Saint John Fortifications, 1630-1956

By Roger Sarty and Doug Knight

Saint John became a gateway to what is now Canada in the early 1600s, and Fort La Tour, built in 1632, was one of the three main forts of Acadie. In Saint John Fortifications, Roger Sarty and Doug Knight trace the history of the port's defences, from the earliest log palisades to the bunkers, gun emplacements, and communications stations built during World War II. Put to the test during the American Revolutionary War, Saint John has figured as one of Canada's most significant guardians. American independence effectively closed the shipping route between the mouth of the Richelieu River, on the St. Lawrence, and the mouth of the Hudson River, at New York City. Saint John took over some of this traffic, and so the 19th century wars and threatened wars between Canada and the United States resulted in bigger and better fortifications for the city. Each new defence system has incorporated the old, including the installations built as protection from German invasion during the two World Wars. Although the last of the modern installations on Partridge Island was disabled in 1956, many sites still contain substantial reminders of their past strength. Visitors today can trace the evidence of this great commercial port's military past. Saint John Fortifications, 1630-1956 is the first book in the New Brunswick Military Heritage Series published by Goose Lane Editions in collaboration with the New Brunswick Military Heritage Project.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Goose Lane Editions
• Release date: Sep 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9780864925862

Roger Sarty

Roger Sarty, history professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, was in previous careers senior historian at the Department of National Defence and deputy director at the Canadian War Museum. His other books on the Canadian Army in the Maritimes include Saint John Fortifications (2003, with Doug Knight) and Guardian of the Gulf: Sydney Cape Breton and the Atlantic Wars (2012, with Brian Tennyson).

Book preview

Saint John Fortifications

1630-1956

Saint John Fortifications

1630-1956

ROGER SARTY

and DOUG KNIGHT

The New Brunswick Military Heritage Series

Volume 1

Copyright © Roger Sarty and Doug Knight, 2003.

Photos on pages 56, 102 © New Brunswick Military Heritage Project (NBMHP), 2003.

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). To contact Access Copyright, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call 1-800-893-5777.

Edited by Marc Milner.

Cover and interior design by Paul Vienneau and Julie Scriver.

NBMHP cartographer: Mike Bechthold.

Printed in Canada by Transcontinental.

10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

Photos and other illustrative material appear courtesy of the National Archives of Canada (NAC); courtesy of the New Brunswick Museum (NBM); courtesy of New Brunswick Military Heritage Project (NBMHP); courtesy of the National Gallery of Canada (NGC); courtesy of the Department of National Defence (DND); appear courtesy of Heritage Resources, Saint John (HRSJ). Cover illustrations: detail of gunner at Fort Mispec, 1943, HRSJ / NAC; an adaptation of the Sketch of Fort Howe, 1781, by Benjamin Marston, NBM; A North View of Fort Frederick . . . 1758, by Thomas Davies, purchased 1954, NGC.

NATIONAL LIBRARY OF CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Sarty, Roger, 1952-

Saint John fortifications, 1630-1956 / Roger Sarty and Doug Knight.

(New Brunswick military heritage series; 1)

     Co-published by the New Brunswick Military Heritage Project.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

     ISBN 0-86492-373-2

1. Fortification — New Brunswick — Saint John — History.

     2. Saint John (N.B.) — History, Military.

     I. Knight, Doug, 1943- II. New Brunswick Military Heritage Project III. Title. IV. Series.

FC2497.4.S25 2003     971.5’32      C2003-904767-9

Published with the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program, the New Brunswick Culture and Sports Secretariat, the Canadian War Museum, and the Military and Strategic Studies Program at the University of New Brunswick.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction

