Fort Mifflin

In the Delaware River lay the mighty British navy, its 10 warships bristling with cannons and ready for action. On nearby land, more big guns, all trained on the target: a small, star-shaped fort that withstood one pounding after another. For six weeks, the band of defiant Americans - most wounded or ill - held on, in the muddy rubble, against the world's pre-eminent power. Some of them actually collected spent British cannonballs and fired them back at their attackers. In the end, after the walls of their garrison were flattened by the greatest bombardment of the Revolutionary War, the Americans evacuated Fort Mifflin, leaving their flag flying over the burning ruins.

Fort Mifflin yesterday relived the 1777 British barrage that left King George shaken up by how determined the Americans were to block supplies to redcoats in occupied Philadelphia.

A fire destroyed an Army Corps of Engineers storage building at Hog Island and Fort Mifflin roads in Southwest Philadelphia yesterday. There were no injuries. During the fire, near historic Fort Mifflin, one of the building's walls collapsed. In photo above, firefighters help a colleague who fell or was knocked over, apparently when a hose under pressure was disconnected. An aerial ladder (right) and a marine unit in the Delaware River also battled the fire.

American soldiers lost the battle at Fort Mifflin 219 years ago, but they won valuable time for the colonists by delaying British supply ships. Yesterday - the anniversary of the day the battle began - about 50 re-enactors were at the rebuilt fort, on the Delaware River south of the Schuylkill, to re-create the defeat.

Fort Mifflin, which lies at the southern tip of the city where the Schuylkill River flows into the Delaware, is a Philadelphia treasure. Until recently, it was a hidden one. The fort, which played a vital role in the defense of the colonies during the second year of the Revolutionary War, has a long and honorable history. It was designed by John Montresor, a British army engineer and construction began on Mud Island in 1772. Rumblings of the coming rebellion, however, brought the work to a halt.

At one point in the siege, American soldiers scurried about gathering spent enemy cannonballs to fire back at their attackers, and British marines were so close that they pitched grenades into the fort from a ship's crow's-nest. Down below, the British broadsides splintered timbers and gouged the earth as the Americans hugged the muddy rubble. In the end, the defenders stole across the Delaware at night, their flag still flying over the blazing wreck of the fort on Mud Island. "The behaviour of the (Americans)

Beginning in December 1777, 430 Colonial American soldiers stationed at Fort Mifflin in Southwest Philadelphia held off an invasion by the British fleet for 40 days at a cost of more than 300 lives. Although the British eventually captured the fort, the long standoff by soldiers at the compound prevented the British from engaging Gen. George Washington at Valley Forge. This early battle at Fort Mifflin is little-known, but it will soon become the subject of a new movie by local actor-turned- producer George Chewkanes.

What makes a place a famous historic site? That's not as easy a question as it sounds, and it's timely because of the recent ceremonies marking the rededication of Fort Mifflin, which, it's widely hoped, is now on its way to becoming a famous historic site that will attract millions of tourists and enhance this region's reputation as the place to go to pay homage to the founding of the nation. There may have been some snickers when that claim was made. While Fort Mifflin has been painstakingly restored, largely by the efforts of volunteers over the past 15 years, it has some obstacles to overcome to become a famous historic site.

On Oct. 26, 1980, Boy Scouts seeking warmth during a campout on a cold night set a fire in the Commandant's House at Fort Mifflin - and nearly burned the place to the ground. Twenty-seven years after the accidental blaze and $1 million later, the brick building is gradually returning to its former glory. The foot-thick walls have been repaired. A new roof with cupola supported by massive wooden beams has been erected at the historic Delaware River island outpost that played a major role in the Revolution.

As far as anyone knows, the only flock of great blue herons to reside within the city limits of Philadelphia lives in a moat surrounding Fort Mifflin, a Revolutionary War defense center, built at the confluence of the Schuylkill and the Delaware. You may think this is an unlikely place to find herons, since Fort Mifflin is bordered by oil refineries and the airport, but Fort Mifflin is an unlikely place. Except for the airplanes that roar overhead every minute or so, Fort Mifflin is a natural retreat, 50 under-appreciated, uncrowded rough-hewn acres where the ratio of frogs to Girl Scouts favors overwhelmingly the green-skin crowd.

HERE'S HOW to ward off a curse, or overcome triskaidekaphobia (fear of the No. 13), courtesy of Abe S. Rosen: Walk over a bed of peanut shells on Friday the 13th, reciting the phrase, "Anyone who does this is absolutely nutty. " When he would send this advice to columnists on a Friday the 13th, Abe didn't hide the fact that his public-relations agency represented Edwards-Freeman Nut Co. in Conshohocken. It was part of Abe's skill in the grand tradition of the old-time press agents who would stop at very little to plug a client.

