Fort Western

Last updated
Fort Western
Fort Western, Main Building, Bowman Street, Augusta (Kennebec County, Maine).jpg
Fort Western in 1936
USA Maine location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Usa edcp location map.svg
Red pog.svg
LocationBowman Street, Augusta, Maine
Coordinates 44°18′59″N69°46′16″W / 44.31639°N 69.77111°W / 44.31639; -69.77111
Arealess than one acre
Built1754
ArchitectGershom Flagg
NRHP reference No. 69000009
Significant dates
Added to NRHPDecember 2, 1969 [1]
Designated NHLNovember 7, 1973 [2]

Fort Western is a former British colonial outpost at the head of navigation on the Kennebec River at modern Augusta, Maine, United States. It was built in 1754 during the French and Indian War, and is now a National Historic Landmark and local historic site owned by the city. Its main building, the only original element of the fort to survive, was restored in 1920 and now depicts its original use as a trading post.

Contents

French and Indian War

Fort Western, Maine Fort Western, Maine.png
Fort Western, Maine

Fort Western was built by a Boston land company (the Kennebec Proprietors) in 1754 as a fortified trading post, and to promote settlement in the area. The fort was a log palisade with blockhouses which protected a store and warehouse. It was never directly attacked. From a high elevation a large rectangular enclosure commanded the river for more than a mile. Blockhouses 24 feet square and watch-boxes 12 feet square guarded opposite corners, and within stood a two-story main house 100 by 32 feet (30.5 m × 9.8 m). After the war ended, James Howard, its last commander, purchased the fort and operated the trading post. [3]

American Revolution

Historical marker noting that Benedict Arnold left Fort Western in 1775 for Quebec. Benedict Arnold marker at Fort Western, ME IMG 2045.JPG
Historical marker noting that Benedict Arnold left Fort Western in 1775 for Quebec.

After 1769, Fort Western fell into decay. In 1775, Benedict Arnold's expedition to Quebec stopped at Fort Western long enough to repair bateaux. Arnold, Daniel Morgan, Roger Enos, and Aaron Burr stayed as guests in the garrison while their force camped outside. Fort Western was the starting point for the march through the wilderness to Quebec.

Old Fort Western

Fort Western in Augusta, Maine Restoration of Fort Western, Augusta, ME IMG 2046.JPG
Fort Western in Augusta, Maine

The main building of the fort eventually passed out of the Howard family, and was converted into a tenement house. It was repurchased in Howard family descendants in 1919, and restored the following year, which included the construction of two new blockhouses and a stockade. The stockade was again rebuilt in 1960. [3] Today its main building is a little-altered example of an 18th-century trading post. The fort and store are maintained as a museum and are open to the public during the summer months.

The fort was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1969, and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1973. [2] [3]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Augusta, Maine</span> Capital city of the U.S. state of Maine

Augusta is the capital of the U.S. state of Maine and the county seat of and most populous city in Kennebec County. Augusta is included in the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine metropolitan New England city and town area. The city's population was 18,899 at the 2020 census, making it the 12th most populous city in Maine, and 3rd least populous state capital in the United States after Montpelier, Vermont, and Pierre, South Dakota.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Citadel Hill (Fort George)</span> Historic site in Nova Scotia, Canada

Citadel Hill is a hill that is a National Historic Site in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Four fortifications have been constructed on Citadel Hill since the city was founded by the English in 1749, and were referred to as Fort George—but only the third fort was officially named Fort George. According to General Orders of October 20, 1798, it was named after King George III. The first two and the fourth and current fort, were officially called the Halifax Citadel. The last is a concrete star fort.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arkansas Post</span> Historic site and museum in Arkansas County, Arkansas

The Arkansas Post, formally the Arkansas Post National Memorial, was the first European settlement in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain and present-day U.S. state of Arkansas. In 1686, Henri de Tonti established it on behalf of Louis XIV of France for the purpose of trading with the Quapaw Nation. The French, Spanish, and Americans, who acquired the territory in 1803 with the Louisiana Purchase, considered the site of strategic value. It was the capital of Arkansas from 1819 until 1821 when the territorial government relocated to Little Rock.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Ouiatenon</span>

