Point Mississauga Lighthouse

This site, Point Mississauga, was originally home to a hexagonal stone lighthouse constructed in 1804 under the orders of the Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, Peter Hunter. The first lighthouse to be built on the Great Lakes, the post was occupied and operated by Dominick, a retired soldier from the Fort George Garrison, and Mary Madden Henry from its construction until the structure was demolished in 1814. Fort Mississauga, the successor structure, which was partially built using material from the old lighthouse. The lighthouse was accompanied by a single-story wooden house for the Henrys and their children.

During the battle of Fort George in 1813, American landing parties clashed with British and allied forces along the shoreline near the lighthouse. Mary Henry gained popular acclaim from the British regulars by serving food and drink to the beleaguered redcoats in the heat of battle and tending to the wounded with her husband Dominick, putting herself at considerable risk on the smoke-shrouded battlefield. Archaeological remains of the lighthouse are believed to be situated below what is now the eastern mortar bastion of Fort Mississauga National Historic Site of Canada, although no aboveground evidence survives.

Fort Mississauga

Following the American capture of Fort George and Newark (present-day Niagara-on-the-Lake) in May of 1813, Fort George was reduced to ash by the American bombardment of hotshot, which burned the almost entirely wooden fortification. Upon the recapture of the area by British forces in the winter of 1813, the need for a more robust fortification was recognized. While a smaller iteration of Fort George was constructed in 1814 - 1815, the British Army Corps of Royal Engineers began to plan and oversee the construction of Fort Mississauga on Mississauga Point, a much more strategically valuable location than that of Fort George, overlooking the mouth of the Niagara River and opposing Fort Niagara on the American bank.

Bricks and construction materials were salvaged from the ruins of Newark, which had been burned by American forces upon their withdrawal across the Niagara in December of 1813, and the lighthouse was demolished to make way for the new fortification. The fort's construction was undertaken by Captain Runchey's Company of Coloured Men, an African-Canadian company of volunteers, and completed in 1815, after the War of 1812 had concluded with the Treaty of Paris. The plan called for four 24-pounder carriage-mounted cannons facing the lake and river, two furnaces to heat hotshot, a lighthouse, a signals post outside of the walls, a pair of subterranean gunpowder magazines, and barracks for a garrison of 80 men. Designed to be more compact and hardy than Fort George, Fort Mississauga represented a new era of fortification in North America, with the earthen star-fort structure becoming increasingly popular with the advancement of gunpowder technology throughout the nineteenth century.

The Fort was occupied by the British Army from its construction until 1855, with 50 men being garrisoned there throughout the troubled period of 1837-1840, during the Upper Canadian Rebellion led by William Lyon MacKenzie. Following Canadian independence in 1867, it was used sporadically by the Canadian Militia throughout Canada's early years. During the Fenian Raids along the Niagara River, Canadian Militia units used Fort Mississauga as a base of operations in the Lower Niagara throughout the 1860s. During the First and Second World Wars as well as Korea, Fort Mississauga was used as a part of the Camp Niagara complex as a training grounds for the Canadian army. A dock complex was added and maintained at some point in the early twentieth century, but this has since deteriorated and been reclaimed by the lake. Today, the fort is a national historic site and maintained by Parks Canada, and is located within the Niagara-on-the-Lake golf course's grounds, although the fort remains accessible to the general public. Recently, the roof of the Fort Mississauga blockhouse was replaced and the building renovated; the construction was completed in early 2020.

Fort Mississauga is situated within the Niagara-on-the-Lake Gold Club. While the Golf course itself remains private-access, the fort is accessible to the general public via a gravel path neat the corner of Simcoe and Front Streets. COVID-19 social distancing is mandated on the site at all times.