If you've been to Castle Garden you've been to Castle Clinton! This monument is a restored circular sandstone fort within Battery Park at the southern end of Manhattan in New York City.
Castle Clinton stands near where Fort Amsterdam was built in 1626; this fort was demolished by 1790 after the Revolutionary War. As war was still on the horizon, a new fort on the site was deemed necessary. Originally known as West Battery, and constructed between 1808 and 1811, this fort never saw warfare and by 1822 the fort was ceded to the city by an act of Congress. The fort reopened as Castle Garden in 1824.
Between 1824 and 1855, the structure has functioned as a beer garden, exhibition hall, theater and public aquarium. Jenny Lind gave her first U.S. performance here in 1850 with tickets costing the 2023 equivalent of over $8000.
From 1855 to 1890, Castle Garden was the first American immigration station. More than 7.5 million people came to America here between 1855 and 1890. (The Ellis Island Immigration Station opened in 1892.)
According to the Wikipedia article, "many of Castle Garden's original immigrant passenger records were stored at Ellis Island where they were destroyed in a fire in 1897." That's the sad news; the happy news is that the majority of immigrants processed at Castle Garden were from Denmark, England, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Russia, Scotland and Sweden.
So did your immigrant ancestor come to America through Castle Clinton???
P.S. Wikipedia has a dandy long informational article on this place.
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