OSWEGO – Paul Lear is celebrating 21 years this month as the historic site manager for Fort Ontario in the City of Oswego.
Lear oversees much of the fort’s inner workings, such as operations, social media and research, as well as working with volunteers and Friends of Fort Ontario.
“The fort fascinates me because of its extensive history,” Lear said. “Fort Ontario covers 265 years of our nation’s military history. From 1755 – the French and Indian War – right into the Global War on Terror… It’s unique because it was the only refugee camp for shelter for Holocaust victims in the United States during World War II.”
An archeologist with a life-long love for history and historic sites, he first came to the fort in 1986 and worked with educational programming and outreach, the Fort Ontario Guard, and tour guides until he left in 1992 to work at the Washington’s Headquarters State Historic Site in Newburgh, New York.
He returned to Fort Ontario October 1, 1999, where he has been the manager ever since, working to grow and develop the site and its programs, such as the Safe Haven Museum. He has also worked to restore and open up more areas of the fort to the public.
Lear said the fort has changed every aspect of his life. By deciding to work there, he developed his career and knowledge base and he met his wife, Amy Lear, who owns Man in the Moon Candies in Oswego.
He has dedicated a majority of his career to Fort Ontario and has the goal to elevate the historic site to have a national prominence to make more people aware of its vast history.
“I think the fort’s prominence and knowledge of it has really grown significantly,” Lear said. “It’s also developed into an effort by local people to make it a national park. That would increase tremendous amounts of visitors, tourists coming here to Oswego, learning about it.”
Lear said one of the biggest challenges the fort works around is its budget, only allowing for three permanent employees.
“We don’t have the large staffs like Fort Niagara and Fort Ticonderoga have, but we find other ways to develop the fort and raise its prominence,” Lear said. “It’s a great team here… and [the Friends of Fort Ontario] are helping to improve the patron experience at the fort with grants and funding for things like uniforms and equipment for the interpreters, and they fund our conference every year.”
Lear said that given the extensive history of the fort, they are still learning about its 256 years of people, events and developments, and the files of archival documents grow by the day.
“You learn something old everyday at Fort Ontario,” Lear said.
Although he has difficulty pinpointing his absolute favorite piece of history at the fort, he has been especially interested in the fort’s role as a hospital (U.S. General Army Hospital No. 5) during the 1918 pandemic when it had more patients than available beds, similar to the situation New York City faced in March for the world’s current pandemic.
“All the lessons of 1918-19 were there to be studied, but I just found it was so traumatic to everyone in the United States that they really just didn’t advertise or promote it very much,” Lear said. “It was kind of buried in the pages of history, but I have a feeling it’s going to be covered in emergency management courses.”
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In all the years I’ve visited Fort Ontario, beginning in 1966, the Fort never provided as much accessible history as it has under Site Manager Lear. Each year it gets better and better. And I can’t wait to see what else Mr. Lear will bring us next year! My husband and family have many years of memories from all the many community activities he and his staff has provided. For a staff of 3, there is more to do here than many much larger military museums we’ve visited. THANK YOU! Be well.
Congratulations to Paul. He has done an excellent job of raising awareness of this tremendous asset and historic site.