California State Military Department
The California State Military Museum
Preserving California's Military Heritage
Historic California Posts:
The Posts at San Francisco's Point San Jose
(Bateria San Jose, Bateria Yerba Buena, Point San Jose Military Reservation, Post at Point San Jose, Fort Mason)
by Colonel Herbert M. Hart, USMC (retired)
Executive Director, Council on America's Military Past
Fort Mason today. Photo courtesy of the US Park ServiceNine points of the law or not, possession had little effect in 1863 when the Army decided that it needed Point San Jose. Squatters who had moved into the reservation within the past decade, building, renting, mortgaging, and selling the property without regard for legal titles, were told they would have to go.

Fresh in the memories of some Army men was the furor when Captain E. D. Keyes cleared squatters from Rincon Point in 1853. That episode had resulted in a civil trial. Although the suit was dismissed by the judge, Keyes was told by a juror that the jury probably would have found Keyes guilty in sympathy for the "underdog" squatters.
This had subdued Army enthusiasm for clearing Point San Jose. As General Irvin McDowell summarized the situation, "Combinations of land-grabbers and land-jumpers so harassed this officer that he wrote in despair that he could not protect the government property, and in one of his letters reports: 'They have seized on Point San Jose and have it in complete possession."

The military value of the point was admitted as early as 1797. That was when "Bateria San Jose" was constructed at the tip of the point. It was also known as "Battery at Yerba Buena." Five brass 8-pounder cannon were put in earthworks that were hastily dug and covered with brush wood fascines. Instead of a permanent garrison, a sentinel was to visit the place every day.

By 1806 this practice must have stopped. An inspection by the governor noted that the battery had been neglected. "There was not even a hut for the gunners and the guns were rendered useless by exposure," it pointed out.

The sand hills and scrub brush gradually reclaimed the area. By the time that Mexico took over San Francisco in 1822, the site was known as Black Point because of the dark underbrush that covered everything.

Although the United States quickly asserted its ownership of the Point as early as 1850, nothing in the military line was done to use it. An 1856 report on Bay defenses suggested that a permanent battery should be constructed at Point San Jose. It should be "in barbette with earthen parapet, breast height of bricks, a small magazine, and a brick building for ordnance stores and a guardhouse," the report recommended. "It should mount 20 guns."

This recommendation was repeated in 1862, but it was with some hesitancy that the Army took action. Large, well-built residences had been erected by citizens on Black Point, shrubbery and fences had been laid out, and taxes had been paid to the city in accordance with their assessments. Even John Fremont had paid an estimated $40,000 for a frame cottage and 12 acres on the Point. He had rented the place to a friend in 1861 when be went East for Army service.

Then at 6 a.m. on October 3, 1863, General George Wright received a telegram from the War Department. "The Secretary of War directs that you take military possession of Point San Jose," it said, "and erect the battery proposed for its defense. The question of ownership will be determined later."

A few days later a company of the 9th Infantry was ordered to Point San Jose to "take and hold military possession of such land as necessary for the erection of batteries. Almost immediately complaints were heard from occupants. The first was that the soldiers had destroyed some shrubbery.
 
Shrubbery removal was not the least of the Army efforts, however. The houses were commandeered and those in the way of the engineers' plans were removed or leveled. Fremont's cottage was razed, touching off a series of legal disputes that went as far as the United States Supreme Court.
 
When the Court determined that the property belonged to the United States "whether or not they were by sufficient authority appropriate for public use," the Fremont family brought suit for damages. From a $250,000 claim in 1866, the suit was refiled for a million dollars in 1893. When nothing was done on it for 14 more years, it was thrown out of court.
The 12-gun battery was placed on tile western brow of the point, in position to intersect the fires from Alcatraz. An estimated need for 100 artillery-men to man them was made in 1864. One company of infantrymen from the 9th Regiment was the garrison until late in 1864 when a battery of the 3rd Artillery was transferred from Alcatraz. In March, 1865, the post became the headquarters of the 9th Infantry Regiment, a non-artillery role that was to hint of the future.
 
