Visitors go to Prescott not for its 19th century homes, but for its 19th century blockhouse in Fort Wellington National Historic Site. The fort was built in 1812 to slow the American advance but was abandoned after the War of 1812. The blockhouse was rebuilt in 1838 during the rebellion of 1837.
Officer’s room 
Kitchen 
Blockhouse 
Fort walls
The only structures that are still original from 1812 are the walls and the ditch. In addition to the blockhouse, the site features an officer’s house, a latrine, and several period cannons and mortars. Archeologists dug 250,000 pounds of “artifacts” from the latrine to find that soldiers ate imported fruits mangoes and coconuts. They also found contraband such as bottles of alcohol dumped down there.
They used to store black powder on the ground floor of the blockhouse, which wasn’t very smart. Special floorboards and shoes were used to reduce friction and minimize the risk of sparking anything on fire. In case a barrel of black powder did blow up, soldiers would only be impaled by splinters of wooden floorboards because there were no nails in them to reduce injury.
The remains of an old dock outside the fort are a reminder of how Prescott used to be Ottawa’s gateway to the St. Lawrence River. Ottawa’s first railway was connected to Prescott so lumbar and other materials could get to the US and Montreal.
The battle of the windmill happened just a few minutes west of Fort Wellington. In 1838, a group of 190 rebels from the US invaded Canada hoping the local population would want to be liberated from British rule. The rebels expected support from the locals but ended up being surrounded by 2,000 local militia members. Several days later, US support for the rebels never arrived while the British transported cannons and gunboats to the mill and forced the rebels to surrender. The mill was converted to a lighthouse and is now a historic site.
There’s not much to see in Prescott on a Sunday afternoon when everything is closed, but I’m sure there’ll be an opportunity for window shopping on a weekday followed by a beer in a local pub. The view to the US is really something and the bridge to cross to Ogdensburg in New York is only 10 minutes away.
