls with irregular window placement. The front facade features a projecting center gate, flanked by buttresses, with a carved relief of the State Seal of Maryland above the entry.
It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

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Fort Delaware is a former harbor defense facility, designed by chief engineer Joseph Gilbert Totten and located on Pea Patch Island in the Delaware River. During the American Civil War, the Union used Fort Delaware as a prison for Confederate prisoners of war, political prisoners, federal convicts, and privateer officers. A three-gun concrete battery of 12-inch guns, later named Battery Torbert, was designed by Maj. Charles W. Raymond and built inside the fort in the 1890s. By 1900, the fort was part of a three fort concept, the first forts of the Coast Defenses of the Delaware, working closely with Fort Mott in Pennsville, New Jersey, and Fort DuPont in Delaware City, Delaware. The fort and the island currently belong to the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) and encompass a living history museum, located in Fort Delaware State Park.
Background
In 1794, the French military engineer Pierre Charles L’Enfant was surveying for defensive sites. He identified an island that he called "Pip Ash" as an ideal site for the defense of the prize of American commerce and culture. The island that L'Enfant called Pip Ash was locally known as Pea Patch Island. This island was mostly unaffected by humanity with one exception. Dr. Henry Gale, a New Jersey resident, used Pea Patch as a private hunting ground. Gale was offered $30,000 for the island by the US Army, but he refused. The military was determined to get the island, so they appealed to the state of Delaware, which claimed ownership of the entire Delaware River and all islands therein within a twelve mile circle around New Castle's Court House. The state legislature passed an act in May 1813 ceding the island to the United States government, which subsequently seized it from Gale. In 1820, seeking to resolve questions surrounding the ownership of the island, Secretary of War John C. Calhoun requested a legal opinion from Attorney General William Wirt. Wirt's conclusion, based on a report by George Read, Jr. and former Attorney General Caesar A. Rodney was that the state of Delaware had the valid claim to the island, and so New Jersey could not have properly deeded it to Gale.
War of 1812
During the War of 1812, efforts were made to fortify Pea Patch Island. This plan of defense was largely coordinated by Capt. Samuel Babcock, who was working nearby on similar defenses in Philadelphia. During this time a seawall and dykes were built around the island. There is no known evidence that any progress was made on the actual fortification by war's end. The original plan was to build a Martello tower on the island. One source states that an earthwork fort was built on the island during the war and torn down in 1821; also, a wooden fort existed from 1814 to 1824.
Star fort
Construction of a star fort on Pea Patch island began sometime before December 8, 1817. Chief Engineer Joseph Gardner Swift mentions a fort on the "Pea Patch in Delaware River" among forts that are progressing nicely.
Polygonal Fort
Captain Delafield designed the second version of Fort Delaware "as a huge bastioned polygonal form to be built in masonry." Delafield desired his fort to be "a marvel of military architecture on Pea Patch", and the design was much larger than the star fort. In 1836, excavation work progressed on the north side of the island. Grillage timbers were driven into the island's soft mud to serve as a base for the foundation of Delafield's fort. In 1838, James Humphrey of New Jersey (a descendant of Dr. Henry Gale) sent legal representation to the island, claiming he had legal rights to the island. This began a decade-long legal battle over the island's ownership, which prevented Delafield's fort from being built. After conflicting opinions from two different circuit courts, President James K. Polk suggested an arbitrator resolve the disagreement, and Secretary of War William Marcy and Humphrey agreed. John Sergeant was appointed arbitrator, and in late 1847 heard arguments from the United States (represented by Senators John M. Clayton and James A. Bayard, Jr.) and Humphrey (represented by former Secretary of War John Eaton and former Secretary of the Treasury George M. Bibb). On January 15, 1848, he ruled that the island had belonged to the state of Delaware and therefore the title given to the United States government was valid. It appears no further work was done on this fort.
