Fort Brady

Fort Brady. . The treaty Lewis Cass accomplished in 1820, cleared the way for the U.S. Army to install a post at the Sault. Consequently, Secretary of War John C. Calhoun ordered a battalion of the 2nd U.S. Infantry, composed of 250 men and 17 officers, commanded by Colonel Hugh Brady to establish a fort at the Sault rapids. In the summer of 1822, they left their comfortable quarters at Sacketts Harbor and, in company with their families, journeyed via the steamer Superior to the north country. The Superior was unable to pass beyond the Neebish Rapids so the troops traveled up the St. Marys in large canoes and arrived at the Sault on July 6. John Johnston, patriarch of the Sault, extended his hospitality. The troops marched to the nearby open field where they pitched tents., Colonel Brady decided to erect this first U.S. Army post in the Upper Peninsula on land formerly the property of the Northwest Company and then owned by Charles Oakes Ermatinger, a resident of the Sault, Canada. Almost immediately, the troops proceeded to construct a fort, cutting a road to the hill a mile to the south to secure timbers, and by the summer of 1823, Fort Brady stood complete. A rectangular stockade of twelve foot high cedar posts, running approximately 200 feet east and west and 300 feet north and south to the river's edge, protected the log buildings. Log blockhouses with stone foundations comprised the northeast and southwest corners of the enclosure, the site of the latter now approximately marked by a boulder monument to the southwest of the old Federal Building. The site of the west one-third of the de Repentigny Fort lay inside the stockade. , U.S. troops occupied Fort Brady until they were withdrawn for field service during the Mexican War. The U.S. troops were replaced by a company of the 1st Michigan Infantry, who stayed until April 1848. The fort was vacant until the return of U.S. troops in June 1849. The post was evacuated and the troops dispatched to Fort Snelling in 1857. Fort Brady was left in charge of an Ordinance Sergeant until May 1866, when it was again garrisoned by Company D, 4th U.S. Infantry. Because of its dilapidated condition, the stockade was removed, most of the buildings completely rebuilt and the garrison grounds were enlarged. In 1886, as a result of the growth of the surrounding village, the Secretary of War was authorized to sell the old Fort Brady reservation and establish a new site. Legend has it that Philip Sheridan, then General-in-Chief of the Army, selected the new location, and in 1893, the garrison occupied New Fort Brady situated on top of the same hill where the troops in 1822 obtained timbers for the original fort., Most of the old reservation was sold in 1894 with the exception of land now comprising Brady Park and the block to the south. In 1908, Congress appropriated $15,000 to construct a Federal Building on the site. Two years later, a magnificent classical structure of Vermont granite and Bedford limestone, designed by Architect John Taylor Knox, stood amidst extensive formal landscaping, as the pride of Sault Ste. Marie.