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Old Fort House Museum
Many upstate New York villages and towns like to boast of a long and illustrious history, but in Fort Edward words such as freedom and liberty seem to ring a little bit louder.
At the Old Fort House Museum on Broadway in the village, all of Fort Edward’s rich past is on display, and what quickly becomes evident is that freedom and liberty can mean slightly different things to different people. To the townsfolk of Fort Edward during the American Revolution, the words meant overthrowing the yoke of British tyranny, and to Patrick Smyth, who built the house in 1772, they meant skedaddling to Canada to find a new home. To Solomon Northup, a black man, they meant even more Posted on July 27, 2008.
A small stone monument marks the entrance way to the Old Fort House Museum in Fort Edward. The house, now owned by the Fort Edward Historical Association, was built in 1772 and was used as headquarters by both American and British generals during the American Revolution.
The kitchen in the Old Fort House Museum is set up to demonstrate what it might have looked like during the 1940s.
The main tavern room at the Old Fort House Museum was often used as a courtroom by British officials prior to and during the early days of the American Revolution.
Executive director Paul McCarty relaxes on the stairway bannister in the center hallway at the Old Fort House Museum.
An upstairs bedroom in the Old Fort House Museum is dedicated to Solomon Northup, a free black man who lived at the house and in Saratoga Springs before being sold away into slavery for 12 years.
A large room on the second floor of the Old Fort House Museum was often used as a meeting place. The portrait on the far wall is of George Bradley, a prominent Fort Edward area businessman.
A one-room schoolhouse, once located in Northumberland at the turn of the 20th century, is now on the grounds of the Old Fort House Museum in Fort Edward.
