Ft. Macon on the NC coast acquires a reproduction 32-pounder

[Cannoneer]

A newly acquired reproduction 32-pdr cannon was fired for the first time at Fort Macon, North Carolina on Saturday the 29th of January, 2011. The cannon (with steel liner) was made for Fort Macon State Park by "Cannons Online," the carriage was made by students from Wayne Community College’s Applied Technologies Division.
http://carteretnewstimes.com/articles/2011/02/01/news-times/news/doc4d44a12a5bd2b748329695.txt

The other M1841 Navy 32-pounder on display at the fort is a non-firing replica.
http://www.hmdb.org/Marker.asp?Marker=31535


The new reproduction model 1841 cannon at Fort Macon State Park fires a blank charge containing five pounds of gunpowder for the first time Saturday over Beaufort Inlet. (Dylan Ray photo)



Work being done to install the new cannon on Fort Macon's inlet-side parapet, and also to remove two existing cannons that had become safety concerns due to deteriorating carriages. Chuck Beckley/ The Daily News 

History of Fort Macon
http://www.clis.com/friends/History.htm

Photo Tour of Fort Macon
http://www.clis.com/friends/FM%20Photo%20Tour.html


 

[lance]

 I got to visit Ft. Macon 30 something years ago, but didn't get to see 5 lbs of powder set off

[lance]

BoomJ, when i was about 12 years old, i also got to visit Ft. Fisher, which is just down the road from Ft. Macon.
My parents let me out of the car with a medal detector, and they went to the beach.
I searched for hours, the whole time i had visions of finding cannonballs and swords, but, i didn't find anything.
I don't guess they would let you treasure hunt now-a-days

[seacoastartillery]

     Thanks, Boom J, very much for this bit of artillery news.  That certainly is a great photo.  So, let's see, we now have a bunch of seacoast and siege guns firing on a regular basis in the United States.  There is the 1844, 8" Columbiad on the terraplein of Fort Delaware in the river and state of that name firing weekly if not more frequently during the summer.  And now the Fort Macon gun near Morehead City, North Carolina, and along the southern coast of North Carolina at Fort Fisher we have an all steel reproduction of an original rifled and Banded 42 pdr.  7" seacoast gun, fired occasionally during the summer.  In Ft. Pulaski, Georgia we now have a reproduction siege rifle, a 30 Pdr. Parrott.  It is fired occasionally during the season.  Also in the Peach Tree State, we have an original 7" Brooke Double-Banded Seacoast and Navy Rifle at the Port Columbus Civil War Naval Museum in Columbus, Georgia.  A five pound black powder charge is fired occasionally during the season over the Chattahoochee River.  And in Fort Zachary Taylor in Key West, Florida there is a big 10" Rodman Gun that occasionally scares the seagulls with a blast from it's casemate position, the only firing gun so situated.  Recently in 2009 the state of Alabama, which administers Fort Morgan, mounted a model 1829, 32 pdr. seacoast gun on a wooden front pintle barbette carriage.  On August 1, 2009 this gun, served by reinactors in Confederate uniforms, fired toward the historical position of Admiral Farragut's flag ship, Hartford where it met the CSS Tenessee, from a sandbagged water battery 25 yards north of the fort's outer works during the August 1, 2009 commemorative of the Battle of Mobile Bay.  Please consult one of these forts for their firing schedule before running down there to see the seacoast guns fire. 

Thanks again Boom J !

Mike and Tracy

[Cannoneer]

I got to visit Ft. Macon 30 something years ago, but didn't get to see 5 lbs of powder set off

No you didn't hear 5lbs. set off, but It's possible that you heard a smaller amount of powder fired in a field gun. In my opening post there is an error in the first link listed, the article states the following: “For a real fort, it must have cannons, and this is the first time we’ve had one fire since the 1860s, it’s awesome,” Mr. Newman said. “It’s really neat to finally feel its heartbeat again.”  That statement is not true, there has been an original M1841 bronze 6-pounder field gun in the fort since the Civil War era, and that gun has been regularly fired for visitors to the fort. To be fair to Mr. Newman, he may have simply meant that no larger bore parapet gun has been fired in the fort since CW times.
If you open the last link (Photo Tour of Fort Macon) in the opening post, you can see the six-pdr in a few of the pics. 

