USA > New York > Niagara County > A brief history of old Fort Niagara > Part 7
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9
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,
1 Lossing's History of War of 1812, page 633, he quotes Colonel Murray's official report. 2 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 officers treated with shock- ing indignity." 1 -
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.2 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.
1 J L. Thompson, History of the War, 1816, page 186. 1 Fay's Official Reports, page 167.
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY
On March 27, 1815, under article 1 of the Treaty of Ghent, the fort was surrendered to and occupied by the United States, and it 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.1
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 official 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.
1 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
79
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY.
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, 1826. 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 the 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.
80
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 Niagara, 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.
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 England'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 43º 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.
2
FORT NIAGARA
6
5
7
9
·~. BLUFF ....
10
PLAN OF OLD FORT NIAGARA, 1896.
I. The Castle, or Mess House ; commenced 1725.
2. The Bake House ; built 1762.
3. Modern Wooden Houses.
4. Hot Shot Furnace ; built before IS12 ; rebuilt later.
5. French Magazine; built before 1759.
6. French Barracks ; built 1757.
7. Southwest Block House ; built 1756.
8. Northeast Block House ; built 1756.
9. Life Saving Station.
IO. Cemetery.
OLD FORT NIAGARA IN HISTORY.
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 thi 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 and 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.
THE
NIAGARA REGION IN
HISTORY
By PETER A. PORTER
Reprinted from the Niagara Power Number of Cassier's Magazine
NEW YORK AND LONDON
1895
Copyrighted by the CASSIER MAGAZINE CO. 1895
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Pelu Porta
PETER A. PORTER is prominently identi- fied with the interests of the city of Niagara Falls. As a member of the New York State Legislature in 1886, he introduced the Niagara Tunnel Bill, under which the Niagara power is now being developed.
THE NIAGARA REGION IN HISTORY.
By Peter E. Porter.
THE OLD STONE CHIMNEY AT NIAGARA, BUILT IN 1750.
N 1764 Sir William John- son, commander of the English forces in the Niagara region, supplement- ing the treaty of the preced- ing year between England and France, assembled all the Indian warriors of that region, some 2000 in number, comprising chiefly the hostile Sen- ecas, at Fort Niagara, and acquired from them, for the English Crown, together with other territory, a strip of land, four miles wide, on each bank of the Niagara river (the islands being excepted) from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. The Senecas also ceded to him, personally, at this time, "as proof of their regard and of their knowledge of the trouble which he had had with them from time to time," all the islands in the Niagara river, and he, in turn, as compelled by the military law of that period, ceded them to his Sovereign.
It is of the territory included in the above two grants, a region now popularly known as "the Niagara frontier," that the writer proposes to treat. And a famed and famous terri- tory it is, for it would be difficult to find anywhere else an equal area of country (36 miles long and 8 miles broad, be- sides the islands) around which cluster so many, so important and such varied associations as one finds there.
Through its centre flows the grand Niagara river, between whose banks the waters of four great lakes, -the water- shed of almost half a continent, -find their way to the ocean ; and through the centre of the deepest channel of this river runs the boundary line between
the two great nations of North Amer- ica. In it are located the Falls of Ni- agara, the ideal waterfall of the universe; in it are found the two government parks or reservations, established, re- spectively, by the State of New York and the province of Ontario, in order that the immediate surroundings of NI- agara might be preserved, as nearly as possible, in their natural state and be forever free to all mankind. In it one meets with many and wondrous aspects of natural scenery ; in it one finds geo- logic records, laid bare along the river's chasm by the force of the water thou- sands of years ago, and which hold so high a place in that science, that among its classifications the name Niagara is applied to one of the groups. In it are found botanic specimens of beauty and rarity, and it is stated that on Goat Island, embracing 80 acres, are to be found a greater number of species and flora than can be found in an equal area anywhere else. In it are to be found, also, the development of hydraulic en- terprises which are regarded as stupen- dous even in this age of marvels ; while as to places noted for historic interest one may truly say that it is all historie ground.
Within sight of the spray of the Falls the red men, in ages long gone by, lived, held their councils, waged their inhuman warfares and offered up their human sacrifices. To this Niagara re- gion long ago came the adventurous French traders, the forerunners of the "coureurs de bois," believed to have been the first white men who ever gazed upon the Falls, though the name of the man to whom that honour belongs, and the exact date at which he saw them will probably forever remain unknown.
