{"id":179,"slug":"fortin-san-geronimo-san-juan-puerto-rico","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Fortín San Gerónimo is the small fort at the mouth of the Condado lagoon — the Boquerón — guarding the eastern approach to the islet of San Juan, and its place in the archive rests on two weeks in 1797. On the morning of April 17, a British fleet of some sixty-three vessels under General Ralph Abercromby and Admiral Henry Harvey put ashore thousands of troops at Cangrejos, east of the city — part of the last English attempt on a Spanish colony in the Caribbean. Governor Ramón de Castro refused the demand to surrender, and Abercromby set his headquarters on the Miramar heights and bombarded the two small fortins that stood between him and the islet: San Antonio and San Gerónimo.","Both held. Historian Juan Ángel Giusti Cordero's account for EnciclopediaPR records the fortins' resistance under the artillery — stiffened, the record notes, by a contingent of French revolutionary gunners — while criollo militia counterattacks kept the British rear unsafe. After two weeks the fleet abandoned the siege; San Gerónimo had done the job for which a shore battery exists."]},{"heading":"The survivor's caveat","paragraphs":["The file's research note draws a necessary line: San Gerónimo is the fortin that survived — the San Antonio battery that fought beside it was later demolished — and the small fort visible today beside the Condado shore has been battered, altered, and restored across two more centuries of waterfront change. What the archive files is the documented spine: a 1797 defense verified by the island's own encyclopedia, attached to a fort that stood where the guns needed it."]}],"name":"Fortín San Gerónimo","aliases":["Fortín de San Gerónimo del Boquerón"],"type":"FORT","type_label":"Fort","cats":["DARK_HISTORY","BATTLEFIELD"],"groups":["dark-history","institutions"],"desc":"Fort that resisted bombardment during the 1797 invasion.","full_desc":"A fort in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Fortín San Gerónimo is filed here for what the record attaches to it. Fort that resisted bombardment during the 1797 invasion. HauntHunt files it with dark history and battlefields. The dossier holds 1 documented fact — a documented spine with no haunting reports attached. Visitor status is unverified; confirm before making the trip.","address":null,"city":"San Juan","county":null,"state":"Puerto Rico","postal":null,"region":"Caribbean","lat":18.404559,"lon":-66.063746,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"HISTORIC_SITE","access":"UNKNOWN","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Distinct from the demolished San Antonio fort; current managed access and construction chronology need site-specific sources.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":55,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":1,"paranormal_claim_provenance":null,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[],"history":[{"description":"Giusti Cordero documents San Gerónimo’s resistance to British artillery during the 1797 siege. The site's documented military history is the record the rest of the file stands on. The record holds it as fact — documented, not retold. The record appears in 'Invasión inglesa y victoria criolla de 1797, Dr. Juan…'. It is the kind of fact the rest of the dossier leans on.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Invasión inglesa y victoria criolla de 1797, Dr. Juan Ángel Giusti Cordero","url":"https://enciclopediapr.org/content/invasion-inglesa-de-1797/","publisher":"Humanidades Puerto Rico / EnciclopediaPR","type":"ACADEMIC","authority":1}}],"legends":[],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Access details are unverified; research before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Invasión inglesa y victoria criolla de 1797, Dr. Juan Ángel Giusti Cordero","url":"https://enciclopediapr.org/content/invasion-inglesa-de-1797/","publisher":"Humanidades Puerto Rico / EnciclopediaPR","type":"ACADEMIC","authority":1}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":null,"counts":{"claims":0,"history":1,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":1}}