- Abraham Eustis
Abraham Eustis (
March 26 ,1786 ) to (June 27 ,1843 ) was alawyer and notableU.S. Army officer, eventually rising to become a BrevetBrigadier General . He saw service in Florida and became a notableartillery specialist and the first commander ofFort Monroe , located at the entrance to the harbor ofHampton Roads inVirginia .In the State of
Florida ,Eustis Lake and the town of Eustis were each named in his honor. Camp Abraham Eustis, aWorld War I -era U.S. Army base along the James River, was named for him. Later renamedFort Eustis , in the 21st century, it is an expanded and active facility which now located in the independent city ofNewport News, Virginia .Biography
Abraham Eustis was born in
Petersburg, Virginia . He was educated atHarvard College andBowdoin College . He served during theWar of 1812 , in theBlack Hawk War (1832), and in theSeminole Wars inFlorida .In 1830, Eustis became the first commander of
Fort Monroe , which guards the entrance toHampton Roads atOld Point Comfort in southeasternVirginia . There for many years, he commanded the school for Artillery Practice.In May, 1838, Eustis took command of
Fort Butler , the one of the main military posts built for the forced removal of theCherokee known as theTrail of Tears . Nearly 5,000 Cherokee of North Carolina and adjacent Georgia were taken to Fort Butler, thence to the main internment camp atFort Cass . The troops stationed at Fort Butler were those of Eustis's command from the Second Seminole War in Florida (Duncan 2003:190).He was the father of Brig. Gen.
Henry L. Eustis .Fort Eustis
Fort Eustis was originally known as Camp Abraham Eustis when it was established during theWorld War I on historicMulberry Island and an adjacent portion of the mainland along the James River in Warwick County, upstream fromNewport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company . It became Fort Eustis and a permanent Army base in 1923.Fort Eustis is currently home to the
U.S. Army Transportation Corps , and is now located within the corporate limits of theindependent city of Newport News (which merged with the former Warwick County in 1958). An Army Aviation School is also located there. A large mothball fleet of ships known locally as the "Ghost Fleet" is located adjacently in the river.As of 2007, with the pending base closure of Fort Monroe in nearby Hampton, a portion of the work there will shift to Fort Eustis.
References
* [http://www.mnbeef.org/Eustace/abraham.html Eustace Families Association website]
* [http://www.eustis.army.mil/sites/about/history.asp Fort Eustis history]
* Duncan, Barbara R. and Riggs, Brett H. Cherokee Heritage Trails Guidebook. University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill (2003). ISBN 0-8078-5457-3External links
* [http://www.eustis.army.mil/ Fort Eustis official website]
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