Fort Brady 1850

American troops arrived in Sault Ste. Marie in the summer of 1822 to establish a fort under a treaty Lewis Cass signed there in 1820, marking the end of the long French and British occupation of the territory. As the first American post in the Upper Peninsula, Fort Brady was built to protect and spread American influence in the developing north country and was named for its first commanding officer. Soldiers cut nearby cedar posts for a stockade wall about 8 inches in diameter and 12 feet high, set close together, sharpened at the top, and pierced with openings for observation and firing. Timber for two blockhouses and the buildings inside the enclosure came from the hill south of the settlement, reached by a road cut by the soldiers that later became largely Ashman Street. Blockhouses stood at the northeast and southwest corners of the stockade, projecting beyond the walls so they could place the interior walls under crossfire, with the northeast blockhouse at the river's edge allowing water to be taken from the river without going outside the palisade. South of the fort wall were the post garden and, beyond it, the cemetery. Inside the fort were early log and hewn-timber buildings including headquarters, officers' and men's quarters, a sickbay, and a bakery; these repaired log buildings remained until after the Civil War, when frame structures replaced them, and those remained until the post was moved in 1892.

Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan · United States