OSWEGO, a city of New York, U.S.A., the county seat of Oswego county; on Lake Ontario, 35 m. N.N.W. of Syracuse, at the mouth of the Oswego river and the Oswego canal, which con nects with the State Barge canal at Three River Point, 25 m. S.E. It is served by the Lackawanna, the New York Central and the New York, Ontario and Western railways, lake steamers and canal barges. Pop. (1920) 23,626 (84% native white) ; 1930 Fed eral census, 22,652. The city has a fine harbour, abundant water-power and large hydro-electric developments. Water-borne commerce (largely coal, petroleum products, sand and gravel, raw sugar and wheat) amounted in 1925 to 235,483 tons by lake vessels and 95,356 tons by canal. The manufactures (notably matches, rayon, cotton and woollen goods, candy, peanut butter, cocoa and oil-well supplies) were valued in 1927 at $15,961,172. Oswego is the seat of a State normal school (established by the city in 1861 and taken over by the State in 1867), a State armory and a U.S. life-saving station. Ft. Ontario (within the city limits) is the oldest fort in North America which is still garrisoned. The site of Oswego was visited by Champlain in 1616. Later it be
came a station for the Jesuit missionaries and the coureurs des bois. An English trading post was established in 1722, and in 1727 Governor William Burnet of New York built the first fort. It was an important base of operations during King George's War and the French and Indian War. In 1755-56 the British erected two new forts (Oswego and Ontario) on either side of the mouth of the river, both of which were taken by Montcalm (Aug. 14-15, 1756) and dismantled. The British restored Ft. Ontario in and kept it garrisoned until they turned it over to the United States in 1796. It was here that Pontiac in 1766 made his acknowledgment to Sir William Johnson of Great Britain's author ity. On May 6, 1814, the fort was captured by the British and Canadians, and was held by them for a short time. It was rebuilt and garrisoned by the United States in 1839, abandoned in 1899, and again reconstructed and garrisoned in 1905. Oswego became the county seat in 1816, was incorporated as a village in 1828 (when the canal was completed) and as a city in 1848.