Fort Saint Frédéric
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Fort Saint-Frédéric
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Model of Fort Saint-Frédéric
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| Location | Crown Point, New York |
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| Coordinates | 44°1′45″N 73°25′52″W / 44.02917°N 73.43111°WCoordinates: 44°1′45″N 73°25′52″W / 44.02917°N 73.43111°W |
| Built | 1734 |
| NRHP Reference # | 66000517 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | October 15, 1966 |
| Designated NHL | October 9, 1960 |
Fort Saint-Frédéric was a French fort built on Lake Champlain to secure the region against British colonization and control the lake. It was located in modern New York State across the lake from modern Vermont at the town of Crown Point, New York. The fort, whose construction began in 1734, was never attacked, and was destroyed in 1759 before the advance of a large (more than 10,000 man) British army under General Jeffery Amherst.
The British constructed the much larger Fort Crown Point next to the Saint-Frédéric's ruins, which also never came under attack. Its small garrison was captured in 1775 in the early days of the American Revolutionary War, after which Fort Crown Point also fell into ruin. The fort sites at Crown Point were preserved in the Crown Point State Historic Site in 1910, and both ruins are National Historic Landmarks.
Construction was started in 1734 by Gaspard-Joseph Chaussegros de Léry. When complete, Fort Saint-Frédéric walls were twelve feet thick and four stories high, with cannons on each level. It was manned by hundreds of officers and troops, principally from Les Compagnies Franches de la Marine.
The fort gave the French control of the frontier between New France and the British colonies to the south. As the only permanent stronghold in the area until the building of Fort Carillon at Ticonderoga starting in 1755, many French raids originated there and it was a target of British operations in the French and Indian War. Constructed on the tip of a strategic peninsula at a narrows in the lake, the cannons of Fort Saint-Frédéric and the later British Fort Crown Point were capable of halting all north-south travel on the lake.
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