Fort Ouiatenon, built in 1717, was the first fortified European settlement in what is now Indiana, United States. It was a palisade stockade with log blockhouse used as a French trading post on the Wabash River located approximately three miles southwest of modern-day West Lafayette. The name 'Ouiatenon' is a French rendering of the name in the Wea language, waayaahtanonki, meaning 'place of the whirlpool'. It was one of three French forts built during the 18th century in what was then New France, later the Northwest Territory and today the state of Indiana, the other two being Fort Miami and Fort Vincennes. A substantial French settlement grew up around the fort in the mid-18th century. It was ceded to the British and abandoned after the French and Indian War. Later, it passed into Indian hands and was destroyed in 1791 by American militia during the Northwest Indian War. It was never a U.S. fort. The original site was rediscovered in the 1960s; the archaeological site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Norridgewock</span> United States historic place

Norridgewock was the name of both an Indigenous village and a band of the Abenaki Native Americans/First Nations, an Eastern Algonquian tribe of the United States and Canada. The French of New France called the village Kennebec. The tribe occupied an area in the interior of Maine. During colonial times, this area was territory disputed between British and French colonists, and was set along the claimed western border of Acadia, the western bank of the Kennebec River.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Edgecomb</span> Historic site in Maine, United States

Fort Edgecomb, built in 1808–1809, is a two-story octagonal wooden blockhouse with restored fortifications located on Davis Island in the town of Edgecomb, Lincoln County, Maine, United States. It is the centerpiece of the Fort Edgecomb State Historic Site. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1969, with its boundaries increased to create a historic district in 1991.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Frederick State Park</span> State park in Maryland, US

Fort Frederick State Park is a public recreation and historic preservation area on the Potomac River surrounding the restored Fort Frederick, a fortification active in the French and Indian War (1754–1763) and the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783). The state park lies south of the town of Big Pool, Maryland. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal runs through the park grounds. The site was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1973.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benedict Arnold's expedition to Quebec</span> 1775 U.S. incursion into British Quebec

In September 1775, early in the American Revolutionary War, Colonel Benedict Arnold led a force of 1,100 Continental Army troops on an expedition from Cambridge in the Province of Massachusetts Bay to the gates of Quebec City. The expedition was part of a two-pronged invasion of the British Province of Quebec, and passed through the wilderness of what is now Maine. The other expedition invaded Quebec from Lake Champlain, led by Richard Montgomery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Register of Historic Places listings in Maine</span>

There are approximately 1,600 properties and districts listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the U.S. State of Maine. Each of the state's 16 counties has more than forty listings on the National Register.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Halifax (Maine)</span> United States historic place

Fort Halifax is a former British colonial outpost on the banks of the Sebasticook River, just above its mouth at the Kennebec River, in Winslow, Maine. Originally built as a wooden palisaded fort in 1754, during the French and Indian War, only a single blockhouse survives. The oldest blockhouse in the United States, it is preserved as Fort Halifax State Historic Site, and is open to the public in the warmer months. The fort guarded Wabanaki canoe routes that reached to the St. Lawrence and Penobscot Valleys via the Chaudière-Kennebec and Sebasticook-Souadabscook rivers. The blockhouse was declared a National Historic Landmark and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1968.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Klock</span> United States historic place

Fort Klock, a fortified stone homestead in the Mohawk River Valley of Upstate New York, was built c.1750 by Johannes Klock, and is a good example of a mid-18th century fortified home and trading post, seeing use during the French and Indian War and the American Revolutionary War The fort is located at 7203 Route 5 roughly two miles (3 km) east of the Village of St. Johnsville, New York. Fort Klock is part of a 30-acre (12 ha) complex that includes the historic homestead, a renovated Colonial Dutch Barn, blacksmith shop, and 19th-century schoolhouse. The site is maintained by Fort Klock Historic Restoration and is open seasonally as a living museum. The fort was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1972.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Mitchell Historic Site</span> Archaeological site in Alabama, United States

Fort Mitchell Historic Site is a park and an archaeological site in Fort Mitchell, Alabama, that was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1990. The park features a reconstruction of the 1813 stockade fort that was an important United States military post in the Creek War, a museum with exhibits about the fort's history, and a collection of historic carriages, a restored 19th-century log home, and a visitor center.

