Fort Frontenac

Fort Frontenac (formerly Fort Cataraqui)
Fort Frontenac (formerly Fort Cataraqui)
Part of chain of French forts throughout Great Lakes and upper Mississippi region.
Mouth of Cataraqui River, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
	Remnants of the old fort with the new Fort Frontenac in the background
Site information
Controlled by	Original: New France
Condition	Present fort: military barrack buildings used as college. Remnants of original stone fort can be seen.
Site history
Built	1673
Built by	Louis de Buade de Frontenac
In use	1673– present. Periods of abandonment.
Materials	Original: wood palisade, partially rebuilt with stone in 1675, rebuilt completely of stone 1695.
Demolished	1689 but later rebuilt. Destroyed by British, 1758. Partly rebuilt, 1783.
Battles/wars	Iroquois siege, 1688, Battle of Fort Frontenac (Seven Years' War), 1758
Garrison information
Occupants	French, British, Canadian
National Historic Site of Canada
Designated	1923

Fort Frontenac was a French trading post and military fort built in July 1673 at the mouth of the Cataraqui River where the St. Lawrence River leaves Lake Ontario (at what is now the western end of the La Salle Causeway), in a location traditionally known as Cataraqui. It is the present-day location of Kingston, Ontario, Canada. The original fort, a crude, wooden palisade structure, was called Fort Cataraqui but was later named for Louis de Buade de Frontenac, Governor of New France who was responsible for building the fort. It was abandoned and razed in 1689, then rebuilt in 1695.

The British destroyed the fort in 1758 during the Seven Years' War and its ruins remained abandoned until the British took possession and reconstructed it in 1783. In 1870–71 the fort was turned over to the Canadian military, who continue to use it.

History

Establishment and early use

The intent of Fort Frontenac was to control the lucrative

Ohio Valley

to the south.

Explorer

Five Nations of the Iroquois on July 12, 1673 to encourage them to trade with the French, and to begin the fort's construction. The fort, which was constructed of wood surrounded by a wooden stockade consisting of sharpened poles, was completed within six days.^[3]^[4] La Salle administered the fort and built storage buildings and dwellings, brought in domestic animals and ensured some land outside the fort was cultivated with the aim of attracting settlers.^[5]

The fort was sited to protect a small sheltered bay (the "cannotage")

canoes, larger vessels could easily navigate the lower lakes. The cost of transporting goods such as furs, trade items, and supplies through at least the lower Great Lakes would be reduced.^[7]

La Salle was granted

Recollet priests.^[8]

A description of the fort written in the 17th century mentions that:

Three quarters of it are of masonry or hardstone, the wall is three feet thick and twelve high. There is one place where it is only four feet, not being completed. The remainder is closed in with stakes. There is inside a house of squared logs, a hundred feet long. There is also a blacksmith's shop a guardhouse, a house for the officers, a well, and a cow-house. The ditches are fifteen feet wide. There is a good amount of land cleared and sown around about, in which a hundred paces away or almost there is a barn for storing the harvest. There are quite near the fort several French houses, an Iroquois village, a convent and a Recollet church.[9]

La Salle used Fort Frontenac as a convenient base for his explorations into the interior of North America.

Iroquois siege and reconstruction

Fur trade rivalries continued to cause friction between the French and the Iroquois in the 1680s. The French began a campaign against the Iroquois to resolve the Iroquois threat, beginning with Governor

galley slaves

. Denonville's troops and native allies went on to attack the Seneca.

In retaliation for these incidents the Iroquois laid siege to Fort Frontenac and blockaded Lake Ontario. The fort and the settlement at Cataraqui were besieged for two months in 1688. Although the fort was not destroyed, the settlement was devastated and many inhabitants died, mostly from scurvy. The French abandoned and destroyed the fort in 1689, claiming that its remoteness prevented proper defense and that it could not be adequately supplied. The French again took possession of the fort in 1695 and it was rebuilt and strengthened to serve primarily as a military base of operations. From Fort Frontenac in 1696 the French organized an attack on the Iroquois who inhabited areas south of Lake Ontario.^[12]

Increased tension between the British and the French in the 1740s led to the French upgrading the fort's defensive capabilities by adding new guns, building new barracks and increasing the size of the garrison.^[13] However, when the Marquis de Montcalm arrived at the fort in 1756 to launch an attack on the British at Oswego, he was not impressed with its construction. One of his engineers noted that:

The fort has a simple revetement of masonry, with poor foundations of small stones badly set, and the lime is bad; one could easily damage it with a sledge or a pick. The wall is about three to three and a half feet thick at the bottom and two at the top; it has been necessary to build walls for cover. The walls are from 20 to 25 feet high; there are no moats. The trees have been cut down within cannon-shot north and west and about two cannon-shots from the west to the south. ...As for the interior, a wooden scaffold has been built all around except along the north curtain where the commandant's house and chapel are, where the buildings are against the wall. This scaffold is too high; battlements have been let in on a level with the scaffold only eight inches high, which makes them useless. There are two openings for cannons on certain faces of the basions and one on the flanks. There are some places where the scaffold and even the wall would not stand cannon-fire long.^[14]

The fort's strategic significance gradually decreased. Other forts such as Fort Niagara, Fort Detroit, and Fort Michilimackinac became more important.^[15] By the 1750s Fort Frontenac essentially served only as a supply storage depot and harbour for French naval vessels, and its garrison had dwindled.

