Fort Frederick (Saint John, New Brunswick)

Fort Frederick St John River, New Brunswick

Monument to Fort Frederick and other forts on the same site, Saint John, New Brunswick

Fort Frederick (1758—1777, earlier Fort Menagoueche, superseded by Fort Howe in 1777) was a British fort at what is now Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. It was built during the St. John River Campaign of the French and Indian War. It was one of three significant forts which the British built on the major rivers in the Northeast to cut off the natives' water way to the ocean to prevent attacks on the British settlers (see also Fort Halifax and Fort Pownall).^[1]

On September 13, 1758, Robert Monckton and a strong force of regulars and rangers (Gorham's Rangers, Danks' Rangers and Rogers' Rangers) left Halifax, and arrived at the mouth of the St. John River a week later. He established a new base of operations by reconstructing Fort Menagoueche, which had been destroyed in 1755, and which he renamed Fort Frederick.^[2] Establishing Fort Frederick allowed the British to virtually cut off the communications and supplies to the villages on the St. John River.^[3] (Fort Frederick (Maine) was decommissioned the following year.)

During the American Revolution, American Privateers pillaged and burned Fort Frederick in the Raid on St. John (1775). After the St. John River expedition, under the command of Gilfred Studholme, the fort was replaced with Fort Howe to the north across the St. John River in 1777.

Commanders

Major Roger Morris
Lt Col Arbuthnot
Lt Tong
Ensign Jeremiah Mears

References

^ "Collections of the Maine Historical Society". 1831.
^ Roger Sarty and Doug Knight. Saint John Fortifications. 2003. p. 31; Grenier (2008), pp. 199–200; F. Thériault, p. 11
^ Plank (2005), p. 68.

Primary sources

Secondary sources

Campbell, Gary. The Road to Canada: The Grand Communications Route from Saint John to Quebec. Goose Lane Editions and the New Brunswick Military Heritage Project. 2005
Faragher, John Mack (2005). A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from Their American Homeland. W.W Norton & Company. p. 405. ISBN 978-0-393-05135-3.
Grenier, John (2008). The Far Reaches of Empire: War in Nova Scotia, 1710-1760. University of Oklahoma Press. pp. 199–200. ISBN 978-0-8061-3876-3.
Macfarlane, W. G. Fredericton History; Two Centuries of Romance, War, Privation and Struggle, 1981
Maxwell, L.M.B. An Outline of the History of Central New Brunswick to the Time of Confederation, 1937. (Republish in 1984 by the York-Sunbury Historical Society.)
Patterson, Stephen E. (1994). "1744–1763: Colonial Wars and Aboriginal Peoples". In Phillip Buckner; John G. Reid (eds.). The Atlantic Region to Confederation: A History. University of Toronto Press. pp. 125–155. ISBN 978-1-4875-1676-5. JSTOR 10.3138/j.ctt15jjfrm.
Plank, Geoffrey (2005). "New England Soldiers in the Saint John River Valley: 1758-1760". In Stephen Hornsby; John G. Reid (eds.). New England and the Maritime provinces: connections and comparisons. McGill-Queen's University Press. pp. 59–73. ISBN 978-0-7735-7266-9. JSTOR /j.ctt80b8d.9.
Raymond, Wm. O. (1910). The River St. John: Its Physical Features, Legends and History, from 1604 to 1784. Saint John, New Brunswick: John A. Bowes. pp. 96–107.
Thériault, Fidèle. Le village acadien de la Pointe-Sainte-Anne (Fredericton),
George MacBeath, "GODIN, Bellefontaine, Beauséjour, JOSEPH," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 4, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–,
AD, Calvados (Caen), C 1020, mémoire de Joseph Bellefontaine, dit Beauséjour, 15 janv. 1774
Placide Gaudet, "Acadian genealogy and notes," PAC Report, 1905, II, pt.Template:Iii, 140, 241. N.S. Archives, III
Joseph Rôbinau de Villebon, Acadia at the end of the seventeenth century; letters, journals and memoirs of Joseph Robineau de Villebon...J. C. Webster, édit. (Saint-Jean, N.-B., 1934), 99, 149, 154.— L.