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Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings

	FORT STANWIX NATIONAL MONUMENT New York	Fort Stanwix National Monument
Oneida County, site bounded approximately by Dominick, Spring, Liberty, and North James Streets, in downtown Rome; address: 112 East Park Street Rome, NY 13440. Fort Stanwix National Monument

Significance. Situated at a key location on the route between the Great Lakes and the Mohawk River, the log-and-earth Fort Stanwix was erected by the British in 1758, during the French and Indian War. No action occurred at the fort during that conflict, but in 1768 by the Treaty of Fort Stanwix the Iroquois ceded to the English a vast territory south and east of the Ohio River, and as far west as the mouth of the Tennessee River. By 1774 the British had dismantled and abandoned the fort.

In 1776 American troops occupied the fort. In August the following year they repulsed the western wing of a British invasion of the northern colonies from Canada and checked the possibility of a Loyalist uprising in the Mohawk Valley. Because the retreat to Canada of the western column after the failure to capture Fort Stanwix was a blow to the British strategy of concentration at Albany, it contributed to the defeat of Burgoyne at Saratoga, a few months later. In 1784 the leaders of the Iroquois, who had been seriously weakened during the War for Independence and recognized the futility of further resistance to the white advance, signed the second Treaty of Fort Stanwix. They ceded to the United States a small tract of land in western New York, and all that part of Pennsylvania north and west of the Indian boundary line designated in the first treaty. They also relinquished their claim to land west of the Ohio River—a claim, however, that other tribes disputed.

Fort Stanwix.

Fort Stanwix National Monument is a reconstructed Revolutionary War-era fort, with related outworks, located in downtown Rome, New York. The fort is owned and managed by the National Park Service. The reconstructed fort was built on the site of the original Fort Stanwix. The National Monument site occupies approximately 16 acres and is bordered by main thoroughfares surrounded by a mixture of commercial, residential, light industrial, and institutional land uses. The site of the fort, but not the reconstructed structure, is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and is a National Historic Landmark, significant for the events that transpired there and its role in the American Revolution.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the enabling legislation for the national monument into law on 21 August 1935. Fort reconstruction began in the mid-1960s in tandem with an urban renewal program in downtown Rome to build two large city blocks anchored by a pedestrian mall. The National Park Service completed a master plan for Fort Stanwix in 1967. This plan recommended full reconstruction of the fort, the ruins of which lay beneath the City of Rome?s downtown. In 1970, the Park Service began a three-year archeological investigation of the site of Fort Stanwix. In 1974, reconstruction of the fort began. In 1976, the partially completed reconstructed fort opened to the public in time for the nation?s celebration of the 200th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. In 1977-78, further reconstruction work was done.

The reconstructed fort currently consists of an earth and timber-clad, reinforced concrete structure that surrounds three freestanding buildings. One remaining original feature, the foundation of a brick fireplace, is located within the reconstructed fort. Some original buildings and features of the fort remain unreconstructed, including the Northwest Bombproof, the Northeast Bombproof, the Headquarters, the Guard House, the Ravelin, the Bake House in the Southeast Bombproof, the Necessary, and the Sallyport and its Redoubt.

NHL Designation: 11/23/62