Then: Fort Chippawa

Kingsbridge Park, operated by the Niagara Parks Commission, is located on the site where Fort Chippawa once stood. The park is named for the first bridge to have spanned the Welland River, a drawbridge constructed in 1790, a year before the Fort was built.

Fort Chippawa was a part of the string of defences laid on the Canadian bank of the Niagara River to defend against American attack, which came in the War of 1812. Fortifications were first erected here in 1791, to establish control over the mouth of the Welland River. Stretching from Fort George in Niagara-on-the-Lake (then called "Newark") to Fort Erie, the fortifications and battlefields of Niagara,saw the bloodiest fighting of the war.

Fort Chippawa - sometimes called Fort Welland - consisted of a palisaded wooden blockhouse and storehouse, built to protect the southern terminus of the Niagara portage road. Around the turn of the eighteenth century, merchant warehouses and docks were constructed on the King's land. An 1801 watercolour sketch by Scottish-born artist George Heriot, shows what the area looked like at that time.

Fort Chippawa served as a "depot" for forwarding government supplies to other British fortifications and positions within Niagara. Following the declaration of war in 1812, Fort Chippawa became increasingly important, since the Niagara campaign raged from 1812-1814.

Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Clark, of the 2nd Lincoln Militia, led a party from Fort Chippawa in small bateaux across the Niagara river at dawn on July 5, 1813. Their target was Fort Schlosser, the American fort across the river. The raid was a success. The British regulars and Canadian militiamen took the fort's sole guard prisoner, and captured a gunboat, a six-pound field cannon, supplies, and a number of American firearms with ammunition. Hoping to leave before facing resistance, Clark's force prepared to re-embark - but they came under fire from local American militia who arrived just as the British prepared to leave in their boats. The British party escaped without casualties, rowing their vessels across the river while under fire from the American shore. In December 1813, another British party returned to Fort Schlosser and burnt the blockhouse and stockade, meeting no resistance.

In the leadup to the Battle of Chippawa, Major-General Phineas Riall's British force of about 2,000 soldiers camped along the north shore of the Welland River, including in Fort Chippawa. Following the battle on July 5, 1814, the defeated British forces regrouped at the fort. When U.S. General Jacob Brown's left division of the Army of the North reached the Fort, in pursuit of the British forces, the position proved too fortified to breach, and the Americans were forced to circumnavigate the fort further to the west, after which Riall withdrew to prevent his own forces from being cut off from the British positions to the north.

Upon falling into American hands, Fort Chippawa was destroyed. Following the recapture of Niagara in late 1814, the fort was rebuilt in 1814-15, with the construction of a barracks and storehouse, officers' quarters, and earthworks. A similar and roughly contemporary example of the storehouse/barracks buildings can be found in Fort George in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Supplies would be stored on the lower floor, while the enlisted men of the garrison would bunk in the upper storey. However, shortly after the fort's reconstruction, the War of 1812 ended. The Fort Chippawa site was abandoned, and fell into disrepair.

Now: Kingsbridge Park

Fort Chippawa was originally located on the southern bank of the Welland River. But due to construction of the Second Welland Canal in the 1840s, a new navigation channel was cut. The old channel was filled in, and the land that the Fort once stood upon then became a part of the northern bank of the re-routed river, because of the in-fill.

Today, the Fort Chippawa site is marked by a blue heritage plaque placed by the Ontario Archaeological and Historic Sites Board. There is a partner plaque commemorating Lieutenant-Colonel Clark's raid on Fort Schlosser.

Nowadays, the former site of military fortifications and vicious pitched battles, is now a peaceful and well-used waterfront park, with parking facilities, picnic tables, playgrounds, and sweeping views of the Niagara and Welland rivers.

Collins, Gilbert. 2006. "Fort Chippawa" from Guidebook to the Historic Sites of the War of 1812, pp. 134-135.

Brown, Alan A. 2004. Ontario Plaques. Fort Chippawa.

George Heriot (artist). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Heriot_(artist)

Niagara Falls Then and Now
A collaborative project
Niagara Falls Museums - Niagara Falls Public Library - Dept. of Geography and Tourism Studies,Brock University.
Original newspaper series by Sherman Zavitz, Official Historian for the City of Niagara Falls from 1994 - 2019.

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