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Roxbury High Fort is a historic fort site within Highland Park in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. The park grounds are shared with the Cochituate Standpipe, also known as the Fort Hill Tower. The fort site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. The site inspired the name of the Fort Hill neighborhood, which surrounds the area of the High Fort.

Highland Park is maintained by the Boston Parks Department.

Roxbury High Fort
The Roxbury High Fort site, important in its proximity to the Boston Neck, the then-only land route out of Boston, was erected during the American Revolutionary War. Col. Rufus Putnam of the Continental Army, having military engineering experience and aided by Henry Knox, led the construction of earthwork fortifications in June 1775 during the Siege of Boston. Situated on the highest point in Roxbury, the fort site afforded a great vantage of the British Army, and proved pivotal in forcing the evacuation of British forces from Boston. A Roxbury Lower Fort was similarly constructed during this time, which later served as the initial site of the Alvah Kittredge House.

Roxbury would vote to join Boston in 1868. The fort would be destroyed the following year for the construction of the Cochituate Standpipe by the Cochichuate Water Company. Four bastions denoting the corners of the High Fort were added to the design of the park that would eventually come to replace it.

Highland Park
In 1895, Frederick Law Olmsted drafted design plans for a park surrounding the by-then obsolete Cochituate Standpipe. The firm of Olmsted, Olmsted, and Eliot managed improvements to the park through 1916. Roxbury puddingstone was used as the primary material.

Following a 1978 petition to the Boston Landmarks Commission, the Highland Park neighborhood was designated an Architectural Conservation District in 2022. The designation was commemorated within the park with a celebratory event hosted by Mayor Michelle Wu, the Boston City Council, and the Boston Landmarks Commission.

Highland Park has been recognized as one of the top snow sledding spots in the Boston area.

Fort Hill Tower
The Cochituate Standpipe, a Gothic-Revival water tower, initially served to store water from Lake Cochituate for local residents following its 1869 construction, modernizing Roxbury's water system. The tower was designed by local architect and president of the Cochituate Water Board Nathaniel Jeremiah Bradlee. The municipal use of the tower lasted only ten years following Roxbury's annexation to Boston and subsequent expansions to the Boston water and sewer system and fell into disuse.

The city permitted visitors to the tower following its disuse. Fort Hill Tower was opened as an observation tower in 1906 with a cast-iron standpipe and observation deck installed in 1917, but the tower eventually fell into disrepair, with the observation deck collapsing in the 1970s. Fixups were performed in the 1980s, succeeded by extensive renovation efforts in 2013. Special attention was given to preserving the tower's historical accuracy and making it better suited to weather severe conditions. a decision popular with the local community.

As of 2024, the tower is open once a year.

References: My Odyssey Through the Underground Press A Little Piece of History in the Front Yard (1993) pp. 392 The Lyman Family's Holy Siege of America Rolling Stone #98-99 (1971-72) An American Avatar: Mel Lyman Fusion No. 54, April 16, 1971 Mel Lyman: A mind-control guru or a leader deserving respect and love? The Boston Herald, p.12 Sunday, November 24, 1985 -
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