The War of 1812 in the Champlain Valley

1. Settlement of the Champlain Valley

1 SETILEMENT OF THE CHAMPLAIN VALLEY The Champlain Valley at the beginning of the nineteenth century, though still a youthful frontier area, was undergoing a peaceful and prosperous period of rapid growth. Although only thirty-five years earlier the valley had been an unsettled wilderness, already thousands had rushed in on both sides of the lake to establish towns and a complex network ofeconomic relationships among themselves and, more particularly, with Canada. It had not always been so. Beginning with the discovery of the lake by Samuel de Champlain in 1609, the French who ruled Canada also claimed the Champlain Valley. Not for many years were they able to establish a presence there, but the Dutch and later the English of New York were even less ready to stake a claim. The most the French could do by the 1640s was to try to Christianize the Mohawks on the Mohawk River. Father IsaacJogues, discoverer and namer ofLake George (Lac du St. Sacrement), was the first martyr when he lost his life among the Indians. As English and French population and ambitions increased, their settlements expanded toward each other, rivalries increased, and the Champlain Valley lay at the heart of their conflict over land and furs. With the outbreak ofthe wars ofLouis XIV in Europe, military dashes spread to North America. Between 1689 and 1763, four intercolonial wars were fought between the French with their Indian allies and the English, supported by the Iroquois. Lake Champlain became a warpath between the contending forces, and during the eighteenth century it was continuously controlled by the French. They carved the entire shoreline on both sides into huge land grants, or seigneuries , after the Canadian pattern. However, few of these grants were ever settled or developed because of the scarcity of available French settlers. Regardless of their inability to people the valley, the French were able to VT. Ricbrliru Rillfr j2lsle-aux-Noix Missisquoi Bay Chazy. Cumberland Head" Plattsburgh Champlain Valley 1812-14 LOWER CANADA ._.-NEW-YC)RK- -_.ChamPiafn~. Rouses Point SETl1.EMENT OF lHE CHAMPLAIN VAllEY 3 strengthen their claims by constructing fortresses. In 1731 they erected a stockaded fort at Chimney Point which they subsequently moved to Crown Point, where Fort St. Frederic was built ofstone. From there they were able to dominate the lake and negate British claims which were backed only by a fort on the upper Hudson River. In 1755 the French further affirmed their dominion by starring the construction of Fort CariHon (Ticonderoga), which commanded the carrying place from Lake Champlain to Lake George. The last of the great French-British wars (1754-63) was waged intensively in the Champlain Valley. The struggle involved such notable personalities as Montcalm for the French and Roberr Rogers and GeneralJeffrey Amherst for the British. In 1759 Amherst succeeded in driving the French from both Forts Carillon and St. Frederic. Although he could repair the partial French destruction at Carillon, the more complete demolition at St. Frederic persuaded Amherst to build a new forr at Crown Point. He also ordered the construction of the military Crown Point Road across the Green Mountains to the lower Connecticut Valley. Montreal fell to the British in 1760, and the war in North America came to a close, although fighting elsewhere and protracted peace negotiations postponed a treaty of peace until 1763. One of its major terms was the British acquisition of all of Canada, together with French claims to the Champlain Valley. Even before the signing of the treaty, but after the collapse of French Canada, Governor Benning Wentworrh of New Hampshire resumed a practice he had starred before the war of granting townships on the east side of what is now Vermont. He believed that the entire area between the ConnectiCUt River and Lake Champlain belonged to New Hampshire by the none-tooclear terms of its original charter. Encouraged by the pressure for new lands for the overflowing farm population ofsouthern New England, whose appetite had been whetted by the accounts their veterans brought back from the war, and driven by his own cupidity for the lands he could reserve to himself with each grant, he starred handing OUt townships with a free hand. Between 1761 and 1764, he dispensed 114 of them, some along Lake Champlain, to groups ofspeculating proprietors in southern New England. For example, in 1761 he chartered the towns of Addison, Bridport, Middlebury, New Haven, Salisbury...