After the capture of the forts at Oswego by the French in August 1756, General Webb ordered the destruction of the posts at the Oneida Carrying Place, and on August 31, fell back to the German Flats. The vital region of the Oneida Carry and the New York frontier was left open to the attacks of the French and their Indian allies. This situation was worsened by the fact that the tribes of the Five Nations who lived in the area, were finding it much wiser to adapt a role of neutrality.
The white settlers, mostly Germans, now found themselves in a very dangerous position. Since their settlement formed a buffer zone for the English settlements to the east, they were completely exposed to Indian war parties, and it was entirely possible that the French might invade the province.
This fear was proven true, when during the night of November 12, 1757, a party of about 6oo French, Canadians and Indians attacked the settlements at German Flats, near Fort Herkimer. The garrison at the fort amounted to about 200 men of the 22nd Regiment, too small a force to aid the settlement. When it was over, 50 Germans had been killed and scalped, 150 taken prisoner. The livestock had been slaughtered, houses and barns burned. The survivors were left to face a cold winter with a shortage of food and shelter.
In the early spring of 1758, General Abercromby, as part of the plans for an expedition against Fort Carillon, decided to retake possession of the Oneida Carrying Place. He instructed Brigadier General John Stanwix to occupy the portage with four New York Independent Companies, 1400 Provincials and a company of Rangers. Once this site was regained, permission was granted by the Oneida tribes under an offer of "cheap and plentiful trade" and a promise the fort would be destroyed at the end of the war. Once this was done, plans for a fort were put under way.
General Stanwix assigned engineer Lieutenant Williams to the task. Horatio Gates was assigned brigade Major, responsible for administrative details.Williams began construction on the site in mid August 1758, within entrenchments laid out by Major Eyers, Abercromby's assistant engineer. The first log of the fort was laid in place on August 26th. Ten days later the commander wrote;
Inside the fort were casements, the roofs of which formed the terreplein for the curtains. These were log structures, built to a height of 10 feet in front and approximately 8½ feet in the rear. The external depth from the front to the curtain wall was approximately 20 feet. The northern and western casements extended 119 feet in front and 145 feet in the rear. The other two casemates were divided by the sally-port and east gate. The southwestern one measured 50 by 60 feet; the southeastern 58 by 60 feet; the east-southern 58 feet square; and the east-northern 52 by 60. The northern and western casemates were divided into three sets of quarters, each with a door and three windows opening onto the parade. The southern casemates consisted of one unit per structure, each with a door and six windows. The eastern ones consisted of one unit per structure, each with a door and four windows. Each unit was heated by a fire-place with a brick chimney that extended above the terreplein.
Except at a distance of approximately 150 feet where the bastions stood within less than 45 feet of the stream, a ditch, 21 feet wide at the top and eight at the bottom, extended around the fort. A row of eight to ten feet high posts stood upright in the ditch. A similar palisade formed a V in front of the sally-port. The soil from the ditch was piled against the walls of the fort as a glacis outside the ditch. A "Necessary house"(latrine), reached by an elevated walk, stood over a portion of the stream opposite the south-east bastion. At the end of the ditch opposite the north-east bastion, a covered way led to the water.
Another season of construction began at Fort Stanwix during July 1759. Among the new additions were two huts for officers, bringing the total in the Parade to 21. New bedsteads were installed in the casemates. Six cannon platforms were installed on the bastions. The parapet of the north-west bastion was raised four feet, embrasures created, and a firing step installed. The ramparts of all the bastions were raised. The ditch was widened to 26 feet at the bottom and 40 feet at the top.The parapet of the curtains was raised by placing barrels and horizontal logs on the parapets of the curtains. A floor was installed in the magazine, and a cellar for garden stuff was built under the south-east bastion. Horizontal pickets were installed on the northeast bastion.
The fort was still being strengthened in 1761, though its need was diminishing. By then the garrison had been reduced to fifty men. By the end of the war, the fort was a strong post with massive log and earthen walls built up so that all the bastions and curtains were capped by embrasured parapets. The ditch on the eastern side was apparently filled in, but a stockade extended along that face. Two ravelins, one covering the sally-port and a smaller one for the gate leading to the stream, were constructed between 1759 and 1764. The officers' huts were replaced by two buildings measuring 120 by 20 feet and one measuring 35 by 20 feet.
Following the end of the French and Indian War, the danger over, Fort Stanwix was allowed to go to ruin and decay. So it was by the time of the great Indian congress that negotiated the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, during November 1768, the fort had become a dilapidated inactive post. Six years later, Governor William Tryon reported Fort Stanwix had been dismantled.
But instead of quietly slipping into obscurity, the post at The Oneida Carry would find a more important place in history during the War of American Independence. A new post, Fort Schuyler would rise from the ruins of the once proud Fort Stanwix.
