For generations, during seasons of low water, traders' and armies' bateaux were taken from the Mohawk, as the river then flowed, carried across the Oneida carrying place, and relaunched in Wood Creek. On Aug. 2, 1777, Lieut. Henry Bird, commanding St. Leger's advance guard of 30 regulars and a party of Indians under Joseph Brant, established the first camp of the British investment of Fort Stanwix here. On Aug. 6, Lt. Col. Marinus Willett and 250 continental troops attacked and looted that camp. Capt. Lernoult and 110 British regulars then built a fortified camp here with two small cannon and held it for the rest of the siege. The lock here was also the starting point for the first canal connecting the waters of the Mohawk and Wood Creek, begun by the Western Inland Lock & Navigation Co. in 1792.