The Setting

A Short Introduction to Fortifications

CHAPTER TWO

The Frontier Forts

1632-1783

The Acadian Civil War and Fort La Tour, 1632-1645

The Early Wars for Empire between France and England

The Seven Years War (French and Indian War), 1756-1763

Fort Howe, 1777

CHAPTER THREE

Early Fortress Systems

1793-1850

The Lower Cove and Partridge Island Batteries, 1793

The War of 1812

The Western Shore

The Partridge Island Battery

The Aftermath of the War of 1812

CHAPTER FOUR

The Second Fortress System

1850-1914

The American Civil War, 1861-1865

Negro Point and Red Head Batteries

The Fenian Raids, 1866-1867

Confederation and the British Withdrawal

Improvisation and Paper Schemes, 1871-1914

CHAPTER FIVE

A Twentieth-Century Fortress

1914-1956

The First World War, 1914-1918

Between the Wars

The Second World War, 1939-1945

Fort Mispec

Partridge Island

Fort Dufferin

Carleton Martello Tower

The Naval Threat

Air Defence

Mid-War, 1943 onwards

The End of the Road, 1945-1956

CHAPTER SIX

The Fortress in Retirement

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Professor Marc Milner conceived the present volume and helped the authors shape its contents at every stage. Mr. Harold Wright provided indispensable help with the illustrations and reviewed a preliminary draft of the manuscript. Ms. M.A. MacDonald responded generously to an appeal for assistance with the early part of the story. Mr. Brent Wilson and Ms. Laurel Boone have been models of patience and thoroughness in the editorial work. The authors alone, of course, are responsible for any errors and omissions that remain despite this kind and efficient support.

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction

The Setting

The port of Saint John, New Brunswick, at the mouth of the river that gives the city its name, is one of the oldest fortified sites in Canada. From the building of Fort La Tour in 1632 until the last battery was abandoned in 1956, a long succession of forts and defence works guarded the entrance to the river, its vast hinterland, and the increasingly important community and industrial facilities of the port itself. Today, this active, commercial port still shows some traces of its centuries-long military heritage, but no active batteries now surround the harbour, no guns watch protectively over the anchored ships. It is hard to imagine that Saint John’s military defence has often been of major importance to the region.

Saint John, with its charter dating from 1785, is the oldest incorporated city in Canada. Built around one of the finest harbours in the country, the city looks out between low hills to the Bay of Fundy. Twice daily, the tides of the harbour rise and fall up to twenty-one metres (seventy feet) in height, the most extreme range in the world. Beyond the famous Reversing Falls are the quieter waters of the St. John River, which stretches into the interior.

Some 670 kilometres long, the St. John River flows from its source in northwestern Maine through New Brunswick to the Bay of Fundy. Before railways and asphalt paving criss-crossed the continent, waterways were the roads of North America. Until the Europeans arrived, the Maliseet people claimed the St. John as their own, using it as a source of food and for transportation by canoe. In pioneer times, the river system served as one of the essential links to the interior of the continent. Although the passage was never easy, sailing ships could get past the Reversing Falls at Saint John when the tide was right. Before the Mactaquac dam blocked the river above Fredericton, travellers could continue upstream unhindered as far as Grand Falls, where a short portage allowed canoes and their cargoes to be carried past the falls.

At Edmundston, the Madawaska River flows from the north into the St. John from Lake Temiscouata. At the northern end of the forty-five kilometre long lake, another portage connects with the rivers that flow north down to join the St. Lawrence River near Rivière-du-Loup, some eighty-six kilometres distant. Today, the Trans-Canada Highway still generally follows the old portage and river route linking the St. Lawrence and St. John rivers. Before the railways, this system of rivers and lakes connected the Atlantic coast with what is now Quebec and was an especially important overland route in winter after the St. Lawrence River froze.

After French explorers discovered the St. John River in 1604, Europeans quickly settled and exploited the valley for its rich natural resources. At first, the emphasis was on the fur trade, but the vast forests of the region were a great new timber supply. As early as 1698, Joseph Robinau de Villebon cut down a tree that was almost a metre in diameter and sent it to France as an example of what was available. In the eighteenth century, New Brunswick pine trees, towering more than thirty metres high, were invaluable as masts and spars for the wind-driven ships that were the only means of ocean transport.

After the establishment of the colony of New Brunswick in 1785, shipbuilding became a major industry in Saint John, and exporting lumber to Britain was a lucrative business, particularly after Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte of France cut off Britain’s supply of masts from the Baltic in 1807. As settlers arrived, moved upstream, and cleared their farms, the river was their roadway. To them, protection and security meant controlling the river, and control required fortifications. When there was no fort at