Along with the other Bay forts, San Jose's troopers devoted more of their attention to settling civil problems than with defending the harbor from Confederate attack. And as the Civil War ended, the squatter problem once again raised its head.
 
An inspection on June 6, 1865, revealed, "Certain citizens have possession of a part of the military reservation at Point San Jose (Black Point) . . If the present Occupants are allowed to retain undisputed possession of this highly valuable property any longer, it may cost the government a large sum to dispossess them."
 
Called Fort Mason since 1882, the Post at Point San Jose is on Van Ness Avenue at Bay Street. Although its transportation depot functions were closed in 1964, its historic residences have been retained by Army, and later the National Park Service, and have been marked.
 
After the fort's artillery functions ended, it became quartermaster depot, then a supply and transportation center through 23 million tons of cargo and a million troops were deployed in World War II. In 1906 it was a refugee camp for victims of San Francisco earthquake. Hundreds were fed and housed. In a single night six babies were born in the camp.
 
Former Noncommissioned Officer Quarters
 
This page was reprinted with permission from Old Forts of the Far West, published in 1965
Post at Point San Jose during the 1870's
 
As Post Point San Jose, and Fort Mason after 1882, this ground plan remains basically correct to modern times. An 1870 report said, ''The officers' quarters are five frame cottages of different sizes and plan, but all are comfortable and pleasantly situated on the sheltered brow, with a luxuriant flower garden around them. They were cottages of citizens before the point was taken up as a government post." It noted that above battery "are built two sets of company quarters, of which only one at the present time is occupied. They are each of wood, 90 by 30-1/2 by 13 feet . . furnished with a double row of bunks, two tiers high . . . two tables and four benches complete its furniture." Reservation included 67 acres with a small parade ground on the crown of the point. (Redrawn from McDowell report, 1879.)
 
 
 BK  Bakery  LAUN  Laundry
 COQ  Commanding Officers Quarters  ORD SGT Q  Ordnance Sergeant's Quarters
 CO ST  Commanding Officer's Stables  QM ST  Quartermaster Stables
GH  Guard House  OQ  Officer Quarters
 H Hospital  SH  Store House
 K  Kitchen  ST  Stable
"San Jose is a rocky point which, with an elevation of 80 feet, projects into the bay northward," reported surgeon in 1870. "It is steep and bare on its western face, less so on its eastern or sheltered face; and on both sides it falls away into low sand mounds." This 1865 era painting shows entire Point Officers' quarters are in foreground across road, headquarters is the long building with the porch across front.
Coastal Fortifications at Fort Mason
 
 
Quartermaster Docks
Quartermaster Docks
 
Before the Spanish American War, half of Fort Mason was sand dunes. As America's influence radiated across the Pacific - to Hawaii, Guam, the Philippines, and China - the Army filled in a shallow cove and constructed three piers and four concrete warehouses.
 
Fort Mason became the Army's supply and transportation center for the Pacific.
 
On December 7, 1941, the attack on Pearl Harbor brought America and Fort Mason into World War II. Fort Mason served as the headquarters for the San Francisco Port Embarkation (SFPOE) which funneled supplies and troops to the Pacific Theater of war Over 1 ½ million passengers and 23 million ship tons of cargo (one ship ton equally 40 cubic feet) left the SFPOE, Fort Mason was a scene of constant activity with buildings squeezed into every available space. Liberty Ships lined the piers as they were stuffed to capacity for their Pacific voyage. These same "ugly ducklings" brought home our soldiers and supplies at the end of the war. Today, the Liberty Ship Jeremiah O'Brien, docked at Pier 3, is a proud reminder of the past and is open to the general public.
Fort Mason's piers were also active through the Korean War and the early 1960's.
 
The National Park Service's Golden Gate National Recreation Area Headquarters building served as a hospital in 1902 and later as the Administrative Offices for the San Francisco Port of Embarkation
 
Known Units at Fort Mason
 
World War II
 
Headquarters, San Francisco Port of Embarkation
10th Army Air Forces Base Unit (Air Section, Port of Embarkation)
 
 
This page was reprinted with permission from Old Forts of the Far West, published in 1965
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