It was built on a foundation of brick and stone salvaged from rubble left after retreating United States forces burned the nearby town of Newark (as Niagara-on-the-Lake was known then) in December, 1813.

It would help in the defence of Upper Canada the following year, as part of a regional network that included Fort George, Navy Hall, and Butler's Barracks.

[3] Whether race influenced the authorities' choice for this duty is not known, as one engineer later reported: "When I visited the Niagara Frontier … I found that a corps of Free Men of Colour had been raised … but had been turned over to that of the Engineers, any necessity for this I never could learn, but it seems to have been the fashion in Canada to heap all kinds of duties upon the latter."

These duties consequently precluded the Coloured Corps' participation in the Niagara campaign that summer, even during the subsequent Siege of Fort Erie, where British forces desperately lacked trained engineer troops.

Today, Niagara-on-the-Lake Golf Course surrounds the site, but public access is permitted via a walking path, with a warning to look out for golfers, who have the right of way.