Write a commentNew York State Parks staff and Friends of Fort Ontario are pleased to announce the opening of two restored 19th century squad rooms in the Enlisted Men’s Barracks at Fort Ontario State Historic Site.
The unveiling begins at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, June 19 inside the fort located at 1 E. Fourth St., Oswego.
This final restoration completes a program begun in 1986 to restore and historically furnish all rooms inside the old stone fort not being used for essential services. Members of this project team who were responsible for researching and furnishing the squad rooms will be stationed in the rooms to describe their work to visitors. Regular admission will be charged.
From 1842 to 1901, an average of 55 to 60 enlisted men lived together in the barracks. They lived according to a strict schedule dictated by a commanding officer who resided with his family in more opulent quarters across the parade ground.
One barracks squad room has been furnished to reflect its appearance in 1850. This was an era when soldiers slept side by side on two or three-tiered wooden bunks which grew more unstable over time from frequent dismantling for cleaning and de-bugging. Mortise and tenon joints in the bunks provided havens for vermin.
The second squad room has been furnished to reflect its appearance in 1868 when iron bunks were first documented at Fort Ontario. These more sanitary bunks for individual soldiers provided few hiding places for vermin and reflect improving living conditions for enlisted men in barracks after the Civil War (1861-1865).
Restoration and furnishing of the squad rooms could not have been possible without the cooperation, planning, design, construction, and labor of the administration, staff, instructors, and Oswego County high school students of the Center for Instruction, Technology, & Innovation (CiTi) in Mexico, N.Y.
Beginning in late spring 2023, high school students supervised by CiTi welding instructor Barbie Jo Gray built 25 reproduction folding Civil War era bunks of the “Hospital Pattern” for use in furnishing the 1868 soldiers squad room. Using steel purchased by the Friends of Fort Ontario, students created patterns based on an original bunk in the Fort’s collection and worked to make the reproduction bunks as historically accurate as possible, right down to the bright green paint!
For information about the barracks’ squad room restoration project contact Paul Lear at 315-343-4711 or paul.lear@parks.ny.gov.
