Fort Senneville

Fort Senneville
Part of Montreal's outlying forts
Quebec, Canada
Fort Senneville in 1895
Type	Castle-like fort
Site information
Controlled by	New France
Condition	Some ruins remain
Site history
Built	1671
Built by	Séminaire de Saint-Sulpice
In use	1671-1763
Materials	Stone, wood
Demolished	1776
Battles/wars	Iroquois incursions American Revolution

Fort Senneville is one of the outlying forts of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, built by the Canadiens of New France near the Sainte-Anne rapids in 1671. The property was part of a fief ceded to Dugué de Boisbriant in 1672 by the Sulpicians. A large stone windmill, which doubled as a watch tower, was built on a hill by late 1686 and featuring machicolation and other castle-like features. The fort was burned down by Iroquois in 1691, with only the mill itself left standing.

Governor-General Frontenac ordered the construction of a second, more imposing fort in 1692. It was rebuilt in 1702-1703 to protect the nearby fur trading post. With extensive cannons and swiveling wall guns, it was the "most substantial castle-like fort" near Montreal. It was eventually destroyed in 1776 by Benedict Arnold, under American military control, but the ruins have been maintained since then. In 2003, it was classified as a historic site.

Thanks to the tireless work of French explorers, the colony of New France covered the largest area, but it was numerically inferior to the neighbouring New England. Consequently, a number of Ingénieurs du Roi ("King's Engineers") were appointed to make the colony the best fortified in North America:

Quebec served as the only fortified city in the Americas, centred on the Citadelle of Quebec. An unusual feature of Montreal's defence was a string of 30 outlying forts to protect against the constant Iroquois threat to the expansion of French settlements. The majority of these were simple stockades, but as artillery was not as developed as on the battlefields of Europe, some of these were built like the fortified manor houses of France. Roughly four of these were substantial stone forts which served as defensive residences, sometimes considered "true castles", as well as imposing structures to prevent Iroquois incursions. Initially, Fort Senneville was a French stockaded fort, built in 1671 about half a mile above the Sainte-Anne rapids. The property was part of a fief ceded to Dugué de Boisbriant in 1672 by the Society of Saint-Sulpice, and subsequently relinquished in payment of a debt to two of the most significant figures in New France's history: Jacques Le Ber and Charles Le Moyne, who used the site as a fur-trading post.