Fort Montgomery on
Lake Champlain
, native_name_lang =
, image = Champlainmap.svg
, caption = Lake Champlain-River Richelieu watershed
, image_bathymetry =
, caption_bathymetry =
, location = New York/Vermont in the United States; and Quebec in Canada
, coords =
, type =
, ...
is the second of two
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
fort
A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...
s built at the northernmost point of the American part of the lake: a first, unnamed fort built on the same site in 1816 and Fort Montgomery built in 1844.
The current massive stone fortification, the second fort, was built between 1844 and 1871 at the
Canada–US border of Lake Champlain at Island Point in the village of
Rouses Point, New York
Rouses Point is a village in Clinton County, New York, United States, along the 45th parallel. The population was 2,209 at the 2010 census. The village is named after Jacques Rouse, a French Canadian soldier who fought alongside the Americans d ...
.
Background
"Fort Blunder"
Construction had begun on the first fort at this location, an octagonal structure with walls, in 1816 to protect against an attack from British Canada such as that which led to the
Battle of Plattsburgh
The Battle of Plattsburgh, also known as the Battle of Lake Champlain, ended the final British invasion of the northern states of the United States during the War of 1812. An army under Lieutenant General Sir George Prévost and a naval squadro ...
in 1814. In July 1817, President
James Monroe
James Monroe ( ; April 28, 1758July 4, 1831) was an American statesman, lawyer, diplomat, and Founding Father who served as the fifth president of the United States from 1817 to 1825. A member of the Democratic-Republican Party, Monroe was ...
visited the incomplete fortification and the adjacent
military reservation
A military base is a facility directly owned and operated by or for the military or one of its branches that shelters military equipment and personnel, and facilitates training and Military operation, operations. A military base always provides ...
known locally as "the commons". However, due to an earlier
surveying
Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ca ...
error it was later found that this first fort was inadvertently built on the Canadian side of the border, resulting in its sometimes being better known as "Fort Blunder".
When a new survey discovered that the
45th parallel was actually located some south, effectively placing the fort in Canada, all construction on this first fort stopped and the site was abandoned. Much of its material was scavenged by the locals for use in their own homes and public buildings.
No evidence has come to light that this first fort was ever named, with most contemporary documents simply referring to it as the
"works", "
fortification
A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...
", or
"battery" at Rouse's Point. It is often mistakenly referred to as Fort Montgomery.
[Millard (2005)] The site of the first fort was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
under the name "Fort Montgomery" in 1977.
Fort Montgomery
It was ultimately decided that a second fort would be constructed on the site after the
Webster–Ashburton Treaty
The Webster–Ashburton Treaty, signed August 9, 1842, was a treaty that resolved several border issues between the United States and the British North American colonies (the region that became Canada). Signed under John Tyler's presidency, it ...
of 1842 ceded strategically important
Island Point
An island or isle is a piece of subcontinental land completely surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island in a river or a lake island may be calle ...
, the site of the 1816 fort and the northernmost point on Lake Champlain, to the United States. Construction began on the new fortification two years later in 1844, dubbed Fort Montgomery, in honor of the
Revolutionary War soldier
Major general
Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of a ...
Richard Montgomery
Richard Montgomery (2 December 1738 – 31 December 1775) was an Irish soldier who first served in the British Army. He later became a major general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, and he is most famous for l ...
who was
killed at Quebec City during the
1775 invasion of Canada. Fort Montgomery was one of a very few "Permanent" or "Third System" forts built along the Northern Frontier, most being constructed along the
Atlantic
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...
Coast.
Work on the fort remained almost continuous through 1870, with the peak of construction taking a frenzied pace during the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
, amidst rumors of possible
British intervention against the Union from Canada. Possibly to assuage those concerns, a detachment of the 14th U.S. Infantry was actually garrisoned at the fort for three months in 1862. These fears were eventually proven to be not that far-fetched when the
St. Albans Raid
The St. Albans Raid was the northernmost land action of the American Civil War. It was a raid from the Province of Canada by 21 Confederate soldiers. They had recently failed in engagements with the Union Army and evaded subsequent capture in th ...
, the northernmost action of the Civil War, took place in nearby
Vermont
Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...
in 1864 involving a raid by 21 Confederate soldiers from Canada.
Over the roughly 30-year period of Fort Montgomery's construction, no expense was spared and the work represented some of the most advanced and cutting edge military technology of the day. At peak points on the project, the labor force consisted of roughly 400 stonecutters and masons plying their trades at the site. When its basic structure was completed, the fortification boasted walls some high and gun emplacements for 125 cannon on three tiers.
