Fort Frontenac - History

Partie Un - THE FRENCH 

In 1673, Count Frontenac had a fort built at the confluence of the Cataraqui River and Lake Ontario. The French intent was to control access to the fur-trading territory of the Great Lakes and Canadian Shield. Beaver fut, especially the shorter, inner layer for making of many styles of hats in Europe. Indigenous peoples had worn beaver robes and used them for sleeping. Beaver pelts would be the key to Fort Frontenac and moreover to Kingston. Despite King Louis XIV's belief that finances should be expended within Quebec, De Courcelles and Frontenac advanced the construction of a trading post here, funding it independently. The wooden fort was built within a week of Frontenac meeting the local Iroquois on July 12, 1673, commanded by Commandant LaSalle following Frontenac's departure. LaSalle had the fort rebuilt as a masonry building reinforced with three limestone walls, square bastions and a wooden palisade in 1675. Several outbuildings and civilian settlements were established around it. 

The fort would be the base of LaSalle's explorations, as well as a French outpost against the English and the Iroquois. Treachery against the indigenous people by Denonville and a subsequent 1687 siege against the French was followed by explosive charges being set in the walls with short-burning fuses. Frontenac had the fort rebuilt of stone again in 1695, after six years of abandonment and threatened further demolition, arriving with a garrison of 300. The fort was guarded by a smaller garrison by the French until 1745, with its use latterly as a warehouse for furs and supplies. With British ambitions of greater expansion becoming evident, a garrison of 70 men was stationed there in 1753, the fortifications reinforced, and Montcalm visited the fort.  Even 1,600 British prisoners, taken at the battle of Fort Oswego, were brought to the fort. When British ships appeared offshore in August of 1758, the small French force under Captain Noyan opted for surrender, as it was outnumbered, with 110 French facing 3,000 British!

Part Two - THE ENGLISH

Captured by the British under Colonel Bradstreet in 1758, the fort was burned at once, the walls pushed over, and Bradstreet departed. (Bradstreet was unusual due to Canada being his birthplace, unlike most British officers - he was born at Annapolis Royal, NS in 1714.) Following the defeat of the French at Quebec in 1759, the site came under British control. Major Robert Rogers, of Rogers' Rangers, camped there in September, 1760 on the way to take over western posts from the French after the capitulation of Montreal. The fort sat deserted for 25 years, until barracks for 450, named Tete-du-Pont were built in 1783 by Major Ross, British commander at Oswego. This was subsequent to Carleton Island, a major British river base, became American territory. The British garrison he now commanded would be a stepping-off point for United Empire Loyalist settlement into the Cataraqui region.

In November, 1812 the HMS Royal George was chased into Kingston by Commodore Chanuncey. Major John Vincent rallied the militia and shore batteries that drove off the American ships.  York was captured by the Americans in 1813. The fort was deemed obsolete in 1814. The resurgence of Kingston as a location of strategic military importance resulted in the construction of the LaSalle and De Noyan blocks in 1827 and the Vincent block in 1847. These improved Kingston's land defences, as did the building of Royal Artillery Park, an advance battery on Fort Henry hill, and the 1837 reopening of the Royal Navy Dockyard that had closed in two years before. 

And Then - THE CANADIANS

Despite nearly a century of occupation, little evidence of the French presence remained after the British conquest. However, it marked the first stage of continuous European settlement in Kingston. Once all British troops had returned home following Confederation, Canada manned the abandoned forts by establishing 'A', and and then 'B', battery of Garrison Artillery. These were the first units of a Canadian Permanent Active Militia under Militia General Order No. 24 issued October 20, 1871. In 1901, they were redesignated the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery. The site was declared a National Historic Site in 1923. The Ross Block and Heating Plant were constructed in 1936, followed by the Courcelles and Bradstreet Blocks, rather hurriedly in 1941 during World War II. The RCHA had been mobilized for overseas duty in 1939. The Ross Block had been named the Royal Canadian Artillery School and Brigade Building, becoming an important recruiting and dispatch centre during the war. The complex was once again named 'Fort Frontenac' in 1938. A Public Archives of Canada aerial view taken in 1920 shows the location of the fort between Ontario Street and its CN/CP joint trackage, and the causeway: 

The Canadian Land Forces Command and Staff College were established on the site in 1947. Troops have been mustered behind its walls for every Canadian campaign. A 1964 aerial photo for comparison (Queen's University Archives, Kingston Whig-Standard Fonds , V142.1-45):

Lots o' links:

• 3D renderings of Fort Frontenac
• from another source

including one image that helps orient the original fort into the current streetscape of Ontario Street at Place d'Armes:

Since I'm unlikely to ever be granted access to the grounds, here's a Parks Canada Agency 1995 photo showing the remnants of the southern walls within the fort property (below). Remnants were discovered and exposed during a 1982 archeological study. Vestiges of the north and west curtain walls are incorporated within a traffic circle on the north side of Ontario Street, redesigned in 1984 by the city of Kingston.

I walked the northern wall of the fort on July, 2022, with the remnants of the original bastion just visible at right (below). 

The 1820-built gate to the Tete du Pont Barracks, once extended 16 feet into the roadway, creating a bottleneck and  hazard for autos.  In early 1930, the city Board of Works asked the Department of National Defence to rebuild the gate. Whig clipping published May 15, 1930 (below). Within a year, the 'introverted' gate now made Ontario Street 18 feet wider, and the work was speedily completed by December of that year! Each stone in the gate had removed, numbered, and replaced in the same position. All of this was done for the grand sum of $2,500. The city paid one-third. The work done was by unemployed men under the auspices of a government  Depression  unemployment scheme and Bews and Friendship Construction. guard was no longer stationed at the newly-oriented gate!

Detailed views of the site showing heritage designations: Green = recognized and Pink = classified.

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Designations and former uses of constituent buildings: