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 Brief history of Old Fort Niagara / by P 
 
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 Cornell University 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028824831 
 
A 
 
 BRIEF 
 
 HISTORY 
 
 OF 
 
 OLD 
 
 FORT 
 
 NIAGARA 
 
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A BRIEF HISTORY 
 
 OF 
 
 OLD FORT NIAGARA 
 
 BY 
 
 PETER A. PORTER. 
 
 Photographs by ORRIN E. DUNLAP. 
 
 NIAGARA FALLS, 
 
 
 1896. 
 
 
 
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 Coi-vKiGHT, 1896, Bv PETER A. PORTER. 
 
 MADE IN 
 IHE COMI'LI^TE ART-PRINTING WORKS 
 
 THE MATTHEWS-NOHTHRlfP CO. 
 BUFFALO, ■>. 1 . 
 
THIS SKETCH 
 OF THE 
 
 HISTORY OF OLD FORT NIAGARA 
 
 is inscribed to the memory of 
 
 Orsamus H. Marshall, 
 
 the historian of the niagara frontier, 
 
 at whose suggestion 
 
 the author commenced the study 
 
 OF THE 
 HISTORY OF THIS LOCALITY. 
 

 
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INTRODUCTION. 
 
 I ^HE TITLE of this pamphlet, read literally, correctly 
 states the aim of the author. His desire has been 
 to write a "brief'' history of "old" Fort Niagara. 
 
 Of the history of "modern" Fort Niagara, that is, 
 from 1825, since which time it has not been considered a 
 defensive work, no attempt has been made to treat. 
 
 Numerous authorities have been quoted in support of 
 historical facts ; many more might have been quoted. To 
 those who read this article from a desire to study the 
 history of Fort Niagara these references will be valuable. 
 It has also been thought desirable to make liberal quotations 
 from documents and books referred to. 
 
A BRIEF HISTORY OF OLD FORT NIAGARA. 
 
 ^lAGARA is without exception the most important 
 post in America and secures a greater number of 
 ~" communications, through a more extensive coun- 
 try, than perhaps any other pass in the world." So 
 wrote Mr. Wynne in 1770,' and he undoubtedly 
 expressed the opinion which both the French and 
 the Engli.=h then held and had held for the preced- 
 ing hundred years. 
 For probably no one spot of land in North America, the Heights 
 of Quebec and the lower end of Manhattan Island alone excepted, 
 had played so important a part, been so coveted and exerted so great 
 an influence, both in peace and war, on the control, on the growth, 
 on the settlement and on the civilization of the country, as this little 
 point of land at the mouth of and on the eastern shore of the Niag- 
 ara River, bounded on one side by that river and on the other side by 
 Lake Ontario. 
 
 And both Quebec and Manhattan Island had been settled for half 
 a century before La Salle first saw this spot, whose importance as a 
 stragetic point, in peace, in war, and in the interest of the fur trade 
 he at once recognized; and as from La Salle came the first suggestion 
 of a fort here, with his name must its earliest history be forever 
 linked. 
 
 And for nearly one hundred years after La Salle's first visit, the 
 ministers and statesmen of both France and England, backed by all 
 the power of their respective kingdoms, aided by their armies, their 
 great generals and all their experienced colonial officers from the 
 highest to the lowest, made the possession and fortification of this 
 small piece of land one of the main objective points of their respec- 
 tive policies regarding their American possessions. 
 
 The Niagara River " Onguiaahra, the famous river of the Neuter 
 Nation," had been well known to the Jesuit missionaries as early as 
 ' British Empire in America, vol. II, page 102. Note. 
 
lo OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 1640/ and by hearsay since at least 1626; and the fact that a 
 great fall interrupted the passage of the Indians on their westward 
 journeys had been announced by Lescarbot in his " Histoire de la 
 Nouvelle France," published in 1609/ in his description of Cartier's 
 second voyage to America, made in 1535. 
 
 And it was the knowledge of a carrying place around these falls 
 that pointed out to those engaged in, and ambitious to control, the 
 fur trade with the Western Indians, in which list La Salle stands 
 out prominently, that a fortified store house at or near the end of 
 this portage would be a priceless advantage to its possessors. 
 
 And during the long period above referred to when France and 
 England were making every effort to gain control of this locality, the 
 fur traders rendered valuable services in furtherance of the ambitions 
 of their respective nations, although, of course, these fur traders' object 
 was a purely mercenary one. 
 
 But the Indians, prompted thereto partly by the always enduring 
 feuds between the Huron and Iroquois stocks, but mainly by their 
 keen insight into the real ambitions of the white men — faithful and 
 friendly to the French and the English alternately, but only as fear 
 of their strength or benefits to be derived from them impelled — 
 clearly foresaw the danger to their race if a stronghold was ever 
 obtained at the portage, and persistently refused to allow one to be 
 erected ; and it was only after a struggle of 50 years that France 
 succeeded in getting near this spot a fortified structure, that prom- 
 ised to be, and though soon after removed seven miles distant to the 
 mouth of the river, proved to be, a permanency. 
 
 THE INDIAN TITLE TO THE LAND. 
 
 In tracing the history of Fort Niagara, it is desirable for us, es- 
 pecially so far as the earliest claims of ownership of the territory 
 in which it is located by France and England, are concerned, to look 
 first at the Indian title to tjie land and their disposition thereof. 
 
 As far back as we can get any authentic knowledge whatsoever 
 the Neuter Nation owned and occupied this spot. They were prob- 
 ably a powerful offshoot from the great Huron-Iroquois stock, 
 and occupied all the territory north of Lake Erie from near the 
 Detroit River eastward until their lands met those of the Iroquois 
 near the Genesee River. 
 
 ' Jesuit Relation, published 1642, page 4g. ' Page 382. 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. ii 
 
 The Neuters derived their name from the fact that, while often at 
 war with other tribes, they never warred with either the Iroquois or 
 Hurons, between whom they were located. They counted 36 villages 
 west of the Niagara River and four east of it,' and were a well-built and 
 populous nation. 
 
 Such a neutrality could not last, and while we do not know when 
 the Neuters first became recognized as an independent nation (cer- 
 tainly before 1600, for in 161 5 Champlain refers to them as an estab- 
 lished tribe), we do know that it was in 165 i that the Senecas, the 
 most westerly, the strongest numerically, as well as the most blood- 
 thirsty of the Iroquois, attacked them on a slight pretext, and in a 
 short and bloody campaign wiped them out of existence as a nation, 
 the remnant that was spared being incorporated among their captors. 
 
 The Senecas thenceforth, although it was over a hundred years 
 before they occupied the Neuters' territory, claimed title to it by 
 reason of this conquest, and among the Indian tribes the Senecas' 
 claim seems to have been fully recognized. 
 
 For, as we shall see later on, the Senecas granted La Salle im- 
 portant rights on the Niagara River in 1679. 
 
 In 1 7 1 9 they gave Joncaire, a Frenchman who had been adopted into 
 their nation, certain rights on this river, which were of direct benefit to 
 the French, and refused equal rights to the English ; and, in 1725, they 
 consented to the French building a stone fort at the mouth of the river. 
 
 The Senecas, in common with all other Indian tribes, seem to have 
 regarded their land deeds and their treaties as binding only so long 
 as it suited their convenience. Again, some of their deeds embrace 
 huge tracts of land, occupied by several tribes, the sachems or chiefs 
 of which all joined in the deed of the whole territory, not specifying 
 what portion each tribe owned. 
 
 Those deeds that embrace the locality we are treating of, of 
 course, bear on the subject in hand. 
 
 CONFLICTING CLAIMS. 
 
 Both France and England at an early date set up and steadily 
 claimed title among other territory to this special locality. 
 
 France, by reason generally of early discoveries and occupation 
 by Champlain (who never was on the Niagara River), by Coureurs de 
 Bois, by Jesuit missionaries and later by La Salle. 
 
 ' Jesuit relation, published 1642, pages 48 and 49. 
 
12 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 England claiming the whole continent by reason of its discovery 
 by her early navigators, (who were not the first discoverers of the con- 
 tinent,) maintaining a claim by the grant from James I. to Gorges, in 
 1620, of the land from ocean to ocean, and from 40 to 48 degrees of 
 latitude, and by other, though conflicting grants, none of them made 
 good by occupation or actual sovereignty, and by her conquest of 
 the Dutch at Manhattan. 
 
 Parkman, writing of the period (1687) when French and English 
 came in contact in the Senecas' territory, and set up their rival claims, 
 says, " It is clear that the claim of prior discovery and occupation 
 was on the side of the French."' 
 
 Both the French and English claimed the Iroquois as subjects, 
 but the Senecas especially always claimed independence. 
 
 DEEDS FROM THE SENECAS. 
 
 In 1684, the five nations gave England a protectorate over their 
 lands,'' and in 1686 the English governor at New York set up the 
 Duke of York's arms in all the castles of the Five Nations "as far as 
 Oneigra." ' In 1687 the Five Nations assented, when James II. of 
 England agreed to accept them as his subjects.'' 
 
 In 1 701, the Senecas and other tribes deeded to William III., King 
 of England, in trust a territory 800 miles by and 400 miles broad, 
 "including, likewise, the Great Falls Oakinagaro." ^ The deed is 
 signed by the totems of sachems of all the Five Nations. 
 
 In 1726, the Senecas again deeded in trust to the English king a 
 large tract of territory, including "all along the River of Oniagara."" 
 
 But all these deeds seem to have been regarded even by the Eng- 
 lish grantees as of little value, and it was not till 1764, as noted later 
 on, that a specific deed of a comparatively small area of country, 
 being that along both banks of the Niagara River, was regarded as 
 perfect, and was recognized as finally transferring to the English the 
 Indian title to this famous region. 
 
 While Parkman, as above quoted, may be right as to the superior- 
 ity of the French claims, by reason of prior discovery and occupation, 
 if there was any right of title to this land in the Senecas, (and I 
 believe there was,) by conquest, the English certainly seem to have 
 acquired at an early date, by deeds from the Indians, what they after- 
 
 ' Parkman. Frontenac and New France, page 161. ^Col. Docs. N. Y. , vol III pace 
 508. * 2 Col. Docs. N. Y, vol. Ill, page 396. * Col. Docs. N. Y., vol. Ill page 503 
 « Col. Docs. N. Y., vol IV, page gog. « Col. Docs. N. Y., vol. V, page 800. 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 13 
 
 wards acquired by arms from the French, namely, the title to the 
 land where Fort Niagara now stands. 
 
 HISTORIC PERIODS. 
 
 Recognizing, therefore, the title to the spot where Fort Niagara 
 stands as vested in the Senecas after their conquest of the Neuters in 
 1651, we may divide its history into the following periods : 
 
 Indian ownership, 1651-1669; Indian ownership, French influence 
 predominating, 1669-1725; Indian ownership, French occupation, 
 1725-1759; Indian ownership, English occupation, 1759-1764; Eng- 
 lish ownership and occupation, 1759-1783; American ownership, 
 English occupation, the "Hold-over Period," 1783-1796; American 
 ownership and occupation, (excepting December 19, 1813, to March 
 27, 1815,) 1 796-1 896. 
 
 Let us now take up this history in chronological order. 
 
 LA SALLE'S FIRST VISIT. 
 
 In 1669, La Salle, in company with Dollier de Casson and Rene de 
 Gallinee, set out from Quebec for the Mississippi, and in his journal 
 Gallinee tells of their passing near the mouth of the Niagara River 
 and speaks of the Falls whose roar they heard,' this being the earliest 
 known description of our Cataract. This date is generally accepted 
 as that of La Salle's first visit to this section. 
 
 Opposed to this, however, is the ofificial statement of the Marquis 
 de Nonville, dated July 31, 1687, that "La Salle had erected quarters 
 at Niagara in 1668, which quarters were burnt by the Senecas 12 years 
 ago,"' that is in 1675. 
 
 To my mind De Nonville, writing 18 years after La Salle's visit, 
 made an error of one year, and should have written 1669. We know 
 that La Salle was here in 1669, and a few days later was with his two 
 companions above named at an Indian village near the present city 
 of Hamilton, Canada, and here he met Joliet, who was on his way 
 back to Quebec from Lake Superior.' 
 
 Separating from his two companions at this village September 30, 
 1669, we next hear of La Salle "continuing his way on a river 
 which goes from east to west, and passes to Onondaga, then to six or 
 seven leagues below Lake Erie," " conceded to be the Ohio. 
 
 ' O. H. Marshall's writings, page 219, he quotes Gallinee's JourDal. 'Doc Hist. 
 N. Y., vol. I, pages 150-1. 'O. H. Marshall's writings, page 223. ■* J. G. Shea, Bursting 
 of Margrys Bubble, page 16, he refers to Margry. 
 
14 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 In order to reach the Ohio La Salle must have retraced his steps 
 eastward, and thus either crossed or passed the mouth of the Niag- 
 ara River. 
 
 He had several men with him ; he may have tarried on the Niagara; 
 he may have visited the Falls ; he probably built the quarters of which 
 De Nonville tells. If he did build them, there is no reason why the 
 Senecas should not have burnt them as stated. 
 
 Certain it is that when La Salle returned to this locality in 
 January, 1679, as described later on, he knew the country thoroughly; 
 he knew just where to land ; he intended to build a fort here ; he 
 knew about the Falls, and he came with the intention, and fully 
 prepared to build a vessel above them. It is, therefore, I submit, 
 possible, and even probable, that in this unrecorded interval above 
 referred to La Salle made a careful study of the surroundings 
 here, and built the house to which De Nonville refers. 
 
 LA SALLE'S SECOND VISIT. 
 
 In 1678, La Salle projected an expedition to the far West, and 
 on November i8th, of that year. La Motte, Hennepin and fourteen 
 others started from Fort Frontenac in a brigantine of 10 tons for 
 Niagara, and on the 6th of December they rounded the point where 
 Fort Niagara now stands, and anchored their vessel in " the beauti- 
 ful River Niagara, which no bark had ever yet entered." ' 
 
 On this point of land was a fishing village of the Senecas, white 
 fish then, as now, being abundant in the river at this spot.° All the 
 land was covered with a dense thicket. On this point of land, on 
 December 11, 1678, Hennepin said the first mass that had ever been 
 celebrated in this territory." In a letter written by him to the Prince 
 de Conti, dated October 31, 1678, just before Hennepin and his com- 
 rades sailed. La Salle wrote that Tonti, who was to accompany him. 
 was setting out to build a new fort 200 leagues away, near Niagara 
 Falls, to which he (La Salle) had taken the liberty to give the name 
 of Fort Conti." 
 
 The vessel and crew remained at this spot from the 6th to the 15th 
 of December, and the carpenters were at work.' 
 
 ■' It is at the mouth of Lake Frontenac (Ontario) that a fort was 
 begun," wrote Hennepin," " but the Iroquois took umbrage, so that, as 
 
 ■ Hennepin, Louisiana, 1683, page 23. ' Hennepin, Louisiana, 1683, page 32. ^ Henne- 
 pin, Louisiana, 1683, page 24, * Parkman, Discovery of the Great West, page 118. 
 = Hennepin, New Discovery, i6g8, page 50. « Hennepin, Louisiana, 1683, page 30. 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 15 
 
 we were not in a position to resist them, we contented themselves 
 with building there a house defended by palisades, which is called 
 Fort Conti, and the place is naturally defensive, and beside it there is 
 a very fine harbor for barks to retire to in security." ' In a later work 
 he adds that it was built on the east side of the Niagara River at its 
 mouth. ° Prevented from erecting a regular fort at the mouth of the 
 River, La Motte, acting probably under explicit instructions from La 
 Salle, took his vessel and crew up the river, to where Lewiston now 
 stands, where he wanted to erect a store-house. His orders evidently 
 were to try and build a fort at the mouth of the river ; failing in that • — 
 as he had — to build a store-house at the foot of the portage, which 
 would aid him in the fur trade, which the Indians might permit, and 
 which would give a foothold, and could be used as trading-post, and 
 gradually fortified, till such time as a real fort could be built and main- 
 tained at the river's mouth. If these were La Salle's plans, and I 
 believe they were, he only anticipated history by some fifty years, for, 
 as will be seen later, it was by this very plan and on this very spot 
 that the French ultimately built a fortified store-house of some pre- 
 tentions, which served all their purposes, military and commercial, 
 till they obtained permission to build a stone fort on the coveted point 
 of land. 
 
 On the site of Lewiston La Motte's men built their cabin, fortified 
 with palisades,' using hot water to thaw the frozen ground. Here 
 La Salle soon joined them. He had left Fort Frontenac some time 
 after La Motte's departure, for the site of his projected Fort Conti at 
 the mouth of the Niagara River, but, narrowly escaping shipwreck, 
 landed at the mouth of the Genesee River. He visited the chief 
 Seneca village, met the chiefs, and obtained from them their consent, 
 (which, but a few days before, they had refused to La Motte and Henne- 
 pin,) to the building of a vessel above the cataract and the estab- 
 lishing of a fortified warehouse at the mouth of the river.'' 
 
 His first work was the building of his vessel above the Falls, and 
 after having located the place of building, and having seen the keel 
 laid, he led a sergeant and a number of men to the mouth of the 
 river, in order at once to take advantage of the Senecas' consent to 
 
 ' Hennepin, Louisiana, 16S3, page 31. ' Hennepin, Nouville Decouverte, 1697, page 48. 
 ^ Parkman, La Salle and Discovery of Great West, page 126, he quotes Tonty, Relation. 
 1684, Margry, vol. I, page 573. Tonti, La Salle's Last Discoveries, 1698, page 20. 
 ■* Parkman, La Salle and Discovery of the Great West, page 128, he quotes Ixtter de 
 La Salle, Margry, vol. H, page 32. 
 
1 6 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 his building a fortified warehouse there — a project specially dear to 
 his heart. 
 
 Here on the famous point of land, in February, 1679, La Salle 
 marked out the foundations of two block-houses,' set his men to work, 
 and started on foot for Fort Frontenac. 
 
 In accordance with his promise to that Prince, he called these block- 
 houses Fort Conti. They seemed to have been finished and occu- 
 pied, but after a few months — probably about July, — through the 
 carelessness of the sergeant in command, were destroyed by fire.'' 
 
 Let us note the date, December, 1678, when La Motte commenced 
 a fort and January, 1679, when La Salle himself started the work 
 on his block-houses on this historic spot. 
 
 When La Salle arrived again at Niagara, in August, 1679, his fort 
 was in ashes; his creditors and his enemies had well nigh ruined 
 him. His vessel, the Griffin, however, was ready to sail west- 
 ward. In the money he hoped to get through trading for furs on 
 her voyage, lay his only immediate hope of financial aid. He aban- 
 doned everything else in order not to delay this enterprise. Under 
 such circumstances even his much-cherished plan of a fort at the 
 mouth of the Niagara River was forgotten, for he had neither the 
 heart nor the means to rebuild the burnt block-houses. 
 
 For the next few years, Niagara, meaning both the point at the 
 mouth of the river and the store-house at Lewiston, the two being 
 closely connected in the plans of the French for their ownership, 
 often appears in the official correspondence of both France and Eng- 
 land, the former being much the more closely identified with the 
 locality. 
 
 DE NONVILLE'S FORT. 
 
 In 16S5 the Marquis de Nonville became governor of New France. 
 In an official letter from Quebec, dated May 6, 1686, urging the hum- 
 bling of the Iroquois, he says : " What I should consider most effect- 
 ual to accomplish this would be the establishment of a right good 
 post at Niagara. 
 