Battle of Fort Frontenac

During the Seven Years' War between Britain and France, who were vying for control of the North American continent, the British considered Fort Frontenac to be a strategic threat since it was in a position to command transportation and communications to other French fortifications and outposts along the St. Lawrence – Great Lakes water route and in the Ohio Valley. Although not as important as it once was, the fort was still a base from which the western outposts were supplied. The British reasoned that if they were to disable the fort, supplies would be cut off and the outposts would no longer be able to defend themselves. The Indian trade in the upper country (the Pays d'en Haut) would also be disrupted.^[16]

Fort Frontenac was also regarded as a threat to Fort Oswego, which was built by the British across the lake from Fort Frontenac in 1722 to compete with Fort Frontenac for the Indian trade, and later enhanced as a military establishment. General Montcalm had already used Fort Frontenac as a staging point to attack the fortifications at Oswego in August 1756.

A 1763 map showing the British positions during the battle.

The British also hoped that taking the well-known fort would boost troop morale and honour after their demoralizing battle defeat at Fort Ticonderoga (Fort Carillon) in July 1758.^[15]^[17]

In August 1758, the British under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel John Bradstreet left Fort Oswego with a force of a little over 3000 men and attacked Fort Frontenac. The fort's garrison of 110 men, including five officers and 48 enlisted men of the regular colonial troops, employees, women, children, 8 Indians, and others commanded by Pierre-Jacques Payen de Noyan et de Chavoy,^[15] surrendered and were allowed to leave. Bradstreet captured the fort's supplies and nine French naval vessels, and destroyed much of the fort. He quickly departed to avoid further conflict with any French support troops.

For the British, Fort Oswego was secured, and the army's reputation was restored.^[15] For the French, the fort's loss was considered to be only a temporary setback.^[15] Fort Frontenac's surrender did not succeed in completely severing French communications and transportation to the west since other routes were available (e.g. the Ottawa River – Lake Huron route).^[15] Supplies could also be moved west from other French posts (e.g. Fort de La Présentation).^[15] In the long term, however, the surrender compromised French prestige among the Indians and contributed to the defeat of New France in North America.^[18] Since the fort was no longer perceived to be important to the French, it was never rebuilt and was left abandoned for the next 25 years.^[15]

French imperial power was waning in the late 1750s, and by 1763 France had withdrawn from the North American mainland. Cataraqui and the remains of Fort Frontenac were relinquished to the British.

Reconstruction and modern times

View of the remains of Fort Frontenac, 1783. The fort was partially rebuilt by the British later that year.

In 1783, the Cataraqui region was selected by the British as a location to settle

Major John Ross, commander at Oswego, to repair and rebuild the fort to accommodate a military garrison. This was done by a force of 422 men and 25 officers. By October 1783, a lime kiln, hospital, barracks, officers' quarters, storehouses, and a bakehouse were completed.^[19] In 1787, the rebuilt fort became known as Tête-de-Pont Barracks.^[20] During the War of 1812, the fort was the focus of military activity in Kingston, having housed many military troops. Many of the present barrack buildings were built between 1821 and 1824.^[21]^[22]

After British imperial forces withdrew from most Canadian locations in 1870–71, the

Second World War

, the fort was used as a personnel depot.

On 25 May 1923, the site of Fort Frontenac was designated as a

National Historic Site of Canada

.

In 1939 the site of the fort again became known as Fort Frontenac. Canadian Army staff training began at Fort Frontenac when the Canadian Army Staff College moved to the fort from the Royal Military College in 1948. The college is now known as the Canadian Army Command and Staff College. Fort Frontenac was also the location of the National Defence College until 1994.

Archaeology

In 1982, archaeological investigation began at the fort. During the spring of 1984, the City of Kingston redesigned the intersection of Ontario and Place d'Armes Streets so that the northwest bastion (Bastion St. Michel) and curtain wall could be excavated and partially reconstructed. The research also provided important details about the development and use of the fort and surrounding area, and helped to establish the relationship between the physical remains and the information included in historical maps and plans.^[23]

Intact remains of the east bastion were located in 2020 by

archaeologists while preparing for infrastructure work. Deposits associated with the fur trade era were found on the south side of the bastion wall, including trade beads, beaver jaws, gun flints, and fish bones.^[24]