Battery Potter
Battery Potter or "gun lift battery No.1" built in 1892 at Fort Hancock, New Jersey was the world's only disappearing gun battery that used hydraulic elevators to move the guns above a protective parapet wall. Battery Potter was also the first Endicott system battery to be partially armed.
History
Construction on Battery Potter began in 1890 when a large concrete plant was set up where the power plant now exists. A team averaging 60 laborers including blacksmiths, stonemasons, engineers, painters and carpenters worked mostly during the warmer months of the year on the battery between 1890 and 1894. Battery Potter was first armed with a 12-inch model 1888 breech-loading rifle serial number 11 in 1892, and the gun lift and the weapon performed well after adjustments had been made. Construction continued on the south gun after the north gun had been proven and the work was completed in 1894.
During its service as a gun battery there were a few minor changes involving waterproofing and the addition of stop valves for each side of the battery. In 1903 the then "gun lift battery number one" was named "Battery Potter" after career soldier and civil war general Joseph H. Potter. Not long afterwards, the battery was considered obsolete. The plan was to replace it with guns and additional batteries using the newer and faster Buffington-Crozier type gun carriage. The new batteries were to be on the bay side of Sandy Hook. The new batteries were to supply the all round protection that until then only Potter could provide, as the new guns only had a 180 degree field of fire.
In 1906 construction started on Battery Arrowsmith, a single battery of three 8-inch guns on Buffington-Crozier mountings facing the bay side of the hook. The battery had fewer than the recommended number of three 8- and 10-inch batteries on the bay side but its activation was enough to warrant the deactivation of Battery Potter. The guns and the gun lifts were removed in 1906 and primary fire control stations of other gun batteries were built on Battery Potter's terreplein. The rest of Potter's machinery was removed in 1909 and the interior was used mostly for storage. The primary fire control stations were abandoned in the 1920s after the other batteries became obsolete and were deactivated. During World War II, two radar towers were built on Potter's roof for use by the harbor entrance command post. At the end of World War II, the command post and radar were abandoned.
Battery Potter today
In 1975 the National Park Service inherited the land that was Fort Hancock and opened it to the public year round. The park service, with the help of volunteers, gives tours of Battery Potter during the summer months.