Pentagonal fort
The present Fort Delaware was erected mainly between 1848 and 1860 as one of the larger forts of the third system of US fortifications. Although major construction was wrapped up before the Civil War, the post engineer did not declare the fort finished until 1868. Construction of the counterscarp wall, slate pavement, and "hanging shutters and doors" was still ongoing. The fort was designed by Army chief engineer Joseph G. Totten, and construction was supervised by Major John Sanders. Engineers in supporting roles included Captain George B. McClellan, Major John Newton, Lieutenant William Price Craighill, Lieutenant Montgomery C. Meigs and civilian engineer Edwin Muhlenbrach. The fort was about the size and location of the previous star fort. It was in the shape of an irregular pentagon, with five small bastions at the corners, called "tower bastions" by Totten. Four of the sides were seacoast fronts, with three tiers of cannon on each, two casemated tiers in the fort and one barbette tier on the roof. The irregular shape provided for more cannon on the east-facing fronts, where the deeper channel was. A total of 123 heavy cannon could be mounted on the seacoast fronts, with 15 more in the bastions. The long rear front was called a "gorge wall", with two tiers totaling 68 loopholes for muskets and a tier of 11 cannon on the roof. In the center of this wall was the sally port, the only entrance to or exit from the fort. Twenty short-range flank howitzers could be mounted in the bastions to defeat attacks on the curtain walls. Thus, the fort had positions for 169 cannon. The fort also had a moat, with a tide gate on a canal from the river to control the moat's level.
Civil War
During the Civil War, Fort Delaware went from protector to prison; a prisoner-of-war camp was established to house captured Confederates, convicted federal soldiers, and local political prisoners as well as privateers. The first prisoners were housed inside the fort in sealed off casemates, empty powder magazines, and two small rooms inside the sally port. In those small rooms, names of Confederates can still be seen carved into the brick. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the island "contained an average population of southern tourists, who came at the urgent invitation of Mr. Lincoln". The first Confederate general to be housed at the fort was Brig. Gen. Johnston Pettigrew. During the war, a total of about a dozen generals were held within the fort as prisoners-of-war.
1870s and 1880s
After the Civil War, the fort was operated by a small garrison of the 4th U.S. Artillery. In the early 1870s, plans were made to modify the five bastions to support 15-inch Rodman guns. During the Civil War a ten-gun battery was built on the river's west bank near the later Fort DuPont; this was rebuilt as a 20-gun battery in the 1870s but not fully armed.
In October 1878, a massive hurricane struck the area causing considerable damage to structures outside the fort. The majority of buildings on the south side of the island were destroyed. The Trinity Chapel, built in 1863 by Confederate POWs, was partially destroyed in the storm. The chapel was subsequently used to store hay until totally demolished sometime after 1901.
On August 3, 1885, a tornado struck the island, destroying the post-war hospital and caused considerable damage to other structures. "A storm took place here. We have had nothing like it since [October 1878] and a strong whirlwind with it, sweeping every thing before it, pulling trees out of the ground and carrying parts of the hospital all over the island and out on the river," wrote Ordnance Sergeant James Maxwell.
Spanish–American War
Several years before the start of the war, in 1892, a mine control casemate was built on the northern tip of the island. This casemate was built semi-underground and then covered with dirt for concealment. This mining casemate served in conjunction with a one-story torpedo (mine storage) shed and a narrow-gauge railroad, which all supported water-tight mines that could be placed in the Delaware River as a defensive measure against a possible enemy attack. Another casemate at Fort DuPont was built for a mine field controlled by that fort. A similar mine casemate at Fort Delaware had been planned in the 1870s but never materialized due to lack of funding.
