It was one of a number of forts built immediately following the Virginia Company being given official sanction in 1612 for its possession of Bermuda, which it had occupied since the wreck of the Sea Venture in 1609.
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In Hamilton Parish, on the western shore of the harbour, lies Walsingham Bay, the site where, in 1609-10, the crew of the wrecked Sea Venture built the Patience, one of two ships built, which carried most of the survivors of the wrecking to Jamestown, Virginia, in 1610.
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When official settlement of the archipelago by England began in 1612 (unofficial settlement having begun with the 1609 wrecking of the Sea Venture) the first permanent town, St. George's (then called New London) was placed on the north side of St. George's Harbour.
Led by Admiral Sir George Somers and Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Gates, they had deliberately steered their ship, the Sea Venture, onto a reef.
He traveled to the Colony of Virginia aboard the Sea Venture and was apparently among those shipwrecked in Bermuda for several months before reaching the New World.
Somers and Sir Thomas Gates oversaw the construction of two small ships, the Deliverance and the Patience. They were built from local timber (Bermuda Cedar) and the salvaged spars and rigging of the wrecked Sea Venture.
Notable persons aboard the Sea Venture included the Admiral of the fleet, George Somers, Vice-Admiral Christopher Newport, the new governor for the Virginia Colony, Sir Thomas Gates, future author William Strachey, and businessman John Rolfe with his pregnant wife.