Several months ago I received an inquiry from someone asking if I had
any maps showing an alleged British fort on Roundtop Mountain.  I couldn't
find any evidence of such a fort, and was inclined to dismiss the idea as
improbable.  In the most recent issue of the NYS Conservationist, Edward
Henry in an article on "The Mountain Island" provides a succinct summary of
what must be a fairly widespread story.  I still find it hard to imagine
the British or anyone else building a fort on top of an isolated mountain
during the Revolutionary War, and suspect that the story is one of those
myths that became installed in our local histories during the nineteenth
century.  Does anyone on the list know anything for certain about this
alleged stronghold--either contemporary evidence confirming its existence,
or an indication of how the story got into circulation?

Here is Henry's version of the story:

     "During the Revolutionary war, the British and their Iroquois allies
used the mountain as a lookout to spy upon the movements of the rebelling
colonists in the Hudson Valley.  Prisoners being moved west to British
strongholds were often moved through the Catskills, which were mostly
populated by loyalists, and the British built a small fort between
Kaaterskill High Peak and Roundtop.  Many captured rebels were held
overnight at the mountain outpost.  Small sections of the stronghold's
foundation remain visible even today."