Gallery

Seth Eastman imagines a windless day on the river (below) the fort as the setting for a quiet, pleasant scene. The everyday aspects of this painting–-the boaters and people on the shore–-are, to our eyes, of greater interest than the fort. Many of the carefully detailed figures (10 in all) seem to be regarding the fort, and the viewer’s attention is held in this foreground area by the keenly observed, finely painted rocks and water grasses. The apparently abandoned fort seems clearly a thing of the past, now merely part of the pastoral scenery. The lack of military activity is emphasized by a small figure leaning casually against the wall of the fort at the right. 

Frank L. McGuire Maritime Library of the New London Maritime Society

Fort Trumbull Today

Fort Trumbull is once again the dominant feature of the high ground overlooking the Thames estuary as it joins Long Island Sound. From the 1930s to the late 1990s -- six decades -- the fifteen acres surrounding the Fort were occupied by an expanding cluster of Merchant Marine, Naval, Coast Guard and research buildings that rendered the massive Egyptian-revival granite walls of the Fort all but invisible, whether from the land or the harbor.

See more at https://mcguirelibrary1998.omeka.net/exhibits/show/fort/fort-trumbull-today