 "The manner in which the English have managed with the Iro- 
 quois hitherto, when desirous to establish themselves in their neieh- 
 borhood, has been to make them presents for the purchase of the soil 
 
 " Parkman, I.a Salle and Discovery of the Great West, page 135, he quotes Letter of La 
 Salle, Margry, vol. II, page 229, and Relation de Tonty, 1684, Margry, vol. I, page 577. 
 Winsor Nar. and Crit. History of Am., vol. IV, page 223. 'Parkman, LaSalle and Dis- 
 covery of the Great West, page 1 35. Note. 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 17 
 
 and tlie property of the land they wish to occupy. What I see most 
 certain is, whether we act so by them, or have peace or war with 
 them, they will submit with considerable impatience to see a fort at 
 Niagara.'" 
 
 He wanted a " fort sufficiently large to contain a force of four or 
 five hundred men to make war on them ; enclosed by a simple ordi- 
 nary picket fence to place it beyond all insult,"^ but to this suggestion 
 he received from France no favorable reply. 
 
 Early in 1686 Dongan, the English Governor at New York, had 
 also suggested to his government the erection of an English fort at 
 the spot.' 
 
 During the winter of 1686-7 De Nonville made his preparations 
 to attack the Senecas, partly to punish them for having burnt La 
 Salle's house at Niagara in 1675,^ and generally because of their 
 unceasing hostility to all French plans. He sent word to the western 
 Indian allies of France and the French troops in the West to meet 
 him at Niagara in July, 1687. 
 
 It is not within the scope of our title to treat of that part of this 
 expedition that chastised the Senecas in the Genesee Valley. After 
 that he assembled his French forces and Indian allies at Irondequot 
 Bay, and on July 24, 1687, he embarked for Niagara, reaching there 
 on July 30th ; and he at once set his troops to work to build that fort 
 which he had so strongly advocated. The fact that France and Eng- 
 land were at peace, and that England claimed the Senecas under her 
 protection, counted for nothing with De Nonville. 
 
 He selected for the location of the fort "the angle of the lake on 
 the Seneca side of the river; it is the most beautiful, the most pleas- 
 ing and the most advantageous site that is on the whole of this 
 lake.'" 
 
 He also states in an official letter, " The post I have fortified at 
 Niagara is not a novelty, since Sieur de La Salle had a house there 
 which is in ruins since a year."" So De Nonville's fort must have been 
 on the site of La Salle's block-houses, and it was the first real defen- 
 sive work erected here. 
 
 Baron La Hontan was among the officers of De Nonville's com- 
 mand, and he describes the work as " a fort of pales, with four bas- 
 tions," and says it " stands on the south side of the Streights of Herrie 
 
 ' Doc. Hist. N. v., vol. I , p. 127. '^ Doc. Hist. N. Y., vol. I., page 127. «Col. 
 Docs. N. Y., vol. Ill , page 394. ■'Doc. Hist, of N. Y., vol. I., page 150. » Doc. Hist, 
 of N. Y . vol, J., page 147. " Col Dors, of N. Y,, vol. IX., page 349. 
 
18 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 Lake, upon a hill, at the foot of which that lake falls into the Lake 
 of Frontenac.'" 
 
 De Nonville, in his report, says : " The inconvenience of this post 
 is that timber is at a distance from it.'"* So the pales had to be cut 
 some ways off, floated to the point and drawn up the steep banks, all 
 involving much labor, and as it took but three days to complete the 
 entire fort it must have been a rather weak affair.' 
 
 On July 31, 1687, De Nonville, in presence of his army, took for- 
 mal possession of the fort in the name of the French king, and issued 
 a proclamation, signed by himself and officers, to that effect.^ 
 
 This fort was called after its builder, Fort De Nonville, but the 
 earlier name, Niagara, clung to it. " De Nonville" had no designa- 
 tion of locality attached to it, "Niagara" had, and Fort Niagara it 
 has been ever since. De Nonville started for Quebec on the com- 
 pletion of the fort, leaving a garrison of 100 men, under command of 
 De Troyes, with an eight months' supply of provisions. 
 
 Misfortune brooded over the fort from its completion. No 
 sooner had the main body of the French departed, and their Indian 
 allies scattered, than the Senecas, more angered than crippled by 
 De Nonville's crusade against them in the Genesee Valley, appeared 
 before the fort in large numbers and vented their rage on the 
 unhappy garrison. Eight hundred of them laid siege to the place 
 and no Frenchman " dared venture out for hunting, fishing or fire- 
 . 
 
 Besides the misery of being thus cooped up in a small fort, and 
 always on the alert for assaults, scurvy set in among the French. 
 The provisions, though plentiful, were of a bad quality; many of the 
 men died. " The fort was first a prison, then a hospital, then 
 a charnel house," ° till by spring but 12 men put of the 100 sur- 
 vived. 
 
 No sooner did Dongan, the English Governor at New York, 
 hear that De Nonville had built a fort at Niagara than he entered 
 a most vigorous protest against such a step, and demanded its 
 destruction.' A long and spirited correspondence between these two 
 representatives of France and England followed, in which the 
 claims of priority of discovery, the ownership of this particular 
 
 1 La Hontan, English ed., 1703, vol. I., page 78. ''Doc. Hist. N.Y., vol. I., page 148 
 3Col. Docs. N. Y., vol. IX., page 368. 'i Doc. Hist, of N. Y., vol. I., page 14c). 
 ' Parkman, Frontenac, page 166, he quotes De Nonville Memoire, loth August, i68!i. 
 « Parkman, Fontenac, page 166. 'Col. Docs. N. Y., vol. III., page 516. 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 19 
 
 territory, and the allegiance of the Iroquois, particularly the Senecas, 
 were set up by both sides and the claims of each ridiculed by 
 the other. 
 
 De Nonville's recent attack on the Senecas made it easy for 
 Dongan to obtain their adherence to his views. De Nonville was 
 extremely anxious for peace with the Iroquois just now, at almost 
 any price. Dongan shrewdly referred some of the points in dispute 
 to a meeting of the Iroquois chieftains,' and these warriors declared 
 they would make no peace, nor even a truce, until certain conditions, 
 one of the most prominent of these being the destruction of all the 
 French forts on the lakes, were complied with.^ 
 
 In November, 1687, James II. of England consented to take the 
 Iroquois, or Five Nations, as his subjects,^ and conferences were 
 opened at London to adjust the many differences between France 
 and England. 
 
 While their masters were negotiating, Dongan was materially 
 strengthening his position and his relations with the Iroquois, until 
 De Nonville, fearful of losing both Fort Frontenac and Fort Niagara, 
 decided to abandon Niagara, as demanded by the English and Iro- 
 quois, and so expressed his intention to Dongan, as his letter says, 
 " in order to contribute to a permanent peace." * 
 
 The garrison of 100 men, left by De Nonville at Fort Niagara, 
 July 31, 1687, had been reduced to about a dozen by the end of April, 
 1688, when a large party of Miamis, allies of the French, arrived, en- 
 tered the fort, and defended it and the little garrison till a company 
 of French soldiers came to its relief.' 
 
 On July 6, 1688, De Nonville issued the promised order for the 
 abandonment of Fort Niagara." What a pang it must have cost him ! 
 He sacrificed Niagara in the expectation of saving Frontenac. As it 
 turned out he lost that also soon afterwards. 
 
 On September 15, 1688, Desbergeres, who on De Troyes' death 
 had succeeded him as commandant of Niagara, assembled his 
 men in the fort, read De Nonville's order to them, and gave 
 directions for obeying it. The palisades were torn down, but the 
 cabins and quarters were left standing, according to the order. "A 
 written memorandum of the condition in which we leave said 
 quarters, which will remain entire to maintain the possession His 
 
 'Col. Docs. N. Y., vol. Ill,, page 533. 'Col. Docs. N. Y., vol. III., 534. ^ QqI 
 Docs. N. Y., vol III., page 503. ''Col. Docs. N. Y., vol. III., page 556. 'Parkman, 
 Frontenac, page 166. ^ Doc. Hist. N. Y., vol. I., page 168. 
 
20 
 
 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 Majesty and the French have for a long time had in this Niagara dis- 
 trict " was prepared. 
 
 In this memorandum it appears there was, first, in the. centre of 
 the square a large wooden cross, eighteen feet in height, erected on 
 Good Friday, 1688, solemnly blessed by Rev. Father Millet, on the 
 arms of which in large letters were inscribed : 
 
 REGN. VINC. (^ IMP. CHRS. 
 (Regnat, Vincit, Imperat Christus — Christ reigneth, conquereth, ruleth.) 
 
 Among the buildings mentioned was a cabin for the commander, 
 with a good chimney, a door and windows with fastenings. 
 
 Another with two rooms, a chimney, and window in each, etc. 
 
 Father Millet's cabin, with chimney, windows and sash. 
 
 A cabin opposite the Cross, with a board ceiling. 
 
 Still another cabin, a bake-house and an apartment at the end 
 thereof. 
 
 A large and extensive frame building, with a double door, three 
 windows, no chimney, floored with planks, and clapboarded outside. 
 No doubt, the chapel. 
 
 A large store house, and a well with a cover. 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 21 
 
 This interesting document will be found in full in Documentary- 
 History of New York, volume I., page 168, and in Colonial Documents 
 of New York, volume IX., page 387. 
 
 A waiting vessel conveyed the garrison to Fort Frontenac. 
 
 So ends one chapter — De Nonville had succeeded in fortifying 
 Niagara, as France desired ; but Indian cunning and ferocity, stirred 
 on by English intrigue, and backed by England's demand, had com- 
 pelled its demolition as England wanted. 
 
 1&88 — 1719. 
 
 De Nonville was soon after recalled, and French policy hereafter 
 was more of a cultivation of good will towards the Senecas especially, 
 and the Iroquois generally. Always at variance with the five nations, 
 because of the latter's leaning toward the English, henceforth, in time 
 of peace, France cajoled them, and in time of war awed them by 
 attack. 
 
 As for the English, they did not cultivate the Indians' friendship, 
 henceforth, as successfully as did the French. 
 
 The regaining of Niagara was one of the main reasons for France's 
 more conciliatory attitude towards the Iroquois, from this time on ; 
 and while over 30 years elapsed before she again had a fort there, its 
 "possession to her was worth the delay. 
 
 It was of more importance to her each year. Her fur trade was 
 being directed to New York, and her possession of Niagara would 
 largely restore it to Quebec. Niagara was the key to the control of 
 the four upper lakes, as well as to the Valley of the Ohio, and it was 
 the most important link in that great chain of fortifications she was 
 building to connect her Canadian domain with that great western 
 territory, which she claimed, and which was called Louisiana. 
 
 During the next thirty years, the attention of both France and 
 England was constantly turned to Niagara. Several proposals were 
 made by the respective Governors at Quebec and New York to their 
 Governments for the erection of a fort at Niagara, some of these 
 proposals being made when the two countries were at war, and some 
 while they were at peace. 
 
 The peace of Ryswick, 1697, found France in possession of the St. 
 Lawrence and Mississippi valleys, but still without the fort at Niag- 
 ara. But France was losing no chance to strengthen her position 
 with the Iroquois, who were still friends of England, and, as France 
 
22 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 ratified a treaty with them in 1701, when England declared war in 
 1702, the neutrality of the Iroquois was secured and the war con- 
 fined to New England. 
 
 A French plan to seize Niagara was submitted to the Court in 
 1706, but the alternative and elaborate suggestion of " having recourse 
 to peace and mildness" seems to have better met the royal view.' 
 
 Article 15 of the peace of Utrecht, 171 3, declared the five nations 
 " subject to the dominion of Great Britain ; " but as this, literally con- 
 strued, would have been an acknowledgment that the land on the 
 Niagara was under England's rule, the French diplomats claimed a 
 decided distinction between the " five nations being subject to, and 
 their lands being subject to England." Indeed, it was contended 
 that Niagara was in the Province of New York under this treaty 
 clause,^ and a protest was made by Clinton against the French trying 
 to occupy it. 
 
 In 1716 another recommendation for a fort at Niagara was sent 
 from Quebec to France." 
 
 It was through the influence of Chabert Joncaire, a Frenchman, 
 that France was soon to obtain on the Niagara at Lewiston, a foot- 
 hold which was merely a stepping-stone to the fort at the mouth 
 of the river. This lad, taken a prisoner by the Senecas, his life 
 spared, adopted into the tribe, and marrying a Seneca squaw, ob- 
 tained great influence with the warriors. In 1700 he entered the 
 French service, and continued therein till his death, forty years 
 after, and this does not seem to have lessened the fondness of the 
 Iroquois for him; for, in 1706, in the "proposal to take possession 
 of Niagara," it is stated " the Iroquois actually suggest to him to 
 establish himself among them, granting him liberty to select on 
 their territory the place most acceptable to himself for the pur- 
 pose of living there in peace, and even to remove their villages to 
 the neighborhood of his residence, in order to protect him."* 
 
 In 1718 orders came from France to extend the French trade 
 and to erect magazines therefor. 
 
 joncaire's cabin at lewiston. 
 In the fall of 1719 the French were on very friendly terms with 
 the Senecas, and the time had come to test Joncaire's popularity 
 
 I Col. Doc. of N. Y., vol. IX., page 773. ^Col. Docs. N, Y., vol. IX., page 1061. 
 aCol. Doc. of N. Y., vol. IX., page 874 " Col. Doc. N. Y., vol. IX , page 773. 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 23 
 
 with them, and he was sent to "try the minds of the Senecas, to 
 see if they would consent to the (French) building a house on their 
 land, and to maintain that settlement in case the English would 
 oppose it." ' 
 
 It is more than probable that he was instructed in case the 
 Senecas refused this French request, to take up their old offer to 
 him of a location of a cabin for himself, and to locate it near 
 the foot of the portage. In. any event, his influence and his pres- 
 ents obtained the desired consent, and early in 1720 he erected a bark 
 cabin at Lewiston, on the river, hoisted a flag over it and called it 
 "Magazine Royal.'"' 
 
 The English at first used every means to have it destroyed, ap- 
 pealing to the Senecas; but Joncaire's influence prevailed against 
 that of Peter Schuyler and Philip Livingston, and it remained. 
 
 Joncaire seems promptly to have enlarged it, for it is referred 
 to as a block-house, forty feet long and thirty feet wide, enclosed 
 with palisades, " musket proof, with portholes for firing with small 
 arms," in November, 1720,^ and Joncaire was its commandant. 
 
 Failing to have this house demolished, the English demanded 
 permission to have a similar house at the same place, and this, too, 
 the Senecas refused. * 
 
 Thus France again secured an entering wedge to the erection of 
 a fort at the mouth of the river. These locations of Lewiston and 
 Fort Niagara, both referred to in the correspondence of these early 
 days as " Niagara," must not be confounded. Lewiston was at the 
 exact foot of the portage, and at the head of navigation on the river, 
 so the excuse of " a store-house " could be made for erecting a de- 
 fensive work there, that could not be made concerning such a build- 
 ing where Fort Niagara now stands, seven miles away. 
 
 Charlevoix, in 1721, visited Joncaire's house, which he calls "a 
 cabin to which they have already given the name of a fort, for they 
 say with reason that in time it will become a veritable fortress."" 
 Charlevoix's work was not published till 1744, and in a note on the 
 same page he adds : " The fort has since been built at the mouth of 
 the Niagara River, on the same side and at the exact spot where M. 
 de Nonville had built one." 
 
 •Col. Docs. N. Y., vol. v., page 588. '^ Col. Docs. N. Y., vol. V., page 588. "Col. 
 Doc. N. Y., vol. v., page 577. ''Charlevoix Histoire de la Nouvelle France, 1744, vol. 
 III., page 227. * Charlevoix, Histoire de la Nouvelle France, vol. III., page 225. 
 
24 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 A later traveler, at the time a guest of Gov. Simcoe, at Niagara, 
 says of the fort : " It was originally constructed by Mr. de la Ton- 
 quiere (Joncaire), three miles nearer the Falls, but was some years 
 afterwards transferred to the spot where it now stands and where 
 Mr. de Nonville threw up an entrenchment." ' 
 
 La Salle's palisaded store-house at Lewiston, built 1679, had no 
 doubt disappeared when Joncaire's cabin was erected. 
 
 This fortified trading post of Joncaire's was a most important 
 center for the next five years. It was the headquarters of French 
 influence in this section. A few soldiers were maintained there under 
 the name of " traders," the trade in furs was brisk, the Indians from 
 the north, west and south coming there to barter. The chain of friend- 
 ship with the Senecas was kept bright by friendly intercourse with 
 their warriors, who constantly came there, French trading vessels 
 often anchored at its rude wharf, bringing merchandise from Fronte- 
 nac and returning laden with furs. 
 
 Thus the English for the first time failed to overcome the French 
 influence with the Senecas and could not succeed in ousting them 
 from their foothold on the Niagara. 
 
 In 1721, Gen. Hunter again recommended the erection of an 
 English fort at Niagara'', supplemervting the same suggestions made 
 in 1720 by the authorities of Albany and Governor Burnet.' 
 
 STONE FORT AT THE MOUTH OF THE RIVER. 
 
 Thus matters progressed in the interest of the French till 1725, 
 when the Marquis De Vaudreuil gave notice that he proposed to 
 build a stone house at Niagara*, and in the fall of that year Longueil 
 met the deputies of the five several Iroquois Nations at Onontague, 
 and got them to consent to the erection of a stone house at Niagara, 
 the plan of which he designed, and which was to cost 29,295 livres," 
 equal to $5,592. Acting on this consent, he at once sent 100 men to 
 hurry on the work.* 
 
 The Senecas made no serious opposition to the work, though it 
 is probable it required all Joncaire's influence to induce them to 
 reject the demands which the four other tribes of the five nations, 
 appealed to and instigated by the English at New York, made, first 
 
 • Rochefoucault's Travels, 1799, vol. I., page 257. '^ Col. Doc. N. Y., vol. V., page 561 
 3 Col. Doc. N. Y., vol. v., page 572 and 579. * Col. Docs. N. Y., vol. IX., page 952 
 11 Col. Doc. N. Y., vol. IX , page 953 and 958. « Col. Doc. N. Y., vol. IX., page 958 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 25 
 
 for the stoppage and later for the destruction of the structure, 
 although they had previously given them consent, under French 
 influence, to its erection. 
 
 This consent of the Iroquois (Senecas) to the French erecting a 
 house at Niagara was ratified July 14, 1726, at a council held at 
 Niagara.' 
 
 This house, commonly called the "Mess House" or "Castle," 
 b'egun in 1725, was not fully completed till along in 1726."' 
 
 Samuel DeVeaux, a resident of Niagara Falls, wrote in 1839: 
 
 " It is a traditionary story that the Mess House, which is a very 
 strong building and the largest in the fort, was erected by stratagem. 
 A considerable, though not powerful, body of French troops had 
 arrived at the point. Their force was inferior to the surrounding 
 Ihdians, of whom they were under some apprehensions. They ob- 
 tained consent of the Indians to build a wigwam, and induced them, 
 with some of their officers, to engage in an extensive hunt. The 
 materials had been made ready and while the Indians were absent the 
 French built. When the parties returned at night they had advanced 
 so far with the work as to cover their faces and to defend themselves 
 against the savages in case of an attack."' 
 
 ■ Report says that the stone was brought from Frontenac. DeWitt 
 Clinton wrote in 18 10: "Considering the distance and the monstrous 
 mass of stone one would think this impossible. As the stones about 
 the windows are different and more handsome than those which com- 
 pose the building, the probability is that the former only were brought 
 from Fort Frontenac and that the latter are the common stone of the 
 country."* He gave the dimensions of the house as 105 x 47 feet. 
 
 Whether openly or by a ruse the French built the first story of the 
 Mess House, the largest and strongest of the buildings ever built on 
 the point of land up to this time, and the Indians, who had promised 
 that the French should not be molested while they were occupied in 
 the work of building the house they had obtained permission for, 
 seem to have kept their word. Thus we come to the first permanent 
 fort at this spot, and a fort has been maintained here continuously 
 ever since. 
 
