The main building of old Fort Niagara, “The Castle,” is probably the oldest piece of masonry in the State of New York, having been constructed by the French in 1726. The stone-work of the barracks, a structure 134 by 24 feet with walls only eight feet in height, goes back to 1757, and in this year was, also, built the magazine. The bake-house, replacing a former one on the same site, was put up by the British in 1762 and the two stone block-houses by them in 1771 and 1773.
In the two hundred and eighty-eight and a half acres of the government reservation here one is in touch visibly with the Past. And what deeds of the Past these old stone buildings might tell if they were given power of speech!
The name Niagara is of Iroquois origin, as are so many names of New York State, and is of ancient application to the river and the falls which bear them. The falls of the Niagara are indicated on Champlain’s map of 1632 and in 1648 are spoken of by the Jesuit Rugueneau as “a cataract of frightful height.” It is certain that the indefatigable emissaries of the order of which he was a member had penetrated to the region of the great falls before this. In 1678 the falls were visited by the Friar Louis Hennepin, who drew a curious picture of them, still preserved, and gave a more curious and exaggerated description.
Copyright, Detroit Publishing Company
FORT NIAGARA, ON NIAGARA RIVER, N. Y.
In the year that the good Friar Hennepin was paying his respects to Nature’s great wonder, Robert Cavelier Sieur de la Salle was building his fort at Frontenac, now Kingston, Canada West, and in 1675 King Louis XIV, that brilliant and indefatigable monarch of France, whose legislative labors in opposition to race suicide in Canada justly earned him the title of the Father of Canada, bestowed upon our cavalier a large grant of land near his fort. La Salle, inspired by the brilliant discoveries of Marquette and Joliet in the region farther west than that wherein he had his bailiwick, determined to explore the lands south of Ontario and to connect the territories which he hoped thus to acquire with Quebec by means of a series of posts. Empowered by his royal master with letters warrant to embark upon this form of enterprise, he crossed over Ontario, picked out a settlement point at, or near, the present Lewiston, New York, and commenced the building of a small vessel on Cayuga Creek above the falls, the supplies for this vessel being carried from his little settlement near Lewiston, below the falls, and in the direction of his main base at Fort Frontenac. At the same time he commenced the construction of a small fort at the mouth of the Niagara River, which would guard the approaches to his work farther in the interior and would also serve as one of the chain of posts by which he hoped to secure to France the territory which he meant to acquire.
This little fort on Niagara Point at the mouth of the Niagara River was kept up by La Salle during the remainder of his career in the New World, and was continued by the Marquis de Nonville, Governor of New France, who, in 1687, raised it to the dignity of a “fort with four bastions.” At this time it was in the command of Troyes with 100 men. Soon after this the little place was besieged by Senecas, and while the four bastions and the other defences beat off the savage foe, the garrison perished almost to a man from the ravages of disease. Shortly after the point was abandoned and allowed to fall into decay. During the succeeding years of misfortune to the French the fort was filled only with weeds and vines and savage visitors,—early prototypes of present-day tourist throngs,—and it was not until 1725 that the place was reoccupied and rehabilitated.