The Marine Barracks at the Charlestown Navy Yard: Home of the Yard’s Marines, 1811–1974

For 163 years, the Marine Barracks at the Charlestown Navy Yard was home to the “Leathernecks” who guarded the Yard, served on ships entering and leaving it, and answered deployment orders to places near and far as America’s premier “Force in Readiness.” The National Park Service calls Building I the second oldest building in the Yard and the oldest U.S. Marine Corps barracks in the United States, and says the story of the Marines who lived and worked there exemplifies the story of the Corps itself, which grew from a small, untested security force into a world-renowned military organization over two centuries.

Marines march across the Parade Ground in June 1973 during an awards ceremony; the red Torii Gate is visible behind them. Boston National Historical Park, BOSTS 7637-15x.

A home built by the Marines

After the Secretary of the Navy directed the Marines to guard the new navy yards established in 1800, Marines were present in Boston as early as 1799, a year after the Marine Corps was established. (The earlier Continental Marine Corps, created in 1775, was disbanded at the end of the Revolutionary War.) In May 1802 the Secretary of the Navy and the Commandant authorized a 15-man detachment for the Charlestown Navy Yard.

At first the detachment was quartered temporarily aboard USS Constitution. Its first commanding officer struggled to find a permanent barracks: tents sufficed in summer, but Boston’s harsh winters forced the Marines into an old lime shed, and the austere conditions hampered recruitment. The Secretary of the Navy eventually approved $5,000 for a barracks, which had to be built from materials the Navy was not already using. The Marines themselves began building in 1810 and finished in February 1811. It could house up to 100 Marines, with a central single-story building flanked by two three-story towers: the commander lived in the right-hand tower, junior officers in the left, and enlisted Marines ate, slept and socialized in the center section.

The Marine Barracks circa 1874. The area in front of the Parade Ground was the “Shot Park.” Boston National Historical Park, BOSTS 9219-1.

Growing with the Corps

As the number of Marines grew, so did the barracks. Major renovations came with wartime expansion, in 1861–1862 (Civil War) and 1898–1902 (the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars), and eventually produced today’s four-story building. The Works Progress Administration improved it in the 1930s and during World War II. By World War II the detachment numbered 19 officers and 624 enlisted Marines, its largest yet. The barracks came to hold wells, a post exchange, barber shop, brig, tailor, laundry, recreation space, pistol range, galley, plumbing, bunking and social clubs, an enclosed community of its own.

Between 1802 and 1974, 146 men served as the detachment’s commanding officer, ranging in rank from sergeant to lieutenant colonel. Two of them later became Commandant of the Marine Corps: Colonel Archibald Henderson and Colonel Charles McCawley.

Duties and drill

The Marines’ most visible job was guarding the entrances. Workers, sailors and visitors all had to pass a Marine guard, and by the 1900s Marines held the main entrance, Gate 1, around the clock, checking identification badges, inspecting deliveries and guarding against sabotage. Within months of finishing the barracks in 1811 the detachment was ordered to make a parade ground in front of it for inspections, ceremonies, exercises and drills. Field and naval cannon were displayed there from the 1800s until 1974, some dating to the Mexican-American War, and only their pedestals remain. A red Japanese Torii Gate, added in 1963, still stands; it symbolizes the transition from the mundane to the sacred and has long been used by the U.S. military to represent service in East Asia. Workout equipment, including a rope hang, was installed in the 1960s and is still used by the Charlestown community.

After demolishing the large archway (Building 97) at Gate 1, the Navy reconfigured the gate to accommodate vehicular traffic. Marines used guard booths and a warming hut that still stands today. Boston National Historical Park, BOSTS 8956-9826.

Beyond the Yard

Being the armed guards of the largest federal installation in Greater Boston, the Marines were often called on for duties beyond it. They joined parades and ceremonies, and in some emergencies acted as an extension of law enforcement. In 1824 they dispersed a prisoner takeover of the dining hall at the Charlestown State Prison without firing. A decade later they guarded those arrested after anti-Catholic mobs destroyed the Ursuline Convent in Somerville, to prevent rioters from freeing them. In 1854 U.S. Marshals called on them to help return Anthony Burns, a freedom seeker, to slavery by force; after a failed attempt to break Burns out of federal custody, President Franklin Pierce authorized all federal resources, and Marines from Charlestown formed part of a 1,500-man guard. They also helped prevent rioting and looting after the Great Boston Fire of 1872 and the Great Chelsea Fire of 1908, and in 1972 removed anti-war protesters who briefly occupied the captain’s quarters of USS Constitution.

Marines joined other federal authorities in marching Anthony Burns in shackles down State Street while 50,000 people witnessed the event. American Antiquarian Society.

Closing the Yard

The Charlestown Navy Yard closed in 1974, ending the permanent Marine presence. Reflecting on the closing, the detachment’s commander said the expectation had been merely to be one in a continuous line of barracks commanders, not the last. The barracks closed on May 1, 1974, and on July 1 the remaining Marines performed their final official act at the Yard by lowering the flag at the closure ceremony.

Marines fold the American flag on July 1, 1974, the day the Charlestown Navy Yard ceased operations. Boston National Historical Park was established three months later. Boston National Historical Park, BOSTS 7617-11.

Today the barracks houses the Yard’s current stewards, the National Park Service, as office space and living quarters for park staff, and from it the Marine Corps motto, Semper Fidelis, “Always Faithful,” looks out over USS Constitution and Boston Harbor.

Sources

• National Park Service, Boston National Historical Park, Charlestown Navy Yard: Marine Barracks, which lists the park’s historic resource studies and a 2015 history of the Boston Marine Barracks among its sources; rewritten in hubnx's own words.