Ohio History Journal

FORT MALDEN* TODAY

BY JAMES A. GREEN

In his correspondence with Washington, William

Henry Harrison, while Governor of Indiana Territory,

frequently reported that the Indians had gone to Maiden

for arms and ammunition. That British Fort at the

mouth of the Detroit River was a menace to the men of

Ohio and Indiana in the early days. It profoundly af-

fected our relations with the Indians. If they disliked

our policy they could go to Malden where the British

received them with open arms. There it was the English

fur traders gathered and with great success diverted the

fur trade of the northern parts of Ohio and Indiana

from the American traders. Those Canadian fur

traders were splendidly organized, were fine men of

business and they were backed by the power of their

Government. Of course, the fur trade was a mere inci-

dental. The great thing was that Maiden occupied a

strategic position, commanding the head of Lake Erie

and the entrance to the Detroit River. We had it is

true, a fort at Detroit, but Malden was master of the

approach to it. From a military point of view, Detroit

was badly placed. Had we built Fort Meigs, or a fort

on the site where in 1813 General Harrison built Fort

Meigs, we would have had an ideal location both from a

commercial and a military standpoint.

General Hull realized the disadvantage of Maiden at

* See editorial note at the conclusion of this contribution.

(683)

Fort Malden                                               685

houses. There he finds a school, a large children's                  play-

ground and a public park. That is the old parade ground

of the Fort. It has always remained public property.

As for the Fort itself, it has been partly built upon,

though its size can still be traced by the mounds which

were its ramparts and the ditches which were its moat.

Peace here has wrought so perfect a work that one en-

terprising and artistic householder with a long extent of

the moat for a side yard, has turned it into a sunken

garden, bright on the August day I visited it, with a

myriad of gay flowers. The only sign of war was a

pile of cannon balls on the lawn. These were rusty six-

inch solid balls which were dug up nearby. Of course,

in Amherstburg there must be many people perfectly

acquainted with local history, yet when I asked an in-

telligent looking man if he could point out on the shore

the place where General Harrison landed his army, he

replied that the General had landed at Windsor up the

river and marched down the road. That was the road

by which Proctor retreated and on which the American

followed him. While there is no bronze tablet set in a

granite boulder, after the style which the good women of

the D. A. R. have made so popular, to mark the exact

spot on the shore of Lake Erie where General Harrison

landed--naturally the Canadians would resent such a

memorial--yet it is not difficult to identify it, that is,

within approximate limits. The Canadian Girl Scouts

now have a summer camp there. They were provided

with regulation military tents and their encampment had

quite a soldierly air. If those girls had been there when

General Harrison and his men arrived I think the Amer-

icans would have blushed. Not that I blushed, for girls

Fort Malden                687

General Harrison, Governor Shelby and their troops en-

tered Canada. And the residents point out a large farm

house which they call "the slave house." There lived a

kindly Samaritan who gave shelter to the refugees.

"There it was the slaves slept"--to put it in the local

idiom. Escaping slaves must have been many for all the

southwestern part of Ontario is filled with their descend-

ants. But this spot of Canadian soil forever mem-

orable in our annals, has fallen to base uses. In the

winter the lake is frozen over and automobiles loaded

with liquor run from there straight across the ice to the

United States. Worse than that, one of the residents

told me that last winter there was a landing field on the

ice directly in front of the Girl Scouts Camp, where

every day airplanes were filled up with whisky and from

there they flew "over to Ohio." That is something of

a Roland for our Oliver. Where we once invaded Can-

ada, now these bootlegging Canadians return the com-

pliment by an invasion on their own account. But it may

be that all of these rum runners are not Canadians, for

when I asked a resident if he knew where the Americans

landed he replied, "Oh, yes; they landed every day last

winter on the ice right there in sight of my front door."

Some day perhaps some local enthusiasts will put up a

monument on the beach reciting that here General Har-

rison landed; here the runaway slaves found freedom;

here the Girl Scouts enjoyed life in the open; here the

bootlegger flourished unmolested and unafraid and here

came curious Americans who stood on the shore and

pondered--stood on the shore and far off across the

years heard the rolling echoes of Commodore Perry's

guns, heard the jubilant shouts of the Western men un-