Historical Development of the Fort
Fort Niagara, 1869
- 30 Officers' Quarters (French Castle), 1726
- 31c Old Bakehouse, 1762 altered c.1807-10
- 32 South Redoubt, 1770
- 33 North Redoubt, 1770-71
- 34b Barracks, 1762
- 35 Powder Magazine, 1757
- 37 Shot Furnace, 1843
- 463a Office, c.1814
- 470 New Bakehouse, 1869
- 471a Guardhouse (proposed location), 1869
- 477a North Casemate Entrance, c.1864
- 478a South Casemate Entrance, c.1864
The crisis of 1837 had long passed by the time Captain Fraser completed his improvements to Fort Niagara in 1843. The Niagara Frontier had returned to a state of peace that would not be disrupted for nearly two decades. Everything projected by Fraser had been completed, however, except for mounting artillery. This would be done if war threatened.
Overlooked, however, were the miserable accommodations for the garrison. The barracks shown by Fraser in 1840 dated to the era of the War of 1812 and had not been well-constructed to begin with. An 1848 report that the "Quarters and Barracks ... are not fit to be used by man" described the problem. Numerous complaints resulted in construction of a new soldiers' barracks and a hospital along the lake side of the fort during 1849-50. Unfortunately, the fine new buildings were never occupied. On the morning of May 19, 1850 they were entirely destroyed by a fire which also consumed an earlier barracks (464b) and the seawall blockhouse (469). The housing problem was intensified, but the situation had not been rectified by the time the fort's garrison was withdrawn in 1854.
When troops returned in 1861 it was to another period of tension with Britain, this time over the Civil War. The crisis found Fort Niagara's defenses again obsolescent, the 1839-43 fortifications already bypassed by technological progress. Fort Niagara was again ordered improved, and work on the first phase of the project. the crumbling old land-side earthworks, began during the summer of 1863. The problems of this front were to be remedied once and for all by strong concrete revetments, faced with brick and equipped with casemated artillery positions. Most of this work had been completed by 1869. Despite the modem materials, however, the original trace of these fortifications, laid out by Captain Pouchot in 1755, remained essentially unchanged. Further work was projected, including new masonry walls on the river side. Experience from the Civil War had demonstrated the vulnerability of masonry forts to rifled artillery, however, and the plans for Fort Niagara were altered several times before finally being abandoned.
Despite all the effort expended on fortifications, a guardhouse (471a) and bakery (470) were the only new buildings projected within the walls. Both were constructed during 1869. This sketch is based on James S. Lawrence's "Plan of Fort Niagara, 1869" which shows the renovated land defenses, the bakery and the guardhouse in its proposed location. When the guardhouse was constructed, it was actually placed immediately adjacent to Fraser's obsolete shot furnace (37).