Old Fort Niagara Captured
In the final hours of December 18, 1813, approximately midway through the War of 1812, some 500 British soldiers (regulars) as well as some 500 militia and Indians—crossed the Niagara River from Canada determined to seize Old Fort Niagara on the opposite shore in New York. By sunrise on December 19, the British were victorious and America’s Niagara frontier lay open to attack.
From Old Fort Niagara, the British marched on to destroy Youngstown, Lewiston, Manchester, Fort Schlosser, Black Rock, and Buffalo. While America countered these losses on other fronts, denying the British a sizable lead in the war, control of the fort allowed the British to dominate the Niagara River and regulate access to the Great Lakes where fighting continued.
The British had launched their Niagara assault to retaliate against the destruction of Newark, Canada, on December 10, beginning their advance to Old Fort Niagara. U.S. troops had destroyed the Canadian city to deny shelter to advancing British forces, and, in so doing, left some 400 Newark residents homeless—outraging both the British and Canadians.
U.S. forces expected a British strike following the Newark incident but were caught unprepared on the night of the attack. Fort commander Nathaniel Leonard was miles away in Lewiston visiting family, and the garrison’s picket soldiers—stationed nearby at Youngstown—had retreated indoors to escape the cold. After disarming the Youngstown pickets without a shot, the British advanced silently to the fort gate, arriving just as it opened to receive an American guard. Pushing past the entrance, the British found the majority of the fort’s approximately 460 soldiers asleep. With little opportunity to resist, the fort soon fell.
Old Fort Niagara stayed in British hands throughout the remainder of the War of 1812. In accordance with the 1814 Treaty of Ghent, which settled the war and restored the prewar status quo, Britain returned the post to the United States in 1815 after which it operated as a peaceful border post. Old Fort Niagara served as a barracks and training station for U.S. soldiers during both World Wars; the last U.S. Army units were withdrawn in 1963.
Learn More
- Read more about the War of 1812 in Today in History features on the:
- defeat of Tecumseh at Fort Meigs, Ohio
- British attack on Baltimore
- burning of Washington, D.C.
- battle of New Orleans
- Consult A Guide to the War of 1812 for links to selected materials on the war on the Library’s Web site, a bibliography, and external sites.
- Search across the collections on War of 1812 to find more items related to America’s “second fight for independence.”
The Digital Collections also have a wealth of materials on Niagara Falls.
- Search the pictorial collections on the term Niagara Falls for more than 400 images of the Niagara region.
- Just south of Fort Niagara lay the spectacular Niagara Falls, which many couples visit on their honeymoon. Search the collection Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music, ca1870-1885 on the terms Niagara or honeymoon for related sheet music. See, for example, the 1881 piece “Honeymoon Galopp.”
The Williamsburg Bridge
On December 19, 1903, New Yorkers celebrated the opening of the Williamsburg Bridge, the second and largest of three steel-frame suspension bridges to eventually span the city’s East River. Designed by Leffert L. Buck and Henry Hornbostel, it had taken over seven years to complete. Built to alleviate traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge and to provide a link between Manhattan and the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, the Williamsburg Bridge—with its main span at 1,596 feet—was the world’s longest suspension bridge until the 1920s.
Originally open to horse-drawn carriages, bicycles, and pedestrians, the Williamsburg Bridge soon became a vital transportation route for trolleys and elevated subway trains, spurring the growth of Brooklyn’s working-class neighborhoods. In the 1920s, the bridge was reconfigured to accommodate eight lanes of traffic. As of 2007, it carried more than 110,000 vehicles per day and some 92,000 additional subway riders.
Present to film the opening of the Williamsburg Bridge were cameramen James Blair Smith and G. W. “Billy” Bitzer. Their films, respectively, Opening of New East River Bridge, New York, produced by the Thomas Edison Company, and Opening the Williamsburg Bridge, produced by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, each contain footage of the bridge along with close-ups of the dignitaries and press in attendance. Note the large wooden box cameras carried by the press photographers.
Learn More
- See more photographs of the Williamsburg Bridge. Search on Williamsburg Bridge in these digital collections:
- Detroit Publishing Company, Prints & Photographs Division
- Gottscho-Schleisner Collection, Prints & Photographs Division
- Robert N. Dennis Collection of Stereoscopic Views , New York Public Library
- Browse the subject index of The Life of a City: Early Films of New York, 1898-1906 to find more early films of New York.
- Search Today in History on New York City to find more features on historic city events such as the opening of the subway system and Radio City Music Hall. Search on bridge or building to read about engineering and architectural achievements including the Golden Gate Bridge and the Empire State Building.
- See more examples of architecture, engineering, and design in the collection Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscapes Survey. Individual surveys include all four of New York’s East River Bridges: the Brooklyn Bridge, the Williamsburg Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge, and the Queensboro Bridge. Browse the collection by location to find other New York structures or search on the term bridge to see many different types of bridges from across the United States.
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