BoomJ, when i was about 12 years old, i also got to visit Ft. Fisher, which is just down the road from Ft. Macon.
My parents let me out of the car with a medal detector, and they went to the beach.
I searched for hours, the whole time i had visions of finding cannonballs and swords, but, i didn't find anything.
I don't guess they would let you treasure hunt now-a-days

You guessed right, Lance, metal detecting is definitely not allowed. The sentence in quotes below is taken directly from Fort Macon State Park Rules.
"Metal detectors are not allowed in any park area except to locate lost personal property when authorized by a Special Activity Permit."
I also found this on a 'Metal Detector and Archaeological Club' site: "If it's a historical park in any sense of the word then consider it off limits."

[Cannoneer]

     Thanks, Boom J, very much for this bit of artillery news.  That certainly is a great photo.  So, let's see, we now have a bunch of seacoast and siege guns firing on a regular basis in the United States.  There is the 1844, 8" Columbiad on the terraplein of Fort Delaware in the river and state of that name firing weekly if not more frequently during the summer.  And now the Fort Macon gun near Morehead City, North Carolina, and along the southern coast of North Carolina at Fort Fisher we have an all steel reproduction of an original rifled and Banded 42 pdr.  7" seacoast gun, fired occasionally during the summer.  In Ft. Pulaski, Georgia we now have a reproduction siege rifle, a 30 Pdr. Parrott.  It is fired occasionally during the season.  Also in the Peach Tree State, we have an original 7" Brooke Double-Banded Seacoast and Navy Rifle at the Port Columbus Civil War Naval Museum in Columbus, Georgia.  A five pound black powder charge is fired occasionally during the season over the Chattahoochee River.  And in Fort Zachary Taylor in Key West, Florida there is a big 10" Rodman Gun that occasionally scares the seagulls with a blast from it's casemate position, the only firing gun so situated.  Recently in 2009 the state of Alabama, which administers Fort Morgan, mounted a model 1829, 32 pdr. seacoast gun on a wooden front pintle barbette carriage.  On August 1, 2009 this gun, served by reinactors in Confederate uniforms, fired toward the historical position of Admiral Farragut's flag ship, Hartford where it met the CSS Tenessee, from a sandbagged water battery 25 yards north of the fort's outer works during the August 1, 2009 commemorative of the Battle of Mobile Bay.  Please consult one of these forts for their firing schedule before running down there to see the seacoast guns fire. 

Thanks again Boom J !

Mike and Tracy

M&T,
Like both of you, I get a good feeling when I see an article like this one, and I'm also sure that we'd agree that it would be a great thing if we saw them more often. It's a pleasure to read how the people concerned with this effort put their heads together to overcome the difficulties involved with the lack of funds, and came up wih the mutually beneficial answer of using students from Wayne Community College to construct the carriage. 

[thelionspaw]

Fritz; I'm not into the War of Rebellion  but..........if this is South Carolina, aren't the demonstrators in Union artillery uniforms?

RRC

[Cannoneer]

Well yeah, but it was a Union fort before the unpleasantness began, and it was again a Federal fort when we took it back from the rascals that illegally inhabited it for a while.    Oh nooo, I shouldn't have phrased it that way, Lance may come a ridin' now; do you have a spare room ready, he might not be prepard to ride all the way to New York to descend on me like an avenging angel. 

[Cannoneer]

Lance,
I hadn't seen the recent posts on the "PLANNING for the 4th AARNVM&CS" thread, or I wouldn't have made the above post, but I'm sure that you know it was intended in good humor. I'm very sorry that things have reached this point, and I hope that nothing has been chiseled in stone yet.

John