The log cabin contains a combination gift shop, bookstore, and concession stand. There is a well-maintained selection of items picked with obvious care for historical detail. You'll find a variety of the usual T-shirts and sweatshirts silkscreened with the fort image and so on, but fortunately, you will find few "rubber tomahawks" style of gifts. It is hard to describe the quality of selection better than Phil's "no-junk" description.

The book selection is particularly good, especially for hard-to-find War of 1812 books. I have a War of 1812 history buff friend and always manage to find birthday and holiday gifts (books) at the shop. The Old Fort Niagara Association publishes small, but informative, books and booklets about the fort and the events associated with the fort.

For example, A History and Guide to Old Fort Niagara by Brian Dunnigan (74 pages, $3.50) combines contemporary drawings and maps, present day black and white photographs, and historical descriptions to provide a terrific narrative of the 300 years of the fort.

Soldiers of 1814: American Enlisted Men's Memoirs of the Niagara Campaign is a wonderful collection of first-hand accounts edited by Donald E. Graves (80 pages, $6.50). Here's an excerpt about Lundy's Lane as seen by Pvt. Amasiah Ford, 23rd Infantry:

I belonged at this time to the first company commanded by Captain A.W. Odell, which was on piquet guardat the time. I was in the first platoon, and when marching up in open column a party of the enemy which lay in ambush rose and fired upon us, when out of 32 in the first platoon, only 8 of us escaped the desparate slaughter. At this crisis, the whole regiment broke up and scattered n every direction."

I have, in the past, purchased two other books by Graves, The Battle of Lundy's Lane: On the Niagara in 1814 and Red Coats and Grey Jackets: The Battle of Chippewa, 5 July 1814. Both have been well received by my 1812-mad friend.

Old Fort Niagara in Four Centuries: A History of its Development by Brian Dunnigan and Patricia Scott (64 pages, $4.95) provides 20 bird's-eye-view maps of the evolving configuration of the fort, along with explanations of construction and design at each step. An appendix contains eight sample uniforms and a list of the regiments that were at or near the fort in the Seven Years War and War of 1812.

If you are in upstate New York near Buffalo, and are especially interested in the Seven Years War or War of 1812, Old Fort Niagara has to be a stop on your itinerary.

More Old Fort Niagara

Old Fort Niagara Introduction
Forts Conti and Denonville (slow: 175K)
Siege of Fort Niagara during the French and Indian War (slow: 200K)
American Revolution and War of 1812 (slow: 263K)
A Brief Tour of the Existing Buildings (75K)
Conclusion and Contacts (slow: 187K)
Bookstore Buys
Re-enactors and Fort George Photos (very slow: 408K)
Pre-renovation: 1926 Photos (very slow: 268K)
1909 Postcard of Old Fort Niagara (slow: 165K)

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