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Our new book

Fort Montgomery
Lake Champlain/Richelieu River
Rouses Point, New York

By James P. Millard

Click for map

Author note: This series is dedicated to my friend and colleague Roger Harwood. Roger, as frequent visitors to this site are aware, is second only to my wife Lynn in providing support for my humble efforts. It was Roger who first contacted Ann Thurber of Powertex, Inc. to arrange for their cooperation with this story. Roger, who is responsible for many of the wonderful photos you will see in the pages to come, Roger who arranged the permissions and "beat down the doors." And, it is Roger Harwood who kept me going on this article, helping me keep my perspective and offering a viewpoint regarding the destruction of the fort I never would have had otherwise.

Even as a truncated shadow of its former self, it is imposing. It stands silent, almost brooding, in its controversial (and famous) location at the place where Lake Champlain becomes the Richelieu River. Many who have seen its massive southern face want to know more about it, why it is there, of all places. These are the ruins of United States Fort Montgomery.

Few places in the Lake Champlain and Lake George Region inspire more questions. Its story is one of the most requested pages on the America’s Historic Lakes website. Its tale is a fascinating one. It is one of politics and war, friendship and enmity. The stone walls of Fort Montgomery tell the tale of a great nation; they hold secrets from its infancy, into and beyond a Civil War, into the depths of world wars, through a great and dark depression, until today. It is a story waiting to be told…

A Strategic Location

Lake Champlain had long been an important travel corridor from the mighty Saint Lawrence to the Hudson. From the earliest of times, Native Americans had used the water route to travel from what we now know as Quebec along the River Richelieu south along Lake Champlain to Lake George and points south towards the Hudson. These watercourses now bear the names given them by the Europeans; it is they who ended up settling these places, using the great transportation corridors for their commerce and their wars.

This aerial photo taken in the spring of 2002 shows the strategic location of Fort Montgomery. In the immediate foreground can be seen the bridge connecting New York and Vermont. The Canadian border is just beyond the fort. At this point Lake Champlain enters the Richelieu River.

It was shortly after the War of 1812 that the tiny sand island in Rouses Point was fortified for the first time. Repeatedly mighty armies and massive naval flotillas had traversed the narrow reaches of the river between what is now known as New York and Vermont. The small islands to the north, Hospital Island, Ash Island, Isle aux Noix, had been the scene of frantic military activity and unspeakable suffering as these powerful forces drove north and south along the river. The sand spit known as Island Point would be fortified in an attempt to prevent these forces from using the waterway again.
1907 map showing Fort Montgomery

On April 18, 1818, the state of New York ceded Island Point and some 400 acres to the west to the United States government for use as a Military Reservation. It had “been deemed requisite by the President of the United States that fortifications should be erected”  here at this strategic location. Interestingly enough, the land was officially turned over to the federal government well after work had begun on the fort. Construction of a fort here began almost two years previously, in the fall of 1816.

The first fortification here was an embarrassment in many ways. Despite its supervision by the soon-to-be prominent Joseph Totten, the octagonal, 30' high structure was built upon a weak and unstable foundation consisting largely of debris brought up from the demolished ruins of Plattsburgh batteries and outworks. The construction contract was given to three Scots- Malcomb McMartin, James Macintire, and John Stewart. The fruits of their labor would become the stuff of local legend. The stories told of this first fort are largely true. It was built upon soil later determined to be in Canada (although this tale is much more complicated than it appears in many accounts), it was never armed, and it was abandoned after only two summers of construction. The locals did carry off much of its materials for use in their own homes, stores and places of worship. Fort “Blunder,” as it came to be known, lives on in the walls of some of the more ancient and prominent buildings in the Rouses Point area.

Fort Montgomery: Through the Years
A Pictorial History of the Great Stone Fort on Lake Champlain...Available in our gift shop!

It does not appear that this fort ever had an official name during its short life. It was simply referred to as the fort, works or battery at Rouse's Point. Despite what you may have read, this early defensive structure at Island Point was not named Fort Montgomery.

During its brief existence, the fort was eyewitness to a rather remarkable event for the tiny town on the Canadian border. On July 27, 1817, the President of the United States, James Monroe, visited the fort, spending some time at the still incomplete structure and the adjacent “Commons.”

The "Commons" to the west

The “Commons” itself has a fascinating story. It was originally part of lands granted by the legislature of New York to refugees from Canada and Nova Scotia at the close of the Revolution. It was here, on the rising ground west of Island Point and the Richelieu that the earliest settlers of the region built their homes. Settlers reimbursed for this land included  James Bullis, Joseph Tyrill, James McRoberts, and James Rouse; for whom Rouse's Point is named.  The late John Ross, in his informative series 'Sidelight on History^'3, tells us that many local residents used the commons as pasturage for their livestock. Locals would have their young people bring the family cow onto the grounds of the Military Reservation each morning through the gate along the lakeshore. They would return for old Bessie each evening in a time-honored ritual that only stopped within the past generation or so.

It was not until 1842, with the ratification of the Webster-Ashburton Treaty and an adjustment in the border at Rouses Point, that Island Point reverted to United States control. By then, the fort had been largely dismantled by predation by enterprising local citizens.

Today it seems inconceivable that the United States would feel the need for a fort along the Canadian border. It is important to remember that less than 30 years had passed since a massive British force had invaded the United States along this frontier. An uneasy peace was in place; keep in mind that invasions had come from both the south and the north. Neither the United States nor the British Dominion of Canada completely trusted the other. Prior to building Fort Lennox, largely as a reaction to the first fort, Canada had favored leaving the actual border regions in a wild state, largely as a defense against the United States ⁴.

Fort Montgomery, the second fort constructed at Rouses Point. July 1924.  Photo courtesy of Judy Swink

On July 13, 1844 construction began upon the impressive stone structure we see today- a Fort later named Montgomery, within the territory of the United States of America...

Sources/Notes:

*This material is an introduction to my new book on Fort Montgomery- "Fort Montgomery: Through the years...", published in September 2005 by America's Historic Lakes. This book, the first of two books I am writing about the fortifications near the border in the Rouses Point, New York area, is available at select bookstores and in our Book & Gift Shop. To be notified when the second book- the comprehensive "Following Fort Blunder..." is published click here. [jpm]

¹  Dewitt Clinton, Governor of the State of New York to United States: Recorded November 19, 1817. Volume F of Deeds, page 9. Abstract provided by Ann Thurber, Powertex, Inc., Rouses Point, NY.
² Joint Report of Upon the Survey and Demarcation of the Boundary Between the United States and Canada, From the Source of the St. Croix River to the St. Lawrence River. 1925: International Boundary Commission.  Washington. Government Printing Office
³  John F. Ross, Sidelight on History. 1978
⁴  C. P. Stacey,  The Myth of the Unguarded Frontier 1815-1871. The American Historical Review, Vol. 56, No. 1. (October, 1950), pp. 1-18.
<http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=00028762%28195010%2956%3A1%3C1%3ATMOTUF%3E2.0.CO%3B2-4>

Last modified: 07/30/2008