Fort Knox commands the spot of the Penobscot River where it rejoins itself after having split in two and curled around Verona Island. This seems an odd choice of fort siting, in that, had they built a fort upriver just a smidge, they would only have one direction in which to concentrate their fire, as opposed to the two they're faced with here. But this fort was sited and built by none other than Joseph Totten, who knew a thing or two about fortification. Verona Island used to be the home of an active shipbuilding community. The Roosevelt, the ship that carried Admiral Robert Peary (1856-1920) to his (debated) discovery of the North Pole in 1909, was built at Verona Island.