By SUZANNE MOORE
ROUSES POINT — The forts built on Lake Champlain near Rouses Point after the War of 1812 never saw action against the enemy, but they did make one important capture — the attention of historian/author Jim Millard.
As U.S. fortifications authority John Weaver writes in a review of Millard's first book on Fort Montgomery, Millard hadn't been "a fortifications enthusiast." Not until he began researching both Fort Blunder and Fort Montgomery, that is.
Millard first penned "Fort Montgomery: Through the Years," a mainly pictorial work that served as springboard for his most recent work, "Bastions on the Border: The Great Stone Forts at Rouses Point on Lake Champlain."
The meticulously researched and detailed softcover book dissolves the mists of legend around the two fortifications. It puts into context the erection of the first fort, built just after the War of 1812, when tensions between the United States and British-owned Canada remained high.
In fact, writes Millard, fears that the United States intended to acquire the lands to the north for its own "led to the construction of Fort Lennox at Ile aux Noix" in Quebec.
Millard's book debunks the myth of ineptitude that caused that first fortification to be inadvertently constructed on Quebec soil. It was only after the walls had begun to rise on the fort known as the "castle" that an ongoing survey was completed, showing the U.S./Canadian line sat a good three-quarters of a mile farther south than had been realized.
"The abandoned works at Island Point were subject to predation by enterprising local citizens," Millard writes of Fort "Blunder's" eventual fate. "The locals carried off much of its materials for use in their own homes, stores, and places of worship."
Its bricks, he writes, remain visible in some of the "more ancient and most prominent buildings in Rouses Point."
Most of "Bastions" focuses on Fort Montgomery, a project conceived in the years following because of continued American concerns that the Richelieu River/Lake Champlain made an ideal entry for invasion from the north. Planned first, though, was a fortification on Stony Point, located farther south close to what is the southern boundary of the Village of Rouses Point today. The Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842, however, restored the land lost to Canada by the 1818 survey, and so focus shifted back to that spot.
"This new fort would dwarf the earlier work," Millard writes. "(It) was so large (approximately 25 acres) that the island would be enlarged artificially with the fort walls surrounded by water on all sides."
Work began July 13, 1844.
"Bastions" goes into extensive and fascinating detail about the design and 27-year construction of Fort Montgomery, including diagrams and sketches of the work. He tells how in 1846 work was suspended during U.S. hostilities with Mexico.
But then the northern border became a critical spot of defense again when the Civil War began, with talk of England joining on the side of the South. The slow pace of construction became a frenzy of activity.
By spring 1862, Brigadier Gen. Joseph Totten, chief of engineers, wrote that the fort " will be prepared to mount a number of heavy guns."
As nearly 400 men toiled to ready Fort Montgomery for possible battle, the structure received about a third of its armament and, for a brief time, 15 soldiers of the 14th Infantry were garrisoned there. In September 1864, a company of laborers were given the duty of first line of defense of the fort as well, and gunnery practice began.
Millard writes about the high alert triggered at the fort after a rebel raid on St. Albans, Vt., in 1864, of other alarms, of the prosperity the long construction brought to Rouses Point.
Though work continued well beyond the Civil War and there were those who maintained that a fort overlooking the entry to New York state remained vital to security from invasion, the 1871 Treaty of Washington marked Fort Montgomery's decline in importance.
After Clinton County declined to take ownership in 1926, the federal government auctioned off the fort and property in five separate parcels.
The Lake Champlain Bridge Commission bought three parcels in 1936, signaling the demolition of much of the fort for use in constructing the first bridge between New York state and Vermont.
Millard dedicates a chapter of the book to the fort keepers, including some charming color in the form of reminiscences by Harold Bourke, whose father, Sgt. Thomas Bourke, became keeper in 1913 or '14.
Harold, in fact, was born in the summer house on the fort Commons in 1919.
"Saint Patrick's School would hold their annual picnic at the fort," he writes, "but changed it to our summer place, when the bridge across the moat became dangerous."
His father was paid $30 a month as keeper.
"Dad's job of caretaker of the fort and reservation was quite time consuming, especially in the spring and summer," Harold writes.
Another chapter is devoted to the years of 1926 to 2009, when the decaying structure was in private ownership, concluding with the plans for Fort Montgomery Days, an event held post-publication that hosted thousands of visitors to the site.
And Millard tells of rumors and failed plans for the fort's use over the years, including for that of a camp for tourists and as a movie set.
Part 2 describes the fort in complete physical detail, along with the ordnance it once held.
"Bastions" is "a must buy for anyone interested in this period of fortifications, or in the history of the northern frontier of the United States," writes fortifications expert Weaver in a review.
It's also a "must have" for anyone who has ever explored the old fort and its grounds, captivated by the old ruins, and imagined it in all its glory.
E-mail Suzanne Moore at: smoore@pressrepublican.com
