Purpose: To commemorate the cross erected and dedicated at Fort Niagara by Father Millett on Good Friday, 1688
Date: September 5, 1925
(Original document available here)
WHEREAS, by section 2 of an Act of Congress approved June 8, 1906 (34 Stat. 225), the President was authorized “in his discretion, to declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated upon the lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States to be national monuments, and may reserve as a part thereof parcels of land, the limits of which in all cases shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected”;
AND WHEREAS, Father Millett, a French Jesuit Priest, who came to Canada – then known as New France – in 1667, and who served about fifteen years as a missionary among the Onondaga and Oneida Indians within what is now the State of New York, and subsequently became a chaplain in the French Colonial Forces, first at Fort Frontenac and later at Fort Niagara, did, on Good Friday, 1688, erect and dedicate a cross on what is now the Fort Niagara Military Reservation; and the Knights of Columbus of the Sixth New York District have requested that a suitable site be set apart thereon for the erection of another cross commemorative of the cross erected and blessed by Father Millett;
NOW THEREFORE, I, Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States of America, under authority of the said Act of Congress do hereby reserve as a site for the said monument, the following described parcel of land situated within the limits of the military reservation of Fort Niagara, New York, and do hereby declare and proclaim the same to be a national monument to commemorate the cross erected and dedicated at Fort Niagara by Father Millett on Good Friday, 1688, viz:
Beginning at an iron pipe on the northerly line of old stone block house (building No. 33) produced, and seventy-four (74) feet westerly from the northwest corner of said block house, running thence eighteen (18) feet westerly along said northerly line produced to an iron pipe; thence northerly at right angles to above line eighteen (18) feet to an iron pipe; thence easterly on a line parallel to the north line of block house produced and eighteen (18) feet distant northerly therefrom, eighteen (18) feet to another iron pipe; thence southerly at right angles to said northerly line of block house eighteen feet to the point of beginning; containing 0.0074 acres more or less.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington this 5th day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and twenty-five and the Independence of the United States the one hundred and fiftieth.
Citation: The Statutes at Large of the United States of America from December, 1925 to March, 1927
The Coolidge Foundation gratefully acknowledges the volunteer efforts of Frank Harder, who prepared this document for digital publication.