• Before 1655: Spanish occupied the island of Port Royal which was at that time called cayo de carena (Careening Caye).
• 1655: 30 ships from England arrived carrying 40 or more guns.
• May 1655: English army fleet ran the Spanish out of Kingston Harbour: Passage Fort. The Spanish called Passage Fort “Caguaya” which the English misinterpreted as the Port Royal island, so they originally named the island Cagway.”
• July 1655: Fortifications by the English began at Cagway or “The Point” which it was also called, under Captain Venables. Captain Hewes/Hughes was responsible for the fortification. Venables wrote it should be made of stone and lime for strength. It was named Fort Cromwell.
• November 1655: 9 or 10 guns had been mounted.
• 1656: 8 English ships are in port.
• January 1656: Vice-Admiral William Goodson aboard the flagship Torrington wrote that the fort had the guns brought from England and “all those taken at St. Martha” with a total of 20 guns mounted now.
• March 1656: resident supervisor changed from Captain Hughes to Captain Martin Van Alphan of Colonel Humphrey’s regiment.
• March 1656: it was proposed to build a round stone tower within the squarish area of the fort. Stone was presumed to be quarried from the Port Henderson hills.
• April 1656: Captain Van Alphan was joined by ‘fyre master’ Nicholas Keene, who became the original surveyor and town planner of Port Royal.
• April 1656: the tower was five feet high and the ‘grand fort’ was ‘almost finished’. The fort consisted of merely a rectangular surround and the round stone tower in the center. The gun platforms were banks of board and sand with open sally-ports. Fort Cromwell retained this shape until 1662.
• October 1656: semi-permanent force of 31 civilian artisans and 52 soldiers were constantly engaged there.
• April 1656-end of 1657: little work was done on Fort Cromwell other than routine repairs and maintenance.
• 1658: 7 English ships are in port.
• February 1658: Christopher Myngs arrived from England bringing money for the fortification. Some of the sand and board platforms were replaced by stone works. Captain Van Alphan’s company was increased to 104 men, 92 men under Ensign Soames and 21 men under Lieutenant Jotherill. They were accommodated in a tent from the old mainsail of the Hector.
• 1658 – 1659: renovations were extensive and intense. Forces and vessels were dedicated to bringing materials to the fort from the mainland. The guns were properly mounted on carriages which seem to have been locally made. The stone tower now served as the prison, where Provost-Marshal Weblinge was in charge.
• 1659: 6 English ships are in port.
• 1660: 2 English ships are in port.
• 1660-1668: NO English naval ships were in port, which means Port Royal had to rely on pirates and privateers for protection. (p57)
• January 14th 1660: pirate Peter Swayne who ‘meeting with a shallop at sea belonging to ___Hines of the island of Barbadoes did feloniously robb and plunder the same and hath disposed and converted the goods thereout taken to his owne use’. Weblinge was ordered to ‘take the body of the said Peter Swayne into your custody and him safely keepe in the tower untill he shall be released or condemned by law’. (p.15)
• September 1660: Letter from Captain Thomas Lynch states “…Uppon the utmost angle of the pointe to seaward is a round tower buylt of lyme and stone in which is mounted 15 pieces of ordinance, some being whole cannon, demy cannon and demy culverin of brasse….” (p.16)
• 1662: Fort Cromwell was renamed to Fort Charles to honor the new King.
• November 1662: 40 men were hired to finish the platforms around the tower and completed them by December. they mounted 1 cannon and 3 demi cannons.
• 1663: HMS Greatguest brought carriages and equipment for the guns in the fort.
• 1664-1667: Tower was abandoned and demi-bastions in the east and west and a redan to the north was constructed. After which the central tower was only used as a magazine. 36 guns were mounted on the ramparts surrounding it.
• August 1671: Colonel Theodore Cary was captain of Fort Charles.
• April 1673: 200 slaves were allocated to Cary for work on other forts on the island: assumed to be Ft James and Fort Rupert. By August of that year, the platforms were completed not only at Fort James, but also at Prison Point (perhaps Ft Rupert?). (p.50-51)
• 1678: Sir Henry Morgan began building Morgan’s Line extending from Ft Charles towards Ft Rupert.
• Late 1680s: Walker’s Fort was constructed just north of Ft Charles, named after the commander of Ft Charles. Probably the work of engineer William Chitty.
• 1684: Pirate Captain Bannister escaped a Port Royal prison, seized a sloop and was fired upon by Ft Charles guns. He was hit 3 times but he still escaped. The pirate had 50 men in his hold.
• 1687: Major Beckford is governor of Fort Charles (p40 Taylor Manuscript by Buisseret)
• 1694: French troops sailed past Port Royal even though they attacked coasts to the east and west of it, deciding not to test their luck!

