Fort Malden, Ontario, Canada

City: Fort Malden

Lat/Long: 42.1107744, -83.112958

Constructed by the British in between 1797 and 1799, Fort Malden was a defensive fortification located at Amherstburg, Ontario, on Lake Erie near the mouth of the Detroit River. The fort became Great Britain's main base on Lake Erie, where it played a pivotal role in keeping contact with Native American tribes and protecting British North America, and particularly the Amherstburg Navy Yard, from American attack. During the War of 1812, General Isaac Brock and Tecumseh met at Fort Malden to plan the siege of Detroit. After defeat at the Battle of Lake Erie, the British could no longer supply the fort by sea, so in September 1813, they abandoned and burned Fort Malden. American forces occupied the location of the fort until the war's end in 1815. The Treaty of Ghent returned the area to the British. The British built a smaller military installation on the site, from which the British launched attacks to put down the Upper Canada Rebellion. From 1851 to 1859, the fort served as a home for army pensioners, and in 1859, Ontario authorities re-commissioned it as a provincial insane asylum.

Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field-Book of the War of 1812 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1868), 266; Gilbert Collins, Guidebook to the Historic Sites of the War of 1812, 2nd ed. (Toronto: Dundurn Group, 2006), 41; C. C. James, Early History of the Town of Amherstburg (Amherstburg: Echo, 1902), 5-23; Caleb Klingler and Paul G. Pierpaoli, Jr., "Fort Malden," Encyclopedia of the War of 1812: A Political, Social and Miltiary History, ed. by Spencer C. Tucker (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 2012), 1:261-62.