 Joncaire's block-house at Lewiston seems to have been allowed to 
 fall into decay. Early in 1727 Louis XV., King of France, approved 
 
 'Col. Doc. N. y., vol. v., page 803. = Doc. Hist, of N. Y., vol. I., page 291. 'The 
 Falls of Niagara, 1839, page 119, ""Life of DeWitt Clinton, 1849, page 124. 
 
o 
 
 X 
 
 X 
 
 I- 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 27 
 
 plans for having it rebuilt that fall, at the same time approving of the 
 location of the house at the mouth of the river, because it would 
 prevent the English from trading on the north shore of Lake Ontario 
 and seizing the Niagara River, which was the passage to the upper 
 countries.' Still, as it did not command the portage, he was willing 
 to expend 20,430 livres to repair the house that did.'' 
 
 No doubt his wiser counselors advised differently, for the order 
 was revoked" and Joncaire's block house was abandoned in 1728. 
 
 That building had done good service ; it had given the French the 
 desired foothold on the Niagara River; it had held and fostered the 
 trade in furs ; it had established French supremacy in this region, and 
 furnished them with the key to the possession of the Upper Lakes- 
 and the Ohio Valley; and last, and most important of all, it had been 
 the means of France obtaining a real fortress at the point where her 
 diplomats and armies had been waiting to erect one for over half a 
 century. It had served its purposes, a fort had been built at the 
 mouth of the river, its usefulness was ended and it was abandoned 
 for ever. 
 
 1 72 5- 1 744. 
 
 This new French fort, Fort Niagara, from this time on was grad- 
 ually improved and strengthened, from time to time. Some works of 
 defense must have been constructed at once, for, in September, 1736, 
 an official report says : " Niagara is well fortified. It had only six 
 guns, but Choueguen (Oswego) has furnished 24 of the largest calibre, 
 which are now mounted. People are busy supplying Forts Duquesne, 
 Niagara and Frontenac with provisions." * 
 
 Still, even the possession of the long coveted fort did not give the 
 French that absolute control of the fur trade that they had expected. 
 From 1727 to 1736 England obtained by far the larger portion of the 
 Indian traffic by means of a liberal sale and distribution of brandy, 
 the "fire water" of the Indians, at the trading post she had built at 
 Oswego in 1722. The French authorities, relying on their advantages 
 of location had made decided efforts to discontinue this liquor traffic, 
 largely, no doubt, through the influence of the priests and mission- 
 aries of the Catholic Church, and at Niagara the supply of brandy 
 furnished was very limited. 
 
 1 Col. Docs. N. Y., vol. IX., page 964. « Col. Docs. N. Y., vol. IX , page 965. ^Col. 
 Docs. N. Y., vol. IX., page 1003. ^Col. Docs. N. Y., vol. X., page 481. 
 
28 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 In October, 1736, an official report by Beauharnois and Hocquart to 
 France, says : " As for the commerce now carried on at Fort Frontenac 
 and Niagara it becomes every year more inconsiderable in comparison 
 to the expenses the king incurs there. These two posts, which pro- 
 duced some years ago as much as 52,000 lbs. of peltries, have these 
 four years past returned only 25,000 to 35,000 lbs. This falling off 
 has occurred merely since the discontinuance of the distribution of 
 brandy to the Indians, whereof it is the king's pleasure that Messrs. 
 de Beauharnois and Hocquart be very sparing. . . . We admit 
 that it is difficult, and perhaps impossible, to sell brandy to the 
 major portion of the Indians without their getting drunk. But it 
 is equally certain that nothing deters them from trading with the 
 French in these posts, and anywhere else in the upper countries, 
 more than the refusal to sell them any of this liquor for which they 
 entertain an inexpressible fondness. They find plenty of it at 
 Choueguen (Oswego), where they repair from all the posts of the 
 upper countries without any means of stopping them at Niagara. 
 Sieurs de Beauharnois and Hocquart perceive, unfortunately, no 
 means of destroying or interrupting the commercial relation this 
 drink keeps up between thelndians and the English."' 
 
 Thus it is clear that as between the obtaining and the not obtain- 
 ing of drink, the extra travel of over 100 miles made no difference to 
 the Indians of this early date, and the English took full advantage of 
 the commercial benefits thus to be derived over their more con- 
 scientious French adversaries. 
 
 In 1739, the pickets of the fort were falling down and were 
 repaired. ° 
 
 In 1741, the Governor of New York reported that he held the 
 Five Nations only by presents, and that it would be absolutely 
 necessary to take Fort Niagara.^ 
 
 In 1745, there were 100 men and four cannon at Fort Niagara. 
 Later, the French policy of not selling brandy to the Indians was 
 reversed. 
 
 In 1750 Sir William Johnson wrote that a friend of his had seen 
 
 a letter from the Lord Lieutenant at Quebec to the Commander at 
 
 Fort Niagara, authorizing him to hold the Indian trade, " even if it 
 
 cost the Crown 30,000 livres a year, and also to supply them with 
 
 what rum and brandy they wanted." 
 
 'Col. Doc. N. Y., vol. IX., page 1049. = Col. Doc. N. Y., vol. IX., page 1068. 
 'Col. Docs. N. Y., vol. VI., page 186. 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 29 
 
 France saw the growing power of England, and recognized that 
 the great contest for supremacy in North America was near at hand, 
 and tried every conceivable effort to strengthen herself. 
 
 In 175 1, Fort Niagara was further strengthened.' 
 
 In 1 75 1, Father Picquet visited the fort. He describes it "as 
 well located for defense, not being commanded from any point, but 
 the rain was washing the soil away by degrees, notwithstanding the 
 vast expense which the king incurred to sustain it.'"' 
 
 During the French possession of Fort Niagara, beginning in 1726, 
 and ending in 1759, that fortress served many purposes and yearly 
 increased in importance. 
 
 As the most important military post on the lakes, as a stand- 
 ing means of overawing the Indians, as the greatest trading post 
 in the country, and as a center of French influence, it held such 
 a commanding position that England was determined ultimately to 
 own it. 
 
 Rumor says, and what circumstantial evidence we have tends to 
 prove it, that during French rule it was also used as a State prison, 
 as were many of the French fortresses, distant from France, in those 
 days. 
 
 S. DeVeaux says, "The dungeon of the Mess House, called the black 
 hole, was a strong, dark and dismal place, and in one corner of the 
 room was fixed the apparatus for strangling such unhappy wretches 
 as fell under the displeasure of the despotic rulers of those days. The 
 walls of this dungeon, from top to bottom, had engraved upon them 
 French names and mementoes in that language. That the prisoners 
 were no common persons was clear, as the letters and emblems were 
 chiseled out in good style. In June, 1812, when an attack was 
 momentarily expected upon the fort by a superior British force, a 
 merchant, resident at Fort Niagara, deposited some valuables in this 
 dungeon. He took occasion one night to visit it with a light. He ex- 
 amined the walls and there, among hundreds of French names, he 
 saw his own family name engraved in large letters." ^ 
 
 This dungeon is a room 6 by 18 feet in size, and 10 feet high, 
 whose stone walls and arched stone roof contains no aperture for 
 light or air. It is on the first floor, and is to-day perfectly accessible. 
 The well of the castle was located in it. 
 
 ' Winsor, Nar. and Crit. Hist, of Am , vol. V., page 490. = Doc. Hist. N. Y., vol. I., 
 page 283. 'The Falls of Niagara, 1839, page 120. 
 
30 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 Deveaux was of French descent, born in the latter part of the 
 1 8th century, and during the early years of this century lived 
 at Fort Niagara. 
 
 Another statement of his that " this old fort is as much noted for 
 enormity and crime as for any good ever derived from it by the 
 nation in occupation " is probably not far from the truth. 
 
 As improvements and extensions were made in the fortifications, 
 Fort Niagara became a place of great strength, and was, and had been 
 for some years when England captured it, the most important spot 
 in North America south of Montreal or west of Albany. 
 
 The fortifications at one period are said to have covered a space of 
 nearly eight acres. It was a little city in itself, and the commander 
 was the most important man in, and the practical ruler of, a vast 
 tract of country. 
 
 Included within this acreage were the various buildings and forti- 
 fications directly connected with the fort proper, and the buildings 
 required for a vast trading post. The gardens, which were main- 
 tained by the officers, were located east of the fortifications on 
 the bluff overlooking the lake. 
 
 The cemetery, outside the fortifications, was " a few rods from 
 the barrier gate, and filled with the memorials of the mutability 
 of human life." Over the portal of its entrance, in large letters, was 
 the word " Rest," which, if the fort was used as a state prison, must 
 have been full of significance to the unhappy prisoners, at least. 
 
 Its location was probably the same as that of the garrison 
 cemetery of to-day, beneath whose sod doubtless lie the bones of 
 many Frenchmen, who, in times of peace and war, " for the good of 
 their country," gave up their lives — some as soldiers in their country's 
 service, others as prisoners of state. Here, too, no doubt, lie the 
 bones of many Englishmen, whose lives ended at this historic fort, 
 far from their native land, but serving her interests. 
 
 1744—1759- 
 
 By I744> the time had come when if England ever expected to 
 own more than the Atlantic slope of the continent she had to arouse 
 herself to greater efforts than mere intriguing with the Indians and 
 sending continual remonstrances to Quebec. 
 
 In March of that year war was declared between France and Eng- 
 land, and the colonies of New York and New England, in 1745 and 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 31 
 
 1746, made united efforts to conquer Eastern Canada; yet England 
 failed to aid thena to the extent promised, and in 1748 the war was 
 ended by the treaty of Aix la Chapelle. 
 
 In 1754, though these two nations were nominally at peace, the 
 frontier was desolated by the Indians at the instigation of the 
 French, and in 1755 four expeditions were planned by the English 
 against French territory— one of these, under Braddock, being for 
 the recovery of the Ohio Valley. Braddock's army was ambushed 
 and routed, and among the spoils captured was his artillery train, 
 which was subsequently taken to, and used in, strengthening Fort 
 Niagara, which was then garrisoned by 500 men.' 
 
 To another of these expeditions, under Gov. Shirley, of Massa- 
 chusetts, was assigned the duty of capturing Fort Niagara. Soon 
 after leaving Albany, news of Braddock's defeat was received, and 
 many of the men deserted. The troops were delayed at Oswego for 
 various reasons, till the season was too late, and Shirley led his forces 
 back to Massachusetts. 
 
 War between France and England, though it had existed in 
 America for nearly two years, was officially declared in 1756, and in 
 that year another attempt to capture Niagara was planned. Changes 
 in commanders bred internal army troubles, and when the Earl of 
 Loudon finally assumed command, he abandoned the plan that had 
 been formed to attack Niagara. 
 
 In 1757, fifty Senecas, headed by one of the principal chiefs of the 
 Five Nations, came to Niagara and held a council with Pouchot, who 
 was earnestly intriguing to detach the said Five Nations from their 
 friendship toward the English.'' 
 
 In 1758, none of the three expeditions sent out by England was 
 directed against Niagara. 
 
 In 1759, three more expeditions were sent out by the English, one 
 of them, under Gen. Prideaux, to capture Niagara. 
 
 The English reverses of latter years in America had aroused the 
 English Government to the need of a more able management; and 
 under William Pitts' Premiership was commenced the campaign of 
 1759 that was to retrieve England's honor and losses, and leave her 
 the absolute victor over her great rival on this continent. 
 
 The contemplated attack on Fort Niagara, in 1755, under Shirley, 
 had told the French that that fort must be further strengthened, and 
 ' Col. Doc. N. Y., vol. X., page 326. 'Col. Doc. N. Y., vol. X., page 586. 
 
32 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 Pouchot, a captain in the regiment of Beam, and a competent 
 engineer, was sent to reconstruct it. He reached the fort with a 
 regiment in October, 1755. Houses for these troops were at once 
 constructed in the Canadian manner. These houses consisted of 
 round logs of oak, notched into each other at the corners, and were 
 quickly built. Each had a chimney in the middle, some windows 
 and a plank roof. The chimneys were made by four poles, placed 
 in the form of a truncated pyramid, open from the bottom to a 
 height of three feet on all sides, above which was a kind of basket 
 work, plastered with mud. Rushes, marsh grass or straw rolled in 
 diluted clay were driven in between the logs, and the whole plas- 
 tered.' 
 
 The work of strengthening the fort was pushed on all winter, 300 
 men being in the garrison, and in March, 1756, the artillery taken from 
 Braddock arrived.'' 
 
 By July, 1756, the defenses proposed were nearly completed, and 
 Pouchot left the fort. 
 
 Vandreuil stated that he (Pouchot) "had almost entirely superin- 
 tended the fortifications to their completion, and the fort which was 
 abandoned, and beyond making the smallest resistance is now a place 
 of considerable importance in consequence of the regularity, solidity 
 and utility of its works." ' 
 
 Pouchot was sent back to Niagara, as commandant, with his own 
 regiment, in October, 1756, and remained there for a year. He still 
 further strengthened the fort during this period, and when he left he 
 reported that " Fort Niagara and its buildings were completed and 
 its covered ways stockaded."* 
 
 On April 30, 1759, he again arrived at Niagara to assume com- 
 mand and " began to work on repairing the fort, to which nothing had 
 been done since he left it. He found the ramparts giving way, the 
 turfing all crumbled off and the escarpment and counter escarpment 
 of the fosses much filled up. He mounted two pieces to keep up 
 appearances in case of a siege."" A plan of Fort Niagara in 1759, 
 from Pouchot's own work, " Memoires sur la derni^re guerre," etc., 
 published in 1781 is given herewith. 
 
 From the general laudatory tone of his own work we are led to 
 
 feel that Pouchot overpraised his own work of fortifying Niagara in 
 
 ' Hough's Pouchot, vol. I., page 53. 'Col. Docs. N. Y., vol. VII., page 282. ^Col. 
 Doc. N. Y., vol. X., page 411. " Hough's Pouchot, vol. I., page 94. ^ Hough's Pouchot, 
 vol. I., page 142. 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 33 
 
 A.— GaUeritataeommiinicaUviUh 
 
 I he exterior toorks. 
 G. — AiiAe Ontario JJastimt. 
 C. — Larracla, Storea and vestiges 
 
 of the -old Fort. 
 Ti.—NiagriTa Gate. 
 ^—Bastion at the O'ate -Of lli^ 
 
 Five Nations. 
 
 LAC ONTARIO 
 
 \.— Barbette Battery oj 
 
 5 Gwu. 
 •i.—RelU-f Gate. 
 3.~Aiiolier Barbett6 
 
 Battery o/i Oaiia. 
 t.— Indian Hala. 
 
 POUCHOT'S PLAN OF FORT NIAGARA, 1759, 
 
 With the addition of the three parallels built by the English during 
 the siege. Inside the fortifications is shown the shape and plan of 
 the Old Fort, namely, that built by De Nonville in 1687, whose shape 
 was no doubt retained after 1725, when the French built the castle 
 (which is shown in this cut in dotted lines), and gradually built the 
 fort with bastions around it. 
 
34 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 lyS^ «^"d 1757. when no immediate attack was looked for, otherwise it 
 could hardly have been in so poor a condition eighteen months after- 
 wards (1759, as first quoted), unless, as is very likely, he foresaw defeat 
 when attacked, as he was advised it would be, and wanted to gain special 
 credit for a grand defense under very disadvantageous conditions. 
 
 By July Pouchot had finished repairing the ramparts. He gives 
 this description of the defense : 
 
 " The batteries of the bastions which were in barbette had not yet 
 been finished. They were built of casks and filled with earth. He 
 had since his arrival constructed some pieces of blindage of oak, four- 
 teen inches square and fifteen feet long, which extended behind the 
 great house on the lake shore, the place most sheltered for a hospital. 
 Along the faces of the powder magazine to cover the wall and serve 
 as casemates, he had built a large storehouse with the pieces secured 
 at the top by a ridge. Here the guns and gunsmiths were placed. 
 We may remark that this kind of work is excellent for field-forts in 
 wooded countries, and they serve very well for barracks and magazines, 
 a bullet could only fall upon an oblique surface and could do little 
 harm, because this structure is very solid." ' 
 
 Pouchot says that the garrison of the fort at this time consisted of 
 149 regulars, 183 men of colonial companies, 133 militia and 21 can- 
 noniers. 
 
 A total of 486 soldiers and 39 employees, of whom 5 were women 
 or children. These served in the infirmary, as did also two ladies, 
 and sewed cartridge bags and made bags for earth.'' 
 
 There were also some Indians in the fort, and the officers may 
 not have been included in this number. The fort was capable of ac- 
 commodating 1,000 men. 
 
 A corvette, called the Iroquoise, fully manned and carrying ten or 
 twelve guns, arrived at Niagara July 6th, and, during the early part 
 of the siege at least, its commander placed himself under Pouchot's 
 orders. 
 
 THE BRITISH BESIEGE THE FORT. 
 
 On July 6th an English army, which had been collected at Oswego, 
 under command of Gen. Prideaux, consisting of 2,200 regulars and 
 militia, and 750 Indians under Sir Wm. Johnson, arrived at the Little 
 Swamp, about four miles east of Fort Niagara, and threw up an 
 entrenchment. 
 
 ' Hough's Pouchot, vol. I., page 161. ' Hough's Pouchot, vol. I., page 161. 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 35 
 
 Prideaux had hardly gotten out of sight of Oswego before a force 
 of Canadians and Indians under La Corne arrived there, intending to 
 surprise and capture the place, and cut off the troops from joining in 
 the attack on Niagara. But the French did not make the most of 
 their opportunity for a surprise, and the English threw up breast- 
 works, and on two successive days repulsed the attacks of the 
 French. 
 
 Pouchot says of this attack on Oswego, " If all our forces had fol- 
 lowed the first detachment, we might have taken these English troops 
 very easily, because they were surprised and much disconcerted at the 
 first moment. Had this body been defeated Niagara would have been 
 saved, as their army could not have received the troops and supplies 
 that were sent for them." ' 
 
 In which view, considering the history of the siege of Fort Niagara, 
 I think Pouchot is entirely wrong. 
 
 On the evening of July 6th one of the garrison, who had been out 
 hunting, rushed in and told Pouchot that he had seen an Indian war- 
 party. A reconnoitering force was sent out, which learnt the truth 
 of the hunter's report, by encountering a volley that drove it back to 
 the fort. 
 
 Fully satisfied that a siege was about to be begun, Pouchot, while 
 communications were still open, sent a messenger to the French posts 
 in the south-west, calling on their garrisons and the friendly Indians 
 to come to his aid. 
 
 In spite of warnings Pouchot seems to have been taken somewhat 
 unawares, or he would have had all needed available troops at Fort Ni- 
 agara, instead of having to send for them at the very last possible 
 moment. 
 
 Pouchot's messenger stopped first at Fort de Portage or little Ni- 
 agara, a dependency of Fort Niagara, which had been erected by the 
 French at the upper end of the Portage, a mile or more above the 
 , Falls, about 1750. This was now commanded by Chabert Joncaire, a 
 younger son of that Joncaire who secured the consent for Fort Ni- 
 agara's ultimate erection through the Senecas' cession to him for a 
 cabin at Lewiston. Pouchot ordered him to retreat to Chippawa, on 
 the Canada side of the river, and just opposite, if the English ap- 
 peared, the dependency being in a weak condition. Joncaire removed 
 all the movable property to Chippawa Creek, burned the buildings in 
 ' Hough's Pouchot, vol I. , page 2og. 
 
36 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 Fort Little Niagara, and hastened to Fort Niagara, where his brother 
 had preceded him.' 
 
 Prideaux's army consisted of the Forty-fourth and Forty-sixth 
 regiments, the Fourth Battalion of Royal Americans, two battalions 
 of New York troops, a detachment of the Royal Artillery and a large 
 body of Indians, many of whom had till recently been hostile to the 
 English, under Sir William Johnson," whose success in this campaign 
 added to his already great reputation of being the best Indiari 
 manager that England ever had on this continent. His name must 
 forever be closely associated with the history of Fort Niagara. 
 