Across Niagara's rapid stream went several of the early missionaries of the
5
6
NIAGARA IN HISTORY.
THE FIRST KNOWN PICTURE OF NIAGARA FALLS. (From Father Hennepin's " Nouvelle Decouverte," 1697.)
Catholic church as they carried the gos- pel to the various Indian tribes in the unknown wilderness. To this region came the French, first officially in the person of La Salle; afterwards, by their armies, seeking conquest and the con- trol of the fur trade. At the mouth of the Niagara river the French established one of their most important posts. There they traded with, conferred with and intrigued with the Indians, making firm friends of some of the tribes and bitter enemies of others ; and during the fourscore years that France held sway on the American continent, this region was a famous part of her domain in the new world.
Later on, steadily but surely driving the French before them, and finally totally depriving them of their posses- sions, came the English. Shortly after England became the undisputed owner of the region, the American Revolution began, and within twenty years after England had dispossessed France of this famous territory, she herself was compelled to recognize a new nation,
formed by her own descendants, and to cede to it one-half, or, counting the islands, more than one-half of the lands bordering on the Niagara river. From that time on, the United States and Great Britain have held undisputed possession of all this wondrous section.
Looking back in history for the first references to the Niagara region, we find them derived from Indian tradition or hearsay, and that, almost entirely by reason of the Falls and Rapids.
However, it was not their grandeur, but the fact that the Indians were com- pelled to carry their canoes so many miles around them that impressed them. Thus, the existence of a great fall at this point was known to the Indians all over the North American continent, we know not how far back ; certainly as early as the arrival of Columbus at San Salva- dor.
In 1535 Jacques Cartier made his second voyage to the St. Lawrence, and the Indians living along that river narrated to him what they had heard of the upper part of that stream, and of
7
NIAGARA IN HISTORY.
the lakes beyond, mentioning, in con- nection therewith, a cataract and a por- tage. Lescarbot, in his "History of New France," published in 1609, tells of this in his story of Cartier's voyage. This is the earliest reference ( 1535) to the Great Lake region and Niagara's cataract.
Champlain, in his " Des Sauvages," published in 1603, speaks of a "fall," which, clearly, is Niagara, and on the map, in his "Voyages," published in 1613, he locates a river with such approximate ex- actness as to be the Niagara beyond doubt, and in that river he indicates a " sault d'eau," or water-fall.
In 1615 Etienne Brulé, who was Champlain's inter- preter, was in that vicinity, in the territory of the Neu- ter nation, and may have been the first pale-face to have seen the Falls. In 1626 the Franciscan priest Joseph de la Roche Dallion was on the Niagara river in the course of his missionary labors among the Neutrals. It is more than probable that at this date the Ni- agara route westward, as distinguished from the Ot- tawa route, was known and had been traversed by white men-the French traders or "coureurs de bois" previ- ously mentioned. In the 1632 edition of his "Voy- ages," Champlain again, though inaccurately, lo- cates on his map a river which cannot be any other than the Niagara, and quite accurately locates also a "waterfall, very high. at the end of Lake St Louis (Ontario), where many kinds of fish are stunned in the descent."
In 1640 the Jesuit fathers Brebeuf and Chaumonot undertook their mis- sion to the Neuter nation, the existence of the famous river of this nation having been familiar to the Jesuits before this
date. They crossed from the westerly to the easterly shore of the Niagiri river, recrossing again, near where the village of Lewiston now stands, when their mission proved un necessful. In the Jesuit Relations we find references to this region. In that of 1641, published in 1642, Father L' Allement speaks of "the Neuter nation, Onguiaahra, har- ing the same name as the river," and
FATHER HENNEPIN. From an Edition of 17 2.
in that of 1648, published in 1649, Father Ragueneau speaks of "Lake Erie which is formed by the waters from the Mer Douce (Lake Huron), and which discharges itself into a third lake, called Ontario, over a cataract of fearful height."
Sanson in his map of Canada, 1657, correctly locates the lakes and this re- gion, and calls the Falls "Ongiara
8
NIAGARA IN HISTORY.
Sault." In Davity, 1660, Le Sieur Gendron refers to the Falls in the exact words of Father Ragueneau above. In his " Historiæ Canaden- sis," De Creuxius very nearly cor- rectly locates this region and the Niagara river, and calls the Falls " On- giara Cataractes." In 1669 La Salle made a visit to the Senecas who dwelt in what is now known as Western New
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.