It was capable of accommodating upwards of eight hundred men, and was protected by redoubts, rifle pits, earthworks, and a palisade of hewn timbers." The walls of the fort were pierced for cannon as well as for rifles, or muskets. In passing it may be said that from time to time, this, like all similar frontier forts of the time, was enlarged, strengthened, abandoned, destroyed, rebuilt, as the exigencies of military service made it necessary, but the site remained tihe same. This was near the rear, and to the westward of the brick residence now occupied by William H. Parker. Continuing Dr. Holden says : " During the summer of 1756, a force of six hundred Canadians and Indians attacked a baggage and provision train at the Half- Way Brook, while on its way from Fort Edward to the garrison at Fort William Henry. " The oxen were slaughtered, the convoy mostly killed and scalped, and the wagons plundered of their goods and stores. Heavily laden with booty, the marauding party commenced its retreat towards South Bay on Lake Champlain. jEmbarking in batteaux they were proceeding leisurely down the lake when they were overtaken by a party of one hundred rangers under the command of Captains Putnam and Rogers. These latter had with them two small pieces of artillery, and two blunderbusses, and at the narrows, albout eight miles north of Whitehall, they crossed over from Lake George, and succeeded in sinking several of the enemy's boats, and killing several of the oarsmen. A heavy south wind favored the escape of the remainder." ^ During this summer several bloody affrays took place between Fort Edward and Lake George, and the French accounts are full of successful raids and surprises. In 1757 Col. James Montresor* was sent to America as head of the Engineer corps of His Majesty's forces.