 It is impossible in this article to treat of the details of this- 
 memorable siege. For these, from the French side, I refer the reader 
 to Pouchot's " Memoires sur la derniere guerre, etc.," published in 
 1781, a very rare book. Hough's translation, 1866, is obtainable with 
 greater ease. 
 
 For the English view I refer him to Alante's History of the late 
 War in North America, 1772. That paxt of the Journal of Sir Wil- 
 liam Johnson published by Stone in his life of the Baronet is alsa 
 an authentic record of events soon after the surrender and as to his 
 dealings with the Indians at that time and later. 
 
 On July 8th the English reconnoitered, and on the gth Prideaux 
 sent a captain of the Royal Americans, Blaine by name, with a letter 
 to Pouchot, demanding his surrender, which was refused ; and that 
 night the English, who had already sent a force to occupy the river 
 bank and the roads south of the fort, thus completely hemming Fort 
 Niagara in by land, began opening a trench east of the fort, and on 
 the nth they erected batteries. Parleys between some Indians in 
 the fort and the Indian chiefs in the English army were held outside 
 the fort, firing on and from the fort being suspended meanwhile. 
 
 Several other parleys followed during several successive days, but 
 Sir William Johnson's influence proved strong enough to keep the 
 great majority of his Indian allies from abandoning the English and 
 suddenly becoming neutral, and thus Pouchot's hopes and attempts to 
 detach the large body of Indians from the 'oesiegers proved futile. 
 
 The English, working especially at night, slowly but steadily, built 
 three trenches, all east of the fort and each one nearer than the 
 former, the last one being only about one hundred yards from the 
 outworks. They kept adding new batteries, from which showers of 
 
 ' Hough's Pouchut, vol. I , page 166. ' Hough's Pouchot, vol. I., page 159. 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 37 
 
 hot shot and shell were poured upon the fort night and day. Those 
 in the fort replied almost continuously, and each morning battered 
 those new works which the English had built during the night. The 
 cannonading on the part of the besiegers, however, was carried on with 
 the most vigor. 
 
 On the 17th the English had occupied the west bank of the river 
 at its mouth, and thrown up works and mounted batteries on the then 
 called " Montreal Point," and attacked the fort from that side also. 
 This caused much alarm and danger to those in the fort, and com- 
 pelled them to erect defenses, as that side of the fort was protected 
 only by an entrenchment. 
 
 On the 19th General Prideaux was killed in one of the trenches 
 by the bursting of a shell from a cohorn, before which he was pass- 
 ing. The command of the English forces devolved on Sir William 
 Johnson, who carried on the siege with even greater vigor. The 
 continued firing had on the 22d made a large breach in the walls 
 of the fort, the battery and parapet of the f?ag bastion being com- 
 pletely demolished, and into this breach grape and musketry were 
 continuously poured in a way that one of the garrison described as 
 terrific. 
 
 On the 22d hot shot was poured into the fort from both sides; 
 fires were started by them in several places, but, by great precautions 
 and risk, the fires did no great damage, although many of the fort 
 buildings were of wood. 
 
 By the 23d the garrison were in straights. Sacks to be filled with 
 earth and used to repair the damage by shells were all u-^ed. There 
 were no cannon wads left, and even hay, used in their place, was not 
 on hand — and the mattrasses on the beds, both the covering and the 
 straw, had been used up. The arms were also in such bad condition, 
 that scarcely one gun in ten was of service. 
 
 On the morning of the 23d, under a white flag, four Indians came 
 to the fort. They brought two letters from D'Aubrey and De Lignery, 
 the French commanders at Venango and Presque Isle, in answer to 
 Pouchot's summons for aid — the earlier one saying they were about 
 starting, and the other telling of their arrival at Navy Island, just 
 above Niagara Falls, and asking for information and advice. 
 
 Pouchot had sent word that the English besiegers might number 
 5000, besides 4000 Indians, and the replies said 1600 French and 1200 
 Indians were coming to his aid. 
 
38 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 Pouchot sent four copies of his answer, one by each of the messen- 
 gers, hoping, as proved to be correct, that one might reach its destina- 
 tion. 
 
 On the 29th firing was heard south of the fort and an Indian later 
 brought in word to Pouchot that the French relieving party had been 
 routed. Trembling for the safety of this important post, D'Aubrey and 
 DeLignery had sailed with their forces and coming down the Niagara 
 River (appearing like a floating island, as the river was covered with 
 their bateaux and canoes) had first landed on Navy Island, then crossed 
 the river to Fort Little Niagara, and hurried along the shortest 
 route to Fort Niagara. 
 
 Sir William Johnson, apprised of their movements by his Indian 
 scouts, on the 23th, leaving a large force in the trenches, to prevent the 
 garrison of Fort Niagara from co-operating with D'Aubrey, marched 
 south, and, early in the morning of the 24th, met them an eighth of a 
 league from the fort, at a place then called " La Belle Famille," in the 
 present village of Youngstown, in sight of the fort, whose garrison, 
 owing to Johnson's foresight, were prevented from making a sortie, 
 as had been planned, as the relieving force approached. His regulars 
 occupied the road leading from the falls to Fort Niagara, along which 
 the French were advancing, while his Indians were posted on his flanks. 
 The French being thus caught in an ambush, and seeing the English 
 forces lightly entrenched, opened fire on them at short range. 
 
 The English Indians poured a galling fire into their ranks, the Brit- 
 ish regulars charged with great fury, and at the end of half an hour the 
 French broke and fled in confusion. They were pursued for over five 
 miles, one hundred and fifty of them were killed, and ninety-six pri- 
 vates and twenty-seven officers, among them the commanders D'Aubrey 
 and De Lignery, and the famous Marin, were taken prisoners. The 
 Indians of the English force behaved uncommonly well. 
 
 Sir William Johnson soon after sent Major Hervey to Pouchot, de- 
 tailing the above events, and demanding his surrender. Pouchot sent 
 an officer to the English camp, who saw and talked with the prisoners, 
 and returned with the statement that all was true as reported. 
 
 An examination of their fortifications, etc., having been made, a ' 
 conference of the fort ofBcers urged a surrender, and the garrison it- 
 self clamored for an end to the siege. 
 
 Pouchot had left but 135 men fit and equipped for duty ; there 
 were only 140 guns left that were in condition for service; 24000 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 39 
 
 pounds of powder had been burnt, and 54,000 pounds were yet left, 109 
 men had been killed or wounded, 37 were sick, and under the most 
 favorable conditions the fort could not hold out longer than two days, 
 it being in a battered and exposed condition on all sides. 
 
 Pouchot assented to a surrender and contended for the best possi- 
 ble terms. 
 
 SURRENDER AND EVACUATION. 
 
 These terms stipulated that the garrison should march out with 
 arms and baggage and one cannon, lay down their arms but retain 
 their baggage, be transported in vessels, furnished by the British, to 
 New York, and that they should be protected from attacks by the 
 Indian allies of the English. 
 
 These articles were signed on the night of the 24th, and between 
 ten and eleven o'clock on the morning of July 25, 1759, a part of 
 the English forces occupied the fort. Johnson had posted troops 
 on every side of the fort to prevent the Indians from entering it, 
 but an hour after the English troops had entered the Indians scaled 
 it on every side, and in half an hour after more than 500 of them 
 were inside the ramparts, but they remained quiet. 
 
 The English had asked Pouchot to have the garrison deliver up 
 their arms under the pretext that they would then be in a better 
 condition to defend the Frenchmen. Pouchot steadily refused, and 
 assured them that if it were done they could not restrain their 
 Indian allies. His judgment was undoubtedly correct, for if, as it 
 turned out, the English could not prevent the Indians from entering 
 the fort, it is not probable that they could have prevented them 
 from assaulting the French had these been unarmed. 
 
 Pouchot dined Johnson and some officers, and these officers, after 
 the dinner, helped themselves to all movables in the room. 
 
 The Indians tookeverything they could reach, even to door-hinges; 
 they pillaged the King's store-house, and broke open all the barrels of 
 flour. • 
 
 The French officers had taken the precaution to put some of their 
 belongings in the powder magazine; these were saved, but everything 
 else was carried off by the victors. 
 
 The English officers probably took first pick of everything, the 
 soldiers had the next chance at what was left, then the Indians were 
 allowed to pillage the fort, which they did most thoroughly. 
 
40 
 
 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 The garrison was drawn up in line of battle on the parade ground, 
 their arms in their hands, their haversacks between their legs. Their 
 officers were with them, and in this position they remained for 
 30 hours, or until the time for embarkation. 
 
 FRENCH MAGAZINE AND BARRACKS. 
 
 The Indians at first tried to take the arms from the men as they 
 s^ood in line. Pouchot had warned his men not to use their weapons 
 against the Indians, but, if attacked by them, to kick them or strike 
 them in the stomach with their fists, for it was of no consequence to 
 an Indian to be struck in this way, nor would other Indians take his 
 part, as they would, were he struck with a sword or a gun. The men 
 obeyed their orders, struggled for and retained their arms. 
 
 Had the wind permitted the bateaux in which the English had 
 come from Oswego to be gotten out, it was Pouchot's intention to 
 send a part of the garrison away before giving up possession of the 
 fort, but this proved impossible. 
 
 On the afternoon of July 26th, the garrison, with guns on their 
 shoulders, drums beating, and with two cannons at the head of the 
 column, marched out of the fort and down to the beach. Here they 
 laid down their arms, entered the boats that were in readiness, and 
 started for Oswego. 
 
 SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON. 
 
 Good diplomat that he was, with such an unruly crowd as his 
 Indians were likely to be. Sir William Johnson seems to have been 
 willing to grant as favorable terms of surrender as he consistently 
 could. 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 41 
 
 He had established for himself a new line of fame — a military 
 commander. He wanted to have the glory of capturing the great 
 Fort Niagara; he did not want any delay that would enable Prideaux's 
 successor, who proved to be Gen. Gage, to reach the spot and be in 
 command at the surrender. His one aim was to take Fort Niagara. 
 He succeeded; and as the last of the French garrison put off in the 
 bateaux on their journey to New York, he must have stood on the 
 broken ramparts, his mind filled with pleasant thoughts. 
 
 He had won for England, and won by his own energy and diplo- 
 macy, that spot which she had craved for fully 80 years. Innumer- 
 able times had the suggestion for the erection of a fort here by 
 force been made to her by various ones of her colonial officers. 
 Seventy-one years before she had caused France to abandon the fort 
 that that nation had erected here; but for the last 33 years that 
 hated rival had maintained here a center of commercial and militarj' 
 power. 
 
 Now all was changed. The English flag floated over the long 
 coveted spot, and the credit of its capture, at the time and for all 
 time, belonged to him — Sir William Johnson. 
 
 BRITISH CONTROL. 
 
 Sir William Johnson's diary gives the number of prisoners in the 
 garrison as 607 men and 11 officers, besides women and children. Of 
 the relieving force which he routed, he captured 27 out of 30 officers, 
 whom he ransomed. Ninety-six prisoners, and 150 scalps, taken in 
 the rout of this relieving force, he divided among the several nations 
 of his Indian allies.' 
 
 The English losses during the siege, including the action of July 
 24th against the relieving force, he states as 60 killed and 180 wounded, 
 besides three Indians killed and five wounded.' 
 
 The ordnance stores captured in the fort were 43 iron cannon of 
 various sizes, 1,500 round shot, 40,000 lbs. musket balls, 500 hand 
 grenades, besides axes, hatchets, picks, shovels, etc., for use in erect- 
 ing fortifications — also tomahawks, scalping knives, etc. 
 
 Let us here note the presence, in the besieging army, of two men, 
 whose names will appear again later on in this narrative. 
 
 Joseph Brant, the great Mohawk chieftain, later one of the greatest 
 Indians of history (in some particulars one of the best, in others 
 
 ■ Stone's Life of Sir Wm Johnson, vol. H, page 393. ' Stone's Life of Sir Wm Jolinson, 
 vol. II, page 396 
 
42 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 far from it), was with Sir William Johnson's Indian allies at the siege, 
 then a lad only seventeen years of age. 
 
 John Butler, noted later on as commander of Butler's Rangers, 
 father of the notorious Walter Butler, was second in command of the 
 Indians, until Johnson became commander of the army at Prideaux' 
 death, when he succeeded him as leader of the Indian contingent. 
 
 After the capture John Butler was a member of the council estab- 
 lished at Fort Niagara for the trial of civil cases. 
 
 In view of this successful siege, as well as the conquest of Quebec 
 and Ticonderoga in this campaign, it is interesting, and even amusing, 
 to read the criticisms on Pitts' plans for 1759. 
 
 "The Niagara expedition was a mistake in the judgment of some 
 military critics, since the troops directed to accomplish it had been 
 used more effectively in Amherst's direct march to Montreal. 
 More expedition on that general's part in completing his direct march 
 would have rendered the fall of Niagara a necessity without attack. 
 Perhaps the risk of leaving French forces still west of Niagara, 
 
 ready for a siege of Fort Pitt, is not sufficiently considered in this 
 
 " 1 
 view. 
 
 Parkman also considers this siege an error.'' 
 
 But Niagara had been captured, to the glory of the British army. 
 
 Johnson at once set to work to put Niagara in a defensible condi- 
 tion, and remained there for ten days. 
 
 On July 28th, Gen. Prideaux and Col. Johnson of the Provincial 
 troops were buried in the fort chapel with great ceremony. Sir Wil- 
 liam himself being chief mourner.' 
 
 This reference to the chapel, and the fact that a priest was among 
 the prisoners taken, shows that the French always paid attention to 
 the spiritual need of their soldiers, though probably not purely for 
 religious reasons; and, further, that the priestly influence in state 
 councils was still powerful. 
 
 Johnson made plans, also, for the building, at Niagara, of two ves- 
 sels, of from 16 to 18 guns each, considering them necessary for the 
 military protection of Fort Niagara and Oswego. He also sent for a 
 number of carpenters to repair Niagara. 
 
 In the fort there remained a few French officers and privates, pris- 
 oners who were not able, by reason of wounds or sickness, to be 
 
 1 Winsor Narrative and Crit. Hist, of Am, vol. V., page 600. » Parkman, Montcalm and 
 Wolfe, vol. II., page 253. » stone's Life of Sir William Johnson, vol. II., page 395, he 
 copies the latter's diary. 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 43 
 
 moved. Orders were given by Johnson to have all possible care taken 
 of them, not to allow any Indians to have any communication what- 
 ever with them, and when they were recovered to have them sent 
 safely to Oswego. 
 
 As to the Indians found friendly to the French they were to 
 be civilly treated ; inducements to trade, at prices better than the 
 French had given, were to be held out to them ; but not more than 
 twenty of them at a time were to be admitted to the fort. 
 
 The artillery and stores were to be put in proper order and the 
 artillery placed to the best advantage. 
 
 On August 4th Johnson embarked for Oswego, leaving Fort Nia- 
 gara in charge of Col. Farquhar of the 44th Regiment, with a garrison 
 of 700 men, which was afterwards reduced to a peace-footing of 200. 
 
 For several years after the capture of Fort Niagara, Sir William 
 Johnson was — so far as the Indians living within a radius of 300 miles 
 of that fort were concerned — the most important and the most 
 trusted man in America. He had held that position for some time 
 toward all the tribes east of the Senecas, and now that the French 
 were beaten he logically and naturally extended his influence over 
 those who sided with the French, and now looked for favors from the 
 victors. 
 
 The real seat of his influence, though he resided much farther 
 east, was at Niagara. There after the capture he had met many 
 warriors and some sachems of recently hostile tribes, and had paved 
 the way for bringing them under English influence and trade. His 
 orders to Col. Farquhar as to his treatment of these Indians were ex- 
 plicit. He was in frequent communication with the officers at Niagara, 
 and it was on his advice and through his personal influence that England 
 extended and maintained her power over the tribes in all directions. 
 
 In the fall of 1760, Major Robert Rogers, sent by Gen. Amherst 
 to ofifiicially visit several of the former French Posts, arrived, with two 
 companies of his Rangers, in whale boats, at Niagara; and, after a 
 brief visit, taking 80 barrels of provisions from the stores here, pro- 
 ceeded on his way West.' 
 
 In 1 761, Sir William Johnson stayed several days at Niagara on his 
 way to, and also on his return from, Detroit, and busied himself with 
 directions as to the Indian trade, and took pains to walk over and 
 examine his old encampment of I7S9- 
 
 ' Journal of Major Robert Rogers. 
 
44 
 
 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 In 1 761, the English re-established a dependency of Fort Niagara at 
 the upper end of the portage above the falls. 
 
 Near where Fort Little Niagara, burned in 1759 as noted, had 
 stood, they erected a fortification, and named it Fort Schlosser, after 
 Captain John Joseph Schlosser, who had charge of its erection. He 
 was a German, who had served in the English army at the capture of 
 Fort Niagara.' 
 
 Shortly before the siege the French had prepared the frame work 
 for a chapel at Fort Niagara. It is uncertain whether it was set up 
 or not, but probably it was. The English, in 1761, took this frame 
 work over the portage to Fort Schlosser, set it up there and used 
 it for a mess house. 
 
 In 1762. the English built the present "bake house." 
 
 THE BAKE HOUSE. 
 
 In 1762, the Indians became dissatisfied, because some of the 
 English traders had commenced building dwelling houses along 
 the portage, which was in violation of existing agreements, and later 
 on in that year the commandant at Fort Niagara was ordered to put 
 a stop to any settlement on the carrying place. 
 
 ' Col. Docs. N. Y., vol. X , page 731. 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 45 
 
 Fort Niagara was still the spot where, and its commander the 
 man to whom, all Indian grievances were brought, and through 
 him all such disputes were settled, and by him all decisions were 
 enforced. 
 
 Such was Fort Niagara when the English first controlled it. It 
 was the head centre of the military life of the entire region, the guar- 
 dian of the great highway and portage to and from the west ; and 
 hereabouts, as the forerunners of a coming civilization and frontier 
 settlement, the traders were securing for themselves the greatest 
 advantages. 
 
 To the rude transient population — red hunters, trappers, I ndian- 
 ized bush rangers — starting out from this center, or returning from 
 their journeys of perhaps hundreds of miles to the West ; trooping 
 down the portage to the fort, bearing their loads of peltries, and 
 assisted by Indians, who here made a business of carrying packs 
 for hire. Fort Niagara was a business headquarters. There the 
 traders brought their guns and ammunition, their blankets, and cheap 
 jewelry, to be traded for furs ; there the Indians purchased, at fabu- 
 lous prices, the white man's "fire water,'' and many, yes, numberless, 
 were the broils and conflicts in and around the fort, when the soldiers, 
 under orders, tried to calm or ejected the savage element which so 
 predominated in the life of the garrison. 
 
 On February 10, 1763, peace between France and England was 
 formally concluded, and by it France ceded to England all her 
 Canadian possessions. 
 
 THE devil's hole MASSACRE. 
 
 In the fall of 1763, Pontiac had organized his great conspiracy, 
 and the Senecas, whose hostility to the English had been noted by 
 Sir William Johnson two years before, and which was partly due to 
 their bitterness at their loss of the business at the portage — English- 
 men now monopolizing that business, and employing carts, instead of 
 Indian carriers — were ready to, and did, co-operate with him, urged on 
 thereto, no doubt, by French influence and intrigue, in what they 
 hoped would prove the means of driving the English from Fort 
 Niagara. This hostility of the Senecas had made it necessary to 
 maintain a garrison at the foot as well as at the head of the portage ; 
 and for large or valuable trains, guards of soldiers were furnished 
 from the fort. 
 
