OSWEGO – Staff and volunteers at Fort Ontario State Historic Site, 1 E. Fourth St., Oswego, will soon be leading lantern tours of the Fort Ontario Military Reservation National Register District.
The guided “Murder, Mysteries, Mishaps, Maladies and Mayhem” lantern tours will begin at 7 p.m. on Wednesday events and run from Sept. 28 to Oct. 26.
Come out to explore the unusual, bizarre, gruesome, amusing and tragic side of Fort Ontario’s 267-year history. The lantern tours will feature descriptions of who, how, why and where officers, soldiers, civilians and others died violently, unusually, quietly, or – sometimes – ordinarily, at the old Army post which dates back to 1755.
Most, but not all, tour points will involve the death of a person while others may describe an out-of-the-ordinary incident or circumstance.
Lantern tours will begin at the Enlisted Men’s Barracks inside the old stone fortification. Each tour will run from between an hour and 15 minutes to an hour and a half.
Admission is $20 per person and tickets must be ordered in advance. Proceeds will support fort programming, events, restoration and other projects and activities sponsored by the not-for-profit Friends of Fort Ontario, Inc.
Fort Ontario State Historic Site is the location of three colonial British fortifications and a standing fort built on those ruins by the United States from 1839 to 1844.
It was also the site of three French and Indian War and two War of 1812 battles, as well as a lighthouse, a regular army infantry battalion post, a WWI Army general hospital, a New York National Guard artillery training camp, a 1940-41 U.S. Army mobilization camp, a WWII special unit training post, the only camp in the United States for WWII Holocaust refugees, and a post-WWII veterans housing emergency apartment complex.
Fort Ontario became a New York State historic site in 1949. It includes a post cemetery and the oldest standing lighthouse keeper’s residence (1822) on the Great Lakes, which is also the second oldest such residence in the United States.
To reserve your lantern tour tickets, call the fort at 315-343-4711 or stop in the fort’s museum shop during public hours. Be sure to bring a flashlight and wear appropriate footwear, clothing, hats and gloves suitable for the weather and terrain. Guests can expect stairs, sloping and uneven ground, stairs and invigorating lakeside breezes.
For more information about the lantern tours or Fort Ontario State Historic Site, call 315-343-4711. The fort is located at the north end of East Fourth Street in Oswego, N.Y.
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