Fort Halifax (Maine)
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Fort Halifax
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Fort Halifax
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| Location | On U.S. 201 west of Winslow, Winslow, Maine |
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| Coordinates | 44°32′5″N 69°37′47″W / 44.53472°N 69.62972°WCoordinates: 44°32′5″N 69°37′47″W / 44.53472°N 69.62972°W |
| Built | 1754-1755 |
| NRHP Reference # | 68000015 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | November 24, 1968 |
| Designated NHL | November 24, 1968 |
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. 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)).
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. ) 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.) 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.
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