The Battle of Falmouth (also known as the Battle of

Fort Loyal Fort Loyal was a British settler refuge and colonial outpost built in 1678 at Falmouth (present-day Portland, Maine) in Casco Bay. It was destroyed in 1690 by Abenaki and French forces at the Battle of Fort Loyal. The fort was rebuilt in 1742 and r ...

) (May 16–20, 1690) involved Joseph-François Hertel de la Fresnière and Baron de St Castin leading troops as well as the

Wabanaki Confederacy The Wabanaki Confederacy (''Wabenaki, Wobanaki'', translated to "People of the Dawn" or "Easterner") is a North American First Nations and Native American confederation of four principal Eastern Algonquian nations: the Miꞌkmaq, Maliseet ( ...

(

Mi'kmaq The Mi'kmaq (also ''Mi'gmaq'', ''Lnu'', ''Miꞌkmaw'' or ''Miꞌgmaw''; ; ) are a First Nations people of the Northeastern Woodlands, indigenous to the areas of Canada's Atlantic Provinces and the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec as well as the northe ...

and

Maliseet The Wəlastəkwewiyik, or Maliseet (, also spelled Malecite), are an Algonquian-speaking First Nation of the Wabanaki Confederacy. They are the indigenous people of the Wolastoq ( Saint John River) valley and its tributaries. Their territory ...

from Fort Meductic) in

New Brunswick New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and ...

to capture and destroy

and the English settlement on the Falmouth neck (site of present-day

Portland, Maine Portland is the largest city in the U.S. state of Maine and the seat of Cumberland County. Portland's population was 68,408 in April 2020. The Greater Portland metropolitan area is home to over half a million people, the 104th-largest metropol ...

), then part of the

Massachusetts Bay Colony The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around the Massachusetts Bay, the northernmost of the several colonies later reorganized as the ...

. The commander of the fort was Captain Sylvanus Davis. After two days of siege, the settlement's fort, called Fort Loyal (sometimes spelled "Loyall"), surrendered. The community's buildings were burned, including the wooden stockade fort, and its people were either killed or taken prisoner. The fall of Fort Loyal (Casco) led to the near depopulation of Europeans in Maine. Native forces were then able to attack the New Hampshire frontier without reprisal.

Historical context

The earliest garrison at Falmouth was Fort Loyal (1678) in what was then the center of town, the foot of India Street. During

King William's War King William's War (also known as the Second Indian War, Father Baudoin's War, Castin's War, or the First Intercolonial War in French) was the North American theater of the Nine Years' War (1688–1697), also known as the War of the Grand All ...

, on Major Benjamin Church's first expedition into Acadia, on September 21, 1689, he and 250 troops defended a group of English settlers trying to establish themselves at

Falmouth, Maine Falmouth is a New England town, town in Cumberland County, Maine, United States. The population was 12,444 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. It is part of the Portland, Maine, Portland–South Portland, Maine, South Portland&ndas ...

(present-day

). Natives killed 21 of his men; however, he was successful and the natives retreated. Church then returned to Boston, leaving the small group of English settlers unprotected.The history of the great Indian war of 1675 and 1676, commonly called Philip ... By Benjamin Church, Thomas Church, Samuel Gardner Drake, pp. 175-176 Hertel was chosen by Governor Frontenac to lead an expedition in 1690 that successfully raided Salmon Falls on the Maine-New Hampshire border, and then moved on to destroy Fort Loyal on Falmouth Neck (site of present-day

Battle

In May 1690, four hundred to five hundred French and Indian troops under the command of Joseph-François Hertel de la Fresnière and Baron de St Castin attacked the settlement. Grossly outnumbered, the settlers held out for four days before surrendering. Eventually two hundred were murdered and left in a large heap a few paces from what is now the popular Benkay sushi restaurant. Davis was taken prisoner to Quebec. A relief expedition under command of Shadrach Walton came too late to save the people from the massacre.

Aftermath

When Church returned to the village later that summer, he buried the dead. James Alexander was taken captive along with 100 other prisoners. He was taken back to the Maliseet headquarters on the Saint John River at

Meductic Meductic is a small village located along the Saint John River in southern New Brunswick, approximately 33 kilometres southeast of Woodstock. Meductic's mayor is Lance Royden Graham. History During the Expulsion of the Acadians, the village wa ...

. "James Alexander, a Jersey man," was, with

John Gyles John Gyles (1680 at Pemaquid, Maine1755 at Roxbury, Boston) was an interpreter and soldier, most known for his account of his experiences with the Maliseet tribes at their headquarters at Meductic, on the Saint John River. King William's ...

, tortured at an Indian village on the Saint John River. Two Mi'kmaq families whose friends were killed by New England fishermen travelled many miles to avenge themselves on the captives. They were reported to have yelled and danced around their victims; tossed and threw them; held them by the hair and beat them - sometimes with an axe - and did this all day, compelling them also to dance and sing, until at night they were thrown out exhausted. Alexander, after a second torture, ran to the woods, but hunger drove him back to his tormentors. His fate is unknown. Captain Davis spent four months as a prisoner in Canada. Both Falmouth and Arrowsic remained uninhabited until 1714 and 1716 respectively. The fort was replaced and named Fort Falmouth in 1742 leading up to

King George's War King George's War (1744–1748) is the name given to the military operations in North America that formed part of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748). It was the third of the four French and Indian Wars. It took place primarily in t ...

. On 28 May 1690 there was an attack at Fox Point, New Hampshire.

References

*Hull, John Thomas
''The Siege and Capture of Fort Loyall''

Captain Sylvanus Davis' account of the battle. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 3d ser., I (1825), 101–12 William Kingsford. History of Canada, Vol. 2, p. 339
Endnotes {{coord, 43, 39, 41.3, N, 70, 15, 19.1, W, source:jawiki, display=title Falmouth

Falmouth (Portland) Falmouth (Portland) Falmouth Pre-statehood history of Maine Casco Bay History of Portland, Maine 1690 in Massachusetts 1690 in the Thirteen Colonies Falmouth 1690 Falmouth 1690 Falmouth 1690 Falmouth 1690 Massacres in 1690

Historical context

Battle

Aftermath

See also

References