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Fort Halifax is a former British colonial outpost on the banks of the Sebasticook River, just above its mouth at the Kennebec River, in Winslow, Maine.〔https://archive.org/stream/spraguesjournalo01spra#page/132/mode/1up〕 Originally built as a wooden palisaded star fort in 1754, during the French and Indian War, only a single blockhouse survives. A National Historic Landmark, it is the oldest blockhouse in the United States. It is now set in a municipal park, and is open to the public in the warmer months. It was the first of three significant forts which the British built on the major rivers in the Northeast to cut off the native water ways to the ocean (also see Fort Pownall and Fort Frederick (Saint John, New Brunswick)).〔https://archive.org/stream/acg3054.0001.005.umich.edu#page/364/mode/2up〕 ==French and Indian War== Fort Halifax was a fort on the north bank of the Sebasticook River. (It had previously been the location of the native Fort Taconnet or Taconock, which natives burned upon the approach of Major Benjamin Church during King William's War in the late 17th century.〔(p. 215 ), p.225〕 ) Its blockhouse, which survives, is the oldest blockhouse in the United States.〔 (The oldest blockhouse in North America is Fort Edward). It was part of a garrison built by the Province of Massachusetts Bay in 1754-1756 at the outset of the French and Indian War. On July 25, 1754, Major General John Winslow arrived with a force of 600 soldiers to establish the fort at the confluence of the Kennebec River with the Sebasticook River. (William Shirley was also on this expedition.〔https://archive.org/stream/documentsrelativ06newy#page/958/mode/2up/search/halifax〕) The palisaded defense was intended to prevent Canadiens and their Native American allies from using the Kennebec River valley as a route to attack English settlements. Further, Massachusetts was extending its border into the former region of Acadia and threatening the capital of Canada, Quebec. Fort Richmond was dismantled in 1755 when Fort Shirley (named after William Shirley, also called Frankfort, located in present-day Dresden), Fort Western and Fort Halifax were built upriver. In 1754, Fort Halifax was built by order of the Massachusetts General Court on the peninsula at the confluence of the Sebasticook and Kennebec rivers. The fort was named for George Montagu-Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax, the British colonial secretary.〔 A settlement subsequently sprang up under its protection, and was named in honor of Major-General John Winslow, of Marshfield, Massachusetts who had overseen the fort's construction. The Natives raided the fort in the fall of 1754.〔https://archive.org/stream/documentaryhisto12main#page/334/mode/2up〕〔(p. 302 )〕 In 1755, the commanding officer, Captain William Lithgow, discontinued Major-General Winslow's original plan for the fort, citing limited manpower and expense. The fort was made smaller and more defensible and was completed in 1756.〔(Maine Memory Network Exhibit - Fort Halifax )〕 The Canadiens and Natives immediately made plans to destroy the fort.〔https://archive.org/stream/documentsrelativ10brod#page/277/mode/1up〕〔https://archive.org/stream/documentsrelativ10brod#page/291/mode/1up〕 In May 1756, the natives attacked soldiers from the fort.〔(The History of Augusta, from the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time ... By James W. North p.66 )〕 In 1756, near Topshee, Col Lithgow and a party of 8 men were ambushed by 17 natives, both sides suffering the loss of two men. The natives later killed two more white men in the area.〔( p.5 )〕 The fort was abandoned in 1766, and was sold into private hands.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Fort Halifax (Maine)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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