Fort Ontario stands on a bluff above Lake Ontario at the mouth of the Oswego River. New York State Parks notes that a series of forts stood here between 1756 and 1814, and the current star-shaped fort dates from the nineteenth-century military rebuilding of the site.
Walk the ramparts for the harbour view, then spend time with the exhibits. The fort's story runs through the French and Indian War, the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War era, and its later use as an emergency refugee shelter.