The fort was also one of only nine examples constructed in the United States to have a moat, another being
Fort Jefferson in the
Dry Tortugas
Dry Tortugas National Park is a national park located about west of Key West in the Gulf of Mexico. The park preserves Fort Jefferson and the seven Dry Tortugas islands, the westernmost and most isolated of the Florida Keys. The archipelago's c ...
. This made Fort Montgomery essentially surrounded on all sides by water and accessible only by a retractable drawbridge from the land side. An interesting and innovative design feature in its own right, this drawbridge could be mechanically pivoted on a central balance point with one end raising to block the entrance and the other end dropping into a curved pit in the
postern
A postern is a secondary door or gate in a fortification such as a city wall or castle curtain wall. Posterns were often located in a concealed location which allowed the occupants to come and go inconspicuously. In the event of a siege, a postern ...
, or
sally port
A sally port is a secure, controlled entry way to an enclosure, e.g., a fortification or prison. The entrance is usually protected by some means, such as a fixed wall on the outside, parallel to the door, which must be circumvented to enter an ...
, behind the doorway like a see-saw. Raising this bridge would effectively cut off the fort from any entrance by land as the bottom of the fort's doorway stood a full above the water of the moat or "wet ditch" below. A similar entrance from the lake side, known as a "water gate", also utilized a drawbridge which accessed a dock extending from the fort into the lake.
Directly behind the fort itself, between it and the actual shoreline, a massive manmade island was constructed. Standing higher than the fort itself, this earthen berm was known as the "cover face" and protected the fort against an enemy on land being able to utilize heavy siege guns to reduce the walls. It was connected to the land by a narrow stone causeway and to the fort itself by a bridge. Also during the fort's later construction, Chief Engineer of the U.S. Army
Joseph Totten
Joseph Gilbert Totten (August 23, 1788 – April 22, 1864) fought in the War of 1812, served as Chief of Engineers and was regent of the Smithsonian Institution and cofounder of the National Academy of Sciences. In 1836, he was elected a member ...
invented an iron reinforced
embrasure
An embrasure (or crenel or crenelle; sometimes called gunhole in the domain of gunpowder-era architecture) is the opening in a battlement between two raised solid portions (merlons). Alternatively, an embrasure can be a space hollowed out ...
for cannon which would better protect the gunners inside a fort, an upgrade which was retrofitted into Fort Montgomery's design on its unfinished upper gun tier, while the lower, already completed level sported the older style brick embrasures.
Totten was no stranger to the area and had served as a Major under Generals
Izard and
Macomb at the 1814
Battle of Plattsburgh
The Battle of Plattsburgh, also known as the Battle of Lake Champlain, ended the final British invasion of the northern states of the United States during the War of 1812. An army under Lieutenant General Sir George Prévost and a naval squadro ...
where he had been in charge of laying out the American defensive fortifications and had later been
brevetted
In many of the world's military establishments, a brevet ( or ) was a warrant giving a commissioned officer a higher rank title as a reward for gallantry or meritorious conduct but may not confer the authority, precedence, or pay of real rank. ...
to Lieutenant-Colonel for gallantry under fire.
Initially designed to be manned by a force of 800 men, the fort was never fully garrisoned and mainly took on a role as a military deterrent along the border. Many of the Third System forts by design were never permanently garrisoned, ultimately intended to be waiting and ready for action only if needed. Contrary to local lore, however, although the fort never fired a shot in anger, this does not mean the fort was never armed. According to War Department records, in 1886 when Fort Montgomery was most heavily armed, it mounted 74 guns of its full 125 gun capacity, including and
Rodman cannon
Drawing comparing Model 1844 8-inch columbiad and Model 1861 10-inch "Rodman" columbiad. The powder chamber on the older columbiad is highlighted by the red box.
The Rodman gun is any of a series of American Civil War–era columbiads designed by ...
. Most of these guns were mounted training northward towards Canada. Although never placed in position, two massive Rodmans were present at the site for years sitting on the parade ground waiting to be mounted atop the wall.