The searchers were in a nearly pitch-dark, third-floor room in the abandoned Lazaretto quarantine station and hospital when the flashlight on the floor flickered on, then off. No one had touched it. The black-clad group sitting on the dusty floor clocked the time: 10:15 p.m. "We're here to learn about you. We're here to learn from you," said Mark Davis of the Pennsylvania Anomalous Society Team (PAST), a group that researches the history and paranormal activity of area buildings.

As Karl Van Florcke sees it, the discovery of the centuries-old relics in the Delaware River was meant to be. The captain of the Army Corps of Engineers dredge McFarland was working on the vessel last month when its pumps were turned off for the day - at the precise moment that a piece of the nation's history was vacuumed up with tons of muck and debris. Less than 24 hours after the crew finished shipping-channel maintenance near Fort Mifflin in South Philadelphia, Van Florcke glanced up at the dredge's nine-foot-wide drag head and spotted something lodged in its grate.

In the damp cold, without adequate clothing or blankets, the soldiers took cover wherever they could in tiny Fort Mifflin as British artillery pounded them with up to 1,000 cannon shots an hour. The ragtag band of Americans defiantly held out for two months in the fall of 1777, withstanding what is believed to have been the greatest bombardment of the American Revolution. Now the Delaware River fort, which played a key role in denying supplies to the Redcoats in Philadelphia and allowing the escape of George Washington's Continental Army, has staved off a less glorious defeat - by money problems that threatened its future.

On Oct. 26, 1980, Boy Scouts seeking warmth during a campout on a cold night set a fire in the Commandant's House at Fort Mifflin - and nearly burned the place to the ground. Twenty-seven years after the accidental blaze and $1 million later, the brick building is gradually returning to its former glory. The foot-thick walls have been repaired. A new roof with cupola supported by massive wooden beams has been erected at the historic Delaware River island outpost that played a major role in the Revolution.

Caretaker Wayne Irby was mowing the grass at Fort Mifflin this month when he was literally swallowed up by the history of the place - up to his knees. Irby "turned the mower loose" just as the ground collapsed beneath him. Curious, he shoveled aside a few feet of earth over the next couple of days and made a stunning discovery: a tunnel and a two-room jail cell recalling the sad tale of a decorated Civil War soldier, a murder, clemency pleas to President Lincoln, and the only execution at the fort.

Cannons boom on the Delaware River. Hour after hour, day after day, British artillery on land and on ship have pounded Fort Mifflin, hunched over on its muddy little island in the river just off the Pennsylvania shore. Inside the fort, American soldiers - cold, wet, sleepless and hungry - hang on defiantly, keeping British ships from getting to Philadelphia with supplies badly needed by the redcoat army occupying the city. The date is Nov. 15, 1777. The British have been trying for the better part of two months to break the American blockade of the river.

John W. Hager, 89, the last private resident of a once-thriving waterfront community that existed in the shadow of Philadelphia International Airport, died last Wednesday of pneumonia at Silver Creek Manor, a retirement facility in Bristol, R.I. Mr. Hager for years lived at 1 Fort Mifflin Rd. in a frame farmhouse on three acres behind the airport near the mouth of the Schuylkill. "Where he lived is a forgotten piece of Philadelphia," said his daughter, Jacqueline Mello. Even though his land was in a decidedly nonrural setting amid oil refineries, the Platt Memorial Bridge, Interstate 95, and a sewage-disposal plant, Mr. Hager grew beets, lima beans and tomatoes, looked after wild pheasants, and kept bees for honey.

A toast! To the gallant men north of here in New Jersey and to General George Washington! For one crisp candlelit night in December, Fort Mifflin became home to the Cannonball Tavern and host to an 18th-century Twelfth Night celebration, circa 1775, rivaling any re-creation in Williamsburg. The historic menu included a simple cabbage and potato soup, the ingredients staple in that time. With that came whole-wheat biscuits, buttermilk corn bread, Sally Lunn Bread, and maple-molasses-flavored butter.

At least 32,000 gallons of crude lurked under the ice of the John Heinz Wildlife Refuge near Philadelphia International Airport, unnoticed and invisible. It wasn't until a hiker detected a strong smell of petroleum Saturday that the spill, from a Sunoco Inc. dock on the Delaware River, was discovered. Late last night, John McCann, from Sunoco, said 32,000 gallons had been pumped out of the marsh, but the pumping was still going on. McCann said it was not immediately known how much oil had leaked as it was pumped from the Hog Island dock behind the airport to the Hog Island Tank Farm near Fort Mifflin.