46 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 On September 14, 1763, a new portage road had been finished 
 between Lewiston and Schlosser, and a train of 25 wagons and 100 
 horses and oxen, guarded by troops from Fort Niagara, variously stated 
 at from 25 to 300, set out for Schlosser.' At the Devil's Hole, the 
 Senecas, to the number of 500, ambushed and pillaged the train, 
 threw the wagons and oxen down the bank, and slew all but three of 
 the escort and drivers. Hearing the firing, the garrison at Lewiston, 
 consisting of two companies, hastened to help their comrades. But 
 the Senecas had prepared an ambush also for this expected action, 
 and all but eight of this force were killed. Some of these eight 
 carried the news to Fort Niagara, whence the commander, with all 
 the soldiers, leaving a sufficient guard for the fort, hastened to the 
 scenes of the slaughter. The Senecas had fled, but over 80 scalped 
 corpses, including those of six officers, bore bloody witness to their 
 hatred of the English.' 
 
 In November, 1763, these savages still haunted the neighborhood, 
 and killed two of the garrison at the lower end of the portage, as 
 they were cutting wood in sight of their quarters. 
 
 Fort Niagara needed to be maintained and well garrisoned. 
 
 On the collapse of Pontiac's bold and partly successful scheme, 
 the Senecas, fearful of receiving at the hands of the English the 
 punishment they so richly deserved, sent, in April, 1764, four hundred 
 men to Sir William Johnson at Johnson Hall to beg for peace.' 
 
 Now was the time for England to make the Senecas pay off the 
 Devil's Hole debt, and Sir William Johnson was the man to force 
 the settlement. 
 
 Yet he was too shrewd to think of demanding life for life, or any 
 galling condition that would have involved England in a war for 
 the extermination of the Senecas. 
 
 No, he desired most of all that the Senecas should be the 
 friends of the English, and so he made them pay for their past 
 misdeeds in land. 
 
 England already had the occupation of this territory along the 
 Niagara River. She wanted also the unquestioned fee. Here was 
 Sir William's chance, and he improved it. He insisted that, beside 
 other conditions, the Senecas should cede to England (as if they 
 had not already deeded it to her three or four times) all the land 
 
 ' Holland Land purchase, page 229. Narrative of Mary Jeraison, 1826, page 142 
 ^ Stone's Life of Sir William Joiinson, vol. II., page 208. ^ Stone's Life of Sir Wm. Johnson" 
 vol. II., page 215. ' 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 47 
 
 on both sides of the Niagara River from Lake Ontario to Schlosser, 
 thus taking in Fort Niagara and her two dependencies (at Lewiston, 
 which was really only a camp, and at Fort Schlosser) and the port- 
 age. The Senecas assented, provided the land be always appro- 
 priated to the king's sole use, and provided that a definite treaty be 
 had within three months, and that the lines be run in presence of Sir 
 William Johnson and the Senecas, so as to preclude any subsequent 
 misunderstandings. Eight chiefs signed the agreement, which, by 
 the way, they never intended to keep, although they left three of 
 their chiefs with Johnson as hostages.' 
 
 THE GREAT TREATY OF 1 764. 
 
 Before this visit of the Senecas, arrangements had already been 
 completed by the British to prevent the recurrence of another con- 
 spiracy like that of Pontiac. AH the tribes whose friendship, with a 
 reasonable expectation of its permanency, could be obtained by pres- 
 ents and good treatment were to be secured in this way. 
 
 Against all others, armies were to be sent to crush and overawe 
 them. 
 
 The occasion when the above treaty with the Senecas was to be 
 ratified was a general meeting of all Indian tribes who desired peace, 
 at Fort Niagara in July, 1764, to which Johnson had already invited 
 them, in order to readjust their relations with the English Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Two military expeditions were planned, one for the West, under 
 General Bradstreet, 1,200 strong, which assembled at Oswego in June, 
 1764, where it was joined by Sir William Johnson, with 550 Iroquois. 
 They reached Niagara July 3, 1764, and found there such a scene of 
 life and activity as one can hardly conceive of to-day. 
 
 In this expedition was Israel Putnam, a lieutenant-colonel of the 
 Connecticut Battalion.'' 
 
 Over one thousand Indians, representing many tribes, extending 
 from Nova Scotia to the head waters of the Mississippi, whose num- 
 bers but a few days later were increased to 2,060, were assembled to 
 meet and treat with Johnson.' 
 
 Such a representative concourse of Indians had never before been 
 seen. 
 
 ' Col. Docs. N. Y., vol. VII., pages 621, 622, 623. ^Turner's Holland Purchase, 1849, 
 page 234 'Stone's Life of Sir William Johnson, vol. II., page 2ig 
 
48 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 Their wigwains stretched far across the fields and to this pictur- 
 esque scene were now added the white tents of Bradstreet's men. 
 
 Many reasons had induced this great assemblage of Indians. 
 Some came to make peace because the aid expected from the French 
 had not been forthcoming; some because they were tired of war; 
 some because they needed clothing, ammunition, etc., and could 
 get them in no other way; some to protest their friendship for 
 the English ; some by an early submission to avert retribution for 
 past offenses ; some came as spies, and some, no doubt, because 
 they knew that at such a time "fire water" would be easily 
 obtainable. 
 
 Alex. Henry, the trader, tells how the Great Turtle, the Spirit that 
 never lied, on being consulted as to what course the Ojibways should 
 pursue, told them the English soldiers were on the war-path already, 
 and also said, "Sir William Johnson will fill your canoe with presents, 
 with blankets, kettles, guns, gunpowder and shot, and large barrels of 
 rum, such as the stoutest of the Indians will not be able to lift, and 
 every man will return in safety to his family.'" 
 
 The Ojibways accepted Johnson's invitation and were present. 
 
 Henry himself came to Niagara at this time, and accompanied 
 Bradstreet westward. 
 
 Though this assemblage consisted of peace-desiring savages, their 
 friendly disposition was not certain. Several straggling soldiers were 
 shot at, and great precautions were taken by the English garrison to 
 avert a rupture. " The troops were always on their guard, while the 
 black muzzles of the cannons, thrust from the bastions of the fort, 
 struck a wholesome awe into the savage throng below." ' 
 
 But among all the throng the Senecas were not represented, in 
 spite of their promise to ratify their agreement at this time. 
 
 They were at home, considering whether they would keep it, for 
 they had already made an alliance with other tribes against the Eng- 
 lish. Notice was sent to them, that unless they at once fulfilled their 
 agreement, the army then at Niagara would forthwith march against 
 them and burn their villages. A large body of this war-like tribe, 
 overawed by this menace, at once went to Niagara. 
 
 It took all the diplomacy, shrewdness and influence of Sir William 
 Johnson to preserve order and peace among the savages, many who 
 had been hostile to each other, and but lately fighting against the 
 
 ' Henry's Travel, iSog, page 171. ' Parkman, Pontiac, vol. II., page 170. 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 49 
 
 English, and the business of the assemblage detained him at the fort 
 for a month. 
 
 The council-room (which was located in the castle) was crowded 
 from morning till evening; but the tiresome formalities which had to 
 be observed on such occasions, the speeches made and the replies 
 thereto, the smoking of pipes, the distribution of presents, the judici- 
 ous serving out of whiskey, the terms of each treaty, the tax on the 
 memory of remembering what each belt of wampum given by and 
 received from each tribe meant, while fatiguing, were finally success- 
 fully brought to an end. 
 
 One point of policy was rigidly adhered to. Johnson would 
 hold no general conference ; with each tribe he either made a separate 
 treaty, or where satisfactory treaties were already in existence he 
 merely brightened the chain of friendship. By this course he made 
 the best of terms, by promoting a rivalry among the tribes. He also 
 thus discouraged a feeling of union and of a common cause among 
 them.' 
 
 First of all he met the Senecas, and, till their agreement had been 
 ratified and the lines of the land to be deeded to England had been 
 settled. Sir William would transact no other business. 
 
 The Senecas ratified their former agreement, and on August 6th 
 they deeded to the English crown a strip of land four miles wide on 
 each bank of the Niagara River from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, 
 thus adding to their former agreement all the land from Schlosser to 
 Lake Erie, on both sides of the river. Gen. Bradstreet had asked 
 Johnson to try and get this extra cession, in order that England 
 might have title to the land where Fort Erie, at the source of the 
 Niagara River, on the Canada side, now stands. He was anxious to 
 build a depot for provisions there. Johnson asked for it. The 
 Senecas were ready to do anything asked of them while that English 
 army was on the ground, so they readily assented. They specially 
 excepted from their grant, and gave to Sir William Johnson person- 
 ally, as a gift, all the islands in the Niagara River, and he promptly 
 gave them to his Sovereign." 
 
 This was the first tract of land in the limits of the present 
 Western New York to which the Indian title was absolutely extin- 
 guished, and this remarkable land deal, so vast in the amount of ter- 
 ritory involved, so beneficial to the whites in the power it gave them 
 1 Parkman, Pontiac, vol. II., page 174. ' Col. Doc. N. Y., vol. VII., pa?e 647. 
 
50 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 for trade, and the settlement of the country, and of such enormous 
 subsequent value in view of very recent developments along this 
 frontier, was closed 132 years ago, within the historic fortifications of 
 Fort Niagara. 
 
 From this time on, for fully 30 years, especially during the 
 Revolution, the Senecas were allied with and espoused the cause of 
 the English. 
 
 The treaties with the many other tribes were then arranged with- 
 out difficulties. On August 6th, Sir William Johnson seems to have 
 completed the formalities by having a separate treaty with each tribe, 
 with which a new treaty was desired, officially signed. 
 
 So fearful was Johnson that some unforeseen occurrence might 
 prevent the successful carrying out of this stupendous negotiation, 
 and so anxious was he about rumors of an attack on Fort Niagara by 
 this savage assemblage, that Gen. Bradstreet's army, now increased to 
 over 2,000 English and Canadians and 1,000 Indians, was detained at 
 Fort Niagara till August 8, 1764. 
 
 By that date the Indians, having made theii peace and secured their 
 presents, had started for their homes, the great assembly had melted 
 away, the danger of any attack, that the garrison was not strong 
 enough to resist, was past ; and Gen. Bradstreet, leaving an addition 
 to the garrison at Fort Niagara, marched his army to Fort Schlosser, 
 there to embark for the west.' The cost of this Indian congress at 
 Niagara was considerable. The expense of provisions, for the Indians 
 only, was ^25,000 New York currency, equal to about $10,000, while 
 ^^38,000 sterling, or §190,000, was expended for the presents made to 
 them." It was money well spent by England. 
 
 1764 — 1776. 
 
 During Sir William Johnson's administration of Indian affairs after 
 1759, the Common, now the Military Reserve on the Canadian side, 
 was used as an Indian camping ground, and there annually the Six 
 Nations and the Western tribes congregated within gunshot of the 
 fort, to receive their annual gifts and allowances from the British 
 government. 
 
 Let us note that when the French built the first stone house at 
 Niagara, in 1725, they did not build it close to the water, either of the 
 
 ' Mante, History of Late War in N. A., page 511. '^ Montresor Journals, N. Y. Hist. 
 Soc , 1881, page 275. 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 51 
 
 river or the lake. In those days, all through the eighteenth century, 
 and during the first third of this century, a large tract of land, that 
 has now been washed away, existed at the foot of the bluff, extending 
 to the northwest for some thirty rods right out into the lake ; and in 
 the memory of men now alive' a fruit orchard stood on this land, 
 where now is a depth of ten or twelve feet of water. Quite a strip of 
 land also extended out beyond the present shore line into the river, 
 opposite the castle and above it. 
 
 As evidence of this, turn to Pouchot's plan of the fort, on 
 page 33, where this large area is shown as existing in 1759. The 
 French Mess House, or Castle, was originally built, not on the edge of 
 the bluff, but probably one hundred feet from both the lake and river 
 side. 
 
 A further evidence of the existence of this, now washed-away land 
 is the fact that on the lake side of the fort, just opposite the angle 
 of the wall, where stand the three poplar trees, plainly visible when the 
 water is low, and generally visible from the wall, though overgrown 
 with water moss, are the perfectly traceable remains of a half-moon 
 battery used in those early days, undoubtedly part of the north demi- 
 bastion, which was re-established in 1789, and used in 1759.^ The 
 English are said to have added a story to the " Castle." * 
 
 The first story was built by the French in 1725, as noted before, 
 and the second was probably built by them soon afterwards. 
 
 It is not certain, but probable, that the roof of the Castle had 
 been adapted to defensive purposes, and the stone walls carried 
 up beyond the roof, to serve as a breastwork for gunners there. 
 The extra story that the British added to the Castle, was probably 
 the present timbered roof through which so many chimneys pro- 
 trude. 
 
 The two square stone block-houses now standing within the forti- 
 fications were built by the French,' and the walls carried up beyond the 
 roofs. Sheltered by these walls, batteries were placed on the roofs, 
 and were used as late as the War of 1812. The present roofs on these 
 two block-houses are modern affairs. 
 
 The present roof over the old French magazine is also a modern 
 
 one, being merely a cover over the great stone arch, which is the real 
 
 roof of the building. 
 
 ' Notably Mr. Thomas Brighton of Youngstown, N. Y. "> Hough's Pouchot, vol. I., 
 3)age 168. 8 Turner's Holland Purchase, page 189. * Rochefoucault's Travels, 1799, vol. 
 1., page 257. 
 
52 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 In 1767 Captain Jonathan Carver, a well-known English traveler, 
 
 visited the fort, which, he said, "was defended by a considerable gar- 
 
 " 1 
 nson. 
 
 One of the traditions that has clung to the fort, and that started 
 in the days of English occupation, is, that in the dungeon of the Mess 
 House, before referred to, where there is a well, now boarded over, 
 at midnight could be seen the headless trunk of a French general, 
 clothed in his uniform, sitting on the curbstone of this well and moan- 
 ing, as if beseeching some one to rescue his body from the bottom of 
 the well, where, after his murder, it had been thrown. This well was 
 subsequently poisoned and its use necessarily discontinued. The 
 well inside the earthworks, and near the sally port, is possibly the well 
 referred to in the list of buildings left by the French when they dis- 
 mantled the fort in 1688, though I think this is improbable, and that 
 it belongs to a much later period. 
 
 From 1767 on till the opening of the war of the Revolution one 
 finds but little public history in connection with the fort, though its 
 importance was in no way diminished, but rather increased. 
 
 DURING THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 While the war from 1 776-1 783 never reached this spot in actual 
 hostilities, Fort Niagara was the spot where heartless Britishers and 
 still more blood-thirsty savages studied, planned and arranged those 
 terrible attacks on defenseless settlers that on so many occasions 
 spread death and devastation through prosperous settlements and 
 regions, and carried off, most frequently to this fort, wretched cap- 
 tives whose term of captivity in the hands of the savages was usually 
 only a living death. The history of Fort Niagara during its entire 
 existence has no blacker nor fouler page, nay none nearly so black nor 
 inhuman, as that which embraces the years 1776-1783. 
 
 Far away from the actual seat of war, feeling perfectly safe from 
 attack, its British Commandants seem to have given free scope to 
 every form of Indian warfare that, regardless of its inhumanity, would 
 in any way aid in crushing out the colonists. 
 
 During this period portions of several regiments of British Reg- 
 ulars in succession garrisoned the fort. It was necessary for England 
 to maintain it with a strong garrison, in order to impress the savages 
 by show of force, and to keep them continually aroused to the 
 
 ' Carver's Travel, 1781, page 170, 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 53 
 
 necessity of aiding the English by constant expeditions, organized 
 and sent out from here, of devastation and death. 
 
 Sir WilHam Johnson had lost a part of his influence over the 
 Indians during the few years prior to his death, which occurred in 1774. 
 
 Had he been alive, I would do his memory the justice to believe 
 that the inhumanities planned at and executed from Fort Niagara, 
 during the Revolution, would never have been allowed, to the extent 
 at least that they attained. 
 
 In all his domination over the Indians, and he exercised a one-man 
 power for many, many years, he recognized that a nation, to be thor- 
 oughly successful, must not forfeit the public confidence of the world 
 by too great atrocities. 
 
 The atrocities perpetrated from Fort Niagara during the Revolu- 
 tion only added to the determination and exertions of the colonists 
 to throw off the British yoke ; and the stories of these atrocities gave 
 France an extra excuse to extend the friendly and needed aid that she 
 furnished, at first secretly, afterwards openly, to those who were 
 struggling for their freedom from the rule of her hated rival and her 
 recent conqueror in North America. 
 
 On the commencement of hostilities in 1776, a great council of 
 Indian tribes was called to meet at Fort Niagara, and here in Sep- 
 tember gathered representatives of the Six Nations and ten other 
 tribes, favorable to the English. The assembled chiefs all signed a 
 manifesto in favor of the Crown, and appealed to the Oneidas and Tus- 
 caroras, who were not fully represented, to join them.' Some of these 
 afterwards complied. Then, after the customary distribution of pres- 
 ents and "fire-water," the braves were sent back to gather together 
 their tribes for the war-path, to put on the war-paint and to sharpen 
 their tomahawks. 
 
 JOHN BUTLER AND JOSEPH BRANT. 
 
 John Butler and Joseph Brant both made Fort Niagara their real 
 headquarters during the Revolution, and, no matter who was in actual 
 command of the fort, these two were the recognized leaders, respec- 
 tively, of the English and the Indian forces there. 
 
 The former recruited from all over the country, but most largely 
 from Western New York and Northern Pennsylvania, the famous 
 band known as Butler Rangers, and their headquarters were at the 
 
 ' Stone's Life of Brant, vol. IL, page 4, note. 
 
54 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 Fort. Thayendanegea or Brant, the great captain of the Six Nations^ 
 gathered his Indians from all sides, and Fort Niagara was their ren- 
 dezvous. 
 
 Each of these two great leaders had many great and good qualities. 
 There was no international code of warfare actually recognized at that 
 time, particularly so far as regarded Indian warfare, and they were, no- 
 doubt, influenced to many atrocities by the customs of the age. 
 Many barbarities committed by troops under their immediate com- 
 mands, were in violation, it is claimed, of their orders and in spite of 
 their influence ; while those perpetrated by parties sent off from their 
 commands and outside of the orders given, should not be charged 
 against them. They both repeatedly issued orders for the sparing and 
 protection of women and children, and both on many occasions, by 
 their personal influence, saved many lives. Yet both were regarded 
 as death-dealing and devastating foes, and with good reason. 
 
 Walter Butler, a son of John Butler, was also a leader of these ex- 
 peditions sent out from Fort Niagara to kill, rob and destroy, and in 
 unsavory memory he outranked his more famous father and even Brant. 
 
 It should be here noted that just prior to the revolution Brant had 
 led a band of the Mohawks to Lewiston, where he lived in a block 
 house, which stood near what was called Brant's Spring. The huts 
 of his followers were located along the Ridge road, east of Lewiston.' 
 A little log building near by was built and used as a chapel, and here 
 the episcopal service was read occasionally by the fort chaplain or 
 traveling ministers. This was probably the first building, outside of 
 Fort Niagara, erected for a church in this section. A good-sized bell, 
 hung in the crotch of a tree near by, called the Mohawks to service. 
 John Bulter, who was superintendent of Indian affairs, lived in a com- 
 modious house in Fort Niagara. 
 
 On these foraging parties, largely planned by Brant and Butler,, 
 during the Revolution, Fort Niagara to a very large extent relied for 
 means of subsistence, and on every raid, from far and near, cattle 
 and suppHes were regularly sent back to the fort, their base of 
 operations. 
 
 In each and every year, from 1778 to 1782, these foraging parties, 
 and still larger expeditions, were regularly sent out from the fort, and 
 as regularly as provisions were sent back, just as regularly were pris- 
 oners and scalps brought back within its walls. 
 
 'Turner's Holland Purchase, page 265. 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 55 
 
 The fearful massacre of Wyoming in Pennsylvania in 1778 was 
 planned at and the expedition set out from Fort Niagara. The fatal 
 attack on Cherry Valley in the same year was the result of another 
 expedition sent out from the same fort. 
 