In 1880,
Commanding General of the Army William Tecumseh Sherman
William Tecumseh Sherman ( ; February 8, 1820February 14, 1891) was an American soldier, businessman, educator, and author. He served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War (1861–1865), achieving recognition for his com ...
toured the fortification and was so impressed with the magnitude of the site, he returned to Washington and intended to have the military garrison at nearby
Plattsburgh Barracks
The "Old Stone Barracks" is the last remaining structure of a proposed quadrangle of early U.S. Army barracks built at Plattsburgh, New York in 1838. Of the four main buildings initially planned for the Plattsburgh post, only two were ever con ...
stationed instead at the fort. Due to the outcry of many prominent local citizens, however, the troop movement never took place.
In the years following the Civil War, with the introduction of much more modern and powerful armaments such as explosive shells and rapid-firing rifled cannon, the military importance of masonry fortifications such as Fort Montgomery was rapidly drawing to a close. Technology now existed which could allow an enemy force to quickly and easily reduce their massive
casemates
A casemate is a fortified gun emplacement or armored structure from which guns are fired, in a fortification, warship, or armoured fighting vehicle.Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary
When referring to antiquity, the term "casemate wall" mean ...
and walls to piles of rubble. The last decade of the 19th century slowly saw the removal of the old fort's guns, now long obsolete. By 1900, 37 guns were still present and by 1901, that number had decreased to 20.
Purportedly the last of the larger guns were removed and taken down the lake by barge around 1909. After being loaded onto railroad cars at Plattsburgh, many of the iron cannon met their end being melted down for their scrap value in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
. Following this period the now empty fort was watched over by a caretaker, usually a retired soldier who lived in a nearby house and patrolled the grounds.
Disposal
In 1926 the United States Government sold Fort Montgomery along with its adjacent Military Reservation at
public auction
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...
. During the period of disuse which followed, as had also happened with the abandoned 1816 fortification, many locals visited the fort, carting off untold amounts of lumber, bricks, windows, and doors for use in their homes and other buildings. Ultimately most of the fort, aside from the gutted westward facing officer's quarters, a small portion of the southern wall and three
bastions
A bastion or bulwark is a structure projecting outward from the curtain wall of a fortification, most commonly angular in shape and positioned at the corners of the fort. The fully developed bastion consists of two faces and two flanks, with fi ...
(two of which remain today), was demolished in 1936–1937. Its massive stones were crushed and dumped into the lake for fill to construct a nearby bridge between
Rouses Point, New York
Rouses Point is a village in Clinton County, New York, United States, along the 45th parallel. The population was 2,209 at the 2010 census. The village is named after Jacques Rouse, a French Canadian soldier who fought alongside the Americans d ...
and Alburg, Vermont. The property had a number of private owners before it was sold in 1983 to Victor Podd, Sr. who constructed the headquarters of the Powertex Corporation on the adjacent "Commons" to the west of the fort. Island Point, the actual fort site, was left untouched.
During the mid-1980s Podd worked with local historical societies to have the State of New York purchase the property with a view toward possible restoration of the site. Despite being offered the fort at no cost, negotiations were unsuccessful and the State declined to accept the property. Since May 2006, Podds' heirs have attempted to sell the fort on
eBay
eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a ...
. The first auction ended on June 5, 2006, with a winning bid of $5,000,310. However, the sale was not completed, and the fort and lands surrounding it remain for sale.
There are current concerns among local preservationists that what remains of the fort today is in danger of a catastrophic structural collapse. This is in part due to the removal of iron reinforcing rods, emplaced around 1886, which were likely cut out for their scrap value during the wartime scrap metal drives of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. These rods were originally devised to brace up and support the massive weight of the fort's detached outer wall face, a defensive element of the fort's construction which later proved over time to be a structural flaw. Previously a third remaining bastion on the northern side of the fort suffered a similar collapse and was completely destroyed in 1980, mostly falling into the moat.
In September 2008, the
Preservation League of New York State The Preservation League of New York State (Preserve NYS) is a nonprofit organization which works to preserve historic structures in New York. Established in 1974, Preserve NYS supports preservation efforts through information on best practices, pr ...
listed Fort Montgomery as one of their "Seven to Save" properties. This listing effectively recognized the historical significance of the Fort Montgomery ruins. It also identified the ruins as being in dire need of stabilization and preservation.
[ ]
References
Bibliography
*
*
External links
Fort Montgomery (at Rouse's Point) history and tour from America's Historic Lakes
Fort Montgomery: The old fort nobody wants
{{coord, 45.0056, -73.3490, type:landmark_region:US-NY, display=title
Montgomery (Lake Champlain)
Buildings and structures in Clinton County, New York
Government buildings completed in 1844
Montgomery (Lake Champlain)
1844 establishments in New York (state)
National Register of Historic Places in Clinton County, New York