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Fort Kyser
1779
4 1/2 miles east of Fort Plain
(north side of Mohawk River)
This fortified home was originally built by Johannes and Anna Margretha Keyser in 1750. In 1758 Captain Guy Johnson planned to utilize the home to garrison a detachment of local militia.
By the American Revolution it was the fortified home of militia Lieutenant John Zeiley. The fort was re-established ca. 1779 as a neighborhood refuge. It was garrisoned primarily by local militia. Rufus Grider did sketches and watercolors of the stone dwelling based on a written description left by Adam Failing, who tore the house down in 1858.
"The main building of the fort was about 40 feet long and 35 wide, facing the south. There were about ten port holes in it; the wedge shaped blocks taken from them, lay about the premises years after it was taken down. The main entrance was in the centre with a window on the east of the door. There was also a door on the east end opening out into a garden where some pear trees were, and to the south east was an apple orchard. There were two windows to the north. It was divided into two large rooms, no hall-way, a large stone fire place in the west room; the chimney was of stone; the gables, from the collar beam up were of wood; the roof was plain, the shingle about three-fourths of an inch thick. The lower rooms were about ten feet high in the clear, the upper room about eight feet to the collar-beam, and it was about four feet higher to the peak of the roof. There was a carriage house built of wood, at the west of the fort, one of the original buildings, its north line being nearly parallel, with the front of the fort. A swing gate, I was told, crossed the roadway between the buildings. This building, as well as some of the timber of the old fort was used in the buildings on my old farm."
The fort was located just a short distance from the Stone Arabia battlefield. There is little left other than a few foundation stones and a state historical sign marking the site.
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