Old Fort Plain New York History

Fort Plain was built in 1776 under the direction of Colonel Elias Dayton. The chief carpenter was John Broderick. Farmers of the area drew the logs for the stockade and timbers for the barracks and blockhouses and helped build them.

The fort was an irregular quadrangle about 250 by 375 feet, with two small blockhouses "kitty cornered" from each one probably on the southeastern corner. The stockade or "palisade"-as this high fencing of logs was often called-also enclosed a large blockhouse, an earlier fortification, and two barracks, one at the eastern and the other at the western end.

The fort stood at the southeastern section of the hill on the farm then owned by Johan Lipe, and early Palatine settler. The octagonal blockhouse, built nearly five years later-1780-1781, was located about 400 feet northwestward of the fort. It is frequently pictured as Fort Plain, which is not as it was only a subsidiary fortification built to command Lipe's ravine. Fort Plain was destined to become one of the most important posts of the Mohawk valley and the northern border of New York State, during the War for American Independence.

Fort Plain was the central strong point of the Middle Mohawk Valley, with a cordon of ten forts surrounding it within a maximum distance of six air miles. These ten posts, of varying strength, were as follows, from north of Fort Plain running around clockwise.

Fort Willet (1781), five miles west of Fort Plain on Dutchtown road, present Route 5S.
Fort Windecker, present Mindenville.
Fort Klock, about one mile east of St. Johnsville, on present Route 5.
Fort Wagner, on present Route 5 about two miles west of present Nellistion.
Fort Paris, 1776, Stone Arabia.
Fort Kyser, present McKinley section.
Fort Van Alstyne, present Front Street Canajoharie.
Fort Failing, on present 5S about one mile west of Canajoharie.
Fort Clyde, Freysbush, 1776.
Fort Planck near present Route 5S about three miles west of Fort Plain.
Fort House was located at present West St. in St. Johnsville.

These forts, aside from Fort Plain and Fort Paris, were generally neighborhood refuge posts with militia garrisons or guards. They were, like Fort Plain, stockades with small logs, or saplings, from 10 to 15 feet high over a trench in which they were set. Each fort also had one or more blockhouses. A parapet was built on the inside of the stockade four or five feet below the top of the logs, on which garrison's soldiers stood in defense of the post. Most of the forts also had cannon used for defense or to signal the approach of enemy raiders.

Because of Fort Plain's location, as the center of the circle of ten forts, General Van Rensselaer made it his headquarters post of this sector in August 1780. Because of its central location in the Mohawk valley, Colonel Willet made Fort Plain his headquarters in 1781.

Sources:

Fort Plain Nelliston History 1580-1947, Fort Plain Nelliston Historical Society, 1947, reprinted in 1987.