 From the commencement of the war, the colonists had endeavored 
 by every means to secure, if not the aid, at least the neutrality of the 
 savages, and, while they kept up their efforts in this direction, by 
 emissaries sent among them, they proved to be futile. 
 
 The desire to capture Fort Niagara was continually in the minds 
 of the Colonial leaders, but not till late in 1778, when the atrocities, 
 perpetrated by bands from that far-off stronghold made its reduction 
 seem a matter of necessity, was an expedition planned for its capture. 
 
 The Senecas were faithful to the English, and urged incessant war 
 on the Colonial settlements, and in 1779 Gen. Washington sent Gen. 
 Sullivan with a small army to chastise them, even as De Nonville 
 had done eighty-seven years before, and ordered him then to proceed 
 to and capture Fort Niagara. 
 
 Sullivan entered the Senecas' territory with 4,000 men, burned 
 their villages, provisions and crops, and defeated them in several small 
 engagements. They fled westward to the protecting guns of Niagara, 
 and Sullivan, for some reason, the ostensible ones being lack of food 
 for his army and lack of boats to transport his troops, gave up the 
 rest and the most important part of his projected expedition, and 
 Fort Niagara was saved. 
 
 Had he pushed on, he would have found a horde of nearly 5,000 
 famished savages around the fort, and a weak and sickly garrison 
 within, and he could have easily captured it. But he lacked the abil- 
 ity to seize the great chance offered him, and Niagara remained in 
 British hands, a scourge to the colonists for three years to come. His 
 expedition merely prepared the way for the famine and want the 
 Senecas soon felt. 
 
 The winter of 1779 was very inclement and many of the savages 
 around the fort died from exposure and starvation." In the early 
 spring of 1780 some disposition had to be made of these hundreds of 
 Senecas. They could not be tolerated around the fort and be fed 
 from there, and they refused to go back to their lands from which 
 Gen. Sullivan had driven them. Brant during the winter had strongly 
 urged the Mohawks and the Senecas to emigrate to Canada. The 
 
 ' Turne's Holland Purchase, page 281. 
 
S6 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 Mohawks and a few from other tribes agreed to this, and went. But 
 the Senecas, under the lead of one of their chiefs, refused, and decided 
 to settle on Buffalo and Tonawanda creeks, where they claimed to 
 own the land through their ancestors' conquest of the Neuters in 
 165 1. They had deeded this to England, as mentioned in 1764, but 
 that nation made no objection. These Senecas and their descendants 
 subsequently became allies of the United States, and fought in our 
 army in the war of 1812. 
 
 Some of the Oneidas and Tuscaroras, who had been allies of the 
 English, and had fled to Fort Niagara before Sullivan's advance in 
 1779 were also about Fort Niagara. In the spring of 1780 part of 
 them returned to their own land and a part settled on a square mile 
 of land some four miles southeast from Fort Niagara, near the Ridge 
 Road, where their descendants to-day reside. This land was given to 
 them by the Senecas. In 1804 the Holland Land Company gave 
 them two square miles more,— these and over 4000 more acres 
 bought for them, constitute the Tuscarora Reservation of to-day. 
 
 The Tuscaroras thus became the first permanent settlers in this 
 region, settling here 17 years before the Holland Land Company 
 opened up the territory.' 
 
 In 1780 and 178 1 expeditions were sent out from Fort Niagara with 
 the same deadly purposes and results ; notable among them being 
 two expeditions to the Mohawk Valley in 1780, and two others 
 to the same district in 1781, in the last of which Walter Butler was 
 slain. 
 
 Opposite Fort Niagara, on the Canada side, each winter Butler's 
 Rangers lived, and at one time six companies of them were quartered 
 there. Outside of and near the fort a few wretched savages built 
 huts each winter and eked out a precarious existence, subsisting on 
 what they could obtain from the scant remains of the garrison's 
 rations. Two sons of Sir William Johnson, Sir John and Guy, both 
 leaders of and agents in the British Indian Department, were promi- 
 nent during the Revolution, and both were frequently at Fort Niagara 
 during this period. 
 
 During the winters of the war-period the garrison of the fort were 
 often on short rations, and the necessity of provisioning it for a long 
 period was frequently represented to the British Ministers, but with- 
 out any favorable reply. 
 
 ' Turner's Holland Purchase, page 183. 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 57 
 
 Let us now look at the moral and social life within Fort Niagara 
 during the period of the Revolutionary War. 
 
 DeVeaux says, " During the American Revolution it was the 
 headquarters of all that was barbarous, unrelenting and cruel. Here 
 were congregated the leaders and chiefs of those bands of murderers 
 and miscreants that carried death and destruction into the remote 
 American settlement. There civilized Europe revelled with savage 
 America, and ladies of education and refinement mingled in the society 
 of those whose only distinction was to wield the bloody tomahawk 
 and scalping knife. There the squaws of the forest were raised to 
 eminence, and the most unholy unions between them and officers of 
 highest rank smiled upon and countenanced. There in their strong- 
 hold, like a nest of vultures, securely for seven years, they sallied forth 
 and preyed upon the distant settlements of the Mohawk and the 
 Susquehanna. It was the depot for their plunder; there they 
 planned their forays," and there they returned to feast until the hour 
 of action came again.' 
 
 Many men, including especially Butler's Rangers, obtained during 
 their service in the Revolution a training for war that enabled them 
 to render efficient aid to Great Britain against the United States in 
 the war of 1812. 
 
 The Revolution ended in victory for the Colonies in 1783. The 
 Canadian side opposite Fort Niagara then became the objective 
 point of many of those colonists who sided with the British during 
 the war, many of whom had here enlisted in Butler's Rangers, and 
 many of them settled there; such settlements having been especially 
 encouraged hereabouts by the British officials during the war. 
 
 Among the clauses in the Treaty of Peace at Paris, 1783, was one 
 that provided protection to and time for those colonists who had 
 sided with England, United Empire Loyalists, as they were called, 
 and who were then living in the colonies, in order that they might 
 dispose of their property ; and the English commissioners to that 
 treaty, appreciating how unpopular these U. E. Loyalists would be 
 while they remained among their victorious neighbors, and foreseeing 
 that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to get all the separate 
 colonies to ratify such a clause as the American commissioners 
 agreed to, insisted on retaining possession of five western forts, con- 
 ceded to be an American territory, until such time as the conditions 
 
 ' The Falls of Niagara, 1839, page 119. 
 
58 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 named were fulfilled. This also was agreed to by the American com- 
 missioners. Fort Niagara was one of these forts. So, in 1783, we 
 entered into what is called in history " the hold-over period," which 
 lasted for 13 years, a much longer time that any of the commis- 
 sioners on either side had contemplated. 
 
 • 
 
 THE HOLD-OVER PERIOD. 
 
 The treaty of peace in 1783 only suspended hostilities, and when 
 soon after Gen. Washington, sent to arrange for the evacuation 
 of the posts still held by the British, he found no such instruc- 
 tions had been given to their commanders. A full consideration of 
 England's real reasons for delay in this matter is not a part of our 
 subject, but it is pretty certain that even till after the war of 1812 
 England hoped, for one reason and another to be able to hold these 
 forts forever, and ultimately to regain the vast empire she had just 
 surrendered by compulsion to her American colonists.' 
 
 Gov. Simcoe, formerly colonel of Simcoe's Rangers, a noted British 
 regiment in the Revolution, often and openly expressed this view 
 while holding the high position of Governor of Upper Canada." 
 
 As many of the U. E. Loyalists as could do so prepared as 
 speedily as possible to remove to Canada, and the majority of those 
 who went westward, in distinction of those that went to northeast 
 Canada, came by Niagara, and all of them who were in need were fed 
 during their stay here, from the fort. 
 
 It is estimated that during 1783 and 1784 no less than 5,000 of 
 the United Empire Loyalists emigrated to Canada, at this point, and 
 this emigration continued up to 1790, by which time fully 10,000 had 
 passed by and received aid at Fort Niagara. 
 
 In 1784, John Butler, who was the Indian superintendent at the 
 fort, convened a great Indian council on the Niagara plains, in Canada, 
 opposite the fort, where the Six Nations met the Mississaguas. The 
 commons were covered with their wigwams and the shore was lined 
 with their bark canoes. 
 
 The summer of 1788 was an almost rainless one. There were no 
 crops raised, and that year is known as the " Hungry Year." Stores 
 were issued liberally from the fort during 1789 and 1790 to all in 
 need, otherwise many would have starved. 
 
 ' Rochefoucault's Travels, ijgg, vol. I., pages 240 and 241. '' Read's Life and Times of 
 Gov. Simcoe, page 251. 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 59 
 
 In 1790, H. R. H. the Duke of Kent paid a visit to Fort Niagara 
 and personally interested himself in the distribution of food and 
 clothing to the needy Loyalists. 
 
 During the first half of the hold-over period the English kept the 
 strictest surveillance over this whole frontier, and persons traveling 
 hereabouts were more than liable to be arrested and taken to Fort 
 Niagara by the Indians, unless they could exhibit a pass from the 
 commandant, which pass, as the Indians could not read, was a thick 
 piece of card having on it a large wax seal bearing a particular im- 
 pression. 
 
 A trader, stopping at Fort Niagara, called on the commander, who 
 asked where he was going. "To Chippawa," he replied. "Go along 
 and be damned to you," was the answer and verbal passport he re- 
 ceived. 
 
 A fine specimen of British civility during the "hold-over period." 
 
 In the fall of 1789, Gother Mann commanding the Royal Engineers 
 made a report on Fort Niagara. After referring to the re-establishing 
 of the north demi-bastion, which had been greatly damaged and part- 
 ly washed away by the fury of the lake, he goes on to speak of a 
 survey of the heights on the Canada side of the river about Navy Hall, 
 later Gov. Simcoe's residence, with a view of establishing a perma- 
 nent fort there, "which might counteract the designs of an enemy in 
 his attack on the Fort of Niagara." In 1790, in another report, he 
 stated " that the space on which Fort Niagara stands is diminishing, 
 from the depredations of the lake " and speaking of the proposed 
 fort said, "it will be about 1600 yards distant from the Fort at 
 Niagara, which, though within the distance of annoying an enemy, 
 could not prevent his carrying on operations against the Fort."' 
 Thus we see that Fort George, which was built at a time when 
 England never expected to be obliged to surrender Fort Niagara, was 
 originally designed, not as an opposition to, but as a defense for that 
 fort. 
 
 In 1791, Patrick Campbell was here and wrote, "It is a pretty 
 strong stockade fort with regular bastions, palisades, pickets and dry 
 ditches, sufficient against the attack of any irregular army." ' 
 
 By the act of 1791, Upper Canada was formed into a separate 
 government and Col. J. Graves Simcoe was made its first Governor. 
 
 ' Read's Life and Times of Gen. Simcoe, page 154. ^ Travels in North America, 1793, 
 page 169. 
 
6o OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 He selected the village opposite Fort Niagara as the capital of the prov- 
 ince. It had been called West Niagara, as distinguished from the 
 British-controlled fort on the East, Loyal Village, Newark and 
 Butlersburg. 
 
 On British soil, yet a border town, his selection of the site was 
 much criticized. But Fort Niagara controlled it, the British con- 
 trolled Fort Niagara, and he wanted to be near that famous fort, 
 and he then expected England would always retain it.' 
 
 Here on September 17, 1792, he convened the first Parliament of 
 Upper Canada. It has been claimed, yet not substantiated, that this 
 body met in the fort itself. 
 
 However, the garrison tooic part in the ceremonies, a guard of 
 fifty men from the Twenty-sixth Cameronians from the fort formed 
 part of the military escort, and the guns of the fort fired a salute at 
 the hour of assembling. 
 
 The fort was under the Governor's control and his guard of four 
 men at Navy Hall was drawn each day from Fort Niagara's garrison." 
 He had the garrison also as his guard on all occasions. From the 
 fort was fired a royal salute in honor of his Majesty's birthday, June 
 4, 1793, and no doubt on other similar occasions, and it was as much 
 a British fort during this period as if it had stood on British soil. In 
 1792 the York, the first Canadian Merchant vessel ^ on Lake Ontario 
 was built just east of Fort Niagara. 
 
 In 1793, Gen. Lincoln, Col. Pinckney and W. Randolph, United 
 States Commissioners, arrived at the fort on their way to a great 
 council with the Western Indians, and were handsomely entertained, 
 both at the fort and on the Canadian side, by Gov. Simcoe. 
 
 In 1794, the fort was strengthened by the erection of some new 
 works, " especially covered batteries, designed for its protection on 
 the side of the lake and river." ■" 
 
 Eleven years had now passed since the Revolution closed, and 
 England yet held the five American forts. This caused much dis- 
 satisfaction. Yet the United States neither wanted to, nor could they, 
 afford to, risk another war with the British over their occupation. 
 
 So, in Jay's Commercial Treaty of 1794, Article 2, provided, that 
 the British garrisons in all the forts assigned to the United States by 
 the Treaty of Peace of 1783, should be withdrawn by June i, 1796. 
 
 ' Rochefoucauk's Travels, 1799 ; vol. I., page 22g. ^ Rochefoucault's Travels, 1799 ; vol. 
 I. , page 24 1. 3 Read's Life and Times of Gov. Simcoe, page 271 . * Rochefoucault's Travels, 
 1799, vol. I., page 257. 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 6i 
 
 This was a better way at that time of gaining our rights than by 
 war, especially as the United States were not free from blame in car- 
 rying out the terms of the Treaty of 1783. 
 
 In 1795 the Duke de Liancourt visited this section, and the Gover- 
 nor entertained him on the Canada side ; also dining him at the fort, 
 which he told him " he was very loath to visit, since he is sure that he 
 shall be obliged to deliver it up to the Americans.'" 
 
 The garrison consisted then of thirty artillery men and eight com- 
 panies of the Fifth Regiment. All the breastworks, slopes, etc., 
 were lined with timber. On the land side it had a curtain flanked 
 by two bastions, in each of which a block house has been construc- 
 ted, mounted with cannon." The Duke adds : " Although this fort, 
 in common with all such small fortified places, cannot long with- 
 stand a regular attack, yet the besiegers cannot take it without a 
 considerable loss." " 
 
 In 1796, in anticipation of their total withdrawal from American 
 soil, the British transferred their patronage over the portage to a 
 similar road built for that purpose on the Canadian side, between 
 Queenston and Chippawa. 
 
 Work was also commenced in that year, and rapidly pushed, on 
 a new block-house located up stream diagonally opposite Fort Ni- 
 agara, on the Canada side, on land that commanded Fort Niagara, 
 being nine feet higher than the roof of the Castle in that fort. 
 
 This block-house was designed to receive the British garrison 
 from Fort Niagara ° and Fort George, an earth fort, was built* 
 around it at once. 
 
 In less than seventeen years Fort George was destined to ex- 
 change an extensive cannonade with Fort Niagara in the War of 
 1812. 
 
 During all this " hold-over period " the British officers at Fort 
 Niagara exercised a certain sort of civil jurisdiction in the neighbor- 
 hood. From the capture of the fort in 1759 the seat of civil jurisdic- 
 tion of all this territory was at the fort; and after the evacuation, 
 there being no Federal Courts here, the British officers, of necessity, 
 continued to exercise this jurisdiction, and they exercised it wisely. 
 
 At last June i, 1796, the day set by treaty for the evacuation 
 
 arrived, but none of the five forts were evacuated. Why? Because 
 
 ' Rochefoucault's Travels, 1799, vol. I., page 257. ' Rochefoucault's Travels, 1799. vol. 
 I., page 257. * Weld's Travels, 1799, page 306. ■* Read's Life and Times of Gov. Simcoe, 
 page 268. 
 
62 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY 
 
 the United States were not ready to occupy them, not even Fort 
 Niagara, the most important of the five. 
 
 So badly indeed had the United States' army been supplied with 
 provisions that, when notice was sent to the Federal general by the 
 British officers that they had received orders to deliver up their 
 respective posts pursuant to the treaty, and that they were prepared 
 to do so whenever he was ready to take possession of them, an 
 answer was returned that unless the British officers could supply his 
 army with a considerable quantity of provisions on arriving at the 
 lakes, he could not attempt to march for many weeks.' 
 
 A British statement, but in general substantiated by fact. 
 
 The United States Government had sent no soldiers to garrison 
 these forts and had sent no provisions for a garrison. Hence the 
 delay was really at their wish.° 
 
 THE EVACUATION. 
 
 On August I ith, the order having been duly presented, the British 
 evacuated Fort Niagara and transferred the garrison consisting of 
 fifty men, guns, ammunition, stores, etc , across the river. As the 
 banner of St. George came down from the flag pole at Fort Niagara 
 on that day, the British emblem floated over but one spot on Ameri- 
 can soil, Millimachinac, which was not surrendered up to the United 
 States until the following October. 
 
 So Niagara was the next to the last post evacuated in America. 
 
 Gov. Simcoe had arranged to remove the capital of Upper 
 Canada to York, now Toronto, and it was so removed in 1796. 
 
 ISAAC weld's views. 
 
 Soon after the evacuation in September, 1796, an English traveler 
 of note, Isaac Weld, Jr., visited Fort Niagara, and wrote: 
 
 " Toward the water it is stockaded, and behind the stockade, on the river side, a 
 large mound of earth rises up, at the top of which are embrasures for guns. On the 
 land side it is secured by several batteries and redoubts, and by parallel lines of 
 fascines at the gates and in various parts there are strong block-houses, and facing 
 the lake within the stockade stands a fortified stone house. The fort and outworks 
 occupy about five acres of ground and a garrison of 500 men, and at least from 30 to 
 60 pieces of ordnance wou!d be necessary to defend it properly. The federal garrison 
 consists, however, of only 50 men, and the whole cannon in the place amounts 
 merely to four small field pieces, planted at the four corners of the fort. . . 
 
 ' Weld's Travels, page 302. '' Howard L. Osgood, Rochester, N. Y. 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 63 
 
 Great additions were made to the works after the fort fell into the hands of the British 
 (1759)' • • • Every part of the fort now exhibits a picture of slovenliness and 
 neglect, and the appearance of the soldiers is equally devoid of neatness with that of 
 their quarters." ' 
 
 Later he adds : 
 
 " The chief strength of the old fort is on the land side. Towards the water the 
 works are very weak, and the whole might be battered down by a single 12-pounder 
 judiciously planted on the British side of the river." ^ 
 
 Referring to the " hold-over period," he says : 
 
 " The American prints, until the late treaty of amity was ratified, teemed with the 
 most gross abuse of the British Government, for retaining possession of Fort Niagara 
 and the other military posts on the lakes. After the independence of the States had 
 been acknowledged and peace concluded, it was never taken into consideration that 
 if the British Government had thought proper to have withdrawn its troops from the 
 posts at once immediately after the definite treaty was signed, the works would, in 
 all probability have been destroyed by the Indians, within whose territories they were 
 situated, long before the people of the States could have taken possession of them, 
 for no part of their army was within hundreds of miles of the posts, and the country 
 through which they must have passed in getting to them was a mere wilderness ; but if 
 the army had gained the posts the States were in no condition immediately after the 
 war to have kept in tliem such large bodies of the military as would have been abso- 
 lutely necessary for their defense whilst at enmity with the Indians, and it is by no 
 means improbable but that the posts might have been soon abandoned. The reten- 
 tion of them therefore to the present day was in fact a circumstance highly beneficial to 
 the interests of the States, notwithstanding that such an outcry was raised against the 
 British on that account, inasmuch as the Americans now find themselves possessed of 
 extensive fortifications on the frontiers in perfect repairs, without having been at the 
 expense of building them or maintaining troops in them for the space of 10 years." ^ 
 
 This was also a British view but there was a great deal of justice in it. 
 
