The first order for the building of a fort at Point Beauséjour, as the hill was known to the French, was that of the Marquis de la Jonquière, Governor General of Canada, to M. de St. Ours des Chaillons, Commander of the French forces in Chignecto, on November 8, 1750. In the spring of 1751, Lieutenant Joseph Gaspard de Léry was given the job of building a picket fort on this site at the head of the Bay of Fundy.
The fort was constructed in the shape of a pentagon. The walls were composed of heavy timber pickets forming a palisade, about fifteen feet high, braced on the inside at intervals. Each angle was enlarged to form a projecting bastion, strengthened on the inside by log platforms for cannon. In the middle of the one on the left of the main gate a powder magazine was placed. Just inside the gate was a small guard house. Inside the fort, between the bastions, four buildings stood. They were an officer's quarters, two barracks and a storehouse. In the angle of one bastion, a surface well was dug. The main gate was directed towards the north and slightly east, on the side of the fort which was opposite the Bay. In 1752, new plans were drawn in order to strengthen the fort. As a result, the palisade was fortified on the inside with a thick wall of timbers and earth, through which a casement (passage) ran along the curtains. Along the top of the curtain was built a small rampart, six feet wide and nine feet above ground level. On the outside of the wall ran a deep fosse(ditch). Beyond this was a glacis bordered by a palisade of heavy timber pickets. At the main gateway, the entrance was protected by a redan made of timbers. In each bastion were two lateral gun platforms with embrasure on their sides and another in the angle for a battery à barbette; outside this was a wide rampart, covered with sods.
It was a well-planned fort of five bastions, and mounted with 32 guns and mortars. The nucleus of its garrison was some 150 regulars of the Colonial Marine, commanded by Louis Du Pont Duchambon De Vergor, a captain of the same corps. The fort was an outpost of French strength. At the same time, the British built Ft. Lawrence a short distance away from the French fort. Fort Beauséjour was taken by the British in 1755 and renamed Fort Cumberland.
In October 1755 Michel Chartier, later Marquis de Lotbiniere, under orders from the Governor-General of New France, began clearing land to build a stone fortress at the narrows between Lake George and Lake Champlain. The fortress was first named Fort Vaudreuil, but was later called Carillon ( A Chime of Bells ) after the sound of the nearby falls.
The fort was first built of a double row of oak timbers seven feet high and ten feet apart and bound together by two cross-pieces dovetailed at their ends to retain the timbers. In the spring of 1756 the earth ramparts were built, the platforms of the bastions completed, a bomb-proof cover built for each bastion , two stone barracks built, and the ditches of the place dug to the rock bed everywhere. Part of the rock even removed on two fronts, the ditches of the two demi-lunes were also excavated to the rock, and a store-house was established outside the fort as well as a hospital. The parapet was raised on the two fronts that would be exposed to an enemy's artillery batteries.
During the summer of 1757 De Lotbiniere started to substitute stone for the timbers he had used on the outer walls of the fort. By the summer of 1758 the work on the fort was nearly complete. Now the defense of the fort would be put to the test.
On September 22, 1731, the Marquis de Beauharnois, then governor general of Canada, erected a fort at Pointe à la Chevelure (Crown point) on Lake Champlain. Fort St Frédéric as it was called, was a small stockade which could accommodate a garrison of only 30 men. This was replaced in 1736 by a "redoubt à machi coulis", sufficient for a garrison of 120 men. It was subsequently enlarged, and in 1742 was, with the exception of Quebec, the strongest work held by the French in Canada.
Shortly after completion of the fort, a settlement of considerable size began to spring up around it. This village spread to both sides of the lake. It was populated principally by families of old soldiers who had been discharged from service. A few of the houses were large, but most were only small cabins built of boards. To each soldier in service was allotted a small piece of ground near the walls of the fort.
Fort Sainte Frederic, says Peter Kalm,* " is built on a rock consisting of black lime slates, and is nearly quadrangular, has high and thick walls, made of the same limestone, of which there is a quarry about half a mile from the fort. On the eastern part of the fort is a high tower, which is proof against bomb shells, provided with very thick and substantial walls, and well stored with cannon from the bottom almost to the very top, and the Governor lives in the tower. In the terre plaine of the fort is a well built little church and houses of stone for the officers and soldiers. There are sharp rocks on all sides towards the land beyond cannon shot from the fort, but among them are some which are as high as the walls of the fort, and very near them. Within one or two musket shots to the east of the fort is a windmill, built of stone, with very thick walls, and most of the flour, which is wanted to supply the fort, is ground here. This windmill is so constructed as to serve the purpose of a redoubt and at the top of it are five or six small pieces of cannon. Subsequently a trench or wide ditch was dug around the fort, on the land side, enclosing the hill referred to. This trench commenced at the waters edge about two rods north and terminated about 15 rods south of the fort. An enclosure was also erected about 25 rods north-west of the fort which reached the waters edge and surrounded several buildings used for soldiers quarters."
