Creative History

  Old Fort Niagara sits at the mouth of the Niagara River on the shores of Lake Ontario.  It is located on the U.S.-Canadian border within the confines of Youngstown, New York. It is built on land that for centuries had been used by the Seneca Tribe as the site of a seasonal hunting and fishing camp.  The French were the first westerners to make contact with the native Seneca people in the area during the middle of the 17th century and they erected the first wooden fortification where Old Fort Niagara now stands back in 1679.  It is said that this wooden fortification, which was named Fort Conti, either through accident or arson burnt to the ground within a year of its construction killing all members of the garrison stationed inside. Thus began the long and cursed history of Old Fort Niagara. Within the decade, in 1687, the French erected the more formidable and permanent Fort Denonville on the site and began a deliberate campaign of subjugation against the ...

  Fifteenth President of the United States James Buchanan is determined to look tough.  As a Democrat, just elected to the White House in November of 1856, Buchanan wants to prove that Democrats like himself are, in fact, not in favor of, “the twin relics of barbarism-polygamy and slavery,” that their Republican detractors in Congress and the press are accusing them of supporting. Over two-thousand miles away from Washington D.C. in Salt Lake City, Brigham Young, as both spiritual and titular leader of the self-styled Church of Latter Day Saints, or the Mormon Church to almost everyone else, has installed himself as the all but de facto dictator of the Utah Territory. President Buchanan is determined to act tough on polygamy and replace acting Governor of the Utah Territory, Brigham Young, with a hand-picked representative from Washington.   President James Buchanan By 1857 Buchanan is fearful of Brigham Young’s power in the Utah Territory among the followe...