 On the evacuation of the fort the American public papers paid 
 some nice compliments to the English ofificers for their friendly atten- 
 tions, their extensive gardens being left in full bearing." A plan of 
 Fort Niagara made in 1801 shows these gardens extending along the 
 lake front east of the earthworks, so that they then covered that part 
 of the ground where the English dug their parallels and planted their 
 batteries during the siege of 1759, which had not been washed 
 away by the encroachments and the storms of Lake Ontario. The 
 comparatively small matter of leaving the iron shutters on the win- 
 dows of the castle was overlooked, and these were all taken down and 
 carried to the new British blockhouse.^ 
 
 ' Weld's Travels, 1799, pages 300 and 301. ' Weld's Travels, 1799, page 306. ' Weld's 
 Travels, 1799, pages 302 and 303. * Weld's Travels, 1799, pages 302 and 303. ' Life of 
 DeWitt Clinton, 1849, page 124. 
 
64 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 The British, however, generously left fifty barrels of pork for the 
 use of the new Federal garrison.' 
 
 The British commandant at the evacuation was Col. Smith, who 
 led the British in the fight at Concord in 1775. It has been said "Col. 
 Smith may with propriety be said to have participated in both the 
 opening and the closing acLs of the American Revolution." " 
 
 1 796-1 8 1 2. 
 
 The advantages which the Americans, particularly those in any 
 way interested in the carrying trade between the east and west, 
 expected to derive from United States control of Fort Niagara 
 were overestimated. 
 
 Soon after the evacuation, in September, 1796, Captain Bruff, 
 the commandant at Fort Niagara, called an assemblage of the 
 sachems and warriors of the six nations at that place, to exchange 
 sentiments of peace, friendship, and mutual aid. 
 
 At the close of the Revolution (the " whirlwind " as they called 
 it) these warriors finding they were left by the British under the 
 control of the United States naturally felt alarmed as to what 
 treatment they might expect, as they had been hostile to the 
 colonists — the Thirteen Flames as they called them. 
 
 Finding that the conquerors were ready to overlook the past and to 
 treat them with justice, they buried the tomahawk and became good 
 friends and peaceable neighbors of the Americans. 
 
 So when the British finally evacuated Fort Niagara, which had 
 been the great headquarters of England's influence so far as the Six 
 Nations were concerned, it was fitting that at that spot the chain 
 of friendship between these savage warriors and the United States 
 should be brightened and vows of continued friendship interchanged. 
 
 Among the gifts bestowed on this assemblage, besides provis- 
 ions, clothing and a barrel of rum, was a large United States flag. ' 
 
 From 1796 to 1812 there is but little public history in connec- 
 tion with the fort. 
 
 In 1799, the United States Customs District of Niagara was cre- 
 ated by act of Congress. It included the American shores and 
 waters of Lakes Erie and Ontario, west of the Genesee River, and 
 of the Niagara River. 
 
 'Weld's Travels, 1799, page 302. " Lossing History of War of 1812, page 408. 
 ^ Turner's Holland Purchase, page 347. 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 65 
 
 Fort Niagara was the port of entry, and remained so till 181 1, 
 when the port was removed to Lewiston. 
 
 In 1799, i" anticipation of another Indian outbreak, the garrison 
 was reinforced. 
 
 In May, 1801, General Wilkinson, who was in command on the 
 frontier, was directed to open a military road between Lake Ontario 
 and Lake Erie, and, at his direction. Major Porter, commandant at 
 Fort Niagara, commenced operations. The road was not completed 
 promptly, for in 1802 the United States mail was still carried from 
 Utica to Fort Niagara via Buffalo and the Canadian side of the 
 river. 
 
 In 1804, Tom Moore spent some time with General Brock at 
 Fort George, and doubtless visited Fort Niagara. 
 
 In 1805, it became necessary to clear out an old sink attached 
 to the mess house. In it were found the bones of a woman, no 
 doubt the victim of a murder in days gone by. 
 
 In 1806, George Heriot, Deputy Postmaster-General of British 
 North America, visited the fort, of which he wrote : " The ramparts 
 are composed of earth and pickets, and contain within them a lofty 
 stone building. The Americans seem to take no measures either for 
 its repair or enlargement, as the waters of the lake make progressive 
 encroachments on the sandy bank, whose summit it occupies, the 
 foundations of the buildings will in a short time be undermined."' 
 
 In 1810, the commissioners appointed by the State of New York 
 to explore the whole route of the projected Erie and connecting canals 
 made a digression on their journey to visit Fort Niagara. 
 
 In De Witt Clinton's journal of the trip he says, "We were received 
 with a national salute and other military honors." Dinner was served 
 in the castle, which, he said, measured 105x47 feet, and was a complete 
 fortification, with prisons, a well and only one door. The fort was in 
 a ruinous condition, the only pleasant thing to the feelings of an 
 American being the new barracks then in course of construction.'' 
 
 Among the troops at the fort during this period was one Carroll, 
 the band leader, said to be a relative of the famous Irish harper of 
 that name, and devoted to music and whiskey. One evening he ap- 
 peared on parade drunk, and, when reprimanded by the commandant, 
 became so abusive that he was confined in the "black hole" in the 
 castle. Here, in the middle of the night, in answer to his yells, he 
 
 ' Heriot's Travels, pages 149 and 150. ' Life of De Witt Clinton, 1849. page 124 
 
66 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 was found in a piteous condition of fright, declaring all the hob- 
 goblins and devils in existence had visited him, and begged for 
 a light, a fife, and pen, ink and paper, which were granted him. In 
 the morning he presented to the other musicians the notes of a tune 
 he had composed in the dungeon, and which he called " Carroll's 
 Thoughts on Eternity." He composed at the fort several marches 
 and waltzes, etc., which delighted the garrison and guests on many 
 occasions. 
 
 From 1796 till the war of 1812 there was a constant interchange 
 of civilities between the garrison of the Fort Niagara and the inhab- 
 itants of the Canadian village opposite, including the garrison of Fort 
 George. Many ties of friendship and, no doubt, of relationship, were 
 severed hereabouts by that war. 
 
 When it commenced, there was a yard on the north side of 
 the castle, between it and the pickets, some forty feet wide, and 
 beyond the pickets a space wide enough for two people to walk- on 
 abreast." 
 
 The fort was then surrounded on three sides with strong pickets 
 of plank, firmly planted in the ground and closely joined together, a 
 heavy gate in front of double plank, closely studded with iron spike. 
 This was enclosed by a fence, with a large gate just on the brow of 
 the hill, called the Barrier Gate.^ The fourth side was defended by 
 embankments of earth, under which had formerly been barracks. 
 These had been safe, but gloomy, and had been abandoned, and the 
 entrances closed before this date ; as they had become infested- with 
 rattlesnakes. So numerous had these vipers become in this breeding 
 place, that the soldiers not only did not dare to enter these barracks, 
 but it was impossible to cross the parade ground without meeting 
 them. 
 
 WAR OF 1812. 
 
 The official declaration of the war, made June i8th, reached Fort 
 Niagara June 26th, a day after the news had reached the Canadian 
 Frontier by private messengers sent to his agents hereabouts by John 
 Jacob Astor, who had vast commercial interests at stake. 
 
 According to the commandant's private admission, the fortifications 
 were out qf repair, there was scarcely any arms or ammunition, and 
 only one company of soldiers in the fort, showing great negligence on 
 the part of the War department. 
 
 ' Turner, Holland Purchase, page igi. ^ Turner, Holland Purchase, page iSS, 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 67 
 
 Work was immediately commenced to repair the picket and earth 
 fortifications, and the well in the mess house was uncovered and 
 cleaned out. 
 
 A heavy cannon was drawn into the porch of the castle, new 
 embankments were thrown up and cannon mounted ; company after 
 company of militia soon came 'pouring in from the east and south, 
 raw and undisciplined recruits, gay with any and every sort of uniform 
 and armed with any available weapon. 
 
 To make room for these welcome defenders, the officers' families 
 were obliged to vacate their quarters in the fort and were sent away 
 into the country. ' 
 
 Soon there appeared at the fort about a hundred young power- 
 ful and active Tuscarora Indians, from their Reservation near by, 
 decorated with war paint and armed with tomahawks and hatchets. 
 Headed by the chief, they had hurried down to offer their assist- 
 ance to the United States. At this their first opportunity they 
 promptly proved their appreciation of the fair treatment that the 
 newly organized Federal government had extended to their race at 
 the close of the Revolution. 
 
 Between the declaration of war and the battle of Queenston 
 regulars and ammunition and ordnance were sent to Fort Niagara. 
 
 On August 13, 1812, Gen. Van Renssalaer, who had been 
 appointed to the command of the New York mihtia, arrived at 
 Fort Niagara, but at once proceeded to and pitched his camp near 
 Lewiston. 
 
 It was believed that Gen. Brock, then in command of the British 
 troops along the frontier, contemplated an attack on Fort Niagara 
 and an invasion of the United States, and Gen. Van Renssalaer 
 begged for more troops. At this time there were 300 light artillery 
 and 1000 infantry of the United States army at Fort Niagara. 
 
 When Gen. Brock returned to Fort George after the capture 
 of Detroit, many of the American prisoners taken there, accom- 
 panied by women and children, were brought to that fort. In 
 September Gen. Van Renssalaer wrote to Gen. Brock relative to 
 their condition, to the end that they might be relieved from Fort 
 Niagara, and offering to receive the women and children at that 
 fort, and by order of Gen. Brock these women and children were 
 landed at Fort Niagara.' 
 
 ' Turner's Holland Purchase, page 190. * Tupper's Life of Sir Isaac Brock, 1845, page 297. 
 
68 
 
 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 Responding to Gen. Dearborn's insistance that Upper Canada 
 should be conquered before winter, Gen. Van Renssalaer planned 
 the capture of Queenston Heights, opposite Lewiston, and prepara- 
 tions were made for the attack on October 13th. The flying artillery 
 
 THE SOUTHWEST BLOCK HOUSE. 
 
 under Lieut.-Col. Fenwick, as well as most of the garrison at Fort 
 Niagara, were sent to Lewiston. It is not necessary to our subject to 
 discuss the details of this battle. 
 
 Gen. Brock was at Fort George expecting an attack, but under 
 the belief that it would be made from Fort Niagara. Hearing the 
 cannonading he hastened to Queenston, only to seethe heights carried 
 by the Americans under Lieut. Wool. He at once sent word to Fort 
 George for reinforcements and also an order for an immediate bom- 
 bardment of Fort Niagara. 
 
 His instructions were obeyed and Fort Niagara was again under fire. 
 The south block-house in this fort promptly replied and occasionally 
 turned its guns on the Canadian village of Newark, where, by reason of 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 69 
 
 the hot shot used (for there was a furnace in Fort Niagara specially 
 built for heating cannon balls), many of the buildings were set on fire. 
 The cannonading lasted for several hours ; shells also were thrown 
 from Fort George, and from these the men in Fort Niagara had no 
 protection. This fact, and the bursting of a cannon decided Capt. 
 Leonard, who was in command, to abandon Fort Niagara, and with the 
 small garrison of about twenty men he started for Lewiston, leaving 
 the fort empty. He had proceeded but a short distance when he 
 saw the British putting off in boats from near Fort George to occupy 
 it. Reconsidering his action, he hurried his men back into it and 
 
 THE NORTHEAST BLOCK HOUSE. 
 
 held it unmolested till the regulars returned very early the next 
 morning from Queenston. 
 
 In rallying his forces to recapture Queenston Heights Gen. 
 Brock was killed. Had he learnt that Fort Niagara was poorly 
 garrisoned he was too good a soldier not to have ordered its attack, 
 and why Major Evans, who was in command of Fort George, plainly 
 
70 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 seeing the small number of men in the garrison, and Leonard's 
 cowardice, as evinced by his retreat, did not promptly storm it, for 
 it would have been captured with ease, is unexplained. 
 
 After the battle of Queenston, many of the wounded Americans 
 were conveyed to Fort Niagara and lodged in any available place, 
 even the cellars of the castle being converted into a hospital. 
 
 The British army after its success at Queenston marched back 
 to Fort George — at once a column of victory and a funeral train, for 
 it carried the body of its late commander. 
 
 Gen. Brock was buried in a cavalier bastion at Fort George on 
 October i6th. Col. Scott, who had been captured at Queenston, 
 was then a prisoner at Newark, and at his suggestion, Gen. Van 
 Renssalaer issued orders that immediately after the funeral was 
 over minute guns should be fired from Fort Niagara, "as a mark of 
 respect due to a brave enemy." ' 
 
 Early in the morning of November 21st hostilities were renewed. 
 The British had prepared mortars and planted a long train of battering 
 cannon behind breast-works on the margin of the river, under Fort 
 George. Five of these batteries and the guns of Fort George bom- 
 barded Fort Niagara from sunrise to sunset. 
 
 The garrison of that fort had been reinforced after the 13th of 
 October by the 13th Regiment of U. S. troops, but was not yet sup- 
 plied with a sufficient quantity of artillery or ammunition. Col. 
 George McFeeley was in command. During November 21st, 2,000 
 cannon balls and 180 shells were discharged against Fort Niagara. 
 
 The shells did little harm, but many of the cannon balls, having 
 been heated, set fire to several buildings in and about the fort. Thanks 
 to the ceaseless efforts of the garrison, none of the buildings were 
 burnt. Fort Niagara returned the fire of the British with alacrity and 
 vigor. A six-pounder had been mounted on top of the mess house, a 
 twelve-pounder on the southwest block-house, other cannon on the 
 north block-house. There was an eighteen-pounder in the south- 
 east battery, and an eighteen and also a four-pounder on the west 
 battery. The Salt Battery, a dependency in. the present village of 
 Youngstown, mounting an eighteen and a four-pounder, also did 
 effective work, and, when their gun wadding gave out during the worst 
 of the bombardment, the officers and men tore up their flannel waist 
 coats, shirts and trousers to supply their guns. Several houses in 
 ' Tupper's Life of Sir Isaac Brock, 1845, page 333. 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 71 
 
 Newark were set on fire by hot shot during this bombardment, but 
 were saved. The mess house at Fort George and some buildings near 
 it, however, were set on fire by hot shot and were burned. 
 
 An instance of female bravery at Fort Niagara on this day must 
 also be chronicled. A private in the U. S. Artillery, Doyle by name, 
 who had been stationed at the fort, was among the prisoners taken 
 at Queenston. His wife had remained in the fort and, resenting the 
 refusal of the British to parole her husband, she insisted on filling his 
 place and doing his duty against the enemy. She accordingly, during 
 the bombardment, attended the six-pounder on the Mess house, 
 served it with hot shot, regardless of the shells which were falling 
 around her, and never quitting her post till the last gun had been 
 discharged. 
 
 The bombardment effected nothing of great moment on either 
 side of the river. Buildings in both forts were set on fire and the 
 works of both were damaged. American marksmanship silenced one 
 of the Canadian batteries for a time. The loss of life, fortunately, 
 was small on both sides, two being killed and seven wounded on the 
 American side, and more on the British side.' 
 
 During the winter of 1812-13 there were no events of note at the 
 fort. It was fully garrisoned, for it was by no means improbable that 
 the British might, at any time, attempt its capture, and more than one 
 of the officers at Fort George across the river formed plans for its 
 assault, each hoping thereby to win for himself military fame; but 
 none of these plans were ever attempted. Early in 1813, Col. Scott, 
 who was among the prisoners exchanged, arrived at Fort Niagara. 
 
 At the breaking out of the war the Mohawk Indians had sided 
 with the British, but the Senecas, located near Buffalo, had promised 
 not to engage in the war, unless on the side of the United States. 
 
 When the British took possession of Grand Island, which the 
 Senecas claimed as their territory, which claim the State of New 
 York had recognized, the young Seneca braves could no longer be 
 restrained, and they made a declaration of war in writing, said to be 
 the first instance of its kind in Indian history. The United States 
 had been reluctant to employ savages, but the action of the British 
 in securing the aid of the Mohawks, caused Gen. Lewis, who com- 
 manded Fort Niagara in 1813, to invite the Senecas to the fort and to 
 seek their aid. 
 
 ' Official Report of Col. McFeeley's The War, page 109. 
 
72 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 Three or four hundred Senecas in their war paint came, but on 
 learning that they were expected to exert rather a moral influence 
 than to use the tomahawk they went away in disgust. 
 
 Their friendly attitude, and later on their active service along the 
 frontier, however, were of great benefit to the Americans. 
 
 On April 27th the Americans captured Little York (Toronto), and 
 the tremendous explosion of the powder magazine there was plainly- 
 heard at Fort Niagara. 
 
 On May 8th Commodore Chauncey's fleet brought Gen. Dearborn 
 and his victorious army from York to Four-mile Creek, east of Fort 
 Niagara, where they landed. As many as possible were quartered 
 in Fort Niagara — every available room being occupied and the 
 parade ground being covered with their tents. The balance 
 encamped at Four-mile Creek. All of the wounded were also 
 brought over and cared for at the camp or in houses in the neigh- 
 borhood. 
 
 CAPTURE OF FORT GEORGE. 
 
 Gen. Dearborn established his headquarters in Fort Niagara, Col. 
 Scott being his adjutant ; and plans were at once made to capture 
 Fort George. Being confined to his bed by sickness. Gen. Dearborn's 
 orders were issued from his sick room. 
 
 On May 26th, a number of boats which the Americans had built 
 at the " meadows," five miles up stream from Fort Niagara, were 
 launched. The British battery opposite opened fire on them, and 
 as they came down stream the batteries and Fort George cannonaded 
 them. Fort Niagara, its batteries and dependencies replied vigorously. 
 
 When night came the boats were safely taken past Fort George, 
 and around Fort Niagara to the lake shore, to Four-mile Creek. 
 
 Early on the morning of May 27th the troops were embarked 
 from the fort and the camp on the vessels and boats, and at once 
 proceeded to the attack. 
 
 The guns of Fort Niagara and its batteries were turned on Fort 
 George, The warships took their assigned positions, some to bom- 
 bard Fort George and its batteries, some to silence the batteries on 
 the lake near where the troops were to land. 
 
 Amidst a terrific bombardment, the men led by Col. Scott, landed^ 
 drove back the British, captured Fort George, and by noon were in 
 quiet possession of every battery on the river, the British fleeing with. 
 precipitation. 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 73 
 
 A storm coming up, the fleet sailed up the river and anchored 
 nearly opposite Fort George. 
 
 From May 27th till December, 181 3, Fort George was in the 
 possession of the Americans, and the headquarters of the Army of 
 the Center was here, and thus on British soil. General Dearborn, 
 General Wilkinson, Colonel Scott, General Harrison and General 
 McClure of the New York Militia were successively in command, 
 and were frequently at Fort Niagara. 
 
 FORT GEORGE ABANDONED. 
 
 On December loth, word came to Fort George that 1,500 British 
 regulars and 700 Indians were advancing toward it, with a view to 
 its capture and the expulsion of the Americans from Canadian 
 soil hereabouts. 
 
 McClure's garrison was not a large one ; only sixty effective men. 
 He was not a man of courage. He decided to abandon Fort George 
 and to concentrate all his troops in Fort Niagara. 
 
 For about two months he had had in his possession the follow- 
 ing, sent from Sackett's Harbor: 
 
 War Department, October 4, 1813. 
 Sir, — Understanding that the defense of the post committed to 
 your charge may render it proper to destroy the town of Newark, 
 you are hereby directed to apprise the inhabitants of this circum- 
 stance, and invite them to remove themselves and their effects to 
 some place of greater safety. 
 
 JOHN ARMSTRONG. 
 Brigadier-General McClure, or ofificer commanding at Fort 
 George. 
 