Notes of interest:
• Guns of Fort Charles and other forts were often fired in ceremony to greet a ship or to spread an alarm.
• No serious attempt was made on Ft Charles/Port Royal in its lifetime, due to its formidable presence, providing the town with good protection.

To the left of the parade ground stands historic Fort Charles. The story of this ancient fortification is an integral part of the history of Port Royal itself. Symbolic of the sturdy spirit of the old Port, it stands today as one of the oldest and best preserved of the island’s fortifications, small by comparison with other Caribbean works, but of great historical interest.
It was started in 1656, less than a year after the capture of the island from the Spaniards – a modest structure “with only a round tour of stone and banks of board and sand towards the sea.” The outline of this tower may still be traced in the cockpit or ‘Shott Yard’ of the present structure. Our ‘grand fort’, as its founder euphemistically termed it, was christened ‘Fort Charles’ in 1662 in honour of the restored King of England.

Damaged by the great earthquake 30 years later, repairs, restorations, additions and extensions through the years have produced the structure we see today, the main design of which has not changed materially since the mid-eighteenth century. Shore movements and sinking constantly disturbed the foundations, while wood and metal rotted readily in the tropical climate, calling for frequent repairs on which, however, neither sufficient money nor zeal was always expende, if we may judge from the records of the committee appointed by the House of Assembly which intermittently inspected the fort. In 1725, for example, the garrison was obliged to report with anguish to the Committee: “…you are sensible, sirs, our beds are the hard stones, our covering nothing but the expanded canopy of the heavens!” while an account of 1769 shows that the parapet wall inside and outside the fort was greatly decayed and “in shabby and disrespectful condition.”

Neglect by some commanders of the fort was also a significant factor. One such commander had all the military stores cleared out of the storehouse to make room for his supplies of liquor! He discreetly disappeared from the fort taking the keys with him, shortly before the Committee arrived to carry out an inspection!

Fort Charles’s most illustrious commander was Lord Nelson, although he was in charge there for a few weeks only in 1779. He regarded the fort from the point of view of defence at that time as “the most important place in the whole island.” the raised wooden platform from which he watched anxiously for the first signs of the expected French invasion is known today as Nelson’s Quarter Deck. A plaque fixed to the wall of the King’s Battery to the right of the main entrance commemorates his association with the old fort. A naive rendering of his coat-of-arms may also be seen over the sallyport reached by a flight of steps running down from the right side of the platform, while local tradition insists that the three cement crosses and tablets let into the outside wall below the artillery look-out mark the resting place of ‘Nelson’s three wives.’

Beginning with a modest armament of nine or ten guns, by 1661 Fort Charles had “some as good cannon planted as the Tower of London would afford.” At one period in the eighteenth century the armament included a ‘murdering piece’ or ‘murderer,’ ‘Cannons royal,’ culverins, chambered pieces, tompions and minions. At the height of its importance, during the War of American Independence, Fort Charles had a total complement of 104 pieces of ordnance. Some of the survivors from this century of wars and alarms still keep silent watch in the wide embrasures.

The two enormous anchors which flank the main entrance to the fort are recent additions. One was accidentally recovered in 1935 by the anchor of a Canadian freighter. Such anchors (says the plaque) were used to hold the moorings for the men-of-war lying off the port and are similar to those carried by ships of the line in Nelson’s time.

Now come we to the mouth or enterance into the harbour, the which we find securly defended by a strong fort called Charles Fort (in honour to our late soveraigne of ever blessed memory Charles the second). This fort was built by Collonel Minns in time of his lieutenancy. This is a low strong-built fort; according to its dementions ’tis an octogon polygon, each side being flancked, but it hath noe bastions; in this fort are mounted thirtie-eight peices of ordinance and a mortar peice. This fort commands the whole channell, and flancks the entrey or mouth of the harbour both inward and outward, soe that noe ship can pass either in or out. In this fort is built lodgments for the gunners, and a fine small house for the captain of the fort, whoe resides therein; the commander therof att present is Collonel Walker, and the late commander was my worthy friend Collonel Beckford, which at the arrival of his Grace was discharged, and went home for England, comeing off with much honour, haveing discharged himself right worthylie in the point of trust commited to his charge.