World War I
Following a period of caretaking status, the fort was garrisoned for a brief time during World War I. Nearby Fort DuPont was the main defense site, with Fort Delaware and Fort Mott serving as a sub-posts, according to army records. In March 1919, soldiers began the process of mothballing the old fort, removing everything except items pertaining to the three 12-inch guns of Battery Torbert, according to Pvt. James C. Davis, a Fort DuPont soldier who worked on the detail. In a Newark Post article, he recalls his orders were to bury everything with explicit orders not to throw anything in the river or remove articles from the island. According to Davis, soldiers buried three pieces of artillery on the island. Only one gun has since been recovered; a 15-inch Rodman gun exhumed from the northwest bastion was sold for scrap during World War II. The 4.7-inch guns of Battery Dodd were sent to San Francisco for use on Army troop transports; they were returned to Fort Delaware in 1919 but were soon removed from service and used as war memorials. In 1920 the 3-inch guns of Battery Alburtis and Battery Allen were scrapped as part of a general removal of M1898 3-inch guns from service. By the end of the First World War, Fort Saulsbury near Slaughter Beach, Del. was near completion, and with 12-inch guns on long-range carriages reduced the three upriver forts to secondary lines of defense. The Harbor Defenses of the Delaware were one of the most extreme examples of gun batteries being built seaward as gun ranges increased.
World War II
In 1940 Fort Delaware lost its three 12-inch guns, two of which were used to arm Battery Reed, Fort Amezquita in the Harbor Defenses of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the island was garrisoned by a detachment of soldiers from Battery C, 261st Coast Artillery Battalion, a unit from the Delaware Army National Guard. Battery C manned the two rapid-fire guns of Battery Hentig, located outside of the fort. These guns were removed in 1942 for use at Fort Miles in Lewes, Del., leaving Fort Delaware unarmed. Fort Miles, on the Atlantic Ocean south of Cape May, itself reduced Fort Saulsbury to a secondary line of defense. The fort was eventually stripped of the most of its electrical wiring, which was re-used at Fort Miles. Fort Delaware was declared as a surplus site by the federal government at the end of the war.
The fort today
Delaware acquired the fort from the United States government in 1947 after the federal government declared it a surplus site. Today, Fort Delaware State Park encompasses all of Pea Patch Island, including the Fort. As of 2018, transportation to Fort Delaware from Delaware City and Fort Mott is provided by a seasonal passenger ferry, the Forts Ferry Crossing. Once at the island, visitors are brought to the fort on a jitney. Tours and special programs are available to visitors. For example, visitors may see the 8 inch Columbiad gun, which is located on the northwest bastion, fired daily. Park staff and volunteers interpret the roles of people who were at the fort during the Civil War.
Beach erosion affecting Pea Patch Island was recognized as a potential threat to the Fort in 1999. The United States Army Corps of Engineers erected a 3,500-foot-long seawall during the Winter of 2005-2006 which now protects the historical fort site and a migratory bird rookery, considered to be the largest such habitat north of Florida.
Popular events
Each year in the second week of June, there is an "Escape from Fort Delaware" triathlon, where entrants follow in the footsteps of the 52 escapees from the Civil War prison. A boat shuttles the athletes out to Fort Delaware, a Civil War historical interpreter fires a musket to start the race, the swimmers jump into the Delaware River, and swim back to land and then do the bike and run events, finishing on the town green in Delaware City, Delaware.
Starting in 2009, Fort Delaware has hosted at least one game each summer of the Diamond State Base Ball Club, a vintage base ball team. The Diamond State Base Ball Club also typically plays 4-6 games per year at nearby Fort DuPont. The Diamond State Base Ball Club is a non-profit amateur organization created for the purposes of providing physical fitness to its members, educating the public on the history of baseball and local history, and serving as a point of public pride.
Television & pop culture
The A&E Network's Civil War Journal recorded portions of an episode at the fort entitled "War Crimes: The Death Camps" that originally aired October 9, 1994.
The Sci-Fi Channel investigation series Ghost Hunters conducted two cases there including a live televised investigation on Halloween in 2008.
The Sci Fi Channel investigation series Ghost Hunters Academy recorded an episode, which aired June 23, 2010.
The British series Most Haunted also did an investigation of the fort in their 11th series of the show.