Fort Saint-Frédéric
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Fort Saint-Frédéric
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Model of Fort Saint-Frédéric
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| Location: | Crown Point, New York |
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| Coordinates: | 44°1′45″N 73°25′52″W / 44.02917°N 73.43111°WCoordinates: 44°1′45″N 73°25′52″W / 44.02917°N 73.43111°W |
| Built: | 1734 |
| Governing body: | State |
| NRHP Reference#: | 66000517 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP: | October 15, 1966[1] |
| Designated NHL: | October 9, 1960[2] |
Fort Saint-Frédéric was a French fort built on Lake Champlain to secure the region against British colonization and control Lake Champlain. It was located in modern New York State across the lake from modern Vermont at the town of Crown Point, New York.
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[edit] History
Construction started in 1734. When complete, Fort Saint-Frédéric walls were twelve feet thick and four stories high, with cannons on each level. It was manned by hundreds of officers and troops, principally from Les Compagnies Franches de la Marine.[3]
The fort gave the French control of the New France/Vermont border region in the Lake Champlain Valley. As the only permanent stronghold in the area until the building of Fort Carillon at Ticonderoga starting in 1755, many French raids originated there and many British targeted it. Constructed on the tip of a strategic peninsula at a narrows in the Lake, the cannons of Fort Saint-Frédéric and the later British Fort Crown Point were capable of halting all north-south travel on the lake.
In 1759 when British forces moved against Fort Saint-Frédéric during the French and Indian War, the retreating French destroyed it.[4] The British Army and Provincial troops from nearby British Colonies then built Fort Crown Point , a vast fortification just southwest of the ruins of the French fort, starting in the fall of 1759. At the same time they built a fleet to gain military control of Lake Champlain and the 77-mile-long Crown Point Road across the Green Mountains to reach the Connecticut River.
Since 1910 the remains of both forts on the Crown Point peninsula are part of a state historic site. Both are also U.S. National Historic Landmarks. Fort Saint-Frédéric was registered as a National Historic Landmark in 1962.[2][5][6]
[edit] See also
- New France
- Fort Carillon
- Fort Crown Point
- Fort Ticonderoga
- Crown Point State Historic Site
- François-Antoine Pécaudy de Contrecœur
- Bécart de Granville
[edit] References
- ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2007-01-23. http://nrhp.focus.nps.gov/natreg/docs/All_Data.html.
- ^ a b "Fort St. Frederic". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. 2007-09-12. http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=370&ResourceType=Site.
- ^ p. 18, Folwell, Elizabeth, and Amy Godine, Adirondack Odysseys, The Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake, New York, 1997, ISBN 0-936399-78-3
- ^ p. 19, Folwell, Elizabeth, and Amy Godine, Adirondack Odysseys, The Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake, New York, 1997, ISBN 0-936399-78-3
- ^ "National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination". National Park Service. 1976-02-20. http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NHLS/Text/66000517.pdf.
- ^ "National Register of Historic Places Inventory". National Park Service. 1976-02-20. http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NHLS/Photos/66000517.pdf.
[edit] External links
- Crown Point State Historic Site (Official State park web site), at NYS OPRHP
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