Book Description

Fort Niagara is located at the northern mouth of the Niagara River about twelve miles from Niagara Falls. This scenic river and world-famous tourist area, which is now shared by the United States and Canada, was Iroquois territory in the 18th century being fought over by France and England. Fort Niagara: The British Occupation 1759–1796 dramatically portrays how the British Army took Fort Niagara from the French and Indians in 1759 and held it for thirty-seven years while Indian, French, British, and American warriors and diplomates vied for control of the Niagara River and its portage route into the Great Lake. If the men who garrisoned Fort Niagara joined up to “see the world,” they probably didn’t anticipate being stationed at this isolated frontier post. It is doubtful that few, if any, of the thousands who served at Fort Niagara recalled their time there as the best part of their military life, even as one British officer wrote home that it wasn’t as bad as he had expected. Some died at the fort, in raids out of the fort, or by accidents in the icy cold and volatile waters of the Great Lakes. Others, thinking they were on their way home for a welcomed leave, were unexpectedly rerouted to Boston in 1775 and fought in the battles of Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, and other famous battles of the Revolution. This second book about Fort Niagara by Patricia Kay Scott and William E. Utley carries on the history presented in Fort Niagara, the Key to the Indian Oceans and the French Movement to Dominate North America, published in 2019.