New Russia was a trading-post for furs and a penal colony established by Russians in 1796 in present-day Yakutat Borough, Alaska. It was presumably named after the Joseph Billings ship Slava Rossii, or "Glory of Russia".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yakima Park Stockade Group</span> United States historic place

The Yakima Park Stockade Group, also known as North and South Blockhouses and Stockade at Sunrise, is a building complex consisting of four log buildings at the Sunrise Visitors Center area in the northeast part of Mount Rainier National Park. The complex is architecturally significant as a particularly fine example of rustic frontier log architecture. The first of the blockhouses and the stockade were built in 1930, while the second blockhouse followed in 1943. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1987. It is in turn part of the Mount Rainier National Historic Landmark District, which encompasses the entire park and which recognizes the park's inventory of Park Service-designed rustic architecture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Kent (fort)</span> Historic site in Maine, United States

Fort Kent, located at the confluence of the Fish and Saint John rivers in the town of Fort Kent, Maine, United States, is the only surviving American fortification built during the border tensions with neighboring New Brunswick known as the Aroostook War. It is preserved as the Fort Kent State Historic Site, which features an original log blockhouse that is open for visits in the summer. The fort was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1969 and declared a National Historic Landmark in 1973.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cushnoc Archeological Site</span> United States historic place

The Cushnoc Archeological Site, also known as Cushnoc or Koussinoc or Coussinoc, is an archaeological site in Augusta, Maine that was the location of a 17th-century trading post operated by English colonists from Plymouth Colony in present-day Massachusetts. The trading post was built in 1628 and lies on the Kennebec River. The English primarily traded with bands of the Abenaki nation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kennebec Arsenal</span> United States historic place

Kennebec Arsenal is a historic arsenal on Arsenal Street in Augusta, Maine. Largely developed between 1828 and 1838 in part because of border disputes with neighboring New Brunswick, it was designated a National Historic Landmark District in 2000 as a good example of a nearly intact early 19th-century munitions storage facility. The arsenal property was garrisoned until 1901, after which it was turned over to the State of Maine as an expansion of the adjacent Maine State Hospital. The state for many years housed mental health patients there.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colonial Pemaquid State Historic Site</span> Historic district in Maine, United States

Colonial Pemaquid State Historic Site is a publicly owned historic property operated by the state of Maine near Pemaquid Beach in Bristol, Maine. The site includes the reconstructed Fort William Henry, archaeological remains of 17th- and 18th-century village buildings and fortifications, and a museum with artifacts found on the site including musket balls, coins, pottery, and early hardware.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Register of Historic Places listings in Kennebec County, Maine</span>

This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Kennebec County, Maine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Bonneville</span> United States historic place

Fort Bonneville was a fortified winter camp and fur trading post near present-day Pinedale, Wyoming established in 1832 by Captain Benjamin Bonneville. Bonneville's party was engaged in the exploration of Wyoming, crossing the South Pass with 110 men and about 20 wagons. Bonneville completed the stockade on the Green River on August 9, 1832. Heavy fall snows caused Bonneville to reconsider the site, and the party abandoned it, leading the place to become known as Bonneville's Folly or Fort Nonsense. Bonneville moved on to the Salmon River in Idaho for the winter. The Green River site functioned as a rendezvous until the party returned east in 1835.

References

  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
  2. 1 2 "Fort Western". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Archived from the original on 2010-09-23. Retrieved 2008-05-14.
  3. 1 2 3 Charles Snell (1972). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination: Fort Western" (PDF). National Park Service. Retrieved 2009-06-22.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help) and Accompanying two photos, exterior, from 1971  (484 KB)