Fort Shelby was a military fort in what is now Detroit, Michigan that played a significant role in the War of 1812 (1812-1815). It was built by the British Army in 1779 as Fort Lernoult, and was ceded to the United States by the terms of the Jay Treaty in 1796, following up on the original terms of the peace agreement of the Treaty of Paris that ended the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783), 13 years earlier when the British held on to continuing occupying several fortifications on the new American-Canadian international border. It was renamed Fort Detroit by the U.S. Secretary of War Henry Dearborn in 1805.
The then American commander William Hull of the United States Army, surrendered the fort in 1812, shortly after War was declared in June 1812 by the United States Congress and approved by the President, James Madison. But it was reclaimed by the U.S. military forces the following year in 1813. The Americans renamed it Fort Shelby then in 1813, but occasional references to "Fort Detroit" relating to the War of 1812 period of 1812-1815, are to this fort.