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SUNY Fredonia's War of 1812 experts in the history department are teaching the course, "The Wars of 1812" this semester, and will be taking their students on a special field trip to Old Fort Niagara, a critical military installation and the scene of several War of 1812 battles. |
By Roger Coda
Students enrolled in “The Wars of 1812,” a new course being taught during the conflict’s bicentennial by a veteran team of three SUNY Fredonia history professors, needn’t travel far to visit the site of the first naval fight between the United States and Great Britain.
In fact, fewer than two miles separates Dunkirk’s Chadwick Bay and the mouth of Canadaway Creek, where a band of 40 settlers turned back a squad of British that had rowed into the creek from their ship, the Lady Prevost, to pursue a salt boat that sought shelter there.
British vessels ruled the Great Lakes at the start of the 19th century, and were known to harass fishermen and seize provisions from tiny settlements as well as ships. In those days, salt was a precious commodity used to preserve food, and salt boats were a frequent target on their commercial runs.
A local militia, formed to protect settlers and ships between Canadaway Creek and Chadwick Bay, was triumphant; the British returned to their ship and set a course to Buffalo. The incident, often described as a skirmish, took place in July, less than four weeks after war was declared against Britain when the United States was still an infant nation.
Celia Sampson Cole, a widow and mother of 11 children, is credited with alerting the local militia that an armed British ship was pursuing a salt boat, after witnessing it from her log cabin near the creek’s mouth.
A memorial plaque recognizing the “first exchange of military hostilities” in the War of 1812 can be found nearby at the intersection of Route 5 (Lakeshore Drive West) and Temple Street.
