For two days, July 2nd and 3rd, 1759, a force of 3,000 soldiers under Brigadier General John Prideaux camped here while advancing along the lake from Oswego to Four Mile Creek near Fort Niagara on a campaign that prepared for the eventual siege of Fort Niagara. Loaded bateaux were hidden in the bay to avoid detection by French lake patrols, camps were arranged to preserve unit integrity and allow quick assembly and response to attack, and light infantry guarded the land side of the camp. Officers and men lodged in tents, with captains and above in their own marquees, lieutenants and ensigns sharing two to a tent, and five enlisted men sharing one wedge tent. Five-man groups formed messes to prepare and cook a four-day supply of food for the force, commonly including beef, pork, peas, beans, rice, and bread, boiled in single cooking kettles over open fires. Soldiers' Brown Bess muskets were regularly inspected so they would be clean and operational, and artillerymen under Captain Samuel Strachey kept cannon, howitzers, and mortars ready. The site may also have shown evidence of earlier occupation, including a fur trading post built here in 1716 by French fur trader Louis Thomas de Joncaire and probable American Indian brush shelters, and it lay along a Great Lakes route that saw earlier European visitation and military and trading activity, including Robert Cavelier Lasalle's visit on August 12, 1669, the establishment of Fort de Sables in 1716, nearby Fort Schuyler in 1721, and later English proposals in 1754 and 1756 to build a fort and trading house here.
