The Old Stone Chimney – A relic from Niagara’s New France era

The Old Stone Chimney. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.

August 2024

Along the Niagara River in Niagara Falls, New York, there is an odd looking structure in a riverfront park that looks oddly like a stone chimney that you might find in a log cabin. Well, it actually is an old Stone chimney that was once part of a two-storey barracks on the site of the French “Fort du Portage,” or “Fort Little Niagara,” built in 1750 when the area was part of North America’s New France.

The stone chimney has been relocated three times, in 1902, 1942 and to its current location in 2015, between Robert Moses Parkway and the Niagara River.

Standing 31-feet tall and weighing around 60 tons, it provided heat and a cooking source for soldiers at Fort Little Niagara, formerly located above Niagara Falls, as a satellite of Fort Niagara further north along the Niagara River. The forts provided refuge for French fur traders, along with serving as military fortifications.

After British forces claimed victory in the Niagara area in July 1759, all French forts fell under British control, or at least, what was left of them. As the French retreated from the fortifications, they burned as much as they could, but the stone chimney survived the destruction.

The former Fort Little Niagara was re-born as Fort Schlosser, after the first (temporary) commanding officer, Captain Joseph Schlosser. Portage Master Johnathan Stedman succeeded Schlosser, and lived in a house which utilized the Chimney from 1763 until British forces withdrew their forces from the Upper Landing in 1796.

Augustus Porter, a prominent early settler in Niagara, occupied the Stedman House from 1806 to 1808, after which Enos Broughton opened a tavern at the former Stedman house in 1809. This tavern was leased to American military forces in the ramp-up to the War of 1812. The Steadman house was burnt by British forces in December 1813, along with most structures along the Niagara River, in retaliation for the burning of Newark (current-day Niagara-On-The-Lake, Ontario) earlier that month.

The Chimney remained at that site and was re-used as Epaphroditus Emmons built an inn around it. Emmons moved his inn to another location after a few years. By 1840, the Chimney and Old Stedman was bought by General Peter B. Porter and incorporated as part of another house. This structure remained standing until it was torn down in 1889, leaving the Old Stone Chimney standing on its own once again.

In 1890, the Old Stedman Farm was purchased from the Hon. Peter A. Porter by the Niagara Falls Power Company, launching the first public efforts to “save” the Old Stone Chimney. The old chimney was carefully dismantled and moved for the first time in 1902, slightly to the west on Carborundum Company’s Buffalo Avenue property, but an expansion of this plant in 1942 necessitated the moving of the chimney again, this time a little to the east, to Porter Park, also on Buffalo Avenue, on the east side of the power canal.

Construction of the first section of Robert Moses Parkway, now the Niagara Scenic Parkway, in 1962 left the old stone chimney cut off from the rest of the park where it stood. In 2015, the chimney was moved, once again, to south-west on the opposite of the parkway, about half way from the now-closed Porter Park, and it’s original location.

The current location is a more accessible spot off the highway, beside a bike and walking path with a small parking lot for visitors.