Old Fort Johnson

The limestone house known as Old Fort Johnson was built in seventeen forty-nine by Sir William Johnson, a young Irishman who had come to the Mohawk Valley in seventeen thirty-eight, opened a sawmill, and built an extraordinary network of relationships with the Haudenosaunee. During the French and Indian War the house was fortified, and Johnson hosted Native American councils here in his role as the British Crown's Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Northern Colonies. He was made a baronet in recognition of his leadership at the Battle of Lake George.

Johnson left for the grander Johnson Hall in what is now Johnstown in seventeen sixty-three, and his son later removed the fortifications. The house survived intact, and today it is a National Historic Landmark operated by the Montgomery County Historical Society, one of the oldest surviving structures associated with Johnson's extraordinary career in the valley.