Melville's "Great Haven": A Look at Fort Tompkins

MELVILLE'S "GREAT HAVEN": A LOOK AT FORT TOMPKINS Frank Pisano Pennsylvania State University In the Spring 1988 issue of Studies in American Fiction, Philip Young built a strong case for the significance of Herman Melville's long-neglected story "Daniel Orme."1 Young asserts that the central figure, an enigmatic seventy-year-old retired sailor, is a portrait of Melville himself and that the tale, the last writing of any kind the author completed, is "Melville's good-bye" to the world. Young's interpretation is supported by far more than the circumstance of composition: his close examination of such details as the physical description of Orme, the sailor's personal history, and an adroit reading of the title provide convincing evidence. Yet the association between Orme and Melville can be made even more strongly by examining the site Melville selected for Orme's death scene. Young associates the fictional site with Sailor's Snug Harbor on Staten Island, a place with a view of upper New York Harbor that Melville knew well; Herman's brother, Thomas, was the governor of the sailors' retirement home where the author sometimes spent the night. Of Snug Harbor and Melville's association with it, Young writes, "a 'great haven' he called it in the tale, and not a bad spot to choose for dying."2 Several details in the story support this identification, but others (by Young's own admission) do not. Orme is discovered "alone and dead on a height overlooking the seaward sweep of the great haven to whose shore, in his retirement from sea, he had moored. . .an evened terrace, destined for use in war, but in peace neglected and offering a sanctuary for anybody."3 There are no fortifications at Snug Harbor, nor have there ever been; but the site is not fictional; it can be glimpsed from the heights of Brooklyn and elsewhere in Melville, especially from the decks of The Highlander in the pages of Redburn: "Now, on the right hand side of the Narrows as you go out, the land is quite high; and on top of a fine cliff is a great castle or fort, all in ruins. ... It was built by Governor Tompkins in the time of the last war with England, but was never used, so I believe they left it to decay."4 These are the words of Wellingborough as he writes of anticipating the sight as The Highlander sailed out for England. His description is of old Fort Tompkins; built in 1812, the red sandstone fort had decayed into ruin by 1830. The ruin was demolished in 1847 and a new fort constructed on the site between 1847 and 1861. Although periodically garrisoned throughout the century, the new Fort Tompkins, like the previous structure, fell into neglect. In the 1880s the paths around it served as pleasant walks for the sailors of Snug Harbor and other Staten 112Notes Islanders. Now surrounded by a modern naval station, it stands (not far from Sailors' Snug Harbor) on the bluffs of Staten Island, overlooking the Verrazanno Narrows. Today the crew of a ship heading out of New York Harbor or an observer on Brooklyn Heights can see a fort much like the one described by Redburn and the very gun emplacement described in "Daniel Orme." The ruin still has an effect on the imagination and, though the site was transformed between Melville's childhood and the last decade of his life, its romantic influence never waned. The evidence of the importance of the site emerges from a close look at the significance (symbolic and autobiographical) of the old fort in Redburn. The young sailor remembers the fort as a "very wonderful and romantic" place at which some of happiest moments of his childhood were spent, though seeing the fort also brings him to the realization that his childhood and youthful contentment are gone forever: "As we sailed through the Narrows, I caught sight of that beautiful fort on the cliff, and could not help contrasting my situation now, with what it was when with my father and uncle I went there so long ago" (p. 36). The fort, visible but unreachable, quickly becomes...