St. Leger

The history of Rome as a water route linking the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean is of historical and commercial importance. Except for the short portage across nearly level ground between the Mohawk River east of the city and Wood Creek to the west, a traveler in colonial times could journey by water all the way from New York City to Canada. Indians used the portage for centuries. When Europeans arrived they called this trail the Oneida Carrying Place and inaugurated a significant period in American history--a period when nations fought for control of not only the Oneida Carrying Place, but the Mohawk Valley, the homelands of the Six Nations Confederacy, and the rich resources of North America as well. In this struggle Fort Stanwix would play a vital role. The British built Fort Stanwix in 1758 to replace three smaller forts, which protected the portage during the early years of the French and Indian War. It was named for its builder, Brigadier General John Stanwix.

Gansevoort

During the Revolutionary War, patriot leaders realized the need to defend the Mohawk Valley against British incursions and began rebuilding the fort in 1776. When Colonel Peter Gansevoort took command in the spring of 1777, there were rumors of a British invasion from Canada down the Mohawk Valley by a small force under General Barry St. Leger. Gansevoort doubled the efforts of his garrison, consisting of less than a thousand New York and Massachusetts infantry, to make the fort defensible.

Prior to his coming to bolster the defenses of the Mohawk Valley, Peter Gansevoort, the 28-year-old, Albany born commander of Fort Stanwix, had taken part in the 1775 invasion of Canada under General Richard Montgomery and, since March 1776, had been in charge of Fort George, New York.

Gansevoort's second in command was Lieutenant Colonel Marius Willett. He had spent most of his life before the war in New York City, where he attended Kings College (now Columbia University) and became a wealthy merchant and landowner. During the French and Indian War, he took part in the Ticonderoga and Frontenac expeditions. After the Revolution began he, like Gansevoort, participated in the 1775 Canadian invasion. The following year he was put in command of Constitution Island opposite West Point. He was later transferred to Fort Stanwix.

By the end of July, 1777, St. Leger's army of about 1,500 men was approaching Wood Creek. Gansevoort was defending Fort Stanwix with a force about half that of St. Leger's. The siege of Fort Stanwix officially began on August 3rd, after Gansevoort "rejected with disdain" the British demand for surrender.

Four days before, learning of the British advance, General Nicholas Herkimer ordered his Tryon County militia to muster at Fort Dayton near German Flatts on the Mohawk River about 50 miles east of Fort Stanwix. On August 4th some 900 men marched westward to reinforce Gansevoort, but were ambushed at Oriskany, an upcoming site on this road trip.

Known as "the fort that never surrendered," Fort Stanwix, under Gansevoort's the command, successfully repelled a nearly three week siege by British, German, Loyalist, Canadian and American Indian troops and warriors commanded by St. Leger. St. Leger called Fort Stanwix "a respectable Fortress strongly garrisoned ... and demanding a train of artillery. We were not masters of its speedy subjection."

The failed siege combined with the battles at Oriskany, Bennington, and Saratoga thwarted a coordinated effort by the British in 1777, under the leadership of Gen. John Burgoyne, to take the northern colonies, and led to American alliances with France and the Netherlands. Troops from Fort Stanwix also participated in the 1779 Clinton-Sullivan Campaign and protected America's northwest frontier from British campaigns until finally abandoned in 1781.

Fort Stanwix was garrisoned until 1781, but played no further active part in the war. In October 1784, American and Iroquois representatives met here to negotiate the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, which set terms for a separate peace with the Indians and forced the Iroquois Confederacy (except the Oneida and Tuscarora tribes which had supported the Americans) to cede large parts of their lands to the United States.

Today, Fort Stanwix has been almost completely reconstructed to its 1777 appearance. In the course of excavations prior to reconstructing the fort, a substantial quantity of 18th-century artifacts were unearthed. They offered some evidence of the activities that took place here during various periods of the fort's occupation. Some of the building tools and hardware recovered from the site include picks, gate spikes, chisels, axes, strap hinges, nails, pintles, tomahawks, hammers and pipes.

Fort Stanwix is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., April 1st to December 31st, except Thanksgiving and Christmas. During the summer, re-enactors can be found giving demonstrations in period dress.