Fort Halifax was part of a larger fort complex built by British-Americans in 1754-1755 to defend the upper Kennebec River Valley from possible attack by the French and their Native American allies, whom the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which included Maine at the time, feared could travel by way of Quebec's Chaudiere River and Maine's Dead River to reach English lands in the Kennebec River Valley. When the war between the British and French in North America ended in 1763, the fort was no longer much needed as a military post, and it passed into private hands and later fell into disrepair. The surviving blockhouse, the only building left from the original fort, was acquired and restored by the State of Maine in 1966. In 1987, flood waters rose eight feet up its side and its logs floated apart, drifting as far south as Dresden, before they were recovered and reassembled to restore the old blockhouse to its original appearance.