Database: Fort Hill and South Battery

Fort Hill is the second-highest hill in Boston - if only it had tried harder when it was a little hillock - and overlooks Boston Harbour. Defenses were built here in the mid-17th century - along with a smaller one-gun fortification near the harbour - named the South Battery.

The South battery was expanded in the 1740s, but had fallen out of use by the 1760s. Both it and Fort Hill were rebuilt by the Patriots during the Revolutionary War, but both were dismantled before the turn of the century.

Fort Hill - the hill itself, not the fortification - was levelled in the late 1860s to make room for more land, so it never realized its dream of becoming the highest hill in town. If that sounds familiar, it's because it happened to every hill in Boston.

Hills are the natural enemies of Bostonians, and always will be.