Fort Ontario: America's History

On a rare sunny spring Saturday in Upstate New York, I decided to head thirty miles to the north to see and photograph Lake Ontario. Having been told there are great photo opportunities along the lake's shores, I had worn my walking shoes anticipating long, exhausting promenades along the beach in hopes of capturing its landscape and the wildlife it sustains. However, my plans were waylaid as I drove into the small, lake-front town of Oswego and saw direction signs to Historic Fort Ontario. I had never seen, let alone been to, a fort before, so I spontaneously altered my day's itinerary and followed the call of the siren to the sight that had so far till then eluded my fancy.
I found myself in a park with a crowd gathered around a baseball field. I could see the fort in the distance but its parking lot and the road leading up to it were empty and cordoned off. I drove to where the baseball parking lot was, but I seemed to be headed away from my intended destination, so I turned around and parked in the grass, next to a couple of cars. I grabbed my camera, fitted it with my desired lens, and set the exposure settings so that I didn't have to fiddle with them once I exited the vehicle...saving me some time and the trouble of dealing with the harsh sun's reflection off the camera LCD screen.

The bearers of the bad news were a couple seated in the parked car to my left. As I closed the windows, I noticed them and decided to ask whether the fort was open to visitors due to the apparent closed roads and empty parking lot. They told me the State governor had shut down the fort as part of his budget-trimming aimed at saving the State some of its expenses burden. The fort's memorabilia and artifacts would be shelved in some storage in Albany, away from the eyes of visitors such as myself and others who might wish to learn more of its historical and cultural significance. There was a passion in the couple's voices as they spoke, and I was sure the fort was more than a massive deficit-inducing thorn in the side of the State budget.
I thanked them, exited the car, and walked towards the shuttered gates.

Fort Ontario was first built by the British in 1755 during the French and Indian War and called the "Fort of Six Nations." The six nations were the Native American nations comprising of the Iroquois Confederacy that was in place-by some estimates- about two centuries before Christopher Columbus set sail in search for a shorter route to the East Indies and their spices. The fort was destroyed soon after by the French forces, but it was rebuilt four years later. Since then, the fort has been occupied, destroyed, and rebuilt through every major conflict in the area.
An interesting quote about the fort during WWII from Wikipedia:

"During World War II, Fort Ontario was home to approximately 982 Jewish refugees, from August 1944 to February 1946. Fort Ontario was the first and only attempt by the United States to shelter Jewish refugees during the war. After the end of the war the refugees were kept in internment due to disagreements concerning whether or not to allow them to become United States citizens. In January 1946, the decision was made to allow them to become citizens, and by February all of the Jewish refugees were allowed to leave Fort Ontario."

In 1946, Fort Ontario was handed over to the State of New York, and in 1949, development began to make it a State Historic Site.

On May 13, 2010, the State announced the closure of the fort and cancellation of all its future planned activities. The move had been suspected since governor David Paterson announced its potential closure a few months earlier to combat the State's budget woes. I was eight days late.
I have lived in Baldwinsville, New York, since August of last year, and I am now in the process of moving to Baltimore, Maryland. I can blame myself for missing out on visiting this landmark during the time I have been here, but I must also be credited with visiting and photographing other places in the surrounding vicinity. This area is beautiful beyond any good my words might do at an attempt to describe. I have seen much of it, though a lot still remains untouched by my sight; I have simply ran out of time.

Now, I will go with the feeling of having come so close to a past rich in fear, glory, and resiliency...so close, yet not near enough. I ambled around the crumbling outer wall, noting the signs warning visitors to stay back or to watch out for poison ivy. A few toothless canons stood watch out of duty, their sight less of a threat than a reminder of a youth past. The flag mast stood unadorned, devoid of color but not of purpose. The nearby cemetery bore the remains of some of the fort's fallen residents, many unknown to us as they were to those they perished close by. Their spirits, however, live on in us as we cherish that which they gave their last breath defending.

America is a land as varied as the nations whose outcasts flocked to it, and it's in this diversity that it has found its strength. In strength, it has come to the aid of rights and freedom whose denial and suppression led to its inhabitation. Fort Ontario represents this defense of the liberties and pleasures America has afforded people of different molds and casts. It, and many other places like it, need to be kept alive so that future generations are always aware of what the past had to endure to assure their existence. This is not just a historic site; this is a site whose history is intertwined with that of the nation, where the human spirit has triumphed time and time again in spite of many setbacks.
Two hundred and fifty years of history should not be thrown away because of incompetence and mismanagement of an ignorant few.