St Frederic was erected as much for offensive operations as for defense and until 1759, was the seat of French power on the lake. Here was the rallying point for the Abenakis from St. Francis, the Arundacks of the fertile Ottawa, and the warlike Wyandots of the west. Here the ferocious Outagamis, the restless Algonquin and the Huron met to recount their deeds.
Fort Frontenac was built in 1673 on the site of the Indian town of Cataraqui, at the eastern end of Lake Ontario. The French had built Fort Frontenac to guard the St. Lawrence River route to the Interior. It was a strong looking place, made largely of stone, but it was brittle, and badly built, and it shivered every time a cannon in it was fired. There were 60 odd cannon in the place, and 16 mortars of different calibers. The garrison of the fort consisted of 110 men. Fort Frontenac, was the key to the west, and feeder of the Ohio country. It was crammed with vast supplies of provisions, food stores, and ammunition for the French Troops in the Ohio forts. Also there was an immense quantity of furs for the European market.
Soon after the destruction of Fort Frontenac, came abandonment of Fort Duquesne to General Forbes, a French defeat somewhat traceable to destruction at Fort Frontenac of stores intended for the Pennsylvania fortress.
The fort was situated on level ground near the shore, just below the opening of the Gaspereau River into Bay Verte. The northeast side of the fort was about 68 feet from the water and the East Side 126 feet. The fort was square, the sides measuring 114 feet each. At each corner stood a two-story blockhouse, pentagonal in shape, built of timbers standing upright and held together with cross pieces. The upper story projected two feet outside the lower story, being machicolated so as to enable musketry fire to be directed downwards if necessary. Small cannon were placed in the upper story, which had loopholes on the sides. Between towers ran the curtains consisting of an outer and an inner row of heavy wooden pickets, the latter being shorter than the former. Inside the palisade was a banquette of earth, used by the soldiers when they wished to fire through the loopholes between the tops of pickets. Outside the pickets was a fosse, 15 feet wide at the top and 5 at the bottom. The earth taken from the ditch was used to form a bank against the palisade, and on the outer side, to form a glacis that was made to slope gradually. Thus, the fosse was deepened, so that its vertical depth from the level of the top of the glacis was about 7 feet.
By 1755, the fort artillery consisted of four guns firing 4-ounce balls, and eight firing 8-ounce balls. The garrison consisted of not more than 25 men. Within the fort were a storehouse for goods, a small powder magazine, and a house for the commandant and officers. The fort contained no well, so the garrison was forced to bring water by cart.
In the spring of 1726, French soldiers and workmen departed Ft. Frontenac and crossed Lake Ontario for the mouth of the Niagara river. They soon began construction of a stone house on the point of land projecting from the east bank of the Niagara River. The French had thereby gained control of the “Gateway to the West”.
The structure built in 1726-1727 was an impressive fortifacation for it’s time and place. The central feature was an imposing stone house of two and one half stories. The building measured forty-five by ninety feet and was intended to house all the needs of a small garrison. Quarters, storerooms, powder magazine, a bakery, a chapel, and even a well were located under one roof. This stone house was surrounded by a simple wooden stockade with four bastions. Fort Niagara would remain much the same until the outbreak of the French and Indian War.
With a new colonial war beginning, the need to strengthen the fortifications at Niagara. On October 5, 1755, Captain Pierre Pouchot, and the Guienne regiment sailed from Fort Frontenac for Niagara with orders to rebuild the fortifications. The only practical approach to the walls of Fort Niagara was from the east, landward side. Pouchot traced a line of fortifications from Lake Ontario to the bank of the Niagara River. Along this line the workmen dug a deep ditch. The excavated dirt was thrown up to form a wall on the fort side and a gently sloping “glacis” on that nearest the potential enemy.
In accordance with the practices advocated by Vauban, the wall thus created was flanked by two projecting bastions. Smaller advance earthworks and a covered way on the interior edge of the glacis provided simple parallels to the defenses of the great European fortresses. The ditch was a formidable barrier, while the low silhouette of the wall and glacis made a difficult target for siege artillery.