 McClure had never carried out this order. All of a sudden, in the 
 middle of a most rigorous winter, he decided to abandon Fort George. 
 Most of the guns were spiked, and all movable stores put on boats. 
 Then, falling back on this old order from the war department (which 
 had been sent to him long before winter set in, and with the very idea 
 of preventing unnecessary hardship), he gave notice to the inhabitants 
 of Newark that in a few hours the town would be burnt. This order 
 of his own he carried out. The village was set on fire in several 
 places, and 150 houses were consumed. While it was burning the 
 American troops crossed to Fort Niagara. 
 
74 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 It was a sorry day for that fort (and for the frontier) when it be- 
 came the headquarters of Gen. McClure. 
 
 In such haste was he to get away from the rapidly advancing 
 British troops, and to get behind the guns of Fort Niagara, that he 
 did not even try and demolish any of the works of Fort George ; and 
 his excuse for the burning of Newark, " that it might not be left as a 
 shelter for the enemy," was nullified by the fact that he left the 
 barracks on the river bank intact, and serviceable tents for 1500 men 
 in Fort George.' Several good cannons and a quantity of shot were 
 also left behind. 
 
 When the British took possession of Fort George and the ruins of 
 Newark it was toward Fort Niagara, behind whose walls McClure, the 
 destroyer of Newark, had taken refuge, that their thoughts at once 
 turned for revenge. 
 
 Gen. McClure, possibly appreciating this, promptly, on Decem- 
 ber 1 2th, moved his headquarters to Buffalo, from whence, on 
 December i8th, he issued a proclamation warning the people of the 
 preparations of the British to make a descent on the American side 
 of the Niagara.'' 
 
 But he made no provision against it, not even sending a special 
 message to the officers in Fort Niagara, trusting solely to his general 
 order to them of some days before.^ 
 
 Capt. Leonard had been left in command of that fort, and warned 
 that an attack might be expected. It was this same officer, I believe, 
 who a little over a year before had evacuated this same fort ; but, on 
 seeing the British starting to occupy it, had plucked up courage to 
 return and hold it. 
 
 Whether he was a traitor, as was strongly suspected, but not con- 
 clusively proven, or merely without courage, military ability and fore- 
 sight, like too many of the American officers who held commissions 
 on this frontier during the War of 1812, his negligence was criminal. 
 
 FORT NIAGARA CAPTURED. 
 
 On their arrival, as they stood gazing on the ruins of Newark, 
 Colonel Murray said to General Drummond, " Let us retaliate by 
 fire and sword." "Do so," replied that commander, "swiftly and 
 thoroughly." 
 
 ' British Official Report, Niles Register, vol. V., No. 21. » McClure's Proclamation, 
 December 18, 1813. 'McClure's General Order, December 12, 1813. 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 75 
 
 So intense was the feeling of the Britishers that preparations were 
 rapidly made. On the night of December i8th, a cold, dark night, 
 Colonel Murray crossed the river at the " Meadows," five miles above 
 Fort Niagara, with one thousand men, British and Indians. Carrying 
 axes, scaling ladders and other implements for assault, shielded by 
 the darkness, they pressed on to Fort Niagara. The advance pickets 
 of the Americans were captured in silence, and the force placed for a 
 simultaneous attack at several points — five companies of the looth 
 Regiment were to assail the main gate, three companies of the same 
 regiment were to storm the eastern semi-bastion, the Royal Scots 
 Grenadiers were to assault the salient angle of the works, and the 
 Forty-first Regiment was to support the principal attack.' 
 
 These preparations were unnecessary. At four o'clock in the morn- 
 ing of Sunday, December 19th, when the assailants reached the main 
 gate of the fort, they found it wide open and unguarded. They rushed 
 in and seized the sentinels, who, in fright, gave up the countersign. 
 There were about 400 men in the garrison, some of them in the hos- 
 pital; but enough, had the fort been properly patrolled and the most 
 ordinary precautions been taken against a sudden attack, to have de- 
 fended it. But the evening before, Leonard, their commander, without 
 notice to his officers or instructions to them, had quietly slipped away 
 to his home, which was at the meadows, where the assailants landed. 
 
 The occupants of the southwest block-house and the invalids in 
 the red barracks jumped from their beds on hearing the noise, and made 
 a determined stand, killing half a dozen, and wounding more, of the 
 assailing party. 
 
 This resistance was overcome, and the fort was in possession of the 
 British before the rest of the garrison were fully awake. Few shots 
 were fired ; the bayonet was the weapon" and revenge the watchword. 
 Little if any attempt was made to curb the British soldiers' thirst 
 for blood, and many of the garrison, especially hospital patients, were 
 bayoneted after all resistance had ceased. 
 
 The loss of the Americans was 80 killed, 14 wounded (these figures 
 tell the story of British revenge), and 244 made prisoners ; and only 
 about 20 escaped. 
 
 Col. Murray was wounded early in the attack, and resigned the 
 command to Col. Hamilton, "under whose superintendence, it is stated, 
 
 " Lossing's History of War of 1812, page 633, he quotes Colonel Murray's official report. 
 ' Gen. Drummond's Official Report, December 19, 1813. 
 
76 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 the women of the garrison were stripped of their clothing and many 
 of them killed, and the persons of the dead ofificers treated with shock- 
 ing indignity." ' 
 
 The' spoils of war, captured in the fort, consisted of 27 cannon, 3,000 
 stands of arms and many rifles, a large amount of ammunition and 
 commissary stores, clothing and camp equipage of every description. 
 
 » 
 
 DEVASTATION OF THE FRONTIER. 
 
 When in full control of the fort, the British fired one of the largest 
 cannon as a signal of victory, and Gen. Riall, who, with his blood- 
 thirsty soldiers and Indians, was waiting at Queenston for the news, 
 at once crossed his forces to Lewiston, there to commence the devas- 
 tation of the frontier. 
 
 Thus inside of 10 days the control of both Fort Niagara and Fort 
 George, which included the control of the river, passed, amid scenes 
 of slaughter and devastation, from American to British hands, and 
 once more the flag of England floated over the ramparts of Fort 
 Niagara. 
 
 Bloody as was the vengeance wreaked on the surprised garrison, it 
 was not so bad as that inflicted by the British troops and their Indian 
 allies, the latter led by British officers in war paint, on the defenseless 
 inhabitants living between Fort Niagara and Tonawanda. Almost 
 every house in that territory and all movable property was burnt, and 
 men, women, children and even babes were slain and scalped. 
 
 Marauding parties from Fort Niagara were sent out and burnt all 
 buildings to the eastward for a distance of 18 miles. 
 
 Gen. McClure blamed Capt. Leonard for the loss of the fort, 
 charging him with gross neglect. Leonard, within a few days, gave 
 himself up to the enemy, retiring with his family to Canada.'' Later 
 he returned and surrendered himself. He was tried by court-martial 
 and dismissed from the army. 
 
 The British held undisputed possession of the fort from its capture 
 until the close of the war. 
 
 Its occupation was of no direct benefit to England. The entire 
 American Frontier was desolate and in ruins. The rest of the war so 
 far as this section was concerned, was carried on on Canadian soil ; 
 and the rumored and expected attacks, to be made from Fort Niagara 
 on the settlement at Batavia and elsewhere, never occurred. 
 
 'J L. Thompson, History of the War, 1816, page 186. 'Fay's Official Reports, page 167. 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 77 
 
 On March 27, 1815, under article i of the Treaty of Ghent, the 
 fort was surrendered to and occupied by the United States, and its 
 flag has floated over it ever since. 
 
 On August 8, 1817, James Monroe, President of the United 
 States, paid a brief visit to the fort. 
 
 In the summer of 1825 the Marquis de Lafayette, the guest of 
 the nation, paid a visit to Fort Niagara. Major Thomson, at the 
 head of his officers, met him outside the fort, and as he entered the 
 gate a salute of 24 guns was fired. He dined at the fort, which he 
 was told had been much repaired since the war of 1812, so that no 
 traces of the damage then done remained.' 
 
 OPENING OF THE ERIE CANAL. 
 
 As already noted, all British goods shipped to the West had been 
 carried over the Canadian portage since 1796; but the great highway 
 for American commerce to and from the rapidly settling West was 
 from Oswego to Lewiston, to Schlosser, and Buffalo ; and as the 
 vessels rounded the point where Fort Niagara stood it gave their 
 crews a feeling of pride, and a sense of security, to see on every trip 
 the national flag floating over a national fort, garrisoned by national 
 troops. 
 
 But the fall of 1825 brought the completion and ofificial opening 
 of the Erie Canal, and the large commerce which had passed this 
 way took the new route. The increase of a population, which had 
 been largely dependent on the business of the portage, was stopped, 
 and Buffalo, the terminus of the Erie Canal, rapidly increased at the 
 expense of the territory on the lower Niagara. 
 
 Thus another reason why Fort Niagara should be maintained 
 as a defensive work, namely, the protection of an important inland, 
 and yet a frontier commerce, which passed under its guns, was 
 removed. 
 
 The projection of the Welland Canal, which was completed in 
 1829, took away another though a directly opposite reason for Fort 
 Niagara's maintenance. Canadian commerce, on taking this new 
 and abandoning the Niagara way westward, could no longer, in the 
 event of war, be harassed by Fort Niagara's guns. 
 
 So in May, 1826, the troops were withdrawn and the historic fort 
 in its entirety left in charge of one man. 
 ' Lafayette in America, 1829, vol. II., page 213 
 
78 
 
 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 ANTI-MASONIC AGITATION. 
 
 In September, 1826, Fort Niagara was called to the attention of the 
 nation and the civilized world, even more prominently than it had 
 ever been in all its history, by the Anti-Masonic movement. William 
 Morgan, a resident of Batavia, and a Free Mason, had threatened to 
 divulge the secrets of that body in print. It is generally credited that 
 members of that order, failing to get control of Morgan's manuscript 
 revelations, had him arrested on some petty charge and jailed at 
 Canandaigua. On being liberated he was thrust into a closed carriage 
 
 WILLIAM MORGAN. 
 
 in waiting and, always accompanied by three men, with relays of 
 horses, taken through Rochester, along the Ridge Road to Lewiston, 
 and thence to Fort Niagara, where the driver was told to stop near 
 the graveyard. Here the four men got out, the carriage was sent 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 79 
 
 away, and the party proceeded to the water's edge, got into a boat 
 and crossed to Canada, whence, after a two hours' absence, they re- 
 turned, and entered the fort. This was after midnight, September 13, 
 1 826. Preparations had been completed at Fort Niagara for the recep- 
 tion of the kidnapped man. He was at once placed in confinement, but 
 tradition differs as to where he was confined. The old French 
 magazine, the dark cell in the " castle," and the respective dark cells 
 in tl^e two block-houses, being all pointed out as the location. A big 
 iron key, nearly eleven inches in length, kept in the office of the 
 Quartermaster, is shown as the key of " Morgan's dungeon," but it 
 throws no light as to that dungeon's location. The magazine seems 
 to be the probable location. On September 14th a steam boat, con- 
 veying a number of Masons to a meeting at Lewiston, stopped at the 
 fort's wharf, and several of those on board went into the fort and 
 saw Morgan; others of the party refused to enter it. On the same 
 day it was reported at Lewiston "that there was trouble at the fort." 
 Morgan remained in confinement for six days, often visited by Masons, 
 none others being allowed to see him. He was quite "noisy" at 
 first, and his visitors tried to " quiet " him. He refused to give up 
 his manuscript, or to tell where it could be found. He begged to see 
 his wife and children, and is reported to have said several times that 
 he would rather stay in the magazine than be bled to death by the 
 doctor. He made ineffectual attempts to break through the heavy 
 doors of the building. 
 
 Frequent consultations were held as to what disposition was to be 
 made of him. One plan was to settle him on a farm in Canada; 
 another, to hand him over to a Masonic commander of some Brit- 
 ish war ship ; and another, to drown him in the lake. Masons who ad- 
 mitted having participated in these consultations said they strenu- 
 ously opposed the last, even to a point of quarreling with their com- 
 rades. 
 
 William Morgan was last heard of in confinement in the fort on 
 September 19, 1826. He disappeared, and all trace of him was abso- 
 lutely lost. 
 
 A tremendous excitement, of course, followed his disappearance. 
 Popular tradition said he was taken blindfolded by masked men from 
 the fort, forced into a boat, which was rowed out into the lake, and 
 that he was dropped overboard, heavy weights being attached to his 
 body. 
 
8o OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 Investigating committees were appointed everywhere, and Fort 
 Niagara thoroughly examined by many of them. The bed of the 
 Niagara River near the fort and far out into the lake was dredged for 
 weeks, but without result. 
 
 A little more than a year afterwards a body was found on the lake 
 shore over twenty miles east of Fort Niagara. A coroner's jury said 
 " unknown," but the anti-Masons thought it was Morgan ; had it 
 exhumed, proved its identification as Morgan and had it removed to 
 Batavia and buried. It was "a good enough Morgan for them till 
 after election." Additional information having subsequently been ob- 
 tained, another inquest was held, and it was proved to be the body 
 of one Timothy Monroe. 
 
 Several men, including the Sheriff of Niagara County, the Keeper 
 of Fort Nragara, and several citizens of the neighborhood, were ar- 
 rested and long afterwards tried. No proof of Morgan's death could 
 be produced. None of those sworn at the trials for his abduction 
 were at the magazine when Morgan left it, nor could they learn his 
 fate. Some witnesses refused to testify, three men plead guilty, and 
 one was convicted of complicity in Morgan's abduction. The Sheriff 
 of Niagara County was removed from office. 
 
 Thus, within the historic walls of old Fort Niagara, where William 
 Morgan was last seen alive, occurred the birth of the Anti-Masonic 
 party, which, for years afterward, in New York and several other 
 states, exercised such a great political influence. 
 
 Fort Niagara at this time was a desolate place, without a garrison. 
 The only house near it was a small ferry house, occupied by the man 
 who had charge of the fort. 
 
 No matter what their intentions in regard to him were, it was just 
 exactly the kind of a place for Morgan's abductors to confine him in 
 while they were deliberating as to what should be their final step in 
 their unlawful course ; — being a lonely, uninhabited spot, whose owner 
 in those days of slow communication could not interfere with their 
 proceedings; located a mile away from any human habitation, on 
 this side of the river, and out of the jurisdiction of the people across 
 the river. 
 
 MODERN FORT NIAGARA. 
 
 Since 1826 Fort Niagara has not been considered as a really 
 defensive work. Indeed, in the early part of that year it was con- 
 sidered of so little importance that, as already noted, the garrison 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 8i 
 
 was withdrawn, and for about ten years it remained an abandoned 
 and deserted post. About 1836 it was re-occupied and garrisoned, 
 and has been occupied without interruption ever since. 
 
 In old days in the first story of the Castle was the large mess 
 room, used also as an assembly room on all occasions, a large spacious 
 apartment from whose windows one looked out on the broad waters 
 of Lake Ontario. This famous apartment, wherein the French and 
 English commandants at the fort, as representatives of their respective 
 sovereigns, met and treated with the various sachems of the Indian 
 tribes — wherein were held military and commercial councils and 
 social gatherings — has long, long ago been partitioned off into 
 several small rooms. Somewhere within the fort, in an unmarked and 
 unknown grave, rest the remains of General Prideaux, to whom Pitt 
 entrusted the responsible duty of capturing the fort in 1759. 
 
 Somewhere also within the ramparts tradition says sums of gold 
 and silver, buried at various times and for various reasons, lie con- 
 cealed. Many applications have been made for permission to dig 
 for and unearth these treasures, but all have been refused. 
 
 In 1839 the stone wall towards the river was constructed. 
 
 The " Patriot War" in 1837 came very near involving this country 
 in another war with England along this frontier ; in which case Fort 
 Niagara would again have been brought into prominence. But 
 Ejjgland's apology for the Caroline episode prevented such a thing. 
 
 In 1861 the present brick walls were constructed, outside the line 
 of the old earthworks. 
 
 In 1865 a lighthouse was established here, the light being placed 
 on top of the "castle." 
 
 In 1873 the present comely lighthouse was erected. 
 
 The entire post has been rebuilt, a few buildings at a time, officers' 
 quarters, barracks, hospital, etc., within the past twenty years, all lo- 
 cated south of the "old" fort, leaving that as a hallowed memory of 
 the past. 
 
 In 1880, the present rifle range was constructed, and is used annu- 
 ally by the Department of the East. 
 
 In 1893, a life saving station was established here. 
 
 The land embraced in the fort reserve amounts to 288 acres, and is 
 in latitude 43" 15' N., longitude 2° west from Washington. 
 
 And so we come down now to the Centennial of the evacuation 
 of the "old" fort by the British in 1796. 
 
82 
 
 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 PLAN OF OLD FORT NIAGARA, 1896. 
 
 The Castle, or Mess House ; commenced 1725. 
 
 The Bake House ; built 1 762. 
 
 Modern Wooden Houses. 
 
 Hot Shot Furnace ; built before 181 2 ; rebuilt later. 
 
 French Magazine ; built before 1759. 
 
 French Barracks ; built 1757. 
 
 Southwest Block House; built 1756. 
 
 Northeast Block House ; built 1756. 
 
 Life Saving Station. 
 
 Cemetery. 
 
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 83 
 
 Part of the 13th Infantry, who came to this place and were in the 
 battle of Queenston, in 1812, are now garrisoning Fort Niagara; and 
 by a singular coincidence, this centennial finds in command of this 
 fort an officer of the same rank, and bearing the same name, though 
 serving under a different flag, as he who commanded it 100 years ago, 
 Col. Smith ; at this date Col. Alfred T. Smith, U. S. A. 
 
 A BRIEF SUMMARY. 
 
 Such is "a brief history of old Fort Niagara." The spot where it 
 stands has been the scene of many contests, beginning with the days 
 when the redmen resisted the erection of any sort of a fortification 
 here. 
 
 It has seen a fort erected and demolished ; it has seen rival 
 European nations plotting, striving and contending for its ownership ; 
 it has seen, during French rule, the reflection of Parisian life and 
 manners and the horrors of a political prison ; it has seen the 
 savages sacking the fort, thieving not butchering, for there was peace 
 between the French and Indians at the time; it has seen the horrors 
 of a siege, and a surrender. 
 
 It has seen the ascendency of the English and the unbridled license 
 that their officers of that day gave to their lust arid passions. It 
 was during the ownership of both these nations the greatest market 
 for Indian trade — especially in furs and brandy — in the country. 
 To this spot the savages continually flocked, often, yes, very often, 
 bringing with them wretched white prisoners, many of whom, to the 
 credit of both the French and the English, were ransomed by the 
 officers of the fort. 
 
 It has seen the most shameless plans prepared here by British 
 leaders and Indian chiefs, the natures of both being as much that 
 of fiends as of men formed in the image of their Maker. 
 
 It has seen marauding parties sallying out from here to rob, 
 murder and destroy. It has witnessed bloody strife between the 
 great English-speaking nations of the old and new world respectively. 
 
 And to-day the old fort remains, as a relic, but bearing within its 
 ramparts and in the earthworks outside, the standing records of 
 history for at least 150 years back. And with a record back of that, 
 which is somewhat traced in this article for over another hundred 
 years ; and back of that still, is an unknown history when this spot 
 of land was owned by the Neuter nation. 
 
84 
 
 OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY. 
 
 It is sincerely to be hoped that the United States will forever guard 
 and preserve these buildings and the earthworks of the old fort, and 
 not allow them to be razed or restored. They should be allowed to 
 remain intact, as memorials of the history of former generations. 
 
 And so, in the belief that I have proved the statement, I close sub- 
 stantially as I began, by asserting that no one spot of land in North 
 America has played a more important part, been more coveted, and 
 exerted a greater influence, both in peace and war, on the control, on 
 the growth, on the settlement, and on the civilization of the country, 
 than the few acres embraced within the limits of old Fort Niagara ! 
 
 HOT SHOT FURNACE. 
 
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