was necessary in order to reach water that would float the heavy freight. At either end of the three-mile portage stood Fort Williams, on the Mohawk, and Fort Bull, on Wood Creek. The longer portage was, a little later, artificially shortened by damming the waters of Wood Creek. By the appended map it will be seen that in 1756 Fort Newport was being built at the end of the one-mile portage. The explorer of today will note in the western extremity of Rome the old basin of Wood Creek where the water was held back by dam and floodgate. The end of this basin, near where the road crosses Wood Creek, was the site of old Fort Newport. On the ruins of Fort Bull—which was destroyed in 1756 by a French raid from Canada—was erected Fort Wood Creek in 1758, distant, as the map shows, three miles from Fort Newport.
Fort Stanwix, New Fort, Fort Williams, Fort Newport, Fort Bull, and Fort Wood Creek were all erected within twenty-five years, and within three or four miles of each other. Nothing could suggest more plainly the strategic nature of this roadway on the backbone of New York. Of them
