Fort Frontenac

The French had their navy there. They had transport boats there. They had a lot of supplies there. Without that, the supply line hurts. What did they NOT have there? They didn't have many defenders. Perched on the confluence of today's St Lawrence Seaway and Lake Ontario it was.

Bradstreet had his eye on this place ever since 1755. It lived rent free in his head for a long time.

He finally gets his chance to take it in 26- 28 August 1758. He was given the greenlight because if successful it would certainly give needed distraction to Abercrombie's disaster at Fort Carrillon (Ticonderoga area), in 8 July 1758.

Bradstreet really came to do a raid. He know he wouldn't be able to keep Fort Frontenac. The French were going to come back and retake it. He had just enough time to plunder it and destroy what he couldn't take with him. He did not have enough boats or manpower to even take hostages.

This loss of Fort Frontenac [see map] and the loss of Indian allies signing up for Peace at Easton PA were given great credit for the fall of Fort Duquesne.

Very few historians give enough credit to Forbes "little Army" and what it accomplished in making the French abandon Fort Duquesne.

And then the reduction of the French Fort Niagara in July 1759 doomed any buildup the French were staging at Fort Machault (an area called Venango PA) to retake Fort Duquesne.

But that's another story.

The Rideau Lake Chain

Edvard Munch Train Smoke (1900) -- reminds me of how the Rideau Lake chain above Fort Frontenac looks like.

The focus here instead is on Fort Frontenac and the area around it. Our Dad used to take us fishing near there, every summer in the 1960s.

We would go from lake to lake fishing.

We used to go to Seely's Bay.

Each lake was connected by canal locks lifting us to the next lake or lowering us to the next lake.

Those canal locks connecting each lake were built in 1836. Against future American invasions was its original purpose. And then its purpose became commerce until the railroads too over. Now it's for enjoyment, tourism, fishing.

From Ontario Lake to the Cartarqui River to the Rideau River and thence to the chain of lakes this continuous pathway forms a non stop waterway from Kingston on Lake Ontario to Ottowa, the capital of Canada.

This picture of a lake by Edvard Munch certainly describes what those chain of Lakes on the Rideau look like.

We did a lot of fishing there for many summers in the 1960s.

We visted Fort Henry in Kingston built (1832 to 1837 to replace an existing fortification from the War of 1812) at the mouth of St Lawrence and Ontario Lake, the beginning of the Cartarqui River leading to the Rideau Lake Chain.

But at the time we never knew about Fort Frontenac so we never visited its site.

This chain of lakes, known as the Rideau, is also a UN World Heritage site.

Compiled by Jim Moyer, 6/18/2023

See Seely's Bay at bottom of this map of Rideau Lake Township, Ontario, Canda.

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More sidelights on Fort Frontenac

The article was found by Larry Allen Clowser Web. He posted on Facebook group page called Winchester's Whispers of a story on 12/07/2023. The article is date 31 Oct 1758.

I grew up every summer fishing in the Rideau lake chain above Fort Frontenac.

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After several American invasions and intrusions, Canada built a chain of lakes connected by locks as each lake was on different altitude levels.

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This chain became an interstate connecting all the way from Fort Frontenac on the St Lawrence Seaway to Ottowa, the capital.

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Many summers of fishing for pike, perch. Never caught a musky. We rented from a Frenchman, Lucien, a husky fellow who sure looked like he would have fit easily in the French and Indian War days.

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That attack by Colonel Bradstreet took some heat off of Abercrombie's debacle at Fort Carillon, the area the British called Ticonderoga.

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Bradstreet had been trying to sell his plan to attack this fort ever since 1755.

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Finally 3 years later Abercrombie approves it, if not to take the heat off his awful loss attacking Fort Carillon.

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That fort Frontenac had a lot of supplies. A lot. And that loss was one more jenga block removed to topple the French hold on Fort DuQuesne.

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And because of that connection to Fort DuQuesne, that is the fort that affects this area. Because it constitutes the whole reason for Fort Loudoun Winchester VA.

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James Fenimore Cooper even wrote about that debacle at Fort Carillon-- Satanstoe is the title of that story. Of course the aftermath massacre following the fall of Fort William Henry is